Diaries of the Beast

A New "Doomsday Book"

Let us count the many things again. Like William did. Let us count every hair upon every head, every chicken in the yard, every grave, and every tear. After we count everything, the results will be so awful, so totally unfair, so completely one sided, we will ask why.

But the point is....we ask...we reevaluate....we correct ourselves.....

That is strength.....

Americans, on the whole, are good people.

If they are informed.

If they know who is doing what.

Their innate goodness always emerges.

Americans have hope.

Why?

Because Americans survive.

Any defeat.

Any mistake.

Any leader whose goals are misguided.

And, Americans forgive.

Because there is an inevitable justice in America.

It is the only belief truly binding us.....

It is the only thing worth dying for.

We have flaws; so many flaws, it tends to cloud our national identity.

These flaws cause us to bitch at each other constantly.

However, the beauty is in the American dynamic.

It is in the bitching, instead of the shooting, or work camps, or national violence....it is in our structured ability to argue, and to eventually reason...... that seperates us from societal instability, from the brink of  being like other nations....who do not know themselves.

Regardless of what you may feel at this moment. Do not forget we are light years ahead of any other national entity upon this planet.

Why?

The inexhaustable abilty to accept, to reform, to learn.

In this time, when we seek, and cannot find, when the world around us wonders at our choices and actions......

The scales of this nation, this place....this home for so many......will eventually balance.

When you add it up....when you compare the United States with the rest of the world.....

The counting proves a smile at being an American.

We have labored, for so long, and for so many, and have asked (in many cases) nothing in return.

We are the goal for others.

But hell,.....nobody is perfect.

We are not.

But as long as we remember who we are.......

As long as we remember that a single child can change a world.....

Then how much better can we be?

God damn us, should we ever forget that......

God damn us, should we ever forget why the torch shines to the East.....

A Little Ruckus in Ukraine

The Ukraine currently experiences a little ruckus over supposed "fraudulent" Presidential elections. The Ukranian people (poor cold bastards) are in the street, going on six days now, peacefully protesting the fact the voting was rigged (can anyone say "Florida, or Ohio"?), that their candidate, the opposition leader (opposition to what?) Viktor Yushchenko, got the shaft from Viktor Yanukovitch, supposedly Moscow's boy, Russian President Putin's hand picked surrogate.

The name "Moscow" is a dirty word in Ukraine; at least in Western Ukraine, a place closer to Europe than Eastern Ukraine, a place closer to Moscow; heavily industrialized, and more akin to the great gangster state....Russia.

Thus, regional political dichotomy exists in the former "bread basket"of the old Soviet Union.

The West ("collectively indignant") over the "election fraud" weighed in last week with protest from the EU, going as far as sending representitives to monitor the elections, and to warn the sitting President, whose name escapes me (although i could look it up....however, what is the point?), of the dire consequences of a disruption in the spread of "democracy" in such a strategic place (NATO, after all, cares so deeply about the "rights of man").

The Americans are there too; members of the House of Representatives, each making five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars a day (courtesey of the Rand Corporation) adding American luster and legitamacy to a process as phoney as a three dollar bill.

Our present, Secretary of State, took the towel the Bush Administration stuffed down his throat four years ago, long enough, to denounce the "election fraud".

Everybody is concerned. The whole damn "Western World" decries the "shameful" way the unfortunate Ukranian "people" have to suffer at the hands of "them".

It is difficult to believe that people with the histories they possess have any illusions left. But there they are, standing in the street, and breathing the fog. They wave flags, pass the bottle around, and do what the Slavs have always done.

They wait.

Meanwhile, in America, it is the beginning of the season of giving.

America does love to give.

This year, Americans (in record numbers!) give the gift of "Elmo", a purple, furry talking doll. American kids love it. So do American adults. It is going to be the best seller of this year's warm and tender month. The month Jesus was supposedly born.

The month the night is silent.

The month American children (well, a lot of them, anyway....) will open presents by the fire, with smiles and eyes full of life, and hopeful promise.

The month Iraqi children fear a "knock on the door", and men with guns and huge flying machines, come to make their world "safe".

Given the mood of the people of Ukraine, you might think they hear the same knock.

Perhaps the sound never goes away.

Anywhere.........

THE END OF MY PATHETIC FICTION

sorry boys and girls....i am losing my sense of humor....so...will redirect this site to a serious subject.....the "Education" of American children.....the "Diaries of the Beast"....will continue....

with fewer smiles, and less wasted intent...."Education" is a serious subject.....so is the future......and there is not much to smile about either.....

stay tuned .................

