March 20, 2021
I just reminded my friend ( I
purposely won’t use her name) to remind her that I will come to bring some
money for her as she has an appointment on Monday, March 22, at the big
hospital here in Durban, Luthuli Hospital. This is where all the experts in
their fields are. It is free is you have been referred by another doctor who
explains that you can’t afford the expenses. Here’s the story.
She used to work for us here at MD as a kind of house
mother. One day she came and when I went to greet her she told me that she
couldn’t see out of her left eye, it was just black. I piled her in the car and took her to an
ophthalmologist who examined her (for free) and said that there was nothing
wrong with her eye, it must be something before it gets to the eye, like a
nerve or something. He phoned a friend who was a neurologist, who said that she
cold come now now. But it was going to cost something like R500 for the visit,
and if he found that she had to be admitted
to a hospital …..Well, that was way out of my range, so he wrote a note and I
took her to McCord’s hospital, a hospital for eye problems. This is free
(Americans would call it socialism). Once they put her into the system , she
had to get in the queue for the doctor. It was about noon. I told her to phone
me when she was finished and I would come and fetch her and take her home. She
never phoned. So I phoned about 4pm and
she said there were still 5 people ahead of her. I told her again, when she was
finished. But she never phoned. She made her way home on her own. That was
about April of 2019. She made many visits to this hospital and from time to
time to the big hospital. I was impressed with the care and cleanliness of
McCord’s hospital. I also knew a young doctor there who could give me reports
on her progress or lack of it. Her sight began to get worse, in spite of the
care, and the other eye was also affected, so that now she could barely see at
all. She needed to have someone accompany her if she wanted to go anywhere.
So the
situation was that she couldn’t work because she couldn’t see and we got a
letter from my ophthalmologist to say so, But it wasn’t accepted by the
government authorities, when she applied for a disability grant .(I think that
the government has been tricked often by people who get their doctor friend to
write such a letter…scam, so they want a government doctor, as though he or she
can’t do the same thing)
In any case for
the whole year 2020 she was back and forth to the doctor at Luthuli and kept
asking why her grant wasn’t forthcoming. Finally, about 2 weeks ago, I went to
the person who handles all the stuff for those who are hired by the monastery,
and she explained what this lady had to do, which was to get all the files of
all the visits etc. from Luthuli, to present them to the insurance company to
be able to qualify for a grant.
The last time
she was at Luthuli to get a copy of a one page document, they charged her R620.
Wow. Now she needs a sheaf of documents about an inch (20cm) thick. God only
knows what that could cost.
Now she says that the taxi fare from here to Durban is
R40 and another R35 from there to Luthuli. That’s R75 one way for one person.
She needs someone to accompany her, so double that. That’s R150 one way for the
two of them. The return trip is another R150. That’s R300 just for transport.
And she hasn’t had a salary for welll over a year. I really don’t know how she
survives. When I get some money from overseas, it put some in her account to be
used for food, rent, electricity, and transport, if she has to go to the doctor
or to do some shopping.
She phoned to
make an appointment (as she was told to do) and was given an appointment at
Luthuli for Monday the 22nd of March. When she explained that she
needed copies of all the reports, etc. for the insurance company, she asked how
much that could cost. The lady told her to bring R800 with her. What? Where is
an unemployed blind person who is applying for a disability grant supposed to
get that kind of money? Anyway, I managed to scrape together R1000 to help pay
for the transport and something for the copies. I will take the money to her
tomorrow, Sunday 21st so that she has something for transport on
Monday to get started
Bloody bureaucracy!
March 19, 2021
Anti-Christian
persecution is one of the most dramatic human rights scourges of our time.
Though statistics vary widely, the low-end estimate for the number of new
Christian martyrs every year in the early 21st century
is around 6,000 to 7,000, while the highest-end accounting puts it at 100,000.
That works out to somewhere between one Christian killed for the faith every
hour, to one every five minutes. Whatever the actual number, it’s a death toll
of staggering proportions.
Beyond
fatalities, watchdog groups estimate that 200 million Christians around the
world are at risk, facing daily threats of harassment, physical assault,
arrest, imprisonment and torture.
Wow, even I didn’t do the arithmetic to see how drastic this
is. I knew there was persecution but I didn’t realize it was so bad till
someone did the sums for me.
March 17, 2021
I am wondering what is wrong with
the people who suddenly are worried about this or that vaccine. Those that are
being used have run through all the tests with thousands of people and have
been OKed. It is clearly better that you have it than not. Here we are trying
to get it out first to those who are on the front line, and then, us oldies,
and eventually everyone. It is a bit slow but it is going. I am not holding my
breath, but in any case, I wear my mask wherever I go, I keep my distance (but
I am hardly anywhere where there is a crowd,) and I get sanitized many times a
day.
