DURING COVID 19 WHAT IS MOST LIKE A HOSPITAL STAY?....

Why a Term in the Slammer ....aka Prison.

And don't just take my word for it...take my hospital room-mate's, a former Crown Attourney of over 30 years.  He was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1975 one year after me.

One night during my recent 10 day stay in hospital he said to me - you know when I was sending offenders off to jail during my career I often wondered what it would be like to have to go there myself.  "Having now stayed several days in hospital, during Covid, I believe I have some idea".

I told him it was funny that he had said that since the idea had also gone through my mind too as a retired lawyer who did some defence work during my career.

We both agreed too that it might have proven helpful if  part of our training had included a stay in a crowbar hotel.

Our conversation then went on to list what we saw as the similarities:

• Close confined quarters;
• Meer curtains to provide a semblance of privacy.  You quickly learned everyone's diagnosis including whether they had a successful bowel movement withing the last 24 hrs;
• We could not leave the floor;
• There were no telephones nor t.v. nor radios permitted;
• There was lights out; 
• And no visitors...even inmates are allowed visitors;
• No choice in meals - you got what was sent - for instance, I was served room temp tea 2x per day irrespective of the fact that I do not like tea...coffee is my weakness.  One patient mentioned that he knew for a fact that prisoners in provincial jails were being served the same food as us and here I thought all they got was bread and water....in thinking about it, maybe that would have been preferable;
• Lights came on a 6 am.   so no sleeping in. Good thing we were put to bed early.; 
• You were powerless - constantly told what to do and how to it;
• Beds were seldom made...you did it yourself and sponge baths ever given.  You had to ask for a towel to shave and wash yourself....I could go on but you get the idea.

Anyway I guess with my recent hospital stay I can now truly say I do have some idea of what it would be like to have spent some time in jail.  

So, dear reader, I can now mark that off my Bucket List !

As I See It...

'K.D. Bell'

China's Xi Jinping & America's Donald Trump are both dangerous to the future of our World....

Update Note:  In today's paper it is reported that a Motion put forward by our Conservative Party in Parliament, condemning China for its harsh crack-down on Hong Kong was defeated by the gutless trilogy led by our Liberal Government and supported by the New Democratic Party and the Green Party.  SHAME

In 1997 Prince Charles handed over Hong Kong to the Chinese on the understanding that there would be 2 forms of government ...a more liberal and open government for Hong Kong and a more dictatorial and closed one for the rest of China.  China is now in blatant opposition to that agreement.  I would hope if I were Prince Charles that I would have the courage to go back to Hong Kong to remind China of their agreement some 23 years ago.


But China's Jinping is by far and away worse.

And I am not talking about viruses, or Hong Kong, or denial of human rights, or Taiwan; or lack of rule of law; or imprisoning Canadian Citizens without cause; or locking up their journalists who write anything negative about the glorious State Dictatorship  etc etc.

I am referring to International Trade...that which makes the world go round and that which is needed to see the world go forward and truly put the current pandemic behind us.

Both Trump and Xi use their offices to continually mess with Unfeddered Trade but Xi is the most ruthless of the two and both personages spell trouble for the World Economy if they continue to hold office.

But at least the USA is a Democracy...China is a Dictatorial, Ruthless Nation.

In that regard, I have read many articles of late suggesting that we in the West should simply stop trading with China but that would be a fool-hardly and self defeating thing to do.

If China can provide things cheaper and with relative quality we would be fools to cut that off.  If for its petty purposes, they cut us off something, we simply go tit for tat and cut off a comparable amount of things that China wishes to receive from us.  And we look elsewhere to get what the Chinese have stopped sending to us. 

I have used similar examples in the past...but if Country A can produce apples at twice the quality and half the cost that Country B does - it borders on stupidity for the latter to not take advantage of that.  Country B can then focus on trading items - let's say Oranges - that it can produce better and at less cost than Country A.

Indeed China is only hurting itself when it plays games with Trade and they are certifiable for playing such a game.  It has made $Trillions in trade, raised Millions out of Poverty and now has the world's second biggest economy... soon be number one.

So Galagher are you saying we simply keep trading with China and turn a blind eye to all their negatives much like what Canada's Progressive Government appears so keen n doing?

NOT AT ALL.

I have said in previous blogs and recently read in a major newspaper editorial suggesting that the Democracies of the world ...a club of less than 30 nations out of nearly 200, need to come together and form their own Organizations to mirror but not replace the UN type of Associations.

