I Was SAD Seeing Way Too Many Texas Balloon People Waddling Around Wal-Mart Today

You are looking at my very SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) view out my patio window, this very dreary Wednesday, in cold, cloudy Texas.

Yesterday's return to blue sky was a fluke. Gray skies is the new Texas norm.

Snow is still in the forecast, supposedly happening anytime now, with a 100% chance of snow or rain tomorrow.

I had a morning full of aggravation and annoyance, followed by an early afternoon of some more aggravation and annoyance.

About 2 I decided to escape the aggravation and annoyance and go to Village Creek Natural Historic Area for some natural communing with nature.

Had I been thinking clearly and not distracted by all that aggravation and annoyance, I would have remembered we had heavy rain 2 days ago, which rendered Village Creek closed to pedestrian traffic, due to this inconvenience that is known as flooding.

With my walking options dwindled and with me being a mile or so from my friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart Supercenter, I decided to go there and load up a cart with heavy stuff and push it for a couple miles.

I should have asked a shopper or two if they'd like a ride. I saw a lot of plus-sized balloon people waddling about today. The way too many obese people issue hasn't been at the forefront of my imagination of late, but today I saw some distortions of the human form that had me all appalled.

Why do some humans let themselves go to such a shocking degree? At what point do they quit caring? Or did they ever care? It's not just the obesity, it's also the overall slovenliness, the unkemptness of the hair, the ill-fitting clothes, stretching material beyond what fabric making science intended.

Now, I am in no way, even remotely, any sort of a bigot. But I have to say, my fellow Anglos are the worst offenders. My African American neighbors, who I see walking about Wal-Mart, do so, for the most part, with way more style and way less weight. This is particularly noticeable on Sunday after church, the style part. Now, my Hispanic neighbors, they sort of trend towards the Anglos in terms of obesity and level of slovenleness.

Now the ethnic group I think we could all do well to emulate.

The Asians.

I go to Arlington's Chinatown and see all these well-dressed, some stylishly in native garb, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Thai, Chinese, Koreans. The Asians eat better, dress better and look better, weight-wise, than the Americans, both South and North (continents), the Africans and the Europeans.

It's appalling. I think America collectively, for the most part, really needs to go on a diet. This would be beneficial in so many ways. Let's make it a goal that within 20 years the Europeans no longer refer to us as the "Balloon People."

It's a worthy goal.

The Kermit Nurse Scandal Grows With Revelation Of Earlier Dr. Arafiles Malpractice Charges

The Kermit Nurse Scandal continues to be scandalous. My two bloggings about this West Texas Scandal has generated the most comments since I blogged about the Only Child Syndrome Scandal. In the first blogging about the Kermit Nurse Scandal I just wrote an overview of the bizarre legal authority misconduct taking place in Kermit, bringing a nurse, Anne Mitchell, to trial because she reported bad practices by a bad doctor to the appropriate Texas medical authority.

I blogged again about the Kermit Nurse Scandal after Anonymous sent me a link to a YouTube video of the doctor at the heart of the scandal, Rolando German Arafiles, Jr. M.D., where the doctor is on some Christian Network TV show trying to sell snake oil.

The comments have been very interesting. A couple comments, of course from Anonymous, come to the defense of the doctor and Kermit and paint Nurse Mitchell as an evil doer. Go to the first blogging about the Kermit Nurse Scandal to read that comment. It's the first comment, followed by many more comments, with the commenters appalled at the first Anonymouses' anonymous comment.

Then I got a comment from another Anonymous telling me that Dr. Arafiles has gotten in trouble before, back in 2007. Apparently for running some sort of quack diet clinic where he overprescibed potent pills, among other bad behaviors. That is a snapshot of Dr. Arafiles signature on the document in which he agrees to pay a fine and cease the bad behaviors, among a lot of other legalese. You can read the entire Texas Medical Board review of Dr. Arafiles license to practice medicine.

And then another Anonymous said...

As a nurse who has practiced in many states, I think this is scary. What this nurse has done is to rock the ol'boy network that still apparently exists in Texas. We see this in Georgia to some extent. If she cites her state's nurse practice act--she should be covered. The public would cringe if they knew the full extent of the poor medical practices that nurses witness. So, this nurse must have seen more than she could bear to look away from. If she looses this fight, the nurses of Texas should pack up and move to a state where they are appreciated.

A non-Anonymous calling herself kdmidd tell us her harrowing personal experience with the Kermit Hospital and the doctors who "practice" there....

