Response to Donald Trump's Response to Obama Care

Donald Trump’s Cheap Shots on Obama Care

Posted on Facebook June 6, 2012

My response: Trump: you have just put together a list of cheap shots. Posturing yourself as a wise man who is deeply concerned with our health care system. You really don't give a damn. Your behavior for years clearly demonstrates you are on of the most antisocial, and selfish narcissistic people in this country. Posturing yourself in this manner is just another lie and deception. The only way you know how to behave. Here are the facts, which you carefully fail to mention. Our health care system is just like everything else in this country: it favors the rich and penalizes the poor. It is a disgrace. Compared to other similarly wealthy nations, we rank so high in very basic delivery of health care, like infant mortality, we rank with developing nations. Obama's plan has many flaws and it is easy to criticize. But at least he had the courage to try. Neither you or any member of the GOP has ever had the courage to do. The forces that favor the rich over the poor, that's you Donald, just sit back and criticize any body else's attempts to correct the disparity. Because, you are happy with the status quo. You have access to the finest care our system has to offer. You have money and status. Not caring that any one else has access, is morally and ethically impoverished.

The systematic plan by the GOP and the super rich to ride this country of the middle class and reduce this nation to an aristocracy, with the super rich as the kings and queens and the rest of us as wage slaves is retarded. History has shown REPEATEDLY that when the gap between the “have's and the have nots”, becomes too great, bloody revolution takes place. And in every case the poor ultimately win. That's your brilliant plan to save America. Save it from what? Being the first nation to succeed in evolving a new form of government that keeps wealth evenly distributed and peace erupts? Giving the challenges of an overpopulated world and climactic changes which combined with the end of oil as a natural recourse, our capacity to feed the world's population will be less than the 3 billion present in 1900. Thus, even if we stop population growth, that still leaves 3.5 billion doomed to starvation in the next generation. To have a CHANCE at survival for our species tribalism (us vs them) my die and altruism (those with more than what they need share with those less fortunate), must be rapidly adopted as the new planetary consciousness, because only altruism can give us the flexibility to adapt to the rapidly changing world that is our future. Just as opposing birth control is a suicidal path for our species, so is aristocracy a suicidal path for our species. Stay focused on your bank account Don, and lead us to our demise.

Morris Creedon-McVean

Review of Literature on the 2012 Presidential Election

Essay on Published Literature on the 2012

Presidential Election

July 14, 2012

This is a review of the current whole-article literature concerning the parties and candidates for President of the United States and the election in November of 2012.

Using the Amazon.com database, I reviewed 5 popular authors representing each of the 2 major political parties. Using a combination of the reviews written by the Amazon staff, and the extensive commentaries posted by readers of these books, I was able to get a very good picture of the structure and contents of each of the books. It is important to note, that many of the reviewers are prominent scholars, politicians, and well-known media personalities. Their comments were well written, very detailed, and, in general, had high praise for the book in question. Admittedly, this is a lazy man's attempt to evaluate this literature, but the time it would take to read ten volumes is beyond my current capacity and time limitations. However, let me add that I have been a high-volume consumer of new nonfiction literature since I was in college. More specifically, after reading The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan in 1969, in which he warned of the hidden dangers of watching television, I stopped that habit and have been consistent in not watching television ever since. I know of no other individual who took Marshall McLuhan's advice; and, so while my peers have been watching television I have been reading books.

The appearance of Amazon.com on the Internet changed forever my reading experience. The brilliant structure of the database included reader reviews, which greatly aided myself and many, many others in making intelligent decisions concerning our next purchase and reading experience. Another splash of breakouts included cross-linking of the purchasers’ buying history, as well as their browsing history. With these two constants, the purchaser would then be offered books labeled as " other books you might be interested in." This soft sell, while at first seeming like a cheap gimmick, actually proved to be affective in helping me find books that I was interested in. Because the database permanently maintains your purchasing history and your browsing history, it was particularly effective for my style of reading. For example, I like to jump from topic to topic, for instance reading 3 or 4 books on recent breakthroughs in brain physiology; and, then switch to an interesting new series of subatomic particles in theoretical physics. In addition, the service was impeccable: fast, accurate, and reliable. The point in all this is that I have learned from 25 years of experience using Amazon.com how to use their system to the greatest advantage in finding books that were interesting and expanded my scope of knowledge. For example, I developed a screening criteria for readers’ comments; and, after a short while, it was obvious which readers’ commentaries were written by a knowledgeable person and which were written by a hack just wanting to spout off.

