archive of July, 2009
Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten … America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay.
If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness – justice. ~ Dr. Martin King, Junior
Tonight I watched a nonstop Formula One race, televised from the Hungaroring Circuit in Hungary. The race had NO yellow-flag caution periods which the IndyCar Series dearly loves.
IndyCar fans often have to endure 12 minutes of no racing during a race. The laps spent trolling around behind a Honda Accord pace car are counted as race laps, although no one is racing. The fans in the stands are bored and viewers at home are exposed to insipid ads which they’ve seen and heard several times already. If IndyCar Series executive officers care about the quality of their on-track ‘product,’ they would do well to watch Formula One — and other — races which don’t have needless, unnecessarily-long caution periods for such excuses as the removal of a stopped car which is nowhere near the racing surface and thus endangers no one.
I didn’t arise early enough to go to the chingay championship on the George Town Esplanade and make photos of people balancing flag poles, but I went to Tanjung City Marina hoping to photograph a ‘dragon boat’ race to Butterworth and back. Well, it’s an athletic competition for the rowers, not an event that’s ‘made for TV’ or spectating. I couldn’t get a decent photo unless I were in a helicopter or on a boat out in the channel. »→
I sincerely believe … that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. ~ Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Monday, July 12:
In Hospital Pulau Pinang, I asked a nurse at the nurses’ desk if someone would raise my bed like a few others that I pointed to. I wished that I had known last night that the beds could articulate. My back hurt all night and morning, seemingly from the weight of my body on my spine. If I had my bed jacked-up to a 45° angle, it might’ve alleviated some suffering. I ambled back toward bed two, and while I waited for a nurse or orderly or anyone I looked out the south windows of C-block to the playground and the street beyond. Though several windows were tilted open and the ceiling fan above beds 1 and 2 was whirring at top speed, I began to feel very hot, as if I’d just hiked up Bukit Bendera. »→
Monday, July 12:
About 12:15 my bed was pushed to the radiology department again, and someone thrust another bottle of banana-flavored contrast medium for me to drink. Afterward I struggled to shift my body from the bed to the curved tray that slides into the CT scanner. I was glad that I had received an analgesic recently. I got several scans, from my groin to my cranium before inching off the tray onto my bed. I was returned to the multi-care ward at 1:00. I was too late for lunch, but I wasn’t very hungry. I just lay on the bed, wondering what’s next. I’d heard that the CT scan results would be available in the evening. I wanted to know if any damage showed in the new pictures of my shoulder and back. »→
Sunday night — Monday morning:
I was laid-up in bed 2 in ward C10, on the third floor of Hospital Pulau Pinang, not sleeping as I gazed at the white ceiling and a furiously-spinning ceiling fan which dried my eyes.
I was there overnight because I felt too battered, pained and weak to go home. My upper back and lower neck hurt, where my neck joins my skull hurt, some ribs ached, I felt like my heart was being stabbed by a pencil, my shoulders were swollen and painful, the right knee hurt, my right hip and thigh were bruised and swollen, and I was rather immobile. I wasn’t breathing deeply, either. At home I wouldn’t have a health aide, so I thought that a hospital loaded with health care professionals which has strong pain medicines was the place to lay low for now. »→
……I have a headache, and I don’t feel like writing, but I’ll hunt-and-peck, anyway. Sunday evening, as I rode my motorbike toward home, another small motorbike collided with mine, almost head-on, I think. I seem to have been thrown sideways, or I vaulted over my handlebars, breaking off the left mirror with my shoulder. I haven’t talked to a witness, I don’t have a video record of the incident, and I was knocked unconscious. »→