When I was ten years old I broke my leg and was taken to Kermit Hospital before being transported to Odessa. The Doctor on duty in Kermit that night gave a 10 year old girl enough morphine for a 45 year old 200lbs man...then sent me on an ambulance 45 miles to Odessa without a splint on my leg- apparently forgetting that my leg was CROOKED- Kermit hospital is crap at best...and maybe they wouldnt be if they could bring in a decent Dr...they've had kooks for years...who else would choose to practice there?

And then another Anonymous charges Nurse Mitchell with rule violations...

Nurse Mitchell has violated HIPPA, you know those little rules that protect patient confidentiality? She and her cohort failed to BLACK OUT patient names when reporting the malpractice to the proper authorities. Ooops, should have been a bit more careful. You'd think a NURSE with all her experience and years of training would of remembered something like that...does make one wonder. And a whole host of people are being subpoenaed, seems like they were all standing nearby and overheard the nurses discussing openly these patients and their conditions, uh oh...isn't that another rule violation?

Things are not entirely what they seem. True, they seem to be incredulous, but only to the outside observer. The town of Kermit follows the Good Ol Boy handbook. You can find this book filed in the W Library over in Midland, he was the author.

To which another Anonymous was a Voice Reason, unlike the previous Anonymouses' illogical gibberish...

This is horrendous for all healthcare nurses, risk managers and compliance officers.

When as one of these professional encounter a fellow healthcare provider who, in our professional judgement, is failing to practice safe medicine, we are bound by our nursing code of ethics and our state licenses to take steps to protect the welfare of our patients.

The hosptial was notifed and slapped the doctor on the wrist. Nurse Michell is being hung out to dry by the very system that is suppose to support quality medicine and reporting. I am appauled by this case and the potential implications of resultant case law.

The sheriff in this story needs to share a cell with this doctor.

I Am Not Going Snorkeling With The Fosdic Lake Birds In Icy Cold Fort Worth

I did not escape to the icy cold outdoors, well, except for my early morning pool time, til around 4 this afternoon.

I had all sorts of issues with this thing called Xara Menu, that I'd not used for a couple years. It was a total vexation because I had to have this working so I could make a cdrom that will be on its way to a convention in Phoenix tomorrow morning.

After way too much anxiety a light bulb came on and I remembered what the menu fix was. After that I sat here and marveled at how dense I can be at times. And forgetful.

The menu was fixed by 1. It being 1, another type menu needed to be addressed, that being the lunch menu. After lunch I tended to some other computering issues.

As I was fixing to get out of here and go to Oakland Lake Park for a much needed walk in the sun around Fosdic Lake I got a message from the temporary Scrabble Queen of Hawaii. I mentioned this morning she has been torturing me with her tales of tropical bliss. The afternoon tale of Kauai bliss mentioned snorkeling. And she said, "Sucks to be you." And then told me a man from Houston, sitting next to her, told her to say that to the ice cold guy in Fort Worth.

The birds on Fosdic Lake seemed to be enjoying the return of the sun. But, I think they are hungry. As I stood at the west side of the lake, taking pictures, a quartet of birds, I assume looking for a handout, headed my way, led by the bird I've mentioned before, that I call a Lulu Bird, because it looks like some sort of mutant result of the mating of two birds who should not have been reproducing.

The Lulu Bird and her gang kept coming towards shore, eventually making land and continuing to come towards me. I kept telling the gang I had nothing for them. But I don't think they understood English.

After the Lulu Bird and her gang made land a flotilla of more birds started heading my way, thinking food, I assume.

I felt really bad I had nothing to give the starving birds. Next time I'll try and remember to bring bread.

That's been my Texas Tuesday. Fun in the cold sun. No snorkeling. Menu problems. And I forgot to mention, Gar the Texan keeps making strange demands that I apologize to him. It's very perplexing.

Singing The Only Way Evil Can Prevail Is If Good People Do Nothing Fort Worth Blues

I'm no longer suffering from SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) due to the lifting of the wet, gray veil with the return to a cloudless blue sky.

In the picture that is the same view I showed you yesterday, with the clouds and the rain removed.

It is cold out there, though, as in 25. I had a little ice incident this morning, slipping on a little spot of water that sat poolside, that I did not realize was ice.

I am ready for winter to be over.

I am being tortured daily with HOT reports from Kauai. This morning's mentioned fish tacos. I have not had a fish taco since I was last up in Washington at a Taco del Mar in Tacoma. I don't think there are Taco del Mars in Texas. There are fish tacos here. But my two attempts at trying a Texas fish taco were not pleasant. In one of the incidents I believe the fish was catfish.

