Jive Learnal

Life's not fair hehe - She Loves Me Not Lyrics

2007-03-20T10:24:04Z

More lyrics just stuck on going through this with music. Thank Goddess music is there for me.

She Loves Me Not Lyrics

When I see her eyes
Look into my eyes
Then I realize that
She could see inside my head
So I close my eyes
Thinking that I could hide
Disassociate so I don't have to lose my head
This situation leads to agitation
Will she cut me off?
Will this be an amputation?

I don't know,
If I care
I'm the jerk,
Life's not fair
Fighting all the time
This is out of line
She loves me not, loves me not
Do you realize, I won't compromise
She loves me not, loves me not

Over the past five years
I have shed my tears
I have drank my beers and watched my fears fly away
And untill this day
She still swings my way
But it's sad to say sometimes
She says she loves me not
But I hesitate
To tell her I hate
This relationship
I want out today
This is over

I don't know
If I care
I'm the jerk
Life's not fair
Fighting all the time
This is out of line
She loves me not, loves me not
Do you realize I won't compromise
She loves me not
Life's not fair
I'm the jerk

Line for line, rhyme for rhyme
Sometimes we'll be fighting all the goddam time
It’s makin’ me sick
Relationship is gettin’ ill
Piss drunk stupid
Mad
On the real, could you feel
What I feel, what’s the deal girl
Tearin’ up each others world
We should be in harmony
Boy and girl
That is a promise we made
Back in the day
We told each other things wouldn’t be this way
I think we should work this out
It's alright baby, we can scream and shout.

I don't know
If I care
I'm the jerk
Life's not fair
Fighting all the time
This is out of line
She loves me not, loves me not
Do you realize I won't compromise
She loves me not, loves me not
Life’s not fair
Life’s not fair
Life’s not fair
I’m the jerk
Life’s not fair
She loves me not
Loves me not

Another song

2007-03-20T10:16:53Z

Lyrics that let you let go of things eating at you...

Decompression Period lyrics

Here today gone today
Hurry up and wait
I'm never there for you or me
Can't you read the story of our lives
Death to me and life for you
Something isn't right
And I need some space to
Clear my head to think about
My life

And I can't be alone

I just need some space
To clear my head to think about my life
With or without you

We fight it out
We work it out
Give me some time to unwind

I must confess
I'm falling apart
Breaking your heart
Crying with you on the phone
We're walking on thin ice
I hope it doesn't break

Mile by mile we're farther apart
And it's one empty bottle
And two broken hearts
Night after night we are falling apart
Now it's two broken bottles
And four empty hearts

Decompression
Depression period

I refuse to surrender!

2007-03-19T21:39:49Z

Isn't amazing, when an entire album fits what your life is experiencing? Paramour Sessions by Papa Roach is me right now. (I just wanna be wanna be loved! hehe)

This fits all the crap I have been through the past 3 years...

The World Around You Lyrics

Woaho
Woaho
Yea
Yea
Woaho
Woaho
Yea
Yea

You say I’m looking really bad
You say I’m looking really sick
And I don’t even care I never really did
So when push comes to shove
And I slap you in the face
Just remember one thing

When its time to feel the void
My whole life has been destroyed
And everyone around me says my time is running out
I refuse to surrender
I refuse to surrender

So I’m out of control
And I’m out of my mind
Just remember one thing
I think I’m just fine
So catch me when I fall
I won’t remember anything at all
So catch me when I fall

When its time to feel the void
My whole life has been destroyed
And everyone around me says my time is running out
I refuse to surrender
I refuse to surrender

Woaho
Woaho
Yea
Yea
Woaho
Woaho
Yea
Yea

When its time to feel the void
My whole life has been destroyed
And everyone around me says my time is running out
When its time to feel the void
My whole life has been destroyed
And everyone around me says my time is running out
I refuse to surrender
I refuse to surrender
I refuse to surrender
I refuse to surrender

Forever

2007-03-19T18:06:49Z

OK. This Papa Roach song also fits in many ways. Everything really except the part about all the women. Cuz, I don't cheat. I have too much of a sense of honor to do that.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeDmjH5vMto

And the lyrics

In the brightest hour
Of my darkest day
I realized
What is wrong with me

Can't get over you
Can't get through to you
It's been a helter-skelter, romance from the start

Take these memories
That are haunting me
Of a paper man cut into shreds
By his own pair of scissors
He'll never forgive her...
He'll never forgive her...

[CHORUS]
Because days! Come and go!
But my feelings for you are forever
Because days come and go
But my feelings for you are forever

Sitting by the fire
On a lonely night
Hanging over from another good time
With another girl...
Little dirty girl
You should listen to this story of a life

You're my heroin-
In this moment I'm lonely
fullfilling my darkest dreams
All these drugs, all these women
I'm never forgiving...
this broken heart of mine

[CHORUS]
Because days! Come and go!
But my feelings for you are forever
Because days come and go
But my feelings for you are forever

[CHORUS]
One last kiss...
Before I go...
Dry your tears...
It is time to let you go...