Given the basis of my methodology, here are my conclusions about the 10 best-selling books concerning the candidates and political parties engaged in the presidential election of 2012.

First, the books were all structured in an almost identical manner. These books began with the philosophical origins of the party. This was followed by a glorified history of the tradition of the political party and a lengthy section on their accomplishments and achievements that benefited the American people.

The majority of these writers wrote in a very erudite manner and were very convincing. But the overall tone was consistently more of a cheerleading exercise than a discussion of important issues of the day. When the current issues of the day were discussed, whether it be the poor state of the economy, the massive federal deficit, unemployment, or the decline in " family values", the emphasis was well focused on blaming the other party for all of these ills. Facts were always sporadically introduced when convenient; and ,only when supporting the claims that all of our major problems are the other parties’ fault. There was a complete absence of discussion of the underlying causes of the problems. When an occasional topic of discussion relative to the cause of our difficulties, it rapidly deteriorated into a high mannered blame game.

I was struck by the world view of all the authors. They wrote as if the world still functions as it did in the 1950s. It made me wonder if either of the candidates, their party leadership, or the writers of these books, have read a single book relative to the astonishing changes in our world view that have occurred in the last 20 to 30 years. In particular, they were totally ignorant of the concept of ecology, which was heralded in the 1950s by Rachel Carlson's Silent Spring. Her idea is that our planet is, in effect, a single organism in which everything affects everything else.  The delicate balance that keeps our environment in balance can easily be disrupted and destroyed by human folly. The entire scientific community has accepted this theory for over 20 years. The Democrats have made some efforts to support ecological agendas, but due to the fact that Congress has become completely corrupt, and every congressman's vote is up for sale to the highest bidding lobbyist, Democratic stance as the defender of the environment has been pathetic. The Republicans, on the other hand, have chosen to ignore the issue altogether, their belief being that anything that benefits the environment is costly to business and therefore reduces profits. They initially and stubbornly refuse to accept that issues like global warming are even real, based on the lame excuses of " we don't have enough information yet" or " scientists are not in agreement on this issue" which is a bold-faced lie.

The other major worldview-altering discovery, that human behavior is at least as much driven by biological factors as psychological factors, was not even hinted at in any of these " comprehensive" assessments of our current troubles. A prime example was the failure of any author to mention television as the technological "Marvel" that was the root cause of the unraveling of every aspect of American life. While the proof of this statement has only recently been proven down to the molecular level of neurotransmitters and brain circuitry, the general principles have been known in the scientific community for at least two decades. Another glaring omission that fits under the category of the effects of biology on human behavior is the discovery of the precise biological mechanisms that cause the overtly antisocial behavior of the sociopath. While sociopaths makeup slightly less than 1% of the human population, some very large and very convincing research studies have shown that these individuals, when they are able to gain positions of power and influence, cause roughly 99% of the misery in the world for the “other” 99%.