There should be some sort of law requiring it being plainly noted if catfish is being used as seafood.

Back to SAD, this morning I got a SAD related comment, from John, to a blogging from a few days ago, titled "Depressing News From My Therapist While The Fosdic Ducks Possibly Caucus About Tonight's NCTCA Meeting."

Below is what John had to say...

When I let myself get depressed and focus on the bad stuff people do to each other and completely disregard the good stuff we do with each other every day (and which doesn't often get reported), then I find I have my excuse for not only feeling depressed, but for not being one of the folks who do the good stuff either. I get to whine about the bad stuff, and not put myself out enough to be a part of its remedy. I get to "feel good" about not taking action, even though by doing that I become part of the bad stuff too (which I overlook completely, of course).

I know that if I let myself experience people as we fully are, our compassion and helping and going out of our ways to be a solution to problems others encounter every day, then I'll take action instead of gripe and become one of those people I admire instead of being one of those who do nothing when faced with bad things happening to folks.

I can only stay depressed if I'm not doing anything to help, and being the person Edmund Burke talks about when he said "The only way evil can prevail is if good people do nothing."

The only way evil can prevail is if good people do nothing.

Trouble is, way too often good people do do something, yet evil prevails. Steve Doeung vs. Chesapeake Energy and the City of Fort Worth, for example. I'm thinking sometimes we don't have sufficient numbers of good people doing something to stop evil from prevailing.

I don't care how cold it is, I am going to get out and do something aerobic today. But first I have to finish making changes to a website.

Listen To The Kermit Texas Doctor Who Got Nurse Anne Mitchell Fired & Brought To Trial & See If You Want Him Operating On You

Yesterday I blogged about a bizarre story coming out of Kermit, Texas that has become the latest Texas embarrassment, if not in Texas, in the rest of America and the world.

A nurse, Anne Mitchell, was arrested, indicted and today, if events proceeded as scheduled, brought to trial, in Kermit, for reporting what she believed to be the dangerous medical practices of the man you see in the picture, Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr.

The picture is taken from a YouTube video in which the doctor is on some Christian TV Network going on about some medical condition I've never heard of, for which he offers a cure.

The blogging about this latest Texas bizarreness has generated a lot of comments, many from people who have had personal experience with the Kermit hospital at the center of this scandal.

Then one from my favorite commenters, the ubiquitous Anonymous, said...

Of course, it wouldn't be the perfect Texas story unless this quack doctor and placebo huckster peddled his wares under the veneer of professionalism on a Christian cable network, during a program addressing a condition whose very existence is in doubt by most of the medical community, right?

Oh wait, it is the perfect Texas story!

Now, watch the below YouTube video and tell me how fast you'd run out of the operating room if you saw this was your doctor? Also make note of how he refers to "mainstream doctors" which indicates Arafiles recognizes he is out of the mainstream, which a Kermit nurse also recognized and realized something needed to be done. And so she did it. And now faces a 10 year prison term. For doing the right thing. Again. Any of you reading this ready to be operated on by this guy? Want him treating your kid?

UPDATE: Read the Texas Medical Board document regarding 2007 malpractice charges against Kermit Dr. Arafiles.

We Are A Wet Mess This Monday In Fort Worth

You are heading away from my abode, looking south, out of my windshield, at the noon view of the Mixmaster that churns up I-30 and I-820, on my way to the Post Office on a very wet Monday in Fort Worth, Texas.

I had no illusions of the possibility of doing anything aerobic outside in this deluge. What I found at the Post Office charted my course west, to Beach Street and a Chase Bank.

Then I floated north, on Beach Street, to Town Talk, where I got a big container of Tennessee Style BBQ Pork and a gallon of old-fashioned apple cider. I have no idea what makes it old-fashioned.

With no oxygen getting aerobically infused into my system I will quickly be tail-spinning into SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) sadness. I may get cranky.

Monday Morning Raining Texas Blues With The Scrabble Queen Hot In Kauai & Gar The Texan's Psychiatric Woes

That is my Monday morning 9am view this dark winter day in Texas. Rain is predicted to fall all day long. Snow is predicted to arrive, again, on Thursday.

This is the coldest, wettest winter in all the years of my exile in Texas. Meanwhile up north, in my previous place of residence, they are experiencing the warmest winter in recorded history.

The Pacific Northwest winter heat wave may wreak havoc with next week's Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, the Scrabble Queen of Washington is temporarily the Scrabble Queen of Hawaii and is tormenting me with reports of it being too HOT to sit outside. Too HOT in Kauai. Where it rarely gets into the 90s, where it is usually a nice balmy 80 something. And the Scrabble Queen is too HOT.

