Okay, I’ve been silent for a few days waiting for someone to comment on my last post, which I thought was rather humorous, but apparently no one else thought worthy of notice. (hint, hint)

Oh well, be that as it may, this week I ran across another funny little story penned by the ever-lovable Panda Bear, MD that I thought you might enjoy, instead.

It involves his recent encounter with one of our old friends and was tucked neatly within a post entitled, Randompanda.

To fully appreciate this little ditty, you need to understand that Panda Bear is an ER doctor working in a major metropolitan hospital and his patient… well, you’ll see…

I Kept My Mouth Shut

I had a trauma patient the other day who quickly informed me that he was a chiropractor and then rattled off the cervical vertebrae he believed to be injured just to show us that we were dealing with a medical professional and not some yokel.

He had fallen off of a ladder and bumped his head. After the usual “pan scan” that the trauma surgeons order on everyone regardless of mechanism or history he was given a clean bill of health and discharged from the department.

We usually send these minor trauma patients home with a small prescription for vicodin or percocet even though all most people really need for this kind of thing is some motrin.

I have been sticking to the motrin lately because we don’t have to give narcotics to everybody. He flagged me down before he was discharged and demanded something stronger for his pain. I smiled politely and wrote him a prescription for Vicodin.

Chiropractor, heal thyself. Doesn’t he have any colleagues that could, I don’t know, adjust him or something?

If you don’t see the humor in this, you just haven’t been paying attention.

Suffice it to say that Panda and I share similar opinions when it comes to magic (i.e. illusion) vs. medicine. Which is probably why he then goes on to share some further observations…

Chiromancy

Speaking of chiropractors, I have had a run of patients lately who are under their treatment. I keep my face blank and my tongue still but most of them feel the need to apologize, which shows you that even most of the chiromancer’s customers suspect that they are being hornswoggled by this century’s equivalent of the Patent Medicine Man.

Look, its not rocket science. You can’t cure an inflamed gallbladder or a pulmonary embolism by adjusting the spine. You can’t actually adjust the spine either because, while I am second to none in admiration for the typical chiromancer’s knowledge of spinal anatomy, all of those ligaments and muscles that they rattle off prevent the kind of movements that they claim to induce.

Hell, in my line of work we call chiropractic “spinal adjustment” by its correct term, “trauma,” and it is only the inability of most chiromancers to generate motor vehicle collision-type forces that keep them from hurting more patients than they actually do.

As usual, I find myself agreeing with Panda Bear on this one.

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References:

If you’ve just arrived here and are still struggling under the illusion that chiropractors are medical doctors, here are some articles that will bring you up to speed:

• Don’t I Need a Chiropractor?
• How Chiropractic Damages Your Spine
• Medical School or Fraud Factory? An Inside Look at Chiropractic College

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It was such a fine day yesterday that I just had to open up the house and let in a little fresh air. The sun was shining. The temperature was mild. A gentle breeze was blowing and for a moment anyway, all was right with the world.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, settled in at my desk and proceeded to hammer out the various tasks on my afternoon agenda. That is until the stillness was suddenly shattered by shrill screams coming from the other room.

The Predator, which just moments before slept peacefully in my lap, is now on full alert. And although she’s an efficient killing-machine she has the courage of a sparrow and so, as usual, it was left up to me to investigate this latest disturbance.

I swept the razor-taloned beast to the floor and went to see if there was any hope of staving off whatever misfortune was about to befall.

Upon entering the next room I discovered, much to my amazement, that a small child had climbed up on a bench and was happily squealing something unintelligible in my open window. Mind you, having been spared the folly of matrimony and the subsequent disappointment of procreation, I had no idea what to make of this odd behavior.

Nevertheless, it is my firm belief that those of limited stature are best regarded with due diligence whenever they happen to escape from captivity lest they commence to wreak havoc and mayhem upon all in their path.

And so it was that I proceeded to ask her in my best; let’s scare it away and perhaps it’ll think twice before returning voice, “What are you doing?”

Whereupon, she looks up and I find myself gazing into the eyes of a lovely blonde creature whose countenance could melt even the blackest heart. What’s more, instead of fright, this angelic little cherub gleefully breaks into an extensive narrative of toddler babble the only decipherable part being something to the effect, “We’re going to eat them for dinner.”

She then points to her little co-conspirator dutifully picking dead leaves off the honeysuckle bush and filling a little plastic bucket with this wondrous treasure.

Quite smitten at this point — my original plan of stern scolding having melted into oblivion like a wisp of smoke — I’m left with little more than a mere, “Oh.”

As she happily scampered off down the street with her playmate and their newfound bucket of joy I couldn’t help but smile as I recall a line from an old John Wayne movie, “Too bad they have to grow up to be people.”

:-)
Dean

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Tax season is coming up and I just ran across this article on Yahoo that I thought was important enough to pass on to you.

