General Music Chat

Well, getting back to the topic-

Ive seen the new doc, the chiro, etc..

We (all agreed) decided to try a conservative approach-

chiropractic methods, some old, some new, for 2-3 weeks to see if we can bring down the swelling, inflammation, and pain, just to see if ultimately, that surgery can possibly be avoided. This includes everything from general massage/ crackings, to laser treatment / magnetic treatments to try to break up excess fluids and swelling.

2400mg ibuprofen a day to try to bring down the inflammation

BUT...

this would require 3 visits a week to the chiro..

I already dropped 20 at the PCP and 40 at the chiro just for the initial visits and consultation (co-pays), so.. after paying out my bills.. I have less than $100 for gas / discretionary spending until the weekend of the 31st (next check, most of which will go to rent)... with less than $100 discretionary spending on that one....

at $40 co-pay per visit, I just don't see how a chiropractic solution is feasable.

All I can do is pay the same $40 co-pay ONE TIME to the surgeon for the initial diagnostic visit, and then once more for the inpatient surgery... and I'd be done with it, and my career in my band will be OVER. KAPUT. DONE.

they can't be expected to put their career(s) on hold to wait for me, especially with so many HUGE gigs coming soon.

sigh..

the saddest part of all is that one of the doctors in the chiro office doesn't accept ANY insurance, and charges..... $40 per visit.

What a total face-palm situation when you ponder the insurance industry's involvement in this.

It really wouldn't piss me off so bad if I wasn't dumping a SMALL FORTUNE from every check into my healthcare premium...

argh...

Actually, for the most part, we WERE at peace with the Moslem world prior to WWII, & it was only after establishing the Jewish nation in a previously Islamic area that we began to regularly encounter problems with the "Notion" Of Islam (sic).

I've said this before. When we meddled in the area by tossing out the Moslem rule of Palestine, & followed that up with establishing the Shah in Iran, we made many many lifelong enemies in that part of the world. Imho, their feelings toward us are perfectly justified, & I'd be hard-pressed to handle things in ways that are all that different from theirs, if I were in their shoes.

Their lives have been turned upside down by us on far too many occasions, for no reasons in their eyes other than we CAN, & they have something we want - oil. I'm not saying that they are all that honorable or innocent, really, but we HAVE interfered in innumerable ways in their lives & their gov'ts. They have not done this to us in any measurable way, prior to 9/11 (other than buying our politicians who had big fat "for sale" signs on their heads - but we did that to them, too!).

The war which we began without provocation was the 1st in our history, & I sincerely hope it's the last. However, they are bound to feel anger toward us, their enemy, for at least another generation. The best thing we could do, at this point in time, is to try to let time heal the wounds we've caused as we begin to take better, nay - PROPER care of our own, to return to the topic at hand.

It's time a whole helluva lot of us started to heal a bit, on both sides of the fences.

I feel for you, Kramer. I've gone through that stuff innumerable times over the last 30 years, & it's hitting my son right between the eyes, too!

Gee, should I eat, or go to the Dr? Should I make sure I have a roof over my head, or should I do what I can to get healthy, so I can continue to work & have a roof over my head?

These are questions that no man should have to ask.

When you are forced to look at $ for food, gas, rent, etc, as "discretionary spending," you're in the wrong country, imho. Especially when they tax your food, clothing, gas & rent...

I have a funny feeling that I may be an expatriate soon...

Actually, for the most part, we WERE at peace with the Moslem world prior to WWII, & it was only after establishing the Jewish nation in a previously Islamic area that we began to regularly encounter problems with the "Notion" Of Islam (sic).

I've said this before. When we meddled in the area by tossing out the Moslem rule of Palestine, & followed that up with establishing the Shah in Iran, we made many many lifelong enemies in that part of the world. Imho, their feelings toward us are perfectlu justified, & I'd be hard-pressed to handle things in ways that are all that different from theirs, if I were in their shoes.

Their lives have been turned upside down by us on far too many occasions, for no reasons in their eyes other than we CAN, & they have something we want - oil. I'm not saying that they are all that honorable or innocent, really, but we HAVE interfered in innumerable ways in their lives & their gov'ts. They have not done this to us in any measurable way, prior to 9/11.

The war which we began without provocation was the 1st in our history, & I sincerely hope it's the last. However, they are bound to feel anger toward us, their enemy, for at least another generation. The best thing we could do, at this point in time, is to try to let time heal the wounds we've caused as we begin to take better, nay - PROPER care of our own, to return to the topic at hand.

It's time a whole helluva lot of us started to heal a bit, on both sides of the fences.