Let's call this Club The Democracies of the World Club (DWC) and other countries - the remaining 170, will be free to join the DWC as soon as they can prove that they too have truly become Democratic and support the Rule of Law.

Leave the Dictators to sputter and spew in the UN and related organizations ....talking never hurts and it will give them something to occupy their time.  But for the real work - let's leave it to the Democracies.

Watch how fast countries like China come around ...they have too much to lose -  i.e. hard cash.

As I See It...

'K.D. Bell'

BETTER THAN WATCHING T.V.

Just home from a 10 day stay in Hospital and glad to be here.

I was housed in a semi-like ICU where patients were on top of each other and staff ratios were roughly one to one - one nurse for each patient. 

From my perspective, that number was at least twice what it should have been - i.e. one staffer for per 2 patients would have been more than sufficient.  But it did allow for some interesting insights:  staff spent most of their time chatting to each other followed closely glued to their cell phones. The remaining time - not much - was devoted reluctantly to patient care.

Not surprisingly then, most of the staff had worked there for years.  They know a good thing when they have it.

And my next door neighbour, like me, was bedded directly in front of the nurses' station.  He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was tuned in completely to their discussions and in fact on numerous occasions he joyfully told them he was doing just that. They just smiled. He was also overheard saying several times that their discussions were better than watching t.v..

I think he somewhat overstated that since I personally did not find it so spell-binding but I did find it interesting none-the-less.  Their discussions mirrored life in general:  a group of young nurses - for the most part female - were centred on their partners, boy-friends and where applicable, their children.  Sometimes they discussed issues related to us patients but that was done in the exception and little attempt was made to keep things secret.  In essence though, they were projecting their hopes and dreams for the future as we, who were once young, did too.  It was heartening to hear and in the case of my roomie -  apparently gripping.

I noticed early on that their discussions seldom if ever dealt with current events or domestic or world politics.  I tested this with many individually and it became evident that they had little or no interest in these subjects as our older generation most certainly does.

Is this a good thing or bad?  I do not know and leave it to you to decide given your own circumstances.

Anyway, it was a long 10 day stay for me which I hope and pray does not happen again too soon or for that matter ever.  It may though generate some further blogs.

We'll see....   

As I See It...

'K.D. Bell'

THERE WILL BE TROOPS IN THE STREETS....

THEY  KIDDED  YOU  NOT.

'They' being the Liberal Party of Canada and the Troop Placers being the Conservative Party of Canada - in an Election Campaign in the early 2000s.

So flash ahead till now ...There Will Be Troops In Quebec's Nursing Homes...and to a lesser extent...in the Province of Ontario as well.  This is especially rich when you consider that Quebec's Government is Separatist and you do not get anything to represent Canada's Sovereignty more than our Army.

How Ironic and yet How Revolting.  We neither need troops in our streets nor in our nursing homes.  That dear reader is not the job of our nation's military.   Maybe things like flood control and to a lesser extent - out of control forest fires but even for events like these it would be better for us to establish a Civil Defence Force as have our American neighbours done to the south. 

So what exactly will our gallant soldiers be doing?

Well - feeding; washing; and of course.....changing diapers.

I can hear it now !!

Code Brown..."all bomb experts to floor 2 / room 5  / bed 3.  An massive explosion has taken place  and in need of immediate clean-up... Be sure to wear your body armour and most importantly... your masks.

As I Smell It...

'K. D. Bell'

The 24 hour news cycle becomes very boring when it is all about either Trump or the Virus

For Long Time Readers I must apologize for being MIA in regard to my Blog Writing or better stated - Non-Blog Writing.

My excuse is contained in today's title - whatever I read and whatever I hear on the news is all about the Trumper and/or the Corny Virus.  I know you must be as tired of that as am I.

For me to be stimulated to write -I usually need to come across something in the mass media that gets my blood flowing ...so to speak.  And the constant repetative analysis of these two all encompassing topics has just the opposite affect on me - it turns me off and out.

I enjoy blogging though and from the feedback I get, I believe you find it insightful from time to time.  As I have said before, I try to get behind the B.S. spewed by the Talking Heads and let you know what I believe is really going on...and it that regard I am usually right !! said me ...your humble servant.

Let's consider for a moment my somewhat recent blogs on the Virus.  The main thrust of my blogs was that the treatment Government and Health Personages implemented was worse than the disease itself.