Morris Creedon-McVean

How Television Tore America Apart in a Generation

How Television Ripped America Apart in a Single Generation

Old Glory Pushed Back 150 years Due to Unanticipated Consequences of  Technology

June 17, 2012

Who would have ever guessed that such a seeming benign activity would have the power to change the values and behavior of an entire nation in one generation?  Only one man, Marshall McCluhan, a professor and futurist at McGill University in a book, "The Medium is the Message" c.1960.  He warned that electronic media would overload our nervous systems with data and it would make us sick, because we had evolved no defenses against this new form of stimulus.  He said we would unconsciously protect ourselves by blocking incoming data, but not being aware of the cause, we would make poor choices about what stimuli we ignored.  And so we did: we ignored our spouses, children, families ,friends, schools, and how our children were doing at school ,and what our government was doing.  Like zombies we bought any made up product the Madison Avenue boys thought up, and they fortunes.  The products we were told we needed became increasingly more expensive, and we bought them as we were told to.  Our ability to perform critical thinking disappeared in a narcotic daze.  Soon our "must haves" exceeded the fathers income, and he worked overtime and weekends, and the mothers left home to work, and this hastened the deterioration of all the things we ignored listed above.  Next, the opportunists made a bundle of money by doing us a "big favor" and let have the desired products on credit.  The noose tightened as we became a nation of unhappy obsessed consumers becoming deeper and deeper in debt as we watched our institutions: marriages, schools, and government unravel and we couldn't stop any of it.  Many trusted the government to fix things, but the government was no longer interested in doing that.

Opportunists, like sociopaths, quickly learned you could tell the public ANYTHING to get elected, then do what they wanted, which was to line their pockets with money by selling their votes to lobbyists, and passing unfair laws that benefited only themselves and their wealthy friends.  So everything the government did to solve the multitude of problems that arose because we were to busy watching TV, failed, because they were designed to fail.  GW Bush's "No Child Left Behind" was incredibly stupid and made things worse.  Children don't learn more because you evaluate them more frequently and more thoroughly. Teachers were forced to "teach to the test" because their evaluations and jobs depended on the children's scores.  This made school even more boring and of course, children even less even, if their test scores went up.  That is an example of the perverse nature of government solutions when government has no interest in solving problems, because the do not care about the American People. This became the prevailing attitude in Congress because such a high percentage of Congress were sociopaths.  Sociopaths are biologically incapable of caring about anyone but themselves

This to went largely unnoticed until the party in power went too far, and went war with Iraq against the guidelines of the Constitution, and lied without guilt about the reasons we were going to war on many occasions. This war was really to protect our oil interests in the Middle East, and nothing to do with terrorism.  It cost the country the deaths of 8000 soldiers and probably three times as many were permanently disabled.  It generated 1.5 Trillion dollars in debt, and Bush responds to the shortage of funds by giving tax CUTS to the rich.  Now a significant portion of the American public stared to wake up from their half century of TV induced daze, and found that the government was completely corrupt, both parties getting richer selling their votes to the lavish "donations" (bribes in any other country) to lobbyists, even those of foreign governments which should be considered our enemies. Mean while neurophysiologists and psychiatrists had figured out the mechanism that caused people to "loose their minds" while watching television down to the molecular and genetic predisposition level.  So, 50 years after McCluhan warned us of the dangers of television, which we ignored, he was proven to be correct, not only at the level of behavior and overt social deterioration but the neurological mechanism he speculated would cause this was proven to be also correct. A genius, far ahead of his peers, anticipated a totally unexpected consequence, so powerful, and so detrimental , that the very survival of our nation as we have known it , is in serious trouble.

We now from this example and many others that human behavior is as much due to biological factors as psychological factors. That means our world view has been based on only half the truth. And since our institutions are based on a deeply flawed understanding of human nature it is no surprise that are crumbling during a time of radical change and stress it produces. So the rules and guidelines have to be rewritten, almost to the point of starting over. But the Constitution was wisely designed to be a flexible document capable of adapting to unanticipated changes in the world and in our country. A few simple amendments would level the playing field and enable us to return to negotiating solutions to problems instead of them being dictated by a party that has gained an excess of power to the point where imbalance render the system of governance, which was based on principles of balance and a system of "checks and balances" to insure that that happened. Simply put is not the viable system that it was after WWII.

To return the Constitution to a viable living document, amendments such as term limits for congress would dilute the effectiveness of lobbyists; a revised tax system based on flat rate of 10-15% with no deductions would be fair and everyone could understand it. Compare that to Mitt Romneys’ 2010 tax return, published on the internet with analysis by tax experts, is over 200 pages long. I'm not an accountant, but even I know that the shear length of document implies tax evasion, because the filer has taken deductions for hundreds of items many or most of them highly questionable if not overtly illegal. The documentation of an offshore bank account also reveals that he is likely to be hiding money from the government, since that is the sole reason those accounts were established in the first place.