                                                               ookrana

How To Die Twice: John Palmer's Amazing Trip to the Emergency Room

The "still completely alive" John Palmer's drive from the tenth tee on that fateful Sunday was straight and long, leaving  a clear shot to the green. Walking down the lush fairway, he secretly thought of turning pro and leaving his dreadfully boring life behind (particularly his wife; a frumpy, irritable woman he married out of love, a word he found, twenty years later, amusing). It was a perfect fall day. The azure sky, a pristine backdrop to looming oak trees in the rough, a place he knew well. But not today. Nothing could take this perfect tee shot away. Nothing but a vauge feeling of unease in the pit of his stomach. Had his mistress accidentally called his home phone number instead of his cell phone? No, she was too smart, too greedy of his substantial material support to risk that. Besides, she was on extended vaction in Florida; a trip he  gladly provided her as a birthday present. At middle age, Palmer found the company of women  no longer an obsession. But golf was. He played three times a week; more if he could get away with it. There was something about the smell of freshly cut grass, the communing with perfectly maintained nature, and the commaderie with old buddies far more appealing, than the thirty minutes of sex he could stand with his whore, or the ten minutes (once a week) he gave his fading spouse (ten minutes he increasingly resented).

No, it was none of that. Rather, the unease gradually became a pain, originating in the area near the stomach and ascending, as he walked to his perfect drive, to his Diaphragm and seemingly beyond. The pain began to radiate until he had to stop in the middle of the fairway.

He clutched his chest as the pain turned to internal explosion. He collapsed, right there on the fairway, in pursuit of the best shot he had struck in months. His pals (very glad it happened to HIM instead of them, rushed to his side, cell phones, ripped from belts like Colt .45s. Within fifteen minutes, an EMT Response Team was all over him, stabalizing the supposed "heart  attack victim", loading him to the ambulance, transporting him to "The Hospital".

Because of his supposed condition, John Palmer was given the same treatment visiting dignitaries recieve just about anywhere. No waiting, no paper work, or the usual humiliating investigation by "the hospital" that "Patient X" was, indeed, insured. None of this for Palmer. A doctor (one John Reed; gold colored name plate, black lettering) and three nurses were on him like a "not yet" corpse. Dr. Reed began the ususal How- are -you- feeling- and- what- kind-of horrible- lifestyle-are-you-living-? questionare.

"Do you smoke?", asked "The Doctor".

"Yes"

"How Much?"

"Less than a pack a day"

"I see", said "The Doctor" (knowing that is what every smoker said).

"Do you drink alcohol?"

"Im a social drinker", Palmer lied.

"Have you ever been diagnosed with hypertension?"

"No"

"Diabetes?"

"No"

Palmer, was finding it difficult to adjust to the change in his environment. One moment, he saw himself with a tap in for the US Open, the next,  flat on his back in the middle of the tenth fairway of his OWN country club, the next strapped onto a gurney  for a hell bent ambulance   to, "the Hospital". Slowly, the shiny tiled examination room, the medical staff, and the realization that he was actually in an emergency room, electrodes taped to his chest, while a strange "Doctor" asked him questions while shining a pen light into his eyes, became real and disturbing. Other things did too. A cacaphony of voices filled the air. Voices he had never heard. Voices screaming distress or complaint, or in answer to some other screaming voice. Professional voices, barking orders, asking questions, delivering answers, all in a strange, technical medical language filled with acronyms, abbreviations.

From down the hall, he heard a voice say,"The mothafucka shot me, HE SHOT ME!!!! (a voice of shocked incredulity). Another voice, a female,(most certainly a nurse) struggling to sound "professional", said "Hold still, you want me to miss the vein?"

"I know how ta hit the vein bitch", said the first voice. "Benn doinit for a long time"

He heard other voices too. Voices of indignation ("What do you MEAN I dont have insurance?!!!!"), or impatience, ("THIS MAKES TWO FUCKING HOURS NOW....I COULD BE DEAD AND YOU SONS OF BITCHES WOULDNT EVEN KNOW!!!!!!"), or suffering, ("I am in pain here!!!!!).

To Palmer the voices blended into noise, a jibberish. He noticed his surroundngs. The curtain seperating him from anyone but the nurses, busily taking blood, scribbling upon charts, monitoring the Electro Cardiagram Machine, reeling off a long paper tape, the ups and down of his soul. He noticed the youth of "the Doctor", the huge gold college ring on his married finger, his exceedingly clean hands, and the seeming lack of concern upon his lineless face.

Then he noticed him smile, and ask,

"What did you have for lunch today?"