But the Media was in their rapt embrace.  That lasted a long time but more recently they have come to my original conclusion - why ...the social well-being of society, our economies and our collective mental health are taking a heavy hit as bad as or even worse than the virus itself.  Dah.

I also said, rather than just health care experts advising our politicians, there also needed to be a panel composed with economists and social scientists.  Not one media type suggested this approach.  But ... of course, that was then and this is now - and I have lost track of the number of talking heads coming round to my same conclusion.  After all, do you really think a Health Care Expert is going to suggest anything but a shut-down of society.  Not a chance.

And remember dear reader your heard it first from me.  I am in my 72nd year so maybe wisdom does grow with age ...or at least by now people my age have acquired a little experience.

Okay ...here is my next prediction.  As you know, everyone appears to be predicting that everything will change in the new post virus era.   It won't of course and once that becomes crystal clear down the road - the Talking Heads will do an about face and tell you that they knew nothing of significance would change all along.

Handshakes will disappear for ever - Not;  Restaurants will be empty for a long time to come - No They Won't;  Air Traffic will take years to come back - if at all - Again after a couple of months of having slayed the Dragon - we'll be airborne in great numbers and hell bent for leather;  Stadiums and Concert Halls will be filled to capacity....etc.

At home offices will not all go back to corporate base but the vast majority will. We are after all social beings and the home front simply does not cut it for most of us. Plus managers need to face to face with their employees and there is only so much of that you can do over video.

I could go on and on ...but you get the idea.

In early February I predicted that life would return to normal in June - in fact it appears to be happening somewhat earlier though the Pol'ys and the Health'ys are doing there best to drag their heals.  By September things will be in full swing. 

I say this because unlike other tragedies that plague our economy - this shutdown was officially sanctioned - Governments turned off the Economic Switch and things naturally came to a stop.  By the same token, when Governments turn the switches back on - life will quickly return to normal.

There is one area that unfortunately may sustain serious damage and like the above, this is man-made too.  I will deal with it in my very next blog ...

As I See It ...

K.D. Bell

HOW THE CORONA VIRUS HAS CHANGED THINGS FOREVER...

REGARDING THE ABOVE TITLE, I READ TWO VERY INTERESTING ARTICLES THIS PAST WEEKEND - THE FIRST:

By Gary Abernathy*

*Gary Abernathy, a contributing columnist for The Post, is a freelance writer based in Hillsboro, Ohio. After spending 13 years as an editor at three Ohio newspapers from 1983 to 1996, Abernathy worked in Republican Party politics in Ohio and West Virginia, 

Mr Abernathy wrote a column this weekend entitled We are all socialists now.  And boy is he right.

The money being thrown at this Virus is simply mind-blowing and will in my humble opinion turn the majority of Americans into Progressives.  The West, including my country Canada, has already swallowed the cool-aide and the only place where the fight between right and left has prevailed is in America.  Indeed until the current crisis, the split was right down the middle - 50/50.  But like Mr. Abernathy - I too believe those days to be well and truly over.  

Welcome to our Progressive World US of A.  

Good thing? Bad Thing?  even I no longer know - as a fiscal conservative I would never had thought the Government Debt / Deficits could grow to such levels as we have seen since the mortgage backed security scandal of 2007 and 2008.  And that does not even include the massive quantitative easing - the art of financial institutions printing money without backing.  Kinda like former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke suggesting helicopter drops of cash to fight deflation.  I laughed at the time but since then... seeing this more or less happen - I am laughing no more.


So in my humble opinion Abernathy is correct and so to is one of my favourite author's ...
Lord Conrad Black of Cross Harbour.

Lord Black writes of the Hysteria caused by the Pandemic and in particular focuses on the closing of the Canada / US border to Non-Essential Travel.  Black reviews in some length the long and storied history of our open border - the longest undefended border in the world.  Now a casualty of this bug that confronts us all.  

There is one other author I would like to reference though will leave this wayward wag nameless. He too sees change and likes it.  The change he endorses is the end of the handshake and notes with glee  that 'history has never witnessed a more disgusting and dangerous interaction between humans besides murder'.  To him I say...Get A Life.. He goes on to say he expects the elimination of the handshake will survive the current pandemic.  I hope he is wrong. 

He does not mention the long tradition of European Cheek Kissing but you can just imagine his  horror at just the thought. 