There are many other good ideas about how to change the rules to rebalance the system, but before we can do that we have to retake control of the government. that's why these November elections are so important.

By the way, I have not watched TV since 1969 when I read it 3 times in college at the University of Texas.  While my peers were watched “The Twilight Zone”, “All in the Family”, endless reruns, soap operas, and every sport known to man, and creating the curious phenomena of the “football widow”; I was reading non-fiction books about new thought in wide variety of fields.  Perhaps, that is why I have learned these revolutionary concepts, which will change the world every bit as much as the discovery that the world is not flat, but a sphere.  It took Europeans over 200 year in the late Middle Ages to accept that concept. We don't even have 10% of that time to learn this new world view.

With our world in social and economic chaos, beginning a period of profoundly challenging climactic change, AND running out on natural recourses (most critically water and oil), or species must harness our most creative an imaginative thinking in order to survive.  Having a more accurate model of human of human nature and our history of our species has to be helpful in our attempt to survive and avoid the mistakes of the past.

Morris Creedon-McVean

June 18, 2012, revised May 4, 2013

Austin, Texas

Blog  www.biologybehaviorchaos.blogspot.com

walklikeaturtle@hotmail.com

How We Got into This Mess

The Shadow Discovers Some Answers in the Oddest of Places

• How Did We Get into this Mess of all Messes?
• Wednesday  May 9, 2012
• 
  
• I have been aware of the destructive power of the sociopath since my early days working at the North Texas State Hospital (c. 2003). Reading the case histories of these people is an eye opener. the fall into the class of mental disorders that is by far the least understood: The Personality Disorders, which in addition to Anti-social Personal Personality Disorder, includes Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcisistic Personality Disorder, and a few other more obscure categories. Even though in my private practice in Seattle which was at least 50% psychiatric, I rarely saw any of these disorders. I had become very adept at what Freud would call neurotic disorders, Major Depression, Dysthymia (chronic low grade depression), General Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, ADHD, and Bipolar Mood Disorder. In fact I did a better job with these these "garden variety" psychiatric illnesses, than most psychiatrists, because they were busy caring for sicker patients, those with Major Psychiatric disorders like Schizophrenia and refractory Bipolar Disease. The psychiatrists would "short change" patients with these less disorders, spend little time with them, 5 min usually. I would spend a half an hour with these folks doing a bit of supportative psychotherapy, but mostly just explaining their "disease", though it is becoming increasing hard to call any thing Freud would have called a neurosis, when everybody has one or two, and the real problem isn't the biological inblalances in the individual that is the problem, but the "environment", the society is the real culprit. Our biology, more specific the neurophysiology of the brain, hasn't changed in millions of years, but since industrialization (just the last 400 years or so) our environment has changed dramatically. As, Marshall McCluhan pointed out c.1960, our nervous system was particularly vulnerable to a rate of change in the rate of exposure to new in formation brought to us ("ready or not") by the electronic media, that in order to adapt we would essentially have to become very neurotic (in Freudean terms) in order to cope. If we were not conscious of this process we would be prone to making responses from the more primitive parts of the brain, which would be non-adaptive. His assessment was so brilliant, and unfortunately so ignored because TV appeared so "harmless", that it in fact triggered the downfall of the entire moral, ethical and social structure that had made the Constitution so effective and thus made this nation such a glorious example to the entire world of what a human society had the potential to be. Thus at the peak of The American Success Story, television arrived and within one generation brought us to our knees. Television was such an effective electronic narcotic and used so universally used (in a classic addictive pattern), that it lower our defenses to the sociopath. So precipitated by our lack of awareness of the power of television, we suddenly failed the essential task of "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance", because we stopped paying attention to what the EVIL element in our society was doing. The sociopaths, always ready to exploit an opportunity jumped into the void of attentiveness created by the distraction of TV, and with lightning speed took control of our entire society in a single generation. So, that where we are now, waking from a 30 year slumber to find that aliens, who hate us and everybody else, have control of everything. And while still recovering from the shock of this realization, we find that we must immediately FIGHT to regain control of our society, or the problem of regaining control will become vastly more difficult. The longer it takes us to take definitive action. And, to make things oh so very much worse ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE SCENARIO I JUST 
• DESCRIBED. 
•        
• Since it is essential to understand what a sociopath is, and how  to recognize them; a good place to start educating yourself is is to read a couple of books on the subject.  There are several worthwhile books written in the past decade.  Their target audience is the general puplic and other professionals, but these informative books are more slanted toward the general public  Most do talk some about the new understanding of the biological nature of the disorder, but since they are psychologists, their knowledge and experience comes mostly from their clinical experience of working with these patients.  You can learn in a few hours of reading how to recognize the sociopath, which is the first step in ending their ability to climb to positions of power and sabotage all of the good things that people have tried to do to make things better.  I'm sure you have noticed that many of the important aspects of our society have gotten worse, not better,
•  
• Morris Creedon-McVean
• Austin, Texas, the land of drought

