Diogee to be Jailed

or Never get between a drug company and a chemo sale

Copyright, 2009, Terry Turner

First of all please be informed that I do not know what I am writing about. Sometimes I have feelings that have little to do with facts and I have met few facts that had anything to do with feelings. Also, I realize that many of you do not yet know my world famous dog, Diogee, or how he became a pig, but that is your loss and another story.

This story is about how Diogee come to go to jail when he had cancer a while back. You have to admit that cancer is about as unpleasant a subject as you would care to read about, never mind the pain, aggravation, and going to jail and all such might be associated with a person or a dog or a hog for that matter.

Anyway it is pretty simple. I could tell Diogee was not feeling too good. He usually helps me with the mail and all. Generally he will bring in mail left by the United States Post Office and he will throw the first class stuff on my desk and then he generally will trash the rest or use it fluff up his bedding --- he puts a great store by grocery store inserts for his bed but he does not care for things like Office Depot catalogs. Generally he will help me lick stamps and seal envelopes and such. But he was acting too tuckered to do any of that and finally I ast him if he was feeling poorly and whether he wanted to go to Vet.

It took me a two or three weeks to convince him to go. Diogee and the Vet had previously had some run ins at the city council meetings and Diogee really did not want to go see him; after all who would want to go see a Vet that had voted for a twenty million dollar tax bond; but she was the only Vet in the county.

This is a pretty long story, any one can see that, so I am going to shorten it up right here, then it won't be so long. She, the Vet, says Diogee has a sort of not too bad cancer and ought to have Chemotherapy. Diogee says he will think about it. So I took him home and we discussed it a few days.

I told Diogee he probably ought to have chemo but he says to me, he says I remember that doctor was going to take out your sister's kidneys and then she got well by taking choline... a plain old vitamin...hell even an old dog like me knows you have to take choline to help out a sick kidney. What if I just need some juice or vitamins?

I says to him will Diogee, it is your body and I will help you do what you want to do. Well we went back to the Vet and says, "Doc, what else you got, we do not care much for the chemo idea." Well, Doc says, you have to take the chemo or die." I says, well, wait a minute, are you telling me in the whole world its chemo or die. And the Vet says, "Absolutely."

So I says, but Doc, I know, personal like of people who got on Gerson's Therapy for Cancer... it's one of them well knowed and famous like medical doctor treatments and people got well on that and it is mainly about drinking juice and such. Doc, says, "Maybe so, but the only thing for Diogee is chemo."

"But Doc," says I, "Diogee says that all the dogs say that chemo stuff will make you as sick as dog and it has not hardly been improved none at all since it was invented... and a better body burner doesn't exist since its invention as far as I can hear. We'll go think about it."

So we went back to the house and I fixed up some fresh biscuits and gravy and a nice tea, no sugar, for our lunch. And I says, "Diogee, it looks like she thinks you better have chemo."

Diogee, says, well, I could have chemo but I know it will make me as sick as hog for sure. And anyways I was reading that Linus Pauling and that bunch had some great information about Vitamin C therapy and all such like that --- you known he is well knowed among dogs who like science as he won one of the No-Bell prizes. I sure would like to be that smart."

"Well" says I, "We can't be waiting for you to win no No-Bell prize. We have to do something."

So we go back the Vet and the Vet, she says in a nutshell, "There are no alternatives. Take the chemo or die."

So I says to her, "Doc, how many people die from taking Chemo?" And she says why would you ask that and I says because if a hundred people take chemo and 90 of them don't live it don't sound so hot to me and she says if you want to ask questions you better get out of here. Then she floors me when she says, "You get that Diogee in here and on chemo or I will have to report you for a non-chemical user and I will write you up for high blood pressure besides."