How To Die Twice: The Tyranny of the ICD-9-CM

The ICD-9-CM (International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification) is an interesting tomb. Within it's covers are listed every possibility of death, disease, illness, physical malady (accidental or otherwise), of physical decline, the loss of individual dignity, or personal psychological disaster, (a subject Company "X" is particularly suspicious of...) Simply skimming through its pages, or viewing it on a computer screen is enough to turn a normal, well adjusted person into a raving paranoid. The book is three inches thick, weighs four pounds, and is known well by Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies "X", the Government, lawyers, morticians, and anyone else paying or profiting from physical vicissitudes. It covers everything even remotely diagnostic to the human body, from lung cancer, to an infected hangnail.

It is a logically sequenced manual from hell, coded for communicative convenience to all concerned, and is very probably the Devil's second favorite book, from which he can choose a particular item of suffering and send it hurtling upwards to some unsuspecting human, vulnerable to subatomic irregularities, a broken leg, a virus, a pinched nerve, a dysfuctional bladder, endless types of infarctions, hemmorhoids, anal fistulas, blisters, unheard of and unpronouncable conditions, symptoms, and syndromes. Even cellular abnormalities, with the potential to flower into slow, agonizing death, (agonizing death has it's own code too.) are codified and listed in language as  clean and sanitary as an operating theater. No tangible humanity exists here; its business, hard as nails, serving one goal, profit. Very few tears stain it's pages.

For a vast collection of information devoted entirely to the human condition, it is an ice cold version of EVERYONE'S FUTURE. It is the ultimate book of lists. In the "Medical Universe", it is simply the "WORD".

Of the hundreds of thousands of listings, Page's favorite, "Macular Puckering" (listed in Volume I of "Tabular Listings", under the clasification, "Diseases of the Nervous System and Sense Organs", P. 143.), never failed to bring a smile to her tired, over painted face.

A smile hardly shared by John Palmer, still "not yet again dead", completely unaware of his clerical bifurcation, sitting in his office of a major metropolitan bank, staring aimlessly out his window at the streets below, and wondering why he felt as if he was missing half of his soul.

How to Die Twice: A Not Yet Dead Again Man's Weekend

Over the weekend, John Palmer slept the sleep of the "almost again dead"; and dreamed of a life stolen, miscoded. He dreamed of the tenth hole of his country club (a particular favorite; a par four, dog legged left, but only 320 yards...a good drive right, and only a six iron to heaven...and a birdie!!!!!). He played this hole a thousand times, not once had he an attack of pain so excruciating that his banker buddies ever called the "authorities". Sure as shit, within ten minutes, an ambulance rolled upon finely manicured grass, a fairway worth more than the yearly earnings of the men who labored to keep it perfect. No matter; a MEMBER was in distress.

Right?

Right.

Good old John, (our Johnny!) indeed, clutched his chest, and may have seen the God he cleverly avoided that Sunday morning (his tee time was 11:00 AM EST). 11:00 AM was perfect, allowing him the kickoff of the Steelers game at 3:00 PM EST. The whole of his day removed from a miserable, complaining, sexually boring wife, money sucking children, and other unmentionablely odious commitments. All were   moot, on this day. Johnny was a planner.

Except for an attack of indegestion gripping his chest to such a degree, that the tenth fairway ended up looking like a dragstrip. Ambulances and fire trucks are heavy vehicles, remembered in the negative by greenskeepers, and the statusless Mexicans who work for them. Palmer was flat on his back when his escort of salvation arrived, heavy tires spitting grass and top soil his yearly club dues paid for, along with the exclusion of every Black and Jew on the planet. John Palmer got major gas on the most perfect place on his Earth. The EMTs did their usual do, he was tranported to the "hospital", examined by a resident (a polite term for a medical slave), diagnosed with "extreme gastric distress", injected with fluids (D5RL....Lactated Ringers), watched two hours, and sent home to recover.

Those are the "facts".

But in the land of virtuality, John Palmer suffered a Myrocardial Infarction (later, diagnosed, and supported in the ICD-9-CM-2005, as a "True posterior wall infarction"; "posterobasal"). Palmer had four Polish sausages for lunch and two German dark beers of an unmentionable brand. Enough to make a Gorilla feel drowsy. Enough to put an upper middle class, white, elitetist, racist, Republican in the clutches of the "hospital". Enough to sound alarms all across the systemology of the world of the "American Medically Insured Citizen".

Enough to kill him.

Once.

And to ressurect him, as an"not yet again dead' account".

And, because of a medical clerk, confusing the wrong name with the wrong patient, enough to put John Palmer (excellent citizen) into a medical limbo, rivaling Dante's "Inferno"........