Romney's Dirty Laundry Makes the Choice Easy

Sunset on the Influence of Mormons on American Society

Texans Store Gasoline

Haven't WE had Enough?

Texans, another "things you can do" reminder.  Today, I checked with several local gas stations in northeast Austin near where I live.  None of them had back-up generators or plans to obtain one.  So when the water runs out and the electrical power with it, few if any gas stations will be able to pump fuel.  There aren't enough short term generators on retailers inventories to supply the gas stations, and there will be fierce competition for those available. Therefore they will have to shipped from out of state, a process that will take 1-3 weeks minimum.  Within a week or two every generator in the country will be bought by Texans, and there will still be a tremendous demand.  Keep in mind there will be 26 million Texans with no water, electricity and and a dramatic shortage of gasoline.  Ironic, since Houston refines 60% of the nations gasoline.  We've got enough for 250 million people but we can't use it ourselves.  That's not a joke but laugh anyway.  What else can you do in the face of such preposterous circumstances. And our government, whom we elect and pay to serve us has not mentioned the catastrophic consequences of running out of water. And from all appearances, they have no plans to do so.  Aren't you glad we elected a governor who doesn't believe government has any business in public service.  He's already announced his plan to get rid of Medicaid.  Not to worry Rick, 80% of the population will be forced to leave, so in a couple of years you will preside over a ghost state.  That's a joke.

So, keep your car tanks full and store all the gasoline that you possibly can.  Don't forget to put preservatives in every container or it will "spoil" and be useless for your car or generator if you have had the foresight to get one before the panic.  I purchase the top of the line Honda generator a month ago.  Texans, get one while you can. Be sure and tell the sales staff why you are purchasing the generator.  If sales increase dramatically, perhaps the retail vendors will figure out what is happening and increase their stock.

Not an Advertisement A
Visual Reminder

Since, Perry has declared in writing to retail customers via the water districts that "there is not water problem, and no further conservation measures will be necessary", and he rejected the seasoned advice that he didn't want to here from the Texas Water Commission, who had a long history of managing water problems in this state for over a decade, "immediate drastic cut backs be made in our usage fo power and water on June 29th when our reservoirs hit a "trigger point" low matching the record low of 1951.  Perry blocked those actions which are routinely followed by utility districts,  The last Friday it was announced that he fired the entire Commission and replaced them with allies form the real estate and financial sectors, not a single one of which has any experience in managing the complexities of water resource management.  Not a scientist on the new commission.  Just "yes" people incompetent to assess the situation and ploitically biased against against conservation of any type. 

So the die is cast; Perry will watch us run dry without even a warning to the public of the severity of the problem.  A simple calculation: water on hand divided by the usage rate, both public information indicates that our reservoirs will be bone dry by the first week in February.  Unless of course something changes.  Unlikely that our usage will change since Perry opposes it and the public simply refuses to stop stop watering their lawns (25% of our total usage).  So Travis County and other areas in south Texas will be very ugly very suddenly around Feb 1st.  Residents will have no water or power.  Gas will be unavailable because gas can't be pumped without power.  All retail, including supermarkets will be closed according to current standarts.  The EMT and medical facilities will be completely overwhelmed beyond capacity.  Evacuate a large portion of 1.7 million people? How, the freeways will become parking lots, virtually frozen.  What would DFWand Houston do with this migrants if the got there?  Those cities have more water in their reservoirs that we do, but certainly not enough for millions of people.  And shelter, recall how few Katrina victims Texas absorbed after great delay.  