Then I says, "Well, I do not like that you are telling Diogee that there are no alternatives. Saying there are no alternatives is like when that doctor telling me I had to have a hemorrhoid operation and that I had no alternative and then my mother-in-law tells me that by taking vitamin B6 I can cure hemorrhoids and then I tell the doctor and he says taking vitamins is not a treatment and then I take the vitamin B6 for a week and get rid of the hemorrhoids. I say vitamins may not be a treatment but then I also say rain is not a fire truck but what do I care if it puts the fire out. And, by the way, I understand a real good hemorrhoid operation runs ten to thirty thousand whereas I guess vitamin B6 is about five dollars --- but of course you do lose the advantage of sharp knives, phone poles, and recovery time and all that. Any way the Doc tells me I am ignorant and I says durn sure am or I would be making a commission selling hemorrhoid operations like you do." Then the fight started; but that was a while ago.

Well that went on a while. When it came to alternatives I mentioned cabbage --- what ever did happen to those studies back in World War II --- no patents, no profits I guess. And I mentioned all the alternative clinics, and I mentioned Gerson again, and I mentioned magnetic clay, fasting, juicing, avoiding things that, in my opinion, are common poisons like high fructose corn syrup (some fools want you to think it is natural), monosodium glutamate, margarine which is just a way of selling hydrogenated oil products; I mentioned bioresonace type resources, and lots of similar stuff but in the end she, the Vet, says chemo or die.

So we went home agin. Diogee was in the house making us a toasted cheese sandwich. Diogee is partial to goat cheese and we both like homemade sourdough bread. Anyways, Diogee was making our lunch and I was rocking on the front porch when whoosh, whoosh-like the Sheriff rolls up to my house in his big airconditioned black and white. "Howdy." he sez, "Howdy." sez I. Then I said, "Sheriff Baumgardener, what can I do for you? We are about to have lunch, would you like a sourdough sandwich?"

And he says, "Don't try to butter me up. I am here to arrest that durn dog of yourn."

Well, my jaw fairly bounced off my belt buckle and I says, "But Sheriff, what has he done now?"

"He ain't done nothing," says the Sheriff, "but he is wanted for chemo treatment."

And I says, "But Sheriff, me and Diogee don't want no chemotreats. We have already told Doc that we are looking to do some alternator stuff like the Gerson medical treatment or something that don't make the dog as sick as hog."

And he sez, "It really don't matter what you want. This is government business, at least it is the business of the government to enforce the will of them that knows better, and that dog has got to be chemoed right now. So, you just surrender him."

"Surrender him?" Says, I, "Surrender him, how can you be asting me to surrender a dog that ain't done nothing, nor something either?"

"Well," says Sheriff Baumgardener, "I don't make the rules. The rules is that dog has got to have chemotreats and if I have to take him to jail to do it that is the way it is going to be. After all I have to enforce the will of the government of the United States of America and the people of this fair state and I am here to protect you with your rights and see that people get chemoed."

And I says, "Well, does your franchise as sheriff say that you get a goodly commission on these chemo treats? I thought I was the tax payers that elected you or am I wrong about that?

"No," he says, smart alecky like, "I am duly elected by the folks hereabouts."

So I says, "Are any folks hereabout telling you to arrest Diogee and stick him full of approved drugs that are going to make him dog sick and that we don't want?"

And he says, "You know the people hereabout don't give a damn with Diogee and his doctor. And you know as well as I do that the Vet turned you in for being a non-chemical user and avoiding the chemo fees and such, and she is demanding that something be done. Hell, she told me the drug company that sells the chemo has signed a citizens petition to the government about this situation with Diogee already; and there is a big complaint about you and Diogee interfering with the interstate marketing of chemicals, drugs, and medicine. As far as I know you may be costing senators and congersmen a lot of donations or at least lunch money."

And I says, "Sheriff, how can a giant corporation like a drug company go around masquerading as an ordinary citizen and signing petitions and such like they are somebody. You know as well as I do that citizen's petition ought to be from folks like you or me, not some giant corporation with more lawyers than employees?" Then he says, "Don't get smart, that is lawyer stuff and you know it." And I says, "Well, I know it is lawyer stuff, they always lead with their laywers and their their boughten and paid-for scientists and experts that have never been beyond sight of the front door of the senate dining room or thier bank.

