Pheealzabraces: PAOO 2, or an Asia song for a prognosis

The second round of PAOO surgery happened yesterday. I was coming out of the Anesthesia as Dr. Brownfield was finishing up, and since the doses are in 45 minute cycles, I woke up a little quicker than I would if the procedure had lined up with the cycles. This was due to the procedure taking a little longer than anticipated, since some unexpected discoveries were made. It was also not the most pleasant way to wake up from the surgery.

The Resorption has continued and ramped up, evidently. As Dr. B feared when she initially diagnosed it, it has been affecting the bone between the two dead teeth as well as the teeth themselves, and has caused an active infection. She cleaned the infection out as best she could and did a gum graft between the two teeth. She doubled the course of antibiotics for me from 1 to 2 weeks, and the elestics are back on as I type this. Obviously this is a less than ideal development, but it is not a complete surprise. I’m not sure if the resorption had been occurring all along and we just hadn’t seen it until now or it restarted when the damaged teeth got to a certain point in the extrusion process (pulling them down with the elastics).

I spoke with her on the phone this morning and she filled me in on all these developments (I was still out of it enough that any discussion we had right after the surgery is long gone from my memory). I’m going to see her again on Wednesday and going to see Dr. Hall in approximately 2 weeks. 

When I asked her how this might impact the rough timeline that we had been working under she inadvertently quoted one of Asia’s hits, answering “Only Time Will Tell”, which didn’t really come as a great surprise to me.

The pain isn’t too bad right now, but I’m pretty tired and punchy. I took some Tylenol 3’s yesterday spaced apart properly and got some sound sleep, but woke at about 3:30 and never really got back to sleep (the fact that the paper was already delivered by then (shocking) was no help - I read the whole thing hoping it would wear me out but to no avail) mainly for fear of dropping into another deep slumber and turning onto my side, thus inviting another black eye. I went to the store and then had some pancakes and eggs at Teotihucan, so I’m going to see if that was enough to knock me out after I finish this and get it posted.

Many thanks to my friend Rebecca for transport to and from the office (Clint is out of town) and for bringing some delicious water ice from Rita’s later in the evening and hanging out for a bit. Sometimes the fact that I’m going through all this with out a constant companion (human - Bolt is always here for me) is the toughest part about it. But, I soldier on, with plenty of friends I know I can count on available and willing here in town and family a phone call away. I just have this stiff necked aversion to calling on them sometimes, thinking that I’d just be an imposition. Every time I voice that sentiment I get admonished for it, but it still persists, from where I have no idea. 

More as it develops. Thanks for following the saga this far.  

Pheealzabraces: Frozen

So things have been going pretty well along the tooth front until the last checkup I went in for at Dr. Hal’s office yesterday. He confirmed a suspicion that I had about the dead teeth and the two on either side of them, which was that they had stopped moving. He changed the configuration of the elastics on that side and asked me to see Dr. Brownfield to get her opinion. 

She determined that the teeth were ankylosed and that we would have to do another PAOO surgery. Dr. Hall had eluded to this, but it was still not the most welcome news. So, I’ll be going under the knife and drill in about two weeks. Hopefully Dr. Brownfield will be able to coax them to move as much as she and Dr. Hall want them to on schedule so that we can start looking at the extraction of the dead teeth and the installation of the implant(s) and appliance(s). 

Pheealzabraces: Photo Gallery, weeks 1, 2, 3

July 11: The hot mess on the morning of the initial installation.

July 13: Two days after installation.

 July 17: Up close and personal.

July 25: Two weeks out, First rewire and banding. They added a second wire to the top brackets to help with spreading out the upper palate. The banding was initially what they called a box. A SINGLE elastic between the two upper eye teeth down to the two lower eye teeth and across. I was never able to re install the single elastic and actually ended up ripping the bracket off the upper left eye tooth trying Monday night. When I went back Tuesday afternoon to have it re attached, Dr. Hall went ahead and told me to do individual elastics from upper to lower eye tooth on either side.   

A much easier endeavor. The second wire should be coming out on the 8th, a decision on the elastics will depend on how much the teeth have moved.

Pheealzabraces: Bracket Installation: 3 days out

I just finished browsing Lingual Braces (the trade name for the Incognito type) blogs to see if what I have been and continue to experience was in the norm, which evidently it is. I am referring to an unexpected and extremely intense "world of pain", in the immortal words of Walter Sobchak.

After about three and a half hours in the chair at Dr. Hall's office which encompassed the cleaning and prep of the teeth, the application of the brackets (two #12 & #21 (I think) came off with the trays and had to be re applied), and the wiring of the brackets I expected there to be a degree of aching pain in my jaws and teeth, since the basic work of the brackets and wires is to move teeth around in existing bone. What I didn't foresee was the difficulty in speaking immediately after the installation of the brackets and the development of painful ulcers on the underside of the side of my tongue near the back from rubbing against the brackets.

The speaking issues (which still haven't gone away) were evident immediately, and were not all that surprising. It's primarily in the from of a lisp, but there is also a good deal of extra salivation that goes on, resulting in having to pause fairly frequently when speaking to deal with (swallow) the aforementioned saliva. The tongue ulcers were a bit more surprising and definitely more annoying. Brace wax and Benzocaine based oral topicals have become my new best friend. There's nothing like having a band of sharp brackets with wire running between them on the inside of your teeth to remind you of how much your tongue moves around in your mouth when eating, coughing, clearing your throat, and hacking.

I bring up hacking because on top of the PAOO surgery and the braces I seem to have caught a dose of a flu of one sort or another. My chest was getting that lovely tightening sensation when I woke up Monday morning for the appointment at Dr. Hall's office and my throat had progressed to the classic hot scratchy state by that evening. The fever (such as it was) has since broken and I'm at the achy, tired, expectorating stage.

The blogs (none more recent than 2012, and the majority being from across the pond in GB) are a bit reassuring, speaking of the tongue pain and the speech issues and stating that, while the first week or two are a bit Hellish, things do settle down and one will get accustomed to the braces.  I've never been the most patient of people, but have learned the prudence of it in the past few years, so reading these entries has helped.

So has the Ninja. I think I'm drinking as many smoothies as I was immediately following the surgery. Soft food isn't too painful, but the (disgusting but inevitable) feeling of food of any type getting caught in the brackets is something that I tend to avoid right now. It's easily rectified with a thorough brushing immediately following the meal, but the smoothies and shakes make satisfying hunger a quicker (depending on the prep time for the smoothie) and cleaner (to an extent - I still brush afterwards) proposition.

Based on the blogs the eighth day is a milestone in terms of adjusting to the brackets and wire, so I'll plan on posting on this topic again then if there are no pressing developments before then. With what's going on in the world over the past ten days (not to discount the entirety of 2016) there may be additional posts on the general state of things once I'm over this lovely crud that is making its way slowly out of my system.

Pheealzabraces: PAOO surgery, 5 days out

Those of you who have been following this saga via social media are aware of the latest step in this long and arduous process, the PAOO surgery