[CHORUS]
One last kiss(One last kiss)
Before I go(Before I go)
Dry your tears(Dry your tears)
It is time to let you go...

[CHORUS]
Because days! Come and go!
But my feelings for you are forever
Because days come and go
But my feelings for you are forever

[CHORUS]
One last kiss(One last kiss)
Before I go(Before I go)
Dry your tears(Dry your tears)
It is time to let you go...

[CHORUS]
One last kiss...
Before I go...
Dry your tears...
It is time to let you go...

One Last Kiss.

more insights from a friend

2007-03-19T17:45:48Z

A Golden Dawn friend of mine and I spoke briefly. He told me that based on my horoscope he feels I am set back by pisces moon and set ahead with the Leo Sun and Virgo asc. Here is what he wrote:

Hi Bert,
Ykes! Sorry to hear you're going through a rough spot, but I don't think advice from a divination is what you need most at this moment. I know 'chin up' advice seems like the last thing you need at this moment, but that's exactly what I'm going to offer. Pisces moon is what's 'feeling' what's ripped appart, but it doesn't stand a chance against Sun in Leo and your Virgo is going to eventually, probably sooner than you think know how to put you neatly back together.
That's as wise as I can be at the moment.
Good luck and "chin up!"
My best,

interesting chat with a friend

2007-03-19T17:35:38Z

Going through this whole break up sucks. But I have good friends. I had a very interesting talk with one yesterday over IM. I hacked out the friend's name but otherwise the interesting part is all here.

[17:52] Friend: Well, regardless of everything, and what you may have done or not done, it takes two to make a relationship and it takes two to break a relationship
[17:52] deadevilfrog: i know
[17:52] deadevilfrog: it is that complete lack of control that has me the most fucked
[17:52] deadevilfrog: cuz
[17:52] deadevilfrog: i am a fixer
[17:52] Friend: so all this "its all my fault" talk is counter productive
[17:52] deadevilfrog: you know that, i live to fix things
[17:53] Friend: true
[17:53] deadevilfrog: i try to say it isnt all her fault, i fucked up too
[17:53] deadevilfrog: trying to break through
[17:53] deadevilfrog: but she is a virgo
[17:53] deadevilfrog: she is a brick wall
[17:53] deadevilfrog: there is nothing ican do
[17:53] Friend: but perhaps the time to try fixing a relationship is past and now it is time to fix yourself... figure out who you are at the core again
[17:53] deadevilfrog: and i hate that
[17:53] deadevilfrog: i know you are right
[17:53] deadevilfrog: oh shit
[17:53] Friend: let this outside mess go
[17:54] deadevilfrog: i am sorry man
[17:54] Friend: ?
[17:54] deadevilfrog: i am balling like a 2 year old
[17:54] deadevilfrog: lol
[17:54] Friend: eh its ok
[17:54] Friend: its all grieving
[17:54] deadevilfrog: it sucks
[17:54] Friend: yes
[17:55] deadevilfrog: i know she isnt all that, but i dreamt her in to being for me, and its just a lot to let go
[17:55] deadevilfrog: not that ihave it anyhow
[17:55] deadevilfrog: sorry man
[17:55] Friend: well all earth signs tend to eb go or no go
[17:55] deadevilfrog: i dont mean to dump all this on you
[17:55] deadevilfrog: aye
[17:56] Friend: capricorns are the most flexible
[17:56] deadevilfrog: and i am fire, i break apart in 100 directions
[17:56] deadevilfrog: i mean them all
[17:57] deadevilfrog: i just dont why i hurt so bad when we both fucked up? i have been here before, i had an awesome marriage with a really beautiful blonde
[17:57] Friend: I know I am all go or no go
[17:57] deadevilfrog: and i let that go like ti was nothing
[17:57] deadevilfrog: i am both
[17:57] deadevilfrog: but i have a leo sun and a pisces moon
[17:57] deadevilfrog: thats pretty intense change
[17:58] Friend: well for my 2 cents, and I am no psychologist
[17:58] Friend: you have a lot of your identity wrapped up in outside things. you havbe to find your value in yourself and the outside things will come
[17:59] Friend: your life has changed its focus so you have to change also
[17:59] Friend: you are in a different situation than you have ever been in
[17:59] deadevilfrog: i think i am going to ask Lon Milo of the golden dawn for a free reading if he will do so
[17:59] deadevilfrog: yes
[17:59] deadevilfrog: you are right
[18:00] Friend: you have value, but instead of looking at it like what you dont have and what you have lost, the wheel turns and every ending is a beginning
[18:00] deadevilfrog: i get caught up in my emotions
[18:00] Friend: everything comes in cycles, every time has a season
[18:00] Friend: and
[18:00] deadevilfrog: the stir me about wildly
[18:01] Friend: as I have said before and I dont know if you really understood it then, but maybe you will now,
[18:01] Friend: there are times in life when there is nothing left but to soldier on
[18:01] deadevilfrog: I mean I have 3 ladies on myspace chatting me up, and whoknows how many on gaia although gaia is gay so they are all guys, but i guess that isnt what i need
[18:01] Friend: you have nothing, you feel you are mnothing but the wheel turns and the winter will change all thats left is to soldier on
[18:01] deadevilfrog: i havent been held in a loving way for years, why do i get upset?
[18:02] Friend: your value is in yourself first
[18:02] Friend: right now Ithink you are the hanged man
[18:07] Friend: but thats just my opinion... the weird slightly esoteric recomendations of Karang are not necessarily the opinions of anyone with any training
[18:07] deadevilfrog: no actually it was impressively clear and comforting although scarey too
[18:07] deadevilfrog: i have a lot to face, and facing yourself is hardest
[18:08] Friend: yes
[18:08] Friend: deciding to fight
[18:08] Friend: or choosing to die
[18:09] deadevilfrog: right now, i am so exhausted, if icould go to sleep and not wake up I would gladly do so
[18:09] Friend: but know that choosing death is no choice because you will have to repeat the lessons of this life again
[18:09] deadevilfrog: not trying to be a whiney bitch
[18:09] deadevilfrog: true
[18:09] deadevilfrog: true
[18:09] Friend: I doubt you really want to do that
[18:09] Friend: lol
[18:09] deadevilfrog: lol
[18:10] deadevilfrog: i dont know
[18:10] deadevilfrog: i dont what is on the other side yet
[18:10] deadevilfrog: i believe wonders are there
[18:10] deadevilfrog: i would love to ascend
[18:10] deadevilfrog: lol
[18:10] deadevilfrog: but yes i am so flawed
[18:10] deadevilfrog: i would end up back here
[18:10] Friend: I am not saying you are lfawed you need to remember who you were
[18:11] Friend: the implementation guy who would work a problem until it was fixed, the musician dedicated enough to finish an advanced degree
[18:11] deadevilfrog: i was once a professional musician living my dream, then i layed all aside because i felt no love in it, and wanted to be with a pagan woman
[18:11] deadevilfrog: and that got me into a lot of trouble
[18:11] Friend: if its music then go find a trombone and play it til the pain is out
[18:12] deadevilfrog: its there inthe corner staring at me
[18:12] Friend: if its the right path you will find one
[18:12] deadevilfrog: its like a basilisk and i fear to look at it
[18:12] Friend: play it
[18:12] deadevilfrog: i want to
[18:12] Friend: then do it
[18:12] Friend: but I think it has become a symbol
[18:12] deadevilfrog: tomorrow, lol i have to lets slide down, i am am mess right now
[18:12] deadevilfrog: it is a symbol of my dreams laid aside
[18:13] Friend: When you gras p the trombone you are also taking hold of your life
[18:13] deadevilfrog: phew
[18:13] deadevilfrog: lol
[19:29] Friend: You are like the hanged man, suspended between heaven and earth... you are like Maximus after the fire refusing to fight refusing to die... I am waiting for you, wait on me and I will come... I come as mother
[19:29] Friend: candle is lit?