·
Uber said it would reclassify
more than 70,000 drivers in Britain as workers; they will
receive a minimum wage, vacation pay and access to a pension plan.
This is interesting. Uber is
getting to be something common here too when people are stuck for transport,
but it is very expensive. When I had my service done after 15,000 km., I found
out that the mechanic had to use Uber to get the materials because his own car
was not working. We are a 1st world, 3rd world country.
Most of the country is 3rd world, but there are pockets of 1st
world, mainly in the cities and suburbs, and a few well to do commercial
farmers.
Today is St. Patrick’s day. We
used to do a Polish Polka in the seminary on this day to celebrate the great
missionary, Patrick. Here is something that I just picked up this morning.
Putin ordered meddling in 2020 election
|
|
President Vladimir Putin of
Russia authorized extensive efforts to interfere in the
U.S. election to hurt Joe Biden’s
chances, including operations to influence people close to Donald Trump,
according to a newly declassified intelligence report. |
|
The report did not name Russia’s
targets but seemed to refer to Rudolph Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer,
who relentlessly pushed allegations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his
family involving Ukraine. China considered its own efforts, but concluded
that such an operation would fail, the report found. |
|
The U.S. intelligence community
also determined that Iran tried to aid Mr. Biden in the final days of the
election by spreading emails that falsely claimed to be from the far-right group the
Proud Boys. Unlike in 2016, there were no
efforts by Russia or other countries to change actual ballots, the report
found. Life gets more and more
complicated. Cyber security is number one now, and there are always some who
are more clever who will find a way to hack in and spread misinformation or
whatever they want. It is scary. |
March 11, 2021
|
|
|
|
March 8, 2021
As
president of General Motors, Mark Reuss made global headlines when the company
committed to go all-electric with its vehicle lineup by 2035. Automakers around
the world are following suit to phase out fossil fuels in favor of more
efficient, zero-emission vehicles. Reuss joins Washington Post columnist David
Ignatius to discuss what is needed to drive mass EV adoption and how GM will
drive the transition. Join Washington Post Live on Thursday, March 11 at
11:30am ET.
It
looks like electric is in and fossil fuels is out. Between 10 and 15 yrs. is
not really a long time. But where is the electricity going to come from?
March 5, 2021
The metallic element is
housed in a bulbous piece of aluminum, called a catalytic
converter, that encases a honeycomb structure that filters fumes. National data
is scarce, but news reports point to thousands of catalytic converter thefts over
the past year, a crime wave that has risen with the price of one of their
essential components: rhodium, a silvery-white chemical element that is a
byproduct of the production of platinum and palladium, and is unparalleled in
its ability to remove the most toxic pollutants from vehicle exhaust.
A single troy ounce, which is
slightly heavier than a regular ounce, of rhodium cost around $27,000 last week — more
than a brand new Toyota Prius. That’s up from $1,700 three years ago.
Today Pope Francis flies to Iraq. May God protect this man
of peace.
March 3, 2021
Electric cars: Volvo
Cars said it would convert its entire lineup to battery power by 2030, phasing out vehicles with internal
combustion engines faster than other automakers like General Motors. The
automaker, based in Sweden, is owned by Geely Holding of China. (That’s only 10 yrs. from now. I may even
still be alive. But. By that time, I think I might be worrying about other
things, like eternal life. Ha.)
One
of my favorite speeches comes from Robert Duvall in "Second Hand
Lions":
"Sometimes
the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to
believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and
virtues mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing;
that Good always triumphs over Evil; and I want you to remember this: That
Love, true Love never dies. Doesn't matter if any of this is true or not. You
see a man should believe in these things because these are the things worth
believing in." #favoritemovie
(What do you think? This was sent by a friend from Southern
Indiana)
From Nickle and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich, about 2001 (These
clothes were being sold in Wal Marts)
34 In 1996, the National Labor Committee
Education Fund in Support of Worker and Human Rights in Central America
revealed that some Kathie Lee clothes were being sewn by children as young as
twelve in a sweatshop in Honduras. TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford, the owner
of the Kathie Lee line, tearfully denied the charges on the air but later
promised to give up her dependence on sweatshops.
March 1, 2021
(retired former Pope) Benedict also
commented on Joe Biden, the second Catholic president in U.S. history: “It is
true, he is Catholic and observant. And he is personally against abortion. But
as a president he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the
Democratic Party … And on gender politics we have not yet fully understood what
his position is.” (This was in a recent interview in Rome)