And I says, "We ain't going to jail to take no chemo shots. My dog and me do not want to do it. That body standing here with my lunch is my dog's body and he has made clear that he does not want no chemicalization of something he does not trust."

Well, quick as wink that durn sheriff put the cuffs on me and on Diogee and before we knowed it we was in jail. It did not disturb me an awful lot. We were in jail before when the gumint declared Diogee a pig (before and after that he was my dog, but that is another story).

Like I said, I better shorten this up, so I will right here. Well I told the Sheriff that I would sue when I got out of jail and he says he won't do no good and I says a dog's body is his own and he says to me, smart aleck like, you need to grow up and, I quote, "You just think you own your body, the gumint owns your body and your dog's body and you ought to know better than to get between a cancer victim and chemo sale. Do you realize how much money can be made off chemo? Grow up, Old Son, grow up; you might treat cancer with cabbage juice, but no one can make fistfuls of dollars on cabbage juice. Just quieten down and realize that you are fighting the former almighty dollar"

Well, the short of it is Diogee got chemoed. I hope he will live over it but he is pretty sick at this time. I have taken a third mortgage on the farm, mostly to pay for chemo and to help with my legal bills. My lawyer, who jumped to my defense, says to me, "You are right, this is America and you surely own your own body. We will take it all the way to the Supreme Court where the socialists are if it takes every dime you have." He made me feel real good about it, but still Diogee has been chemotreated and, just like taking vaccines full of horrible preservatives, I am not sure he will ever be well again. But hey! Whats is a little autism, Alzheimer's, or a dysfunctional immune system, and such to a healthy person?

I would say this about chemo. Never get between a drug company and a sale... you are sure likely to come out the loser; unless, of course, you are getting a commission or at least a trip to a big golf course.

But at night, sometimes, when I sleep on the front porch and look up at the stars a winking and blinking and I jist lie there and stare off in the illimitable reaches of space, I wonder to myself, if I did not sell my body, how did it come to be that I do not own my own body nohow?

And, how come I am not the one that gets to decide if I want take chemo or eat cabbage if that is what I want to do with my body? You just ast me that? How come?

Can you just answer that?

Please?

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Hey! If you think its tough reading this stuff, you ought to try writing it.

The Beautiful Voice of Lovely Susan Boyle

Copyright, Terry Turner, 2009 --- permission to quote this item in entirety granted without prior permission.

Thank you God for this beautiful lady and for her incredible voice.

Dear friends, say what you will, think what you may, lovely Susan Boyle is a voice that speaks to us from the very depths of the universe, it rings with the tones of God's own hammer when he first began to beat out time and space on his karmic forges.

This wonderful lady surely comes to us from the first dawn of our first days to remind us in sound, not in words, how it must have been, how it should have been, how it yet must be.

When I hear this incredibly beautiful human singing, I know that in the end the dark lords are going to be cast down forever.

Have you lost your sense of the infinite? Have you lost the connection to the spirit? Then listen to the sound of the spirit, listen to Susan Boyle and be healed.

Sing, beautiful Susan, sing, may it please God, sing on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SncyQKe6CnQ

Barf Bags and Biscuits

Copyright, 2009, Terry Turner

As an old Texan and a cowboy who has often had to fend for himself, I can rustle up a pan of biscuits and bacon in a jiffy, as we say. Believe me, if I can get my hands on a steak, a tomato, a jalapeno, I can whoop up a steaming bowl of chili. If I have the vittles I can put together some fine grease and quickly.... a little survival trick I learned at my Mom's knee. I ain't much but I do have some common sense; at least enough to tell the difference between comeuppance and commendation.

If you want to cook, or do any similar thing, you must have the makings and you have know the general rules which may vary somewhat in detail but in general are unchanging.

Makings include at the most fundamental level, an idea of what to use, how much to use, and how to put it together. If you cannot have control of those things, which are the reference points, then you will not have your breakfast. In the same light, you need measurements, standards, and some known basics to plan, to budget, to figure out how to plant a garden, or when to change an air filter... it all comes from some rudimentary "knowns."