Scars

2007-03-19T17:30:25Z

This song fits me so well right now. It is doubled edged because I am both the protagonist who cares too much and the messed up loser who needs to fix himself. Fix yourself! That is what the Goddess wants for me. I realize now and have really for sometime that I have needed help. I needed a lot of help going through all the surgical stuff and all that and I did not get much help. My relationship had a lot of wonderful elements but it had tons of bad ones too. I am not here to blame anyone but she did not invest much of herself emotionally that I could ever tell. It was all what can I get and when I was disabled and no longer capable of giving much it all started to roll apart. I know she has serious self esteem issues and I fear she is bipolar as well. But she left and it is all up to her for her. And all up to me for me. And my Leo strength is coming back slowly. I mean crying oneself to sleep each night and waking up that way wears on you and you just get too burned out to do it much anymore. So I don't know if I am starting to improve or I am just burned but once I start counseling I know that will help me figure things out.

OK. The song. Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_nGObVkLsE

Scars by Papa Roach

tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And my scars remind me that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel

Drunk and I'm feeling down
And I just wanna be alone
I'm pissed cause you came around
Why don't you just go home
Cause you channel all your pain
And I can't help you fix yourself
You're making me insane
All I can say is

[Chorus:]
I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And our scars remind us that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel

I tried to help you once
Against my own advice
I saw you going down
But you never realized
That you're drowning in the water
So I offered you my hand
Compassions in my nature
Tonight is our last stand

[Chorus]

I'm drunk and I'm feeling down
And I just wanna be alone
You shouldn't ever come around
Why don't you just go home?
Cause you're drowning in the water
And I tried to grab your hand
And I left my heart open
But you didn't understand
But you didn't understand
Go fix yourself

I can't help you fix yourself
But at least I can say I tried
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life
I can't help you fix yourself
But at least I can say I tried
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life

[Chorus x2]

Where things are now

2007-03-16T04:07:04Z

I had a good day today. I had to do some very unfun stuff but the results so far have been good. Enough has been slow cooking in my mind that I have gotten to the point that I realize my dead relationship is a dead relationship. I did everything I could to put my heart, soul, and feelings into wanting to fix things. But this person has got serious issues and I can't help her. I have to focus on me. I finally feel good about taking care of me. My friends, my family, my livejournal friends and other web site friends have all been way supportive and giving me the foundation to know that sometimes people get self destructive and want to take you down too. And I have been fighting so hard to live though all my illness BS and how hard life has been going through that, that I am not going to just roll over and die.

