The Ugly T(r)ooth of US Dentistry

It was Saturday night when I realized that my ongoing attempts to delay a much needed visit to the dentist were not going to be operative moving forward.  Suffice to say that the amount of misery that unceremoniously struck me that evening was a rude reminder of the degree of pain that one’s own body can inflict upon itself under the right/wrong conditions.  It’s as if Providence decided right there Saturday night, that it was time for my physical suffering to match that of the emotional pain I’m dealing with watching Trump trying to turn the United States into his own little Banana Republic.  But I digress…

Saturday night was fitful, with periods of semi-peace interrupted by brief sufferings mimicking nothing short of Medieval torture, but Sunday had me waking relatively pain free, figuring I could probably hold out til Monday when surely there’d be more dental options.  I can’t speak for everybody in America, but there are more than a few of us with a disdain for dentists so ingrained that a little Medieval torture seems like a fair trade off to avoid them.  Besides, I’d already made arrangements with Thomas, an old coworker friend of mine from 7-11, for an early Sunday round of Disc Golf, though that was before I knew that Saturday evening was going to be a challenging nightmare from Hell.  I mentioned my issue with tooth pain to Thomas when confirming our plans to meet at Poudre Middle School on Sunday morning and he offered and brought me a tube of OraGel which I applied lavishly upon his arrival.

We leisurely walked several rounds of nine hole disc golf in the cool breeze of the high mountain meadows morning.  In the ensuing Battle Royale, I was soundly thrashed beyond all hope and recognition as Thomas put on a disc golf show he’d previously been hiding, presumably up his ass somewhere.  I think he was taking out his frustration and aggravation on somebody smashing his car door with their foot, leaving both a huge dent and a matching dusty shoe print in the process.  Normally I could use such distractions to my advantage but I was a bit wrung out from the night’s torture sessions and didn’t really feel like inflicting the extra emotional carnage on Thomas that he’s come to expect from me.  Next time I’ll have to double up on the distracting old guy rants if I want to have any chance of upending these youngish middle-aged sport sharks.  Be assured, he took no mercy on me whatsoever during the round.  I’d have preferred to win but not having done so is no reason to denigrate the good time we had.

In what had to be one of the most awkward goodbyes in the Hipster Era, Thomas left me simultaneously writhing in pain, and wishing him a good day from my cot in Nellybelle because ‘the pain’ decided to go Level 10 at that moment and I was hopeless against it.

It was Thomas who mentioned Comfort Dental in Loveland, informing me that they accept my government dental benefits.  Thomas is close enough to being poor I knew he’d have advice on poor people health and dental care options.  I zeroed in on the Comfort Dental in Loveland near the Walmart at 57th and 287 for first thing Monday morning.  End Part One.

#hoboheretic  Enjoy.

Lost in the iCloud

Background

I’ve been using Rita’s aging iPhone4 since she died in Germany last September with no issues whatsoever until about a month ago when the phone started incessantly giving me the following popup screen (about every five seconds):

 While it appears that Cancel is an option, I can assure you that Apple is relentless in attempting to force their iCloud service login on this device.

If my wife were alive today and had decided that she wanted to use her phone without logging into iCloud by pressing the cancel option, it wouldn’t matter because every five seconds that popup screen reappears NO MATTER what!

To top it off, I’m pretty sure my wife never even set up an iCloud account to begin with because she was so leery of online storage in general but that’s not something I can prove at this stage of the game.

Bacon, Ballistics and Bullshit

In Search of Bacon

Today’s post recounts my foray into the “Guns n’ Ammo” department at a Walmart in the great plains. It began when I accepted an offer to tag along to Walmart with Victor, a friend and fellow Vietnam-era (gun nut) veteran. On this trip, Vic was not shopping for gun stuff, but was instead shopping for a new “assault knife”. This seemed like a bit of overkill to me since he was already carrying a legally registered concealed firearm, but whatever.

I normally avoid situations where “Walmart and Firearms” are involved, but on that day it didn’t matter. I needed some bacon.

When Vic arrived to pick me up he was talking some “Fox News” Obama crap which I quickly spanked down. Though tarred with a bit of Tea Party taint, I knew Vic has a general disinclination for killing liberal atheists, and seeing how that overlapped with a large number of zombie meth heads wandering around everywhere, this rendered Vic’s concealed carry as an asset. I’m not sure whether it’s Zombies or Meth-heads who are attracted by the scent of bacon, but I’m sure it’s one or the other.  Best to be safe.

I kinda-sorta felt like Jay-Z out on the town with my own personal bodyguard.

You accept whatever risks are necessary when you need bacon. Nuff said.

The Worst of Iowa

Benton Mackenzie, 48, was convicted in Iowa district court jury of marijuana manufacturing and conspiracy, along with his wife, Loretta, 43, the Quad-City Times’ Brian Wellner first reported. Their son Cody, 22, was found guilty of misdemeanor possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. Benton Mackenzie, who had been barred by Judge Henry Latham from a defense that explains he grew cannabis to relieve his aggressive and rare cancer of the blood vessels, faces a minimum of three years in prison when he is sentenced later. His family said they intend to appeal the verdicts. Mackenzie said prison may kill him as his health worsens.

Benton Mackenzie is dead.

He should forever be remembered for the way he chose to live, pushing against Iowa’s ancient marijuana laws and a local prosecutor’s unyielding pursuit of a conviction, certainly not justice. Mackenzie chose to use his final days to force Iowans – and all Americans – to stare down hypocrisy and discover how Iowa and Scott County squandered taxpayer money to assure he left this world convicted and impoverished. (qctimes)

Iowa prosecutors hounded and convicted a suffering cancer patient right to the end of his life for the diabolical ‘crime’ of trying to treat his painful tumors with home grown marijuana.  

About those tumors: 

What kind of barbarians have the people in Iowa become since I left there in 1976?

Why would any rational person go out of their way to commit an act of inhumanity this great against a sick and dying man?  When I visited Iowa late last year, I noted that there were so many meth heads roaming the streets it looked like a casting call for Breaking Bad and yet the police and prosecutors are wasting time and tax dollars chasing after terminally ill pot smokers. Not all the pigs in Iowa are in hog containment facilities.  Some of them are running roughshod through the halls of their government offices.

Facebook memorial

Previous Huffpo article.

Enjoy..

Judgement at DC Poll

In the following clip, Spencer Tracy plays the judge in the war crimes trials against the Germans at Nuremberg.  If you watch the whole movie you’ll see the Germans and their lawyers make the very same arguments for their war crimes as the Bush administration (and Fox News talking head…whocouldanode?) do for theirs.  It’s ironic reverse deja vu that will have a profound effect on you if you imagine our current set of torture fanatics in place of the German war criminals.  Watch Spencer Tracy sum it up nicely in his reading of the verdict in this clip:

Who do you think should play Spencer Tracy’s role when the future film rights to the Bush-Cheney war crimes trial are granted?

I’m voting for Phil Donahue.

Did I miss anybody you’d prefer to see?

Enjoy.