If you cannot use your experience to tell the difference between a three gallon cedar water bucket and an eight ounce tin cup, your measurements won't work out. The measurements must be meaningful to you and to the world in which you live. When the knowns ain't knowns, then you aren't likely to get your breakfast or your retirement plan or anything else in order at any time, and maybe not at all.

Even when you can measure, you have to understand the variables... like what is the difference between a cup and half-a-cup. You must know if you can get by with water if you don't have milk. As long as it is practical, as long as it makes sense, who cares... git'er done and git'cher breakfast.

A person should not be bothered by things that just do not make sense. In other words, your frame work must make sense or all is lost. Why, for example, should your property, your well water, your garden, or your economic well being be in the hands of people who not only don't care about you but are known crooks too boot? It makes cooking hard if you can't trust folks... in fact it takes all the fun out of it.

I only make note of this because I fear that by mid to late summer 2009, all frames of reference are going to become so foggy, that no one can tell the difference between a biscuit and a barf bag.

Shoot, nothing seems right any more; even my old dog, Diogee, can't keep his gravy down when I turn on the TV. Generally, if I do turn the TV on, I have to turn it off because I get a funny feeling in my head when people are making a big deal about some movie star divorcee while the world economy is about to crash and our constitution is being trashed.

For example, I used to like Bill O'Reilly now and then, but you can't tell the difference between him and the $64,000 Question any more. I can't tell if he is trying to editorialize, speechify, or entertain.... I am the kinda guy that likes to tune in to the news, get the news, and turn off the tube; but all you can do about that anymore is just turn the durn thing off and check the Internet, wade through the nutcases, and try to dredge up a fact here and there.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that you don't get it; you do get it! You would just prefer to be wrong, the problem is YOU ARE RIGHT.

Things are wobbly, things are sort of spinning out of control; things are beginning to make less and less sense. Believe me, when you can't trust what "they" say; when a dollar is not a useful measure of value; when you can't control anything in your life without a permit, a license, or an inspection, then my friends the bad apples are about to own the barrel ... what is going on ? Don't ask me! I already can't understand the frame of reference.

Before the current current events I used to think that we got together and carried water to put out fires but, these days, it seems like every one in charge is still chopping kindling for the fire when we should have been filling water buckets. That's what I mean about a frame of reference, it needs to measure up and make sense. What can investors think when the government overturns all traditional contracts without a discussion; when bonds are owed one minute and the next minute they are owed but minus 65% of their value; or what can you think when you get a title to property only to known that the government can take it for the "greater good." I wonder whose greater good that would really be and whose hand is in whose pocket; and who has the right to cancel private property rights? Surely, surely we can all see it is hard to measure things when everything is in flux.

I am not the fellow who can grasp how we can afford to save a $40,000 dollar a year job for someone if it is going to cost the taxpayers $250,000 a year to do it. That seems to be the kind of non-think going on in Washington. A fool like me thinks that we will lose $210,000 per job per year that way and tax existing job holders to the bone. Of course, I was never much on math or science that sounds way too much like an Aggie joke to me. Maybe buying $40,000 cars for $250,000 will work out on some planet but I don't think it will be this planet.

I believe those DC fellows would produce a lot less laws and taxes and spend a whole lot less money if they had to get a shovel and clean out barns, or mow yards, swamp out a Motel 6, roughneck, or roof houses for a year or two. I do know there's a lot of biscuit making folks out here tired of sending biscuits to Washington. I say let'em eat biscuits if they can make biscuits out of their durned legislation.

Remember this, the people who are supposedly "fixing" things are the people who helped break the things they are fixing! Do you have a sense that this is not going to work out?

If you think this will work out, just remember these folks gave us bankrupt social security, broken medicare, a ruined voting system that none can trust, border in-security, immigration un-control, and, who can believe, un-education (hello this is how to make change for a dollar), energy dependence, federal oversight and estimates, an some say a 470,000 page tax code---I guess it is too big to count; these are the folks giving your money away to known criminals, foreign dictators, and special interest groups dedicated to ruination of your life at your expense.