I finally feel good about knowing I did my best and knowing I made every opportunity available to her to get things the help they need so it could be resolved. And it is not going to happen. The pain has changed. It isn't self directed. Its not even pain in the normal sense. It is just a sense of loss. I have my friends telling me I am a smart, talented, and attractive guy. When the time is right someone else will be there for me to share myself with. And right now I am ok with just accepting things as is, and knowing I did my best.

So I took down my blogs on all of this. I have it saved and I am writing a lot. So I may be able to get this into a fiction novellete or who knows. But it is time to move on without pain and so I don't need to see those posts up here.

Peace and thanks to you all for all your support! God Bless you!

cience Panel Says Global Warming Is ‘Unequivocal’

2007-02-03T04:37:37Z

Well its been quite apparent to scientists for a significant amount of time that we are really facing major Global warming as a result of how we use fuels, and generate toxins that are causing a build up gases that are holding in heat. We are really hosing up our planet in a big way. Its not bogus.

Here is an excellent article about the state of affairs with our global warming problem and I really do recommend you read it. If you need to vent or discuss feel free to make comments here. Or if you want to chat me on it I use AIM: deadevilfrog, Yahoo: deadevilfrog, and MSN: Bert.Bolin@gmail.com, and ICQ: 269491306 so feel free to chat me.

The article: Science Panel Says Global Warming Is ‘Unequivocal’

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

2007-02-01T09:05:54Z

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"So, you're a cannibal."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Cowboy Bepop: The Movie

2007-01-26T20:06:18Z

Last night my wife and I watched the Anime Movie Cowboy Bepop: The Movie. This movie was made after the entire series was completed. It really unites the various characters in a great way. And the movie was very intense. It was an excellent action film as excellent if not more so than most/many/all (?) the live action films we are so see so much today.

I will say briefly that it had to do with a nano-machine virus that could wipe out the population of Mars which is now more like Earth than Earth is. The evil main character was experimented on against his will as a special ops. military man. Vincent, the evil guy, has the anti-virus in his blood, anti-nano machines. He is the living dead in his heart. Spike sees this in himself but has more life in himself, more concern for the world, although as he says a couple of times, "I'm just a bounty hunter, the saving of life is not really my goal" and yet of course manages a way to do just that.

Kick ass film. The Anime is such a high level that you will see it like Film and forget its a cartoon easily. It is awesome with plenty of fun stuff built in with Ed and Ein and the whole gang.

See it!

I Watched Flatliners Tuesday Night

2007-01-25T07:22:39Z

Tuesday night I watched a movie with my lovely wife Ginger. We are big 80s kids, Gen Xs, all that, and so that is a big part of our past, that we like to share with each other. We have gotten a new TV and for our Anniversary present hehehe we got a really nice DVD player. So we are catching up on lots of movies in the past 3 or 4 years we have missed out on as well as rewatching some old movies. Flatliners was an old movie.

Flatliners stars Keifer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon as the main three. I think Keifer really owns the role and does it well. His role is that of a student doctor near graduation trying to make a mark to stand out for himself and because of his past he is drawn to death. So he wants to determine if there is an activity, any experiences beyond brain death. He devised a procedure to cool the body down, apply drugs, and shock the heart to stop it. Once there is brain death the count is on and they give each person a longer (silly part of the movie is the whole I will go next 2:40!) time down. Once the duration has been reached they attempt to resuscitate the peerson who went down.

Keifer goes first. He has a nice little visit with his past running with the boys, and his dog. And he is happy. Of course once he comes back there has to be more to it. There is. Apparently as each person goes down under, dies, and comes back they reawaken the person they most bothered. In Keifer's case this ends up being quite bad because he had a boy in childhood who he chased up a tree and was throwing snow balls at, fall from the tree and get impaled on a fence post and dies. This whole ordeal of course is not discovered until the end of the movie.

Julia's chareceter is interesting in that she finds her father injecting heroin because of his army injuries untreated. It is hard for her to she her Father in this needy role, and also for him, when he is seen shooting up, he is so horrified he must commit suicide. Of course, there in lies the saving grace, that Julia's charecter can accept her Father as needy as he was.

This actually a really good movie to watch. Nothing over involved, and not very dark. It reaches out to the viewer and asks "we all die, but what will make your death rememberable.

Top 10 Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Jesus

2007-01-14T17:49:53Z

10. No one will kill you for not drinking Beer.

9. Beer doesn't tell you how to have sex.

8. Beer has never caused a major war.

7. They don't force Beer on minors who can't think for themselves.

6. When you have Beer, you don't knock on people's doors trying to make them drink it.

5. Nobody's ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured over their brand of Beer.

4. You don't have to wait more than 2,000 years for a second Beer.

3. There are laws saying that Beer labels can't lie to you.

2. If you've devoted your life to Beer, there are groups to help you stop.

1. You can prove you have a Beer.

Quake Done Quicker

2007-01-14T06:04:22Z

This is absolutely insane. I thought I was good at bunny-jumping but dayam!