I can not remember the last time I was too HOT.

And then I have Gar the Texan lamenting that his life full of woe got its start at the now nationally notorious Kermit Hospital. Reading Gar the Texan's blog this morning I learned he's spent decades in psychiatric therapy trying get Kermit out of his head.

I actually watched the entire first half of Super Bowl XLIV yesterday, without getting bored. I think it had something to do with the HD quality of the video rendering watching more watchable. The Who halftime show was good, too. But, I grew bored at some point in the 3rd quarter and ended my active Super Bowl viewing for the year.

Lame commercials this year, for the most part. The Simpsons Coke one was amusing, though. And a few others. My blogging about the Super Bowl, right before it started, turned out to be a bit bizarre, with convoluted errors and an ironic use of the word "who."

In about 3 hours I will start going stir crazy. Maybe the rain will let up before crazy sets in.

Don't Be Tardy For My XLVI Super Bowl Party

It is almost time for Super Bowl XLVI.

Why must the Super Bowl use Roman Numerals? It bugs me every year. I think an X before an L means 10 less than 50, which would be 40. I think VI is a 5 and a 1, which would be 6.

So, is Super Bowl XLVI Super Bowl 46? Why not just call it Super Bowl 46 and make it easier on the Roman Numeral challenged, of which I'm likely one, if I got the number wrong.

Anyway, this is my favorite football game of the year. In that it's the only one I watch. Well, watch some of it. This year I know less than my norm regarding the Super Bowl. I know it is being played in Miami and that one of the teams is the New Orleans Saints. I do not know know who New Orleans is playing.

I also do not know who is playing in the halftime show. The Super Bowl halftime show used to be entertaining. I have not found it to be very entertaining in a long time. I think the last time may have been Janet Jackson's bared boob fiasco, or the U2 post 9/11 Super Bowl.

I have not read one word about this year's Super Bowl commercials. The commercials are usually the part I watch.

I do not like the start time of the Super Bowl in my present Central Time location. On the West Coast the Super Bowl begins around 3 in the afternoon. Here it begins around 5 and gets over past my bedtime.

I have the same problem with the Academy Awards. West Coast they start live before 6. Here it is 8. Getting over way past my bedtime. So, I bail before the end.

I have my Super Bowl Party stuff already to go. I made turkey tacos seasoned with mango ginger salsa. It sounds a bit odd, but tastes really good. At least so far, they've not gotten to the being consumed stage, just the sampling whilst cooking stage.

Okay, I am being told we are in countdown mode leading to the Star Spangled Banner. I'm betting there will be jets involved.

Don't be tardy for the party.

UPDATE: I'm hearing the pre-game stuff in the background. I am not shocked to learn I got my Roman Numerals wrong. I just heard a talking head say "Super Bowl 44." So VI is 4, not 6. It's 5 minus 1, not plus 1. No wonder Latin is a dead language and the Romans a dead empire.

Sunday Fort Worth Drizzling While Gestapo Agents Run A Radar Sting Operation

At noon, when I crossed the Cooks Lane overpass over I-30 on my way to Sam's Club, I saw a Fort Worth Gestapo Stormtrooper standing beside his mechanized transport, aiming a radar gun, west, at the incoming traffic.

On the east side freeway on-ramp, there was an entire mechanized unit of Fort Worth Gestapo Stormtroopers, waiting for the signal from the overpass spy, to take off after speeders.

I saw maybe 5 units waiting on the on-ramp for their attack order, while strung long the side of the freeway, I saw, into the distance, maybe 5 or 6 flashing red lights, indicating 5 or 6 Gestapo agents had successfully caught their quarry.

When I left Sam's Club it was drizzling hard.

I decided to return to my abode, via Cooks Lane, and snap a picture of the Gestapo Agent and his radar gun. But, when I was stopped at the red light for a perfect photo op, the cop, I mean, Gestapo Agent, had retreated from the light drizzle and was hiding in his car.

By the time I crossed back over the freeway again, on the Morrison Street crossing, the cop car had left Cooks Lane, driven back to regular patrolling, I assume, by a little dampness.

I really don't like these type Gestapo raids. It would aggravate me less if I was not eye witness, way too many a time, to a Fort Worth Gestapo Agent in his mechanized vehicle, well over the speed limit, with no sirens blaring, no lights flashing. If it is an emergency, and the cop does not want the perps to hear him coming, then they go into silent running mode, with just the lights flashing. The incidents of speeding cops, that I have witnessed, have been just that, speeding cops.