Certainly, the event, running out of water will stimulate stage 2 of Kubler-Rosses universally accepted pattern of how humanity deals with loss: anger.  Food riots are certainly a possibility. Any ugly thing you can think of with probably will happen to one degree or another.  I'm sure Gov Perry will be several continents away, as whatever miracle he believed in that was going to save us did not occur.

Do what you can to prepare.  Organize anyone willing to step out of denial that a catastrophe is coming, and pray.  If you feel like you need to leave, do it soon, because the last few weeks  before the last drop of water is gone, escape will be profoundly difficult.  Simply, put, how are you going to drive out this giant state without refilling your gas tank, is wishful thinking.  And it's not as if your fuel problems end when you cross the State line, nature does not honor these imaginary lines.  New Mexico has minimal services which will be overwhelmed immediatiely.  The desert and drought continue to the Pacific Ocean.  Colorado has it's own set of environmental emergencies.  The midwest has dried up all the way to southern Minnesota.  That leaves, East through one of the poorist areas of the country, but virtually no capacity to absorb a flood of migrating Texans.  Bottom, line, you are faced with a 1000 mile journey at a snails pace , 5 mph, with the constant stress of finding food and water; and little chance of ever sleeping in a motel.  Look at the numbers, our current weather pattern which is going on 6 years with no signs of change, puts Texas with an annual rainfall similar to New Mexico, and that supports a population density at the most optimistic projections, that when applied to Texas which is twice the size, projects a sustainable population of 5 million maximum.

That means of our current 26.5 million, will have to shrink by over 20 million over a short period of time.  Once urban areas go dry this winter, the reservoir system for all practical purposes is permanently broken because it will take decades for the reservoirs to refill to a useable level.  The urban populations will dead or gone way before that.  It is ironic that the urban areas, currently with far more resources than rural areas, are vastly more vulnerable in this situation, and will have almost no choice but to migrate.  If you accept that 80% of the population must leave over a short 2 year period (and unless something miraculous happens in the next six months---how is anyone going to wait 2 years before leaving?).  But, for the sake of this theoretical model whose purpose is to expose the unanticipated risks of migrating, that add 20,000 cars to our already congested freeways.  And they will all be going one direction East or Northeast.  That folks is one Siberian sized parking lot. How will the local people deal with wrecks, brake downs, running our of gas, medical emergencies?  Simple put if you have a serious medical problem, chances are you die in your car.  The very young and very old will be very vulnerable to heat and or cold stress.  Ever tried to keep your car remotely comfortable while idling for 10 hours?  Can't be done; especially when you need to turn your engine off as much as possible to conserve fuel.  I'll stop now; but continue to think of the myriad of difficulties and how you would have to deal with them.

I think it will take an organized and spirited national effort to avoid millions of deaths.  But maybe that is what America needs right now to jump start a desperate need for unity and community. Having a clear purpose, saving people that can't help them selves, with a simple set of tasks (moving food and water around and giving it grateful people) is a vastly more fulfilling life than our usual "worries" like what color the new car should be, what TV show are we watching tonight, or what am I going to wear to work tomorrow.  We have become a nation of consumers, valuing only money and void of any fulfilling activities.  Spoiled physically and so disconnected with nature, the average citizen does not any details of where our water comes from and why it comes out of the tap.  I was shocked when I first stared talking to people here in Austin, the capital of the "the energy State" that few knew that electricity generation is dependent on vast quantities of water, or that gas wouldn't come out of the pump with electricity.  We've taken too much for granted for far too long.  Perhaps, the hidden blessing in this Climate Change driven disaster, will be that it wll shock us back into an appreciation for the necessities of life that we have taken for granted for long it has rendered us nearly helpless when stressed by weather change.  And as World Climactic Weather Changes go, this current one is just a small interdictory test.  At this point we are failing the test.  But we have choices.  We have the freedom to make them. And we have both the hard wired (genetic) spirit, toughness, and dogged determination to turn that around.  But there is no time to waste on bickering, political or otherwise.  We must immediately do what obviously needs to be done and put our differences aside.