What flavor pocky are you?

2007-01-11T17:20:20Z

AHHHHhhhh...POCKKKKkkkkyyyy...f

You Are Green Tea Pocky

Your attitude: natural and zen
Peaceful yet full of life. Deep and thoughtful.
You're halfway to tantric bliss!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?</div>

What flavor pocky are you?

2007-01-11T17:18:53Z

AHHHHhhhh...POCKKKKkkkkyyyy...f

You Are Green Tea Pocky

Your attitude: natural and zen
Peaceful yet full of life. Deep and thoughtful.
You're halfway to tantric bliss!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?

What flavor pocky are you?

2007-01-11T17:16:25Z

AHHHHhhhh...POCKKKKkkkkyyyy...f

You Are Green Tea Pocky

Your attitude: natural and zen
Peaceful yet full of life. Deep and thoughtful.
You're halfway to tantric bliss!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?

What flavor pocky are you?

2007-01-11T17:13:37Z

AHHHHhhhh...POCKKKKkkkkyyyy...

You Are Green Tea Pocky

Your attitude: natural and zen
Peaceful yet full of life. Deep and thoughtful.
You're halfway to tantric bliss!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?

l10nx @ 2006-12-31T01:51:00

2006-12-31T06:52:49Z

MindMap

What type of Fae are you?

2006-12-29T22:12:09Z

What type of Fae are you?

The American Holy Grail: Holiday Consumerism

2006-12-23T16:48:17Z

Although it drives a big part of our economy, I have always been bothered by the spending frenzy that defines the Holiday Season for Americans. Whether one is Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or Atheist, insane shopping, and defining love through spending clearly marks what it is to be an American in this part of the year.

I have always been sickened to see the ritual of gift buying as we do it as Americans. I was once naive enough and biased foolishly to think of this as purely Christian process. That Christians use gift buying and gift giving as a method of purgatory upon Earth; to buy forgiveness by buying gifts and giving them. But I was naive. I didn't see fully earlier in my life that people of all faiths, or no faith do this. That it is an secular as well as religious process. We pagans are as guilty of it as well as any Christian, and as well as any agnostic and as well as any atheist.

Buying things and in so doing driving the economy is not the bad thing. It is necessary for businesses to go back in the black, to turn a profit, and make the economy healthier. However, that most Americans go through this spending frenzy and this out of balanced gift giving speaks of the American lack of any awareness of what drives them to go all out on spending, to often over-spend and cause worsened personnel debt;to go through a torturous kind of shopping, spending, and giving in order to essentially atone for our sins, to take punishment for our wrong doings.

What do I believe we, Americans, are doing by embracing and facing our consumerism at this time of the year? I think that we face hard trials of shopping as the New American Quest; it has become our Holy Grail. We face huge maddening crowds, we fight to find gifts we feel good about giving, we go through harsh levels of stress. We fight for the last, farthest away parking space in the mall lot, and we fight through large crowds of shoppers each driven by guilt, by pride out of balance, and we do so for twisted ideals.

What we are doing is putting ourselves out (spending more than we have, enduring crowds we normally would never face, put with rude treatment, putting ourselves through atonement) to show each other that we love each other, to show that we have honor, to willing accept punishment, and endure hardships gladly that at any other time of the year would not even entertain such notions.

Yes it is atonement. We come to realize that for the vast majority of the year, we are cynical, selfish, and rude. The rest of the year we are selfish and uncaring. In order to let go of our guilt complexes we willing face the out of warped shopping/spending season that is our modern day Yule. We shit over each other 90% of the year without any sense of wrong doing or guilt. Then we enter Christmas time and we have the means to show each other that we are actually caring people, honorable people, warm hearted, and giving. We even donate money, food, clothing, and our energy to house and feed the homeless, clothe the poor children, protect the abused spouses.

We willfully overspend our budgets to get people that special gift. We fool ourselves into thinking we are doing this just for the pleasure giving. But really, most all of us are going through all we go through this time of year, as a kind of apology to each other for being rude, uncaring, and cold. And it is an American process practiced by people of all religions, faiths, beliefs, or even unbeliefs.

When I was Christian, I did this. I spent more than I could afford to spend, I donate my time and skills to entertain, feed, and clothe the needy. I spent time holding hands and talking with family when the rest of the year I avoided be with these people. I sought out gifts to give, foods to cook, chats to talk, and hands to hold in order to think that I was making up for the rest of the year where I would not give to, cook for, care for.

And now as a Pagan, I do this too. I give to make up for not treating people with the respect they truly deserve. And I see that most all of us are doing this.

I have really poorly expressed my points and I apologize. What I think we Americans do at this time of year is to attempt to make up for treating each other poorly. We give so much it hurts to make up for our selfish ways the rest of the year. Its become an American rite of passage to face large crowds, spend more than we can afford, give more than we can stomach, donate our time to the needy, cook are special dishes, share our time and energies with each other, and become termporarily decent people.