How to Die Twice: Friday

The check did not come on Thursday. "The Manager", a tall, almost feminish man with an MBA (Yale, 2001), passed her work station several times on Friday; stopping, peering in to her workstation, making sure she was "on the job". Page knew the clock was ticking. Not a word from Company "X". The bastards didnt have the class to reassure her the hold up was a matter of internal bureaucracy, or some rookie coder with no familiarity with the ICD-9-CM 2005, (the fucking bible of medical billing....the Holy Grail, the "Word"). That had to be the reason for such an unpardonable delay. After all business runs on "ethics".

John Palmer rarely left her mind on Friday. Not that the "not yet again dead" man Palmer, Palmer himself, mattered. It was the unmet quota, the threat of terminaton, the dread of being branded as incompetent, of having her exhaulted "Associates Degree" in medical coding thrown into question. Where else upon God's earth could she speak such an arcane, powerful language? A language no one but fellow medical coder-gangsters spoke or knew. Knowing this "medspeak" implied a superiority she enjoyed. Without it, a job at Wal Mart was all she could aspire to. The same fear applied to the hundreds of thousands of "Bees" working for thousands of company "Xs", and within the Government, the ICD-9-CM was the only language accepted. No compromise, human contact, or even a bribe would cause those inflexible robots to budge from the ABSOLUTE, RIGID, application of the "Word".

By lunch, the "not yet again dead", John Palmer, dominated her brain like insulation around a water heater. Palmer quickly became her only reason to live. Frantically, she rechecked (for the hundreth time) the codes she meticulously placed under his personal data, over a week ago. Everything was correct. There was no mistake. She was dead sure.

So why the fuck was "The Manager" observing her like his next meal?

Because HE wasnt gonna take the hit on such an easy score for the hospital. A blizzard of questions would descend upon his head if the money didnt show, if the gaping, sucking, hospital money hole was not fed.

Who gave a shit about the poor "dead again undead" person languishing in a blank white folder in the dungeon of her computer? Not the hospital, or "The Manager", or company"X", or the Government,  or any of the other coders working in her office; themselves torturing some unfortunate "unsoul" with economic terrorism.

As lunchtime pushed inexorably to quitting time, Page stopped searching the "accounts recieved" screen for a check she knew was not coming.

A nasty, institutional battle was heading her way. She could feel it. John Palmer did not matter. The sacred priciple of PAYING for John Palmer's "not yet again death" did.

As the clock struck 5:00 PM EST, she opened, a last time, the folder where the victim sat. Palmer looked straight into her huge angry eyes, and heard her say,

"Have a good weekend, you sucker!"

Shortly after that, the lights in the folder went out, and the dark eyes of John Palmer closed into a deep, temporary slumber.

The Check Was Not Cut on Wedneday

Next Wednesday finally came around. "Worker Bee #2", kept checking her computer to see if insurance company X paid up.

But the wait was in vain.

The check didnt show up on the flickering screen.

It was getting close to quitting time.

Panic began to set in. Bee #2 popped a Klonopin, and began to think of how she was going to explain her failure. Bee #2 knew there were unseen eyes upon her, waiting. A lot of them in fact. It seemed incredible to her that some far off company, an institution listed on the New York Stock Exchange, more valuable and powerful than most third world countries, and utterly oblivious to the mounting angst of a worthless funtionary in one of a thousand hospitals they dealt with on an houly basis, had the ability to completey change her life by not paying the GODAMN MONEY!!!!!

Bee #2 sat watching the clock.

John Palmer sat in the"not yet again dead" folder, awaiting eternal bliss.

The clock struck 5:00.

The check never appeared.

It was like a dream to Bee #2.

But it wasnt a dream.

Bee #2 did not meet her quota, meaning trouble in the morning,  and John Palmer was not going to die again. Not on Wednesday.

Would the check come on Thursday?

Would Bee #2 be redeemed?

No.

Company X employs their own doctors, whose job it is to scan with a fine tooth comb, every single item on John Palmer's hospital bill. The doctor found a possible error in his bill, meaning no check, no funds, were coming outof X's  money hole on that Wednesday. Company X found a loop hole.

And the battle between institutions began all over again.

Just before Bee#2 mournfully left the office, she opened the "not yet again dead" file and looked inside. Palmer sat with his head in his hands, totally bewildered; as bewildered as a "not yet again dead man" can possibly be.

How To Die Twice: Part Two

Vultures normally circle their meal; in this case, your former life. But where is the location of your second life (death)? It is deep in the bowels of a computer, located in the collection deparment (accounts and balances....how kind they are to themselves!); the boiler room of any hospital. After all, it IS a business, right?

