Saturday, April 28, 2012

City-Data.com

City-Data.com is a very highly detailed collection of information on cities throughout the U.S. and possibly more than I have explored. If you take the survey at FindYourSpot.com first, it can be an amazing tool for relocating to a place that better suits your needs.

Unfortunately, the City-Data.com forums are run by a vindictive, egotistical, megalomaniacal paranoid autocrat who is extremely thin-skinned and is willing to doll out infractions for delusionally inferred violations.

I posted a positive and informative blog at the site about how I was going through the steps of finding a new home and relocating, and just because I mentioned that I was using my iPad, they pulled my post and claimed I was "spamming." Upon my correcting the error with a second blog post, by explaining my professional knowledge regarding communication obtained at a prestigious university, the response was a "trolling" infraction.

I recommend against contributing at the forums. At first I thought the other people posting at the forums might have some legitimate information, but knowing how tightly reined and censored the information is by the tyrants that run the site, I must question all of its honesty.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Priority care is not urgent

Its all in the title. I somehow made the mistake that Priority Care on MacArthur was a walk-in triage center instead of a regular outpatient clinic. Yesterday I waited for over an hour to have someone look at my Gout. I couldn't take it anymore so I left without saying a word, afraid that I would offend someone if I spoke. I told them it was gout, and it hurts like hell but it's not life-threatening.

At the desk there is a sign that gives reasons for the delay in being seen, among them are scheduled appointments, blood work, or more life-threatening illnesses. These reasons make perfect sense for a regular outpatient clinic, not my mis-construed idea of a walk-in clinic. I always associate the word "priority" with the meaning for the word "urgent" like they have something in common.

The majority of the five or six people who walked in and were seen while I waited had appointments. Perhaps the doctors who are practicing regular visits here should relocate to a more appropriate facility for scheduled appointments.

The word "Priority" should be removed from the name of this facility because it mislead me into unnecessary expenses, time and suffering.

I finally went to the Memorial center over at Kokemill and was able to get treated quickly. The doctor looked at my foot and ordered an x-ray. He said the x-ray was clear but that other techs would review it and they would call me later if they found something more significant. I asked the person who I thought was the doctor about getting something to reduce the Uric acid in my blood and he said "you really should have a regular doctor because we can't write those kinds of prescriptions."

The "unwashed masses" like myself who can't afford to "have a doctor" must continue to suffer continuously because doctors at these supposed "urgent" or "priority" care facilities can't write prescriptions for anything more than pain-killers? These must be "residents" or "almost" doctors. If this is true, how can they have regular patients who schedule appointments that supersede anyone who walks in off the street, yet they can't prescribe my kind of medication?

My last three visits to Priority care resulted in prescriptions of pain-killers. I guess if they want repeat customers, they have an easy target. Pick on the poor who can't afford insurance. When it gets so bad that I finally qualify for Social Security Disability, the pain will be finally go away for good but the damage to my joints will require extensive surgeries.

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Town trapped

I don't really have anything tonight. I just don't have any motivation to continue writing about Springfield. I'm a photographer and media producer by hobby and I am out of things to do in Springfield worthy of my skills.

My lack of motivation is tied directly to the fact that I had to go all the way to Jacksonville to find a job, so my bitterness for Springfield is compounded. I grew up in this town and the most salient memory I have is sitting on my front porch with my friends and asking "what do you want to do today?" The answer was invariably "I don't know."

I keep seeing the same jobs show up in the newspaper classified ads every few months so I assume either the employer or the employee gets fed-up. I stopped submitting my resume to the anonymous post office box at One Copley Plaza because of the potential for fraud. I never get a response.

I'm confident that Springfield and Illinois are headed for deep austerity measures as higher gas prices and stagnant wages lead to lower tax revenue. A vicious cycle of state worker layoffs, increasing taxes, an exodus of businesses and private sector workers, compounded by exponentially climbing debt, will collapse Illinois into bankruptcy. Perhaps Carlos Slim can bail out Illinois.

Best of luck.

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

The audacity of Illinois politics.

A new poll posted online at http://www.sj-r.com/thedome suggests that Govenor Pat Quinn is proposing cuts to the operating hours of Illinois Museums and historic sites in order to save the state's budget. However, just a few days ago, Governor Quinn proclaimed March 22, "Illinois Museums Day" according to http://www.murphysboroamerican.com/newsnow/x760606848/Illinois-museums-generate-2-billion-in-economic-impact.

At this point I try to think of possible reasons for this kind of behavior. Was Illinois Museum Day just a coincidental precursor to the budget decision? Was the budget proposal known well before Illinois Museum Day and thus Museum Day was an attempt at mitigating political damage?

What would happen if hours of operation were cut at Illinois historic sites? Most of the historic sites are downstate, would cutting those hours of operation actually cause to increase the number of visitors to Chicago museums? Is that the goal?

Well, since the most money in Illinois politics comes from Chicagoland, it might be just as effective to mandate that school districts stop teaching history which will ultimately diminish interest in historic sites and further justify budget cuts with little opposition.


Over the decades, there have been many overt attempts to move the Capital of Illinois from Springfield to Chicago, but now the tactic of "Creeping Normality" is the better strategy as the tentacles of insatiable greed reach down from Chicago to snatch resources and well-paying state jobs away from rural areas of the state.

Perhaps in the extreme long-term, the earth of downstate Illinois will be returned to its origin of cultivation rather than being paved over with asphalt and concrete. After all, downstate Illinois has the richest soil on the face of the earth.