What I wish we could do, would be to spread out our sharing with each other, our acts of kindness, our giving, lovable selves so that instead of giving almost all of what we give squeezed into one tiny part of the year, that we would make the efforts to show our kindness to each other all throughout the year. We would then do so in a more controlled and balanced way. Our giving would be more frequent, less forced, less painful, and it would be for honest reasons. Instead of cramming all our kind, noble actions into a three week period, it would be lightly sustained across the whole year. It would not be driven by guilt. We would not be making up to each other for how shitty we treat each other, but we would be freely and without forcing, honestly caring for each other.

I truly hope that I can learn to give a little bit at any time of the year, because its an honest desire to make a difference, and not a forced, major effort done out of guilt.

I hope you all were able to digest this very lengthy post, and think about it.

How Evil Are You?

2006-12-22T15:19:41Z

How evil are you?

Seasons' Greetings!

2006-12-15T13:59:07Z

Christmas, pagans and religious divergence

By Mary Zeiss StangeMon Dec 11, 6:55 AM ET

Happy holidays!

Have I just offended you? If you are a member of the American Family Association, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights or the Committee to Save Merry Christmas, I probably have.

For the second year in a row, conservative Christian groups have threatened boycotts of big-box and department stores whose advertisements for "holiday trees" and whose hearty if non-specific holiday well-wishes reflect, these groups say, an "anti-Christian and anti-Christmas bias."

Opponents of generic holiday greetings also suspect that there is something un-American about them. As Alderman Thurston Hanson of Monroe, Wis., objected, when he recently voted against a City Council motion to grant the Chamber of Commerce a permit for a post-Thanksgiving "holiday" parade: "Christmas is a federally mandated holiday. … Ninety percent of people celebrate Christmas, and we shouldn't offend them by not calling it what it is."

Hanson's numbers might be somewhat skewed (roughly 80% of Americans are self-identified Christians), but major chains, including Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreen's, Macy's and Kohl's, have gotten the message. The assumption at work here appears to be that, while we are a diverse society, Christmas is a national holiday that trumps all other seasonal celebrations.

"Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving that kicks off the annual frenzy of consumerism known as the holiday season, sets the tone. Gone are the days when folks who worried about rampant materialism cautioned that it was time to "put Christ back into Christmas." Now it's time to put Christ back into Kmart. And so, as Wal-Mart spokeswoman Marisa Bluestone has bravely proclaimed, "This year, we're not afraid to say 'Merry Christmas.' "

What about us?

Of course, if you are a Jew celebrating Hanukkah, or a Muslim marking Eid al-Fitr, or a neo-pagan Wiccan for whom the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21) is a major observance, you probably had appreciated the more inclusive acknowledgement that the end of the year is a festive time for you, too.

Indeed, particularly if you are Wiccan, the matter of being un-included this holiday season must especially sting. A group of Wiccan families is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs for the right to bury their fallen heroes in military cemeteries in graves marked with a pentacle, the five-pointed star that symbolizes their religion, much as a cross does Christianity or a Star of David, Judaism.

Why this symbolic exclusion that potentially affects about 1,800 active service personnel?

Veterans Affairs recognizes 38 religious symbols for soldiers' graves, and to the casual observer, some of them are odd, indeed. In addition to a variety of Christian crosses and a cross-section of symbols from world religious traditions ranging from Buddhism to Bahai, the "Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones and Markers" also include symbols for atheists, the Church of World Messianity (Izonume), Sufism Reoriented, Eckankar, the "Humanist Emblem of Spirit," and the United Church of Religious Science. Given this potpourri of "available" faiths, the exclusion of Wicca, which calls itself the Old Religion and traces its origin to pre-Christian Europe, is baffling.

Or maybe not. The federal authorities have offered no convincing explanation for the banning of this one group's symbol. But the presumption at work seems to be that, while Christian America will tolerate a certain degree of religious divergence, there is something about witchcraft that simply crosses the line. "Alternative" religious perspectives are one thing; paganism, quite another.

Pagan symbolism

Yet there is a deep, and seasonal, irony here - one that might come as a shock to the "Save Merry Christmas" crowd.

For Christmas is, in its origins and its symbolism, perhaps the most pagan-inspired of all Christian holidays. Its dating derives from the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, which was determined by the winter solstice, that astronomical point in the year after which the periods of sunlight on Earth lengthen.

And that's not all that contemporary Christians have in common with neo-pagans. Most of the popular symbols surrounding Christmas - evergreen trees and other greenery, mistletoe and holly, the Yule log, candles and bonfires and holiday lights, mystical spirits with the ability to fly and to enter and leave a house through its chimney, tricksters who treat or taunt little children, not to mention those elves - all derive from older, pre-Christian Europe.

These pagan-derived symbols and customs are precisely the elements of Christmas that Christian activists are pressing to preserve and promote, in venues such as Target and Macy's. Compounding the irony even further, these are the symbols that federal and state courts have determined make a holiday display sufficiently "secular" to warrant its construction on public property at taxpayer expense. All of which goes to illustrate what's wrong when any one religious group or government entity claims the ability to determine what constitutes "religion" in America.