Philby -

I totally agree with everything you just wrote. Best post among these 11 pages. By far.



I've long asked this of people: imagine if it were you. Imagine if the roles were reversed. How would you feel? How would you feel if a bigger nation barged its way into the US by force, and tried to change the ideals of your life? How would you feel if this bigger nation stormed our shores, and started to tell us how to live; that we had to live by their ideals?

Everyone that I have ever had this conversation with - and everyone I've ever presented this question to - has always said the same thing: I'd fight to the death if some other nation invaded us and tried to force their beliefs on us.

That's all they're doing in Iraq. They're fighting back. We'd do no different.



The truth us, we, as a nation, have done a lot of harm in our history to the people of the Muslim world. All they want to do is live their lives by their ideals - same thing we want to do. Same thing the Israelis want to do as well.

Do I agree with the Muslim way of life? Nope. I feel they disrespect women far too much and I think ruling via theology is the wrong way to advance a nation and a civilization. But those are issues that they need to work out.

Every nation (and I am speaking of people, not just those created by borders) often comes to a crossroads as the world changes around them. We had our crossroads in America. Every kid knows about the Civil War.

Invading Iraq was the wrong way to bring about Democracy and peace in the middle east. There were (and still are) more effective means at our disposal. The world is changing; technology is changing. We have a chance to make a significant impact now without war.

I look at how Twitter influenced events after the recent Iranian elections and I smiled. Twenty years ago the Iranian government would have been able to just hush that whole deal up; very quietly it would have gone away. We would have got a 60-second sound bite on CBS news at 6:00 in the evening and that would have been the end of it. A blip on the radar.

But look at what the internet and Twitter have done... The whole world knew about everything as it happened, and it carried on for days.

Yes, ultimately the election still got the stamp of approval. But the whole world saw it for the fraud that is really was. That's way more than what would have happened a decade ago.

But more importantly - the world got to see that the Iranian people are not simply blind followers of Ahmadinejad. Just as there were Americans who were not happy about our involvement in Iraq and the way that war has been handled, there are Iranians who don't want a radical in a position of leadership and power in their country.

It gives me hope; hope to know that we can change and be a peaceful planet; that the reality of the world we live in is that most people just want to be free to live their lives without poverty or hate. They just want to live and enjoy life. No matter what nation they're from or what God they pray to, everyone really just wants to live their life as best they can.

I think it's funny for us to even have an opinion on the recent election in Iran, after our own fraudulent election in 2000. For ANY American to say anything about it, is simply hippocritical...We gave up our gov't to the poser, & look where it got us!

Here's 4 fruits: Orange, Kiwi, Papaya and Apple.

Which one is different and why?

Orange is the only one that doesn't have any double letters in it.

I could probably cook a good dish with all four.

I have, Chippy. Of course there was some other stuff in there, too!

Islam is a religion virtually founded and certainly SPREAD through violence.

The communities of the Middle East were largely Christian before Muslims conquered them.

And their expansion through violence did not stop in the Middle East. By the 8th century, they had conquered parts of India and North Africa, all of Spain, and were making preparations to conquer the Franks and all of Europe as well.

The Crusades, were begun by a plea from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire to receive aid to halt expanision by Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia and to regain the Holy Land.

While the first half of the Qur'an may seem benign, the second half is certainly not, laying out the responsibility of Muslims to conquer the world, and to convert or kill any non-Muslims, unless it is more practical to "tolerate" them. Tolerance in Muslim culture is NOT what you understand it to be in the West. Tolerance means establishing ghettos for them to live, charging higher taxes on them, they accept the political rule of the Muslim law, and while allowed some freedom of worship, anyone witnessing to Muslim is put to death, as prostyletizing Muslims is a CAPITAL OFFENSE! Native Americans were not even treated this way.

Their own INTOLERANCE has actually been the main reason they didn't succeed in conquering the world more than they did.

Printing in Arabic was NOT ALLOWED, but in other languages it was acceptable. So information would come OUT of Muslim communities but not INTO THEM. So while the outside world could learn all about Muslim culture and practices, the reverse was not true, and Muslims remained largely ignorant of, and in fact missed, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the scientific revolution, all of which were not widely known by them until the French Revolution. Amazingly, beside their rejection of paper and the printing press, they also rejected gun powder. Clearly, their religious narrowness, put them at a serious disadvantage. But this didn't stop them from working to realize Muhammad's instructions that the world become Muslim by force.

This is still happening today.

