My experience with Gulf War Syndrome

USS Elliot (DD-967) in North Arabian Gulf, circa 1998

USS Elliot (DD-967) in North Arabian Gulf, circa 1998


On the Gulf War Veterans Facebook group, one of the members asked if anyone had mystery illnesses. It sparked a lively discussion – one that sometimes veered off into black helicopter land – but it did inspire me to share my mystery symptoms with the group. I’ve alluded to these previously but have not shared them in this detail on my blog before.

As I said in my Facebook post, my desire for answers outweighs my reluctance to post this info in a public forum. If you know me you know what a statement that is. I hope it draws out others to share their experiences, too.
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Chaperoning double-standard

In a fit of madness or something, I signed up months ago to chaperone my daughter’s fifth-grade class on a trip to DC. Being that I am her father, I figured this might pose some logistical problems in that I couldn’t both take her and her friends around the city and stay with them at the hotel at night. Same sex only, right? I figured all the parents would have to accept this.

Wrong. I discovered last week that the moms going on the trip are cleared to stay with their sons and his friends. Apparently it’s just the dads who aren’t allowed to stay with their opposite-sex child and her friends.
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in Rant | 227 Words

Outlawed by Amazon DRM « Martin Bekkelund

This is one of many reasons why I won’t buy an Amazon Kindle.

A couple of days a go, my friend Linn sent me an e-mail, being very frustrated: Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation. This is DRM at it’s worst.

Linn travels a lot and therefore has, or should I say had, a lot of books on her Kindle, purchased from Amazon. Suddenly, her Kindle was wiped and her account was closed. Being convinced that something wrong had happened, she sent an e-mail to Amazon, asking for help. This was the answer:

via Outlawed by Amazon DRM « Martin Bekkelund.

Please stop letting kids wear short dresses

Kelly and I joined our friends at this weekend’s homecoming game at our old high school. At halftime, the school held its traditional homecoming queen ceremony (for some reason neither Kelly nor I can remember there being a homecoming king). We were both a bit shocked at how short all the homecoming queen contestants’ dresses were. They were not much more than tight-fitting shirts. One girl’s mother was down there in a dress just as short as her daughter’s. Neither one was rocking the look, to say the least.

We saw a glimpse of this look as we drove past an N.C. State football game earlier this year. A stream of girls walked by wearing cowboy boots and hats and dresses that barely covered their butts. It screamed “desperation” to me and I didn’t find it at all attractive.
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N&O school coverage fails again to provide perspective

I was reading this N&O story about Wake school board members Kevin Hill and Keith Sutton providing background on Tata’s firing. The story by Thomas Goldsmith inexplicably ended with a quote from some random guy and included no context as to why what we think he says actually matters:

“I think the man got a raw deal,” said Arvin F. Dixon, 76, who lives just outside of Rolesville. “I think the school board should have been working together and taking care of our tax money like they ought to be.”

Who is this guy, Arvin Dixon? He’s not mentioned anywhere else in the article. Nowhere does it state whether he was one of many who called or emailed the board. At the age of 76, it’s safe to say that Mr. Dixon has no kids currently in school. Voting records show he is a white male and registered Republican who only sporadically votes in local elections.
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Senate Republicans kill veterans jobs bill

Sometimes its easy for me to forget that Sen. Richard Burr is a Republican. He isn’t flashy, his office does well with constituent services, and he has shown support for veterans, an important constituency in military-friendly North Carolina. Oh sure, there’s been an occasional bank run, but Burr hasn’t drawn my outrage like other Republicans.

Until now, that is. Burr was one of the Senate Republicans who voted against a jobs bill designed to get veterans back to work. The bill was bipartisan. It was fully funded at its modest $1 billion over five years. It would’ve put some of America’s heroes – the men and women who wear our uniform – back to work. Nonetheless, Burr and his buddies scuttled it at the last minute because Obama lauded it in his convention speech.

There is simply no excuse for not passing this bill. It’s pathetic. As blogger Jim Wright profanely points out, Congress was all too eager to send our armed forces off to war, but when it is time to welcome these troops home to America Congress gives them the finger?

Burr and his pals want people to believe this is all over a billion dollars. A billion dollars over five years! Shit, the Department of Defense spent more than a billion dollars on air conditioning in Iraq – every month! And yet Congress can’t afford to cough up a quarter-bil each year to help get jobs for the brave men and women who served their country? After all these citizens have sacrificed?

I mean, damn. If there’s one issue that really shows what’s wrong with our current Congress, this is it. I hope veterans everywhere are paying attention.

On the anti-government crowd

You’ve had your tax breaks for 10 years, where are the jobs?

I shared this provocative photo on my Facebook page on Tuesday and it sparked a spirited discussion drawing over 25 comments between my friends who see the value in government and those who don’t. I woke up with this on my mind and the whole debate drives me nuts.

I used to buy into the whole libertarian outlook over a decade ago and admit on paper it makes a lot of sense. One of the problems is that it assumes that everyone starts on a level playing field when they most assuredly do not. The other problem is that it’s predicated on some Pollyanna world where everyone can be taken at his word and as we’ve seen time and time again that does not match reality. Let’s take a look at the lying scumbags problem first.

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Zazzle yanks sticker under pressure from Honda

Odyssey transmissions blow chunks. Literally.

It seems Honda took offense to my first bumper sticker, asking Zazzle to pull it from sale. I asked Zazzle to elaborate:

Thanks for the response regarding my rejected bumper sticker content. However, I am still at a loss as to how this sticker infringes on any copyrights, trademarks, and/or libels or defames anyone. Could you please cite the specific content guideline that is of concern?

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Ask me about Honda transmissions bumper sticker

Honda transmissions suck


After becoming disgusted with American Honda’s refusal to own up to the problems with the Honda Odyssey transmissions, I decided to create a bumper sticker which will help spread the word about Honda’s shoddy treatment of its customers.

Feel free to share!

Update 1:25 PM: It seems Zazzle has removed my bumper sticker without explanation. My email is down at the moment but when it returns I hope to hear what happened. I certainly hope it isn’t a case of Zazzle getting nervous about me exercising my First Amendment rights. Certainly there’s nothing defamatory about a product that simply reads “ask me about Honda transmissions,” is there?

Running low on road revenue

The Republican leadership in the North Carolina General Assembly wants to cap our state’s gasoline tax. How is this anything but a stupid idea? Sure, it’d be nice for folks not to pay anything, anytime, but that’s not how it works. If you build roads, you damn sure better be willing to maintain them.

The gasoline tax pays for roads: roads that are in dire need of repair. We either pay to fix them or we pay when commerce in our state grinds to a halt.

Another ill-advised bill making its way through the NCGA would bar I-95 from becoming a toll road. One legislator said that companies would move their operations elsewhere if the tolls went into effect. If you think tolls will drive business away, imagine what will happen if I-95 becomes a pothole-filled parking lot because it’s crumbling and outdated.

There’s no complicated problem without a solution that’s simple, logical – and wrong. H.L. Mencken said something much like that years ago, and life still has a way of proving the caustic journalist right. Take the gasoline tax.

North Carolina’s state tax on gasoline sold at the pump, currently 38.9 cents, is relatively steep. It ranks sixth highest in the land (an additional federal tax of 18.4 cents on each gallon applies throughout the country). Our state’s tax is also an unusual one, in that a portion of it adjusts every six months in tune with the wholesale price of gasoline. So: Higher-priced gas equals a higher state gas tax.

To motorists with wallets pumped dry, that doesn’t seem fair, or right. No wonder politicians eagerly offer solutions

via Running low on road revenue – Editorials – NewsObserver.com.