In fact, nothing could be more in keeping with the "Christmas spirit" than to embrace and celebrate religious diversity. And nothing could be truer to the spirit of the First Amendment than to honor American war dead as they and their loved ones would wish. No single group of self-proclaimed Christians holds a premium on the meaning of this magical season. And no government agency should decide what "qualifies" as an appropriate religious symbol.

And so, no offense intended, but season's greetings.

Mary Zeiss Stange is a professor of women's studies and religion at Skidmore College. She also is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

What MASH charecter are you?

2006-12-13T13:13:50Z

Which M*A*S*H character are you?

Hawkeye Pierce

You are an extreme liberal and an excellent surgeon. Definetly not military, you spend you off hours drinking gin and trolling for nurses along with the odd poker game or two. Being from Crab Apple Cove, Maine, you are used to the finer sea foods of the eastern coast and shun at the thoughts of the swill that the army serves. With a wit that is sharper than a bowie knife, you can find humor in almost anything.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

The worst hospital in North Carolina

2006-11-30T10:40:51Z

I have quite a history the past 6 years of pancreatitis that has nearly taken me a few times. I had to have a radical procedure where they removed my entire pancreas and spleen, and removed the insulin making cells from the pancreas and put them in my liver. Many of those cells died so I have very bad surgical diabetes. After using up all my savings and insurance I had to relocate to Fayetteville, NC where my family lives, to have help and attempt to get Social Security disability and other assistance. The hospital in this county, the only one, is the worst hospital I have ever had to deal with. I started going to the next county over and am getting much better help. Our newspaper just published a damning article about the problems at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

Documents show violations at Cape Fear Valley

By John Fuquay
Staff writer

A 13-year-old girl with a history of depression and suicidal thoughts went to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in January 2005 for treatment.

Within five minutes the emergency room psychiatrist — who had seen her before — called her a criminal and told her to leave and not return. But she did.

On the way back to her Fayetteville group home, and upset about the hospital visit, she suffered a skull fracture and internal injuries when she jumped from a car traveling 40 mph. This time she was treated in intensive care.

The incident was categorized by state investigators as one of the most severe violations that can occur in a hospital, and it became part of a series of violations that have made Cape Fear Valley perhaps the most heavily cited hospital in the state in the past three years.

The state conducts the investigations for compliance with federal Medicare and Medicaid standards.

Joyce Korzen, Cape Fear Valley’s chief operating officer, said violations found by the state always have been corrected, and the hospital has never lost eligibility to receive federal funding or been penalized with fines.
Unreported violations

Cape Fear Valley, a private, nonprofit corporation, has previously disclosed that space and staff limitations in its emergency department have caused patients to wait several hours for treatment. But documents obtained from the N.C. Health and Human Services Division of Facility Services provide details on other major violations that have been previously unreported.

From January 2005 to June 2006, the state determined three instances when Cape Fear Valley was out of compliance with requirements to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding because of six major violations. Each time, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, issued Cape Fear Valley a termination date for losing funding.

Losing such funding would cost the hospital about two-thirds of its $1.2 billion annual operating budget. The 394-bed acute care facility is Fayetteville’s largest.

The psychiatrist who denied treatment to the 13-year-old girl resigned five weeks later, but state inspectors have found similar violations since then. Mistreatment of another suicidal adolescent was among more federal violations that were resolved just two months ago.

Many of the violations were found in the treatment of psychiatric patients whose emergency room visits have increased due to cuts in state mental health services that have affected many hospitals. But the number of violations at Cape Fear Valley, along with other violations that did not involve behavioral care, is believed to be among the highest in the state.

“I’m not aware of a system or hospital in the last three years that’s had that number,” said Cecilia Boone, a Facility Services hospital surveyor.

Boone leads the state’s investigations on complaints about federal emergency treatment standards. She was involved in all three of the recent inspections at Cape Fear Valley and said the hospital was cited with another major violation in 2004.

The state is not required to keep track of how often hospitals are cited, and CMS did not have immediate information to compare the number of Cape Fear Valley’s violations with other North Carolina hospitals.
‘Not typical’

Jeff Horton, chief of licensure and certification for Facility Services, said Cape Fear Valley’s six violations in 18 months was “not typical” when compared with other hospitals.

Boone, who has been with Facility Services for seven years, recalled a hospital about five years ago that received three major violations in one year.

Korzen said she was surprised by the state's characterization of Cape Fear Valley's major violations.

"I really do find that unusual," she said. "When they come out here, we are led to believe that the things they have found are not that unusual, and we have been told how much we are improving over the years."

Harold Maynard, Cape Fear Valley’s risk management director, also said he did know his hospital was considered high in major violations.

“I certainly don’t have knowledge of that,” he said. “I would certainly be surprised at that.”

Maynard said the state is diligent when it comes to investigating hospitals. “I don’t know that we’ve ever gone uninvestigated,” he said. “They are a very active division.”

Among other findings, emergency department patients have been so desperate for treatment that they abandoned hours-long waits in hallways to cross a street and call 911 from a pay phone. An ambulance would pick them up across the street from the hospital, but they still had to wait upon arrival.