There is mass exodus of Christians out of the Muslim world, because of their radical VIOLENT nature. Lebanon had a majority Christian population, and they are now a small minority. In Iran, less than .4 percent are Christian, and it is a crime to print Christian literature and converts from Islam are regularly killed. In Saudi Arabia, Islam is the STATE RELIGION, and YOU MUST be a Muslim to be a citizen, period! It is illegal to even OWN non-Muslim religious literature there, and Christians are jailed or deported.

As to the state of Israel...

Jews have historically occupied that area. It is the area promised to them by God, according to the Bible. They have existed there for millenia, but often marginalized, first by Christians, then by Muslims.

Poor Palestinians?

It is the Jews who were continually pushed to the sides there. After the Holocaust, world sympathy toward the Jews resulted in the U.N. formally endorsing the creation of Israel.

And we were at "relative peace" at least between America as a country and the Middle East because oil was not discovered there until 1938. Before that, they were an impoverished region. Were they going to swim over here and attack us?

WWII was in 1939.

Oh, but we were at "relative peace" with the Middle East before WWII.

LOL

We are relative peace with ALL impoverished countries that are not backed by powerful nations.

Now, Craig - The Koran is not written linearly. It doesn't flow like the Bible does, from historical point to point. Its chapters are separated by their SIZE, largest chapters first, not when they were written. So whichever 1/2 you deem more violent is irrelevant, especially when you consider that it is not usually read in a linear fashion, either...

Islam has expanded quite a lot over the last 100 yrs, Craig. Are you saying that it has been spread through VIOLENCE? I certainly haven't seen or heard about it. Gimme some sources on that, if you will.

The Islamic nations, no matter how you may feel about their religion, have NOT gone abroud with their swords to convert anyone in a millenia, so that argument doesn't qualify, Craig. They were most certainly NOT going out to take over the world when we placed the Shah in power, nor when we put Palestine under Jewish rule. You could just as easily say that the Jewish & Christian faiths are similarly warlike, & not to be trusted.

The fact of the matter is that, prior to WWII, there were both Jewish AND Moslem ppl in power in Palestine. True, the Moslems had higher positions than the Jews, but the same could be said for our own racial set-up in this country until recently.

You're talking about ancient history, rather than recent times, my man.

The recent emmigration of christians from the muslim world is a direct result of christian nations' tampering with their gov'ts, their "divine right to rule" their own countries. We have become a "christian nation" in their eyes, thanks in a large part to our own loss of direction, our meddling, & the popularity of christianity with the far right in the USA. This goes strictly against the promises made by George Washington, in 1789, when he became ambassador to the Islamic nations after he left the presidency. In the treaty he signed, he assured them that we were in no way a christian nation, & that they would be free from our meddling.

Funny how things changed over the years, ain't it? I suppose he should have said that we wouldn't meddle unless they found something that WE WANT, huh?!?!? Cuz then all bets are off, aren't they? NO ONE WILL BE AS RICH AS US, & WE'LL BUST 'EM IF THEY EVEN TRY! The way I see it, that's pretty much how things go...

Your a cook? Good man!

I have, Chippy. Of course there was some other stuff in there, too!

Every day, Chip!

Today, where I was anyways, what was wrong with healthare was the well educated dumbasses, who want to prove ol mom is nuts so they can take over her checkbook. Well all they got to do is make some noise about movin the sweet little ol lady to another hospital, and our hospital starts jumpin through their ass to prove the little ol ladys nuts to satisfy the DOOTR (dreaded out of town relative: pronounced, dooder)
I freakin hate these "nazi family" bastards, God forgive me but I do.
Whats worse is the snotty cunt daughter knows, that I know mom aint nuts, so she's sneakin around trying to discredit me as a nurse.
Bring it on beatch.

Phil,

Let me sumarize your theory, to make sure I have it right:

We won't allow Muslim nations in the Middle East to be rich like us, and so we meddle in their countries to prevent this. And we prevent them from getting rich, by making them rich, PAYING THEM for the oil.


Liberal logic rulez!

Sickening, isn't it, sans?

Craig - we won't allow their general populous to be as well-off as we are. We won't have the world at large approaching our quality of life. Yeah, we'll pay for the oil, as long as it's convenient to do so...it's becoming less convenient, I guess...

"Liberal logic" indeed! You are certainly pretty "liberal" with your proselytizing, aren'tcha? Gimme the facts or your opinions of the nation, man, & keep your personal views of me out of it, unless you want a pissing contest, Craig. I don't think you want another name-calling contest, do you?

I don't need that sh*t in my life...

Btw, I noticed that you didn't answer any of my other points...do you HAVE any answers?

(I will admit that that statement was a little over the top, but it DOES seem to me that when we need or want something from another nation, we'll get it, by hook or by crook, no matter the cost to the ppl that have it.)