The article has to do with identity theft schemes where the crooks claim to be with the Internal Revenue Service. I won’t belabor the point other than to point out that they are using four methods:

1) Rebate phone calls
2) Tax refund e-mails
3) Audit emails
4) Check verification phone calls

The main thing that you need to know is that the IRS only uses the U.S. Postal Service. They never contact taxpayers by e-mail or by telephone. If someone contacts you claiming to be with the IRS, just hang up.

You can read the complete article entitled, Don’t Fall for IRS-Related Scams.

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Finally stopped raining and the sun’s come out. There has been a lot of flooding here in this part of the country. Rivers and creeks are over their banks. Roads have turned into rivers. My neighbor out back has a lake in his backyard. The news has been full of reports of water rescues and several people have drowned.

Fortunately, I live on higher ground and don’t have to worry about flooding and don’t have to deal with low-water crossings.

If you are ever in a flood situation and there is moving water over a roadway, don’t try to drive through it. As heavy as you might think your car or truck is, it can be swept away by the water. Many of the water rescues have been for people in pickup trucks and SUVs.

The newscasters are constantly reminding us with the following slogan: “Turn around, don’t drown.”

I had to delete yet another troll from my forum this week. It wasn’t an easy decision. I didn’t enjoy doing it and I admit it was a borderline case. I can’t really say whether or not the comments were intentionally malicious or harmful. (And no, they weren’t specifically directed at this web site or me, as far as I could tell.)

It was one of those deals that in the past I might have allowed to remain for a while just to see where this person was going with all the bunk they were dishing out. The key phrase here is, “in the past.”

You see I decided a couple months ago that I wasn’t going to tolerate anyone dispensing false, stupid or misleading information anywhere within these pages. In short, I decided that I would simply delete anything I deemed to be potentially harmful to another human being.

Why Not Just Allow Everything?

Let me give you an example…

I was on a forum earlier this week created by fans of an all-girl singing group I discovered a few months ago. I found this fan-site while surfing the net looking for more background information on the group.

This band caught my attention because it’s not the usual garbage you hear permeating the airwaves these days. This is a group of what seem to be really nice girls, all very talented, all very cute, and for the most part doing some pretty decent music.

So anyway, I’m on this forum checking out what other people are saying about these girls because I’m curious to know how the public is reacting to this style of music. I want to know if other people like them as much as I do.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that the majority of the comments were positive, everything was not beer and skittles.

What Was Wrong?

What really bothered me was that this forum allowed any manner of negative and hateful thread to be posted about these girls. There was even a long discussion the gist of which was, “Which girl do you really hate and why?” The so-called “fans” then proceeded to tear these girls apart. They seemed to take great delight in criticizing everything about them from their hair, their personalities, their singing ability… you name it. Anything was fair game.

One poster even remarked something to the effect that he couldn’t stand the sight of one of the girls and he wanted to beat her face in.

To say that I was more than a little dismayed at some of the comments would be an understatement. Granted they were in the minority, but the fact that they were allowed at all, really bothered me.

After all, how were these girls — who are just as sweet as can be and haven’t done anything to anyone — supposed to feel if they happened to read some of the comments these people were making about them? Who’s looking out for them?

Needless to say, I have no intention of returning to that forum.

Am I Wrong to Set Boundaries?

I don’t think so.

If the above forum had been under my control, I would not have allowed discussions of that type to remain. I would have deleted them immediately and banned the individuals making the hateful comments. Instead, the owner of that forum actually banned one person for trying to defend her favorite. (There may have been additional reasons. I didn’t bother to stick around.)

Fortunately (not counting spam), I’ve had to delete very few comments from my forum and only a handful of people have ever been banned. There are a number of opinions posted throughout the threads that I disagree with and I just let them slide. Trusted members are allowed to discuss just about anything they want.

But I have to draw the line somewhere.

Long story short; I intend to delete anything I consider inappropriate or potentially harmful. No apologies. This may not please everyone, but I have to consider what is in the best interest of the majority.

Just trying to do the right thing,
Dean

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In case you haven’t noticed, it’s cold and flu season again in this neck of the woods and this may have you wondering if an antibiotic might be the solution for whatever is ailing you.

Well, Dr. Rob Lamberts, pediatrician, internist and author of the ever popular medblog, Musings of a Distractible Mind has decided to weigh in on the subject in his latest post, Common myths about infections and antibiotics…

Much attention has been given to the fact that antibiotics are given too often. The reason for this concern is that the overuse of antibiotics can create resistance in the bacteria a person carries, making it much harder to treat serious infections in the future.

For that reason, the physicians in our practice are trying to avoid using antibiotics unless they are necessary. The problem is that many patients come to the office already convinced that their infection requires an antibiotic and so will not be satisfied unless they get one. This puts our staff in a difficult position, as we want to practice good medicine, but also strive keep our patients happy.