Paramedics often treated patients waiting inside the emergency department even though Cape Fear Valley was not certified for such treatment.
Improvements

Hospital spokeswoman Janet Conway said Cape Fear Valley has hired 11 new emergency department physicians, reducing patient waiting time. A new 69,700-square-foot emergency department — more than triple the size of the current department — is being built as part of a $98 million expansion set for completion in 2008.

But the hospital also had trouble in other departments.

A 64-year-old man with heart disease was restrained in his bed for 18 days of a 29-day stay despite the lack of any documentation justifying the procedure. State investigators suspected the restraints were used for staff convenience.

An 84-year-old woman considered at risk of falling was found on the floor of her room after being improperly restrained in her bed. After a family member complained about the fall, it should have been documented as a grievance but was not.

In other cases, medicine was improperly administered, a document was falsified, and infection control procedures were ignored.

Cape Fear Valley also had several lesser violations that did not require federal review, including unsafe storage of materials, substandard fire safety measures and food service violations.

The six major violations were found in three inspections — one in January 2005, three in March and two in June. The investigations were made following complaints, and each time the findings were sent to a CMS office in Atlanta to evaluate the hospital’s corrective plans. The complainants were not identified.

“In order to get money from the federal government, they have to meet conditions of participation,” said Lee Millman, a CMS spokeswoman in Atlanta. “When conditions don’t meet patient-care standards or safety standards, we issue a termination date.”

Hospitals rarely lose CMS eligibility — Horton said it might happen “once every 10 years.”

He said it is unlikely a major hospital would lose federal funding because it could force the hospital to close, which could be too harmful to a community. He said he has seen smaller clinics lose CMS funding, such as a Wake County drug treatment clinic that was closed about four years ago.

Millman said, “It is very rare for a hospital to go to full termination. If there is something that is found that generates a termination notice, that would be not uncommon. I'm not going to say it is common but I would say it would be not uncommon.”
Corrective plans

Cape Fear Valley's corrective plans were approved before each of the hospital's three termination dates. The plans included policy revisions, employee training and closer monitoring and adherence to procedures already in place.

“We have tightened our procedures and policies,” Maynard said. He said no management or administrative changes were made based on any of the inspections.

One policy revision will work to ensure emergency department staff members search patients who appear likely to harm themselves or others. The change was made after an inspection in June that found violations that led to a Sept. 27 CMS termination date.

One of those violations left a suicidal 14-year-old boy unattended.

The boy was found in April hanging by his belt in his group home. After being left alone in Cape Fear Valley’s emergency department, a physician found him with one of his shoelaces tied around his neck. The doctor removed the shoelace but left the lace in his other shoe.

According to the state inspection, the boy was not monitored and no safety interventions were conducted before or after he was found with the shoelace around his neck during a 2-hour wait in the emergency department.

The inspection also found the staff was untrained in the safety of behavioral patients, and the incident with the boy was not properly documented.

In other cases, the inspection found behavioral patients who should have been considered dangerous to themselves and checked every 15 minutes were left alone and later found with self-inflected lacerations from knives or razors they brought with them. One patient was found drinking hydrogen peroxide, and other psychiatric patients were neglected for hours and simply walked out of the hospital without the staff’s knowledge.

“The problem that keeps surfacing is they really don’t have a psychiatrist on duty from about 10 or 11 at night to 7 the next morning,” said Bob Arnold, president of the Fayetteville affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“If you go in there with a child, and you are there all night, they kind of settle down, so when the doctor comes in the next morning, he says, ‘You’re fine. Go home.’ It’s a problem. There is a gap there, and that’s not good,” Arnold said.

Debby Dihoff, executive director of the state National Alliance on Mental Illness in Raleigh, said emergency rooms across North Carolina are struggling with psychiatric patients because many state crisis centers have been privatized, and patients don’t know where to go for help.

She said she was not familiar with the inspections at Cape Fear Valley but was troubled by the repeated incidents. “It seems like there’s something wrong there if it keeps happening,” she said. “It hasn’t taken hold.”

Horton said the incident involving the 13-year-old who jumped from a car violated CMS eligibility requirements because the doctor failed to provide a medical screening examination. The inspection also found four other cases where the same doctor denied patients a screening examination.

“If a patient is presented, you must provide an MSE,” he said. “You can’t dump them to another hospital, and you can’t just discharge them. That’s very strict.”

For those violations, CMS gave Cape Fear Valley a 23-day termination date — the most severe response possible. Hospitals are typically given 90 days.

In a letter informing Cape Fear Valley chief executive officer Richard Parks about the termination deadline, CMS wrote, “the deficiency is so serious that it constitutes an immediate threat to the health and safety of any individual who comes to the emergency department” for treatment.

Cape Fear Valley, like most hospitals, is certified by the national Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and is in good standing. An organization spokeswoman said she had no record of how many times hospitals are given a CMS termination date.
Staff writer John Fuquay can be reached at fu

quayj@fayobserver.com or (919) 828-7641.