Who populates these hospital engine rooms, in every city, town and county all across the nation? Scores of "worker bees"; the usual compliment of people, wholly unconcerned with anything but production, the fulfillment of monthly quotas (the collection of monies for unpaid, hyper inflated, hospital bills), and the avoidance of a tounge lashing (or worse, a behind the door "meeting" with, and called) by "the manager", whose own professional future depends upon driving the "bees", to  squeeze every last kopek from insurance companies or the Federal Government (medicare....medicad...you know THOSE terms, like your own  names, dont you?).

The "bees" fight a continuous war with insurance companies and the "Federals". Neither wishing to pay until they have to; up until the very last second of the very last hour of the very last day the law allows.

This protocol causes tremendous stress amoung the "bees", who call this company, email that agency, all in a foreknown and vain attempt to GET THEIR MONEY!!!!  They even go as far as  to call in the "survivors" (another "kind" word", meaning the family......there is no limit to their ability to rationalize harrassment....) causing stress bordering upon deliberate cruelty.

During all of this, the newly born, "formerly dead", person  becomes conditioned to life in a dreary, dark folder, deep in the virtual catacombs of a "worker bee's" computer.

This, "reborned dead person" is not alone. There are thousands waiting, just like him (or her, the "second life" does not require sex, or nourishment, or dillusions of God, or for that matter, anything at all....except the ability to wait mutely, until the "issue" of payment is resolved.

Listen to the dialouge between two dedicated "bees".

Bee #1 "The emergency room report says that  "John Palmer died of congestive heart failure (COPD), you know the code for that?"

Bee#2 "Its 3-741xj".

Bee#1 "Any blocks on payment from insurance company "X"?".

Bee#1 "No, no blocks that I see, but their check want get  cut until next Wednesday" .

Bee#2 "Shit, that is three assholes, I cant kill until NEXT week! Im gonna miss my quota! Jesus, why cant I kill them this week?  WhatamIgonnado?"

Out of sheer frustration, "Bee" #2 calls in vain to company "X" and to the Federal Government, demanding to know what the delay in paying them is all about. Bee #2 already knows the answers. They are etched, as in stone, in memory. Bee #2 knows that no amount of pleading, threatening, or diplomacy will budge the far larger players in this production.

In projected desperation, fear, and anger, she opens the folder contaning one,"John Palmer", looking with wide, menancing eyes at his second, limited life. He dares not look back. Bee#2 is so very much larger than him.

Larger than the hospital "Bee", is the Federal Government; with "Bees" of it's own, and the multinational insurance companies, with "Bees" aplenty; so aggressive, so relentless, that poor "John Palmer" may live his second life for years. while these "giants" argue over an American citizen, already a candidate for the worms.

This scenario is not rare, or even unique. It happens with every single death, except for illegal aliens, who mow the finely manicured lawns of all three institutions. They dont count, or even rate a folder.

The point of all this?

When you are dying, dont fear hell. Fear for your family, fear for the future, and its victims, who will die twice; just as you will. They hold the power of American closure.

Fear the fact that "Amerisystemology", reveals the ability to give you an extension on your existence, a second life; until all accounts are rectified, all lists rearragned, all questions about who you were, and what you owe, are answered.

To anyone but the people you touch with kindness, or love, or unconditioanl allegiance, your death means nothing to anyone. You do not matter at all. The "Bees" are so relentless, that your "final death" will not occur, until next Wednesday, when the checks are cut.......

                                                          Best Regards,

                                                             ookrana

 

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How To Die Twice: Part One

Some things are unavoidable in "this" life. Dying is one of them. Death has it's own protocols; very much a tradition in this country.

You get an incurable illness. The hospital becomes involved. The insurance companies wait (with widening eyes, thinking about their bottom line), families gather with greedy thoughts of inheritence, or humane grief, or a sense of loss.The funeral occurs, and life goes on.

Right?

Wrong.

Death is, in actuality, NOT the end. But the beginning of a "second life". In America, you are not dead, until many people say you are dead.

The death of an American citizen sets off a chain of actions and intereactions, most of them financial in nature, between institutions; including the hospital, insurance companies, the funeral home, a plethora of government agencies (Social Security, Medicare, Medicad, the Labor Department, the Veterans Administration[if you were a veteran], and even the Office of Homeland Security), retail tracking agencies (oh yes, Wal Mart knows!), banks, debt collection agencies, mortage companies, and lawyers (to name only a few).

Thus, until all accounts are closed, lists updated, and the knowledge of your demise is desiminated throughout the entirety of "Amerisystemology", the hole in which you now reside, resembles a civil purgatory.

You may be dead, however, you become "reborn", acquiring, in fact, a "second life", (implying a second death).

One way or the other, the vultures are going to have brunch.