military

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Medical school in France was very cheap and open to anyone who wanted to enroll — at least for the first year. Only those who scored highest on year-end exams were allowed to continue to 2nd year.

Over 600 hopeful students enrolled that first year — but I worked extra hard and placed 38th. Only about a hundred were admitted. I was in!

Soon after I passed the “elimination contest” that was meant to let those of us who had scored best (and were allegedly the smartest) continue with the business of medical school. We had to get down to the business of learning things that we would need to function as doctors. Read more on My Training As A French Country Doctor…

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Although it theoretically is marginally ethical, I frequently find myself performing a rudimentary psychoanalysis of people I have never met.

I usually find it helps to explain a life or an origin of suffering, or some kind of human empathy, and can bring peace or closure to the folks who come into my office — or the folks who are my friends.

It was a really good friend who told me on the phone today, “I thought of you this past week. My Uncle Ed died.” Read more on Uncle Ed — The War Hero…

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Anyone who still believes California is the land of “swimming pools and movie stars,” needs to spend a couple of hours at a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) office pretty much anywhere in the state.

Whether you make an appointment (and none is generally available before the date when a party gets mandated to show up) or not, there are lots of activities available while you sit in those “contour chairs.” Read more on Waiting At The DMV…

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I distinctly remember the first time I saw a “retirement clock.”

It was on the desk at the home workstation of a psychiatric nurse who had already worked about ten years in the outpatient clinic of one of the VA medical centers where I had once worked. Read more on Stuck In A Job You Hate?…

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“The whole world has ADHD.”

No, he was not a mental health practitioner speaking with us.  He was a professional fund-raiser.

His sentiment, however, was one I had heard before, in other kinds of jargon. Read more on The Whole World Has ADHD …

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Two mentally challenged individuals had been having a bit of a spat with raised voices about which of one or another alien races had been exterminated in some futuristic interplanetary war.  They had obviously been emotionally involved.  It could have been truly ugly if they had let go and started beating each other.

There were a lot of things wrong with this picture. Read more on Alien Warfare — True Or False?…

Filed under military, News, politics, Science by on . Comment#

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I have been in screaming and crying mode since this morning.  When I got started, I wanted to look up more info about veterans to help out my beloved veterans who have told me that they are having hard times getting enough benefits to survive.  I’m sure you read or have heard of by now about the story from the LA Times. Trying to figure out what happened is tough.  But it seems that about a decade ago, someone offered the California National Guard monetary rewards of ten thousand dollars and up for re-enlisting, which they took. I don’t think anyone can blame them for that. Read more on Can being a veteran (or soldier) get any worse?…

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The more I look the more I find.  In reliable sources.  More ways that my beloved veterans are getting screwed over that nobody knows about. I know what I am doing and I collect facts–of science and of history — and I find myself too often in crying mode. Not that the controversies are necessarily new ones.  Sigmund Freud said a long time ago that a lot of psychiatry seemed to be the neurology you did not yet know. I have been treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for a long time.  I was incredulous, shocked to my limits, when I first tried to take care of these wonderful, brave, and once fearless men, who would have crying meltdowns and end up in my arms. The best thing I did was to learn Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and to decide I was professional enough to do it “my way,” not according to verbatim directions, but adapting it to folks’ needs. Using EFT has put me on the spot plenty of times; with the VA, even prisons, where I have been told more than once that it robs people of “free will,” which is of course, complete and total rubbish.  Patients are awake, alert, and voluntarily tap on their own acupuncture meridians.  I have heard at least one hypnotherapist tell me it is “kind of like a light trance,” but patients could not, in my estimation, be more awake and alert. Read more on Another way veterans are getting screwed — crying time again….

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As a proud veteran of the US Army, I fought tears as I read how the pain of our combat veterans has been manipulated by war profiteers. I put on that green uniform and I swore to put my life on the line.  I became a lifetime member of the Jewish War Veterans and the co-surgeon general for the Jewish war veterans and I tried, really tried, to make things better for the troops.

Read more on Veterans are getting screwed more than you or I knew….

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Fifteen years after.  That means there are sentient, living teenagers who are (I hope) somewhere in school learning about this devastating event in some kind of secondary school curriculum, or perhaps witnessing public patriotic events. — But they don’t remember it, because they weren’t born yet.

Read more on 9-11 15th Anniversary…