To President Obama - My Top Health Care Concerns

This is a copy of the email I just sent to the Administration on Organizing for America.

First, LIVING IN A MOBILE HOME THAT IS A TOXIC DUMP GAVE ME AN IDEA for a plan that addressses at least eleven of your priorities. You can get a good look at it at http://savingtails.blogspot.com. While you're there, please read and look at the list of challenges The Planned Animal Lovers Community (PAL) addressses.

Regarding mainstream health care, insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and the AMA have been ripping us off for decades.

The FDA is a joke, giving us misleading nutritional information or downright disinformation, failing to protect us from disease, refusing us access to medicines and medical techniques that have been used and proven effective in Europe, and refusing to acknowledge the importance and effectiveness of natural remedies.

Medicaid is a bureaucratic nightmare, where no division has any idea what the rest of the organization is doing, and a tremendous amount of money is wasted on unnecessary and redundant paperwork, and just plain busywork.

Dental care, in particular, is a major issue as well. Digestion begins with mastication. Without teeth, saliva cannot properly do its job, resulting in added strain on the rest of the digestive system. I need not tell you the health problems that can result from this.

Again, PLEASE LOOK AT MY BLOG - HTTP://SAVINGTAILS.BLOGSPOT.COM. THERE IS A PICTURE OF WHERE I LIVE ON THE PAGE. MY HOUSE COULD BE THE 'POSTER CHILD' FOR HOUSING PROBLEMS IN THE U.S.!

Thank you,
Critter Gitter
Disabled Senior and Animal Lovers Advocate

The PAL Community Incorporation Fund

It's time to get the ball rolling, folks. I've blogged all I can blog. Now it's time to get down to the nittty-gritty; we need grant money to get this project underway. Here's the Catch-22: Grant sources, whether private, corporate or government, require that the group requesting funding be a 501c3 non-profit corporation. It isn't cheap to create a legal not-for-profit organization. On top of state and local filing fees, associated incorporation costs, and attorney fees, the IRS demands $750.00 to grant non-profit, tax-exempt status. Outrageous, but true. You have to have money to not make money. Therefore, we are now asking for donation pledges for The Planned Animal-Lovers (PAL) Community in order to incorporate as a 501c3 Non-Profit Organization.

We're not asking for actual money yet, just your pledge to donate. Our pledge goal is $2000.00 . When we have enough promised to cover the costs of incorporating, including the $750 IRS filing fee, then we will ask you to send your contributions to a special account earmarked for The Planned Animal Lovers Community Incorporation Fund.

If there are any funds left over after the legal corporation is a reality, it will be applied to the next stages of the project. I hope you will all join in and contribute your knowledge and skills to the planning and development of this unique community; it will be fun!

Catch-22

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of reading the book Catch-22, by Joseph Heller (1961), here's an excerpt:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

Go to http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?gov=0&origin=RA&searchType=ra&s=Catch-22&go.x=0&go.y=0 for a wonderful synopsis and analysis of the book.

Home Sweet Home

Our Reality

Here are a few shots of the exterior of the dump in which we live. There would be more, but my digital camera quit working .... shortly after two space heaters, the hot water heater, and the refrigerator, to mention just a few minor items ...

About a year ago I managed to secure pieces of rigid plastic and sheet metal over the main living room window and the back door to stop some of the leakage to the interior. The ladder is still there, in case repairs to the "repairs" must be made. Whatever.

Part of the "securement" is caulk, some of it is bricks and rocks. I don't know what the metal piece over the edge of the roof was meant to be (on top is a flat area about 16" wide), but it makes a dandy rain gutter. I got tired of getting a cold bath every time I opened the back door in a rain. With six critters, there is a lot of door action.
The blue thing in the image is a plastic tray stuck in a hole and tied down (up?) with baling twine to shelter the back porch light. Before that, the light kept tripping a breaker every time it rained. The March 2009 wind finally took the tray. Now the light works fine. Go figure.


Some of the holes are stuffed with scrap pieces of Styrofoam, air-filled wine bags (from 5L. boxed wine - they make great insulation)and pieces of anything else that would fit. Unfortunately, the Elements don't seem to think the stuffing belongs there, and they frequently remove it. The white fence posts, and other rods, boards, sticks and the ilk, are used to hold stuffing and siding in place. It doesn't work very well.

When it rains, the exposed fiberglass insulation - what's left of it - gets soaked and wicks the water inside, where it runs across the floors, rotting them further. The floor joists (see below) are black with rot and won't even hold a nail or screw. Consequently, the trailer skirting is falling off, allowing the cold winter air to blow under the trailer. The floor gets so cold not even the furriest dog wants to lie on it.

... Magic carpet ride, anyone?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Fantasy Land:
One Small Spot of Serenity
in an otherwise
Alarming
Environment

Kind of impressionistic, isn't it? You can't even tell that's a huge propane tank behind the flower pots ... or that they're sitting on an old spool table.
The propane tank was the impetus behind the pond and garden; an attempt to disguise the ugly dang thing, which sits about 10 feet directly outside the living room window.
Not just ugly - SCARY!

It's all just a blur ... but then, sometimes life looks better through old blurred eyes.

Enough Impressionism in Fantasy Land.

More to come ... the crazy ol' critter lady's pond pix [...I built the pond while in pain with three collapsed cervical discs, five herniated lumbar discs, and carpal tunnel disease ...took months! Wanted to get it done before cervical disk surgery...I must have been crazy, but my oasis makes me happy!]