So what does he suspect will replace these longstanding traditions?  An elbow bump?  God save us.

Both of the above referenced traditions are intimate yet respectable manifestations of a warmth between two human beings.   If we lose that bond we will have lost something very special.  So if you have a elbow bump planned for me...save it for your dog. 

None of what I have written pertains to China but ready or not, I am going to deal with this subject here as well.

There is something ugly in Canada's relation with China and more to the point - something ugly in our National Liberal Party's - aka Laurentian Elite relationship with that country.   Some day I hope that a Inquiry is called to investigate this and it will not be pretty.

For decades now former senior liberal politicians and senior bureaucrats have gone off to the China Trough.  

Justin Trudeau, even before he became Prime Minster, waxed eloquent about how much he respected this ruthless dictatorship which more or less mirrored his late father's view - former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott. 

More recently and during the beginning of the Pandemic - the Liberal Government went out of its way to praise China for the effective way in which they went about fighting this outbreak.  All the while they had to know that China was dramatically downplaying the disease's seriousness while 10s of thousands of its citizens were dying or were traveling across the world spreading the joy.  

Canada was welcoming China's sick with open arms.  We are still paying the price for this Liberal Government Folly.

And then we sent China tons of medical supplies which China did not use but sent back to us.  To add to this nonsense we then ordered tons of medical supplies from China at a cost but the items turned out to be defective.

When non-liberals complained they were showered as being racist pigs.  Who is the racist and who is the pig? 

And all this being done while China is holding two of our citizens for 480 days and counting.  The two are Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.  If you do not know the sad story of their kidnapping... I encourage you to look it up. 

What is clear in all of this is that in all of our  dealings with this ruthless dictatorship - no attempt has been made to see our two brethren freed.  At least some good might have come from our niceness to the Giant but my extensive reading on this has found no indication that any attempt was made to see the two Michaels freed.  And until these two fellows are released Canada should give them spit and refrain from saying anything nice about them.  We should also be working to ensure that China is jettisoned from every world organization known to mankind.  It needs to be shunned. 

So we are seeing changes wrought by the Virus - some of which maybe permanent.  But the one constant throughout is that Canada remains suppliant at the Dictators Feet. 


As I See It...


K.D. Bell




.  

THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE ....MUCH WORSE.

In a recent blog I wrote that the best response to the Corona Virus is to do Nothing.

Well in retrospect perhaps I was a little bit over the top.  But not as much as you might think.

In the blog, I employed an analogy of a patient going to hospital for an ear ache and coming out with casts on both hands and both feet.  Well I should have said ...came out in a full body cast.

I say that since there are 3 serious affects that can be attributed to the Corona:   Health; Economic; and Social.

To date the focus has been mostly on the threat to health but the Virus has other equally deleterious affects:

• The World Economy has been shut down.  Millions are out of work and the dirty 30s are beginning to look like a cake walk in comparison to what is happening today.
• 
  
• Social Isolation recommended by health experts and politicians alike is working but at the cost of isolating the frail, the elderly, and the vulnerable.  in fact it is not mentally or physically healthy for any of us.

So how come?

The answer my dear friends is relatively easy to determine - our Politicians are making decisions that affect us all on the basis of what the nearest Health Expert recommends.

For instance, how many times have you seen Politician X make a declaration of some sort and a reporter naturally asks - 'Why So'?   The answer is inevitably that this is what the 'health care experts are advising us to do'.  End of Story. 

In effect our politicians are hiding behind these Experts - following rather than leading as they should.  In one sense who can blame them - they are on the side of the angels.  This despite the fact that the damage these self-same declarations can do is often worse than the virus itself.

So here is what I would suggest:

We all know the reaction of health care will be 'shut her down'.  So that position needs to be counter-balanced with the other two major players in the game represented by economists / business and social scientists / sociologists.  A panel representing the nation's experts in these 3 fields could then look for a compromise approach which the Politicians in their infinite wisdom can then consider and then act on the ones they find best suited to today's complex situation.

You read it here first - don't be shy to pass it along.

In closing, I will make a prediction - fear is what currently drives today's policy decisions but the day is quickly coming - even without the above panel - when fear of illness will be replaced by greed and economic self-preservation.  Society will be out for the welfare of Number 1 - themselves and to hell with a virus that may or not make them sick and will unlikely kill them.

For the sick and vulnerable continue to stay in doors throughout all of this and self-isolate. 

As I See It...

K.D. Bell