These are the people who want to tell you how and if you can plant a garden, tax you on the view from your house, and they want to own the water under your feet; these are the folks that don't think a voter should show ID, and they don't think they ought to protect your private property rights; in fact I guess they oppose private property if you can judge --- some how I don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling when I think about these amateur goat ropers trying to fix anything.

I can tell you one thing, it is sure hard to make biscuits when all the frames of reference keep changing... and keep changing for the worse.

All this reminds me of what old Winston Churchill said once upon a time, "I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." Not only was he right, but a nation with any kind of decent representation for its people would have the lowest tax structure on earth for businesses and none for its citizens.

Foto Credit:

Unknown. The folks who helped build America by the sweat of the brow and with no thought for politics or political agendas; folks like these cotton pickers and bole pullers: Annie and Joe Turner with children, Dorothy, Ollie, William (Buddy) 1937 near Squaw Mountain (which was near Oakland which was not far from Shannon), Texas were about to wash up in a stock tank.

Joe was the son of stepmother Ada and Lige Turner. Annie was the daughter Emma and Charlie Whitsitt. The words dole, subsidy, and entitlement had hardly been heard in a lifetime and had little or no meaning for folks who finished their biscuits and gravy before sunrise and had their cornbread and beans at sundown. These folks could never get the concept of TARP and, frankly, neither do I.

TARP sounds like a New York Ciddy or Frisco type idea to me sort like advertising---lots of hype and little substance; the old where is the beef problem. Or maybe it is more like trying to get tacos al pastor in Russia; you might git some but they won't be worth a hoot.

A Spider and Its Leaf

Spiders need no excuse.
Copyright 2009, Terry Turner

Powerful large hands, deeply marked with white scars won in brutal tasks, tenderly held a small drying yellow leaf. Upon the leaf a very tiny almost translucent green spider busily spun songs in its own miniature universe. The man studied the tiny spider and, bit by bit, his hands began to relax as he recalled an almost forgotten world.

Those powerful hands changed their aspect, the taunt sinews mellowed, the powerful muscles relaxed, the constant readiness drained away and, as the planes of his hands softened, you could see that once upon a time those same hardened hands had touched love, had expressed tenderness, otherwise they could not have so tenderly held the universe of the deaf spider.

At that moment, had the man of the hands chosen to speak, tears would have been in his roughened voice.

Carefully he placed the leaf into a large crevice in the stone wall, a safe harbor for the spinning spider. Rising from the stone cold floor, he drove the now unfamiliar soft feelings from his heart and began to gird himself in preparation for the march to the arena; a stone pen surmounted by indifferent witnesses to the bloody combats which followed there one after another, endless, without season, without reason.

Survivor of two hundred and twelve combats, will his hands recall tenderness tomorrow?

Red is the color of blood, and of fire, and of steel, and of iron; do we not know their colors too well?

The spider may spin without knowing what we do; but we have no such excuse.

The gladiator without choice may perish or may live.

The witnesses have chosen.

The spider spins.

Round and round.

And we round

And round

And round

Again.

Reflection on Reflection --- Map Makers

Copyright, 2009, Terry Turner

Today flows not one river that flowed yesterday.

Mountains that had been now floor fish gardens.

Where blooms the forest deep, mighty deserts once ruled.

Whole cradles of civilizations, now lost, play host to the ice lords in frozen wastes yet others host only the sea.

Trusting man, rarely changing, clings to the mores and customs of his tribe and its youthful legends; yet do not the legends change their garments more rapidly than old mother earth?

Steadier courses have been charted against star far flung, yet in the the millennia they too, in their easy course, are known to sway.

Strive with the magician, the grand mariner, as you will, in the end there is but one course and 'tis easy found.

All external manifestation is change; the inner light maps the way.

Choose you map maker with care.

Photo: 1986, prospecting for gold in the treacherous Labrinyth of Utah. The old dinosaur won the battle on the banks of the Green River.