Revision of September 19, 2012
This situation has solidified: Gov. Perry who doesn't believe in World Climactic Change had firmly decided that there will be no cut backs in use of water or power, which was recommended with urgency by the highly competent Texas Water Commission headed by Professor of Biology and Wildlife Preservation, Neil Wilkins, on June 29th, immediate and dramatic cutbacks in our use of power and water, which Perry blocked.  Wilkins a brilliant man with an impeccable pedigree and unmatched experience in water and forest management, has left for a job at a private wildlife reservation in Corpus.  Perry, replaced the entire commission with "yes men", loyal to him and all from the real estate financial sectors.  Not a one of them has any training or experience with water management.  Not a scientist among them.  So the new Texas Water Commission know only one thing about water, how to waste it.  So with our water on hand clearly defined (measured and posted daily), and our usage rate unlikely to reduce (residents and business have refused to conserve since this drought began, I divided the water on hand by the usage rate (likely to go up since our population continues to grow wildly (26,000 new residents of travis County in 2011, the hottest driest year on record), this 8th grade algebra calculation revealed that we have 5.22 months until we ARE COMPLETELY OUT OF WARER IN TRAVIS COUNTY.  Even a level 5 hurricane making a direct hit on the south gulf coast would only push this date a couple of months.  Our only hope lies in our own effort.

Morris Creedon-McVean. D.O.

Drought in Texas, What Can I Do? Part 2

Keep a Months Supply of Food and Water

Focus on skills:
Every adult and child above the age of 10 should take an Medical First Aid class.
If you haven't had a CPR course in 3 years take a refresher course.
Have a basic First Aid Kit for home and car.
If you are not established with a primary care physician, make an appointment.  If things get hectic a doctor that has a relationship with you has a greater obligation to see you under urgent conditions than someone they have never seen before.  Emergency rooms will not be an option unless you are dying, so you need an office based Dr.  If you need specialty care he/she can arrange it for you much easier that you can for yourself.  In addition, if they have been in practice for a few years, they will know the best specialists to send you to.


Have on hand a variety of ordinary tools and a book on how to make simple repairs to household appliances, plumbing, electrical.
Be sure you have back-up power at least to connect to the internet.  Battery backups with protection against power surges and electronic noise.  APC products are very reliable; I have been using them for 20 years.
Have an emergency radio that requires no power, you supply the power by turning a crank.
Have lots of flash lights and spare batteries. "Enoloop" rechargeables are by far the best on the market; the hold 90% of a full charge for 2 years and cost no more than other NiMH rechargables; available from Amazon.  LED lights give the most light for the least power by far.  Have several for the house and a couple for the car.


For the car, road services may not be available so carry tools and equipment to be able to help yourself and other.  Long 12" heavy duty jumper cables.  A tire pump that works of of your car battery.  A can of that stop leak stuff; it works.  Be sure your spare is aired up and holds air.  A basic tool kit.  A couple o blankets.  A quart of oil.  A gallon of antifreeze.  Non perishable food for a couple of days.  A couple of gallons of water.  Be sure you have a jack that will work on your car.  Women:  if you have never changed a tire; do it at least once in your own driveway with someone experienced watching that can give you instructions if you get stuck.  Doing it at least once with lessen the fear factor if it happens when you are on the road.  There is so much metal debris ANY tire can go flat these days, so don't be fooled into thinking that if you new expensive tires you can't have a flat; it is just plain wrong.  Everyone who drives a car should be able to change a tire, no excuses unless you are disabled.  So practice in a safe place with an experienced person.  Know where your car's guide book is.  Some cars jacks go in odd places and it is hard to figure out without the manual.  Accept the fact that you and your clothes are going to get grimey in the process.  It is not the time to be prissey about the procedure.


Keep your car 3/4 full of gas.  Learn to check the oil and coolant levels and do it at least once a month and before any car trip of any distance.  The idiot lights can, and often are, wrong.

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2012