Why are city cops operating on the federal highway, I could not help but wonder? I thought the federal highways were patrolled by state patrolmen. Who gets to keep the revenue generated by today's Fort Worth Gestapo Stormtrooping? The city? Or does it go to Washington? I mean D.C., of course.

Stings, like what I saw today, seem like a waste of resources. That it'd be a much better plan to have the cops out on the freeway, driving, at the correct speed limit. Drivers tend not to speed past cop cars on the freeway, from what I've seen.

There are safety issues too. It's dangerous pulling off to the side of a busy freeway, both for the Gestapo agent and the stopped driver. Getting back on the freeway, after getting your ticket, is dangerous to the drivers still on the freeway, as the Gestapo's victim tries to re-merge with traffic.

I really think this type revenue generating sting needs to be stopped.

Kermit Texas Nurse Faces 10 Prison Years For Reporting Doctor's Malpractice

There is a whole lotta crazy that goes on in Texas. I've mentioned before that the zone I live in takes on Orwellian aspects at times, what with all the double-speak from various Texas state agencies that are supposed to be protecting the people and the environment.

But it's not just my zone of Texas. A whole lotta crazy comes out of this little town in far West Texas, called Kermit.

Gar the Texan is from Kermit. That's one example. Sheriff Robert L. Roberts Jr., that's him in the picture, is another example of crazy coming out of Kermit.

There is this medical thing called the Hippocratic Oath, that's an oath medical type people take in which they pledge, among other things, to do no harm to patients.

Well, the Hippocratic Oath has been turned upside down in Kermit. A doctor in Kermit, Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., was doing bad things, like doing a skin graft, that failed, in an emergency room where he did not have surgical privileges. Another time Arafiles sutured a rubber tip to a patient's finger, an unorthodox procedure which was deemed inappropriate by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

A nurse, Anne Mitchell, had seen enough of what she believed to be Arafiles' bad medicine. She and a fellow nurse, Vickilyn Galle, sent a letter detailing the bad medicine they had witnessed, to state regulators.

That letter set in motion a bizarre chain of events that now has the good nurse indicted, facing 10 years in prison, for being true to the Hippocratic Oath. Nurse Mitchell is set to stand trial in state court on Monday for "misuse of official information." Whatever that is, it is a 3rd-degree felony in Texas.

The state prosecutor claims he will show that Nurse Mitchell had a history of making inflammatory statements about Dr. Arafiles, intending to damage his reputation, when she reported him to the Texas Medical Board, last April.

Nurse Mitchell, on the other hand, she being a voice of sanity in the troubled town of Kermit, said she had a professional obligation to protect patients from what she saw was a pattern of improper prescribing and surgical procedures.

Charges were dropped against co-letter writer, Nurse Galle.

When the medical board told Dr. Arafiles about the anonymous complaint, he complained to a friend that he was being harassed by a pair of nurses. Arafiles' friend happened to be Winkler County Sheriff, Robert L. Roberts Jr., who credits Arafiles with saving his life, after a heart attack.

Sheriff Roberts showed his appreciation of the bad doctor's good work, in his case, by obtaining a search warrant to seize the 2 nurses' work computers, where he found the evidence of their crime. That being the whistle blowing letter their consciences told them to write, which they felt they were free to do, living, as they do, or so they thought, in the land of the free.

No one had told the nurses they were not living in the land of the free, they were living in Orwellian Texas. It's a totally different country from the rest of America.

Obviously, this has been an extremely twisted nightmare that has been visited upon these nurses. State and national nurses associations have raised over $40,000 for the defense. Legal experts, operating outside of the Malice in Blunderland zone, say Nurse Mitchell would seem to be protected by Texas whistle-blower laws.

The nurses' lawyers have filled a civil suit in federal court charging the county, hospital, sheriff, doctor and prosecutor with vindictive prosecution and denial of the nurses' First Amendment free speech rights.

Nurse Mitchell's co-conspirator, Nurse Galle, said, "We're just in disbelief that you could be arrested for doing something you had been told your whole career was an obligation."

Nurse Galle, it's not just you and Nurse Mitchell who are shaking their heads in disbelief, heads are shaking in disbelief all over America and the world, over the latest scary stuff to come out of Texas, that common sense would seem to dictate would, should never happen.

But, somehow does.

UPDATE: Video of Dr. Arafiles. Watch it and ask yourself if you want him operating on you.

UPDATE: Read the Texas Medical Board document regarding 2007 malpractice charges against Kermit Dr. Arafiles.