Dr Rob then goes on to compile a list of common misconceptions about when antibiotics are appropriate. Here are a couple examples…

Sinus pain means you need antibiotics

Dr Rob explains…

Sinus pain is caused by a difference in pressure between the inside of the sinuses and the outside world. This is usually caused by thick mucous, and not necessarily infection. Decongestants can help with this (although they may not be appropriate with certain heart conditions and hypertension), as can salt water spray in the nose. The pain is best treated with acetaminophen (Tylenol, etc), or ibuprofen (Advil, etc.).

“The last time I had this I needed antibiotics, so I wanted to catch it early this time.”

The straight scoop…

Most infections that do require antibiotics start with a virus infection and then turn into bacterial infection for which antibiotics are appropriate. To treat an infection “early” means that you would treat it when it does not yet need antibiotics. This is exactly what can cause resistant bacteria. If your symptoms are that of a virus, then antibiotics are a bad choice.

And the list continues with equally good information and advice.

Naturally, I’m tempted to just reprint Dr. Rob’s entire post, but then I’d be denying you the fun of discovering his blog for yourself. If you’re like most folks, you’ll want to bookmark his homepage (or add it to your list of RSS feeds) so you can keep up with every installment.

That is unless you’re afraid of llamas.

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1) As soon as you pour yourself a cup of hot coffee, you will be interrupted just long enough for the coffee to grow cold.

2) Any tool that’s dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

3) When you try to show a repairman that a machine isn’t working, it will.

4) As soon as your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

5) If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

6) The moment you become “indisposed” in the bathroom, the phone will ring.

7) If anything goes wrong, YOU will be blamed.

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Finally decided to haul in the big guns…

Maybe now we’ll get something done.

I better go see how she’s doing,
Dean

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Photo credits: I Can Has Cheezburger

This just in…

A recent study out of Japan shows that men have a higher level of brain activity than women.

What the report failed to explain is that men are thinking about doing something stupid.

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On another note…

Today’s trash day here in Ozark and I’m seriously thinking about hauling these computers out to the curb.

Spent yesterday trying to fix another network-related problem. One I’ve been putting up with for months. Should’ve just left it alone because I ended up wasting the whole day (that’s right, the whole day…. again.) working on this problem and it’s not fixed.

Didn’t even put a dent in it.

Started about 8:00 am in the morning and kept hammering on it until about 11:00 pm when I finally gave up and went to bed.

I won’t bore you with the play-by-play, but it has to do with file sharing. I thought the problem would go away once I rebuilt “The Lock-up King,” but its problems apparently had nothing to do with this problem.

For what it’s worth, the entire network checks out perfectly with every diagnostic tool I’ve tried. It’s set-up by the book. I’ve even searched the Internet for anything that might shed some light on this dilemma, but came up empty handed.

I’ve checked and double-checked everything, reloaded all the software and run the Network Set-up Wizard on each machine but some of them still refuse to play nice with the others.

I know it’s going to turn out to be something simple, but in the mean time, it’s not helping my usual sunny disposition.

*****

Good new is…

1) The computer I’ve dubbed “Lock-up King,” isn’t locking up anymore.

2) All my important files have been transferred onto the rebuilt machine.

3) My new printer works fine after moving it to a different computer. (No more 10-minute delays.)

4) I’ve managed to persuade Billy Bob that the doghouse doesn’t need high-speed Internet. (Fang’s been getting by just fine with dial-up. Why spoil the mutt?)

*****

Anyway, I think I’m going to suspend “Operation Computer Mania” for the time being and try to get back to working on other projects and improvements. Everything isn’t quite up to snuff yet, but I don’t think I can take much more of this fun and excitement.

*****

On a side-note: Billy Bob and Cousin Goober are available for “fixin’ n ‘justin’” your computer problems. Just call BR549 or see their website at www (dot) its.busted (dot) com.

Later,
Dean

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Got a nice email the other day from Randy Alexander, Kenny Vance’s publicist thanking me for the piece I did about the Planotones and my new personal theme song, “Looking For An Echo.”

Hello, Dean:

I just came across your kind words/posting on my publicity client, KENNY VANCE. I recently added him to my roster and have been working diligently at conveying the same message that you so eloquently posted on your blog. It’s people like you who validate what Kenny does not only to him, but to the subsequent generations he is on a tireless mission to reach.

I keep meaning to answer him back but as you may have noticed, time isn’t exactly on my side these days. Regardless, I’m always happy to give credit where credit is due and Kenny Vance deserves all the attention that comes his way… and you deserve a chance to hear his music.

Speaking of which, Randy went on to point out that Kenny and his band were recently featured on the Fox television show, Good Day New York where they did a couple of numbers from their new CD, “Countdown To Love.”

Also, be sure to check out the YouTube Video on my post if you missed it and visit The Planotones website where — if you’re lucky enough to live on the East Coast – you can check their tour schedule and go hear these guys in person. (Or pick up a couple of their CD’s.)

Kenny Vance and the Planotones are keeping the music alive and from where I sit, that’s all that really matters.

“Cause we were looking for an echo,
An answer to our sound,
A place to be in harmony,
A place we almost found.”

Doo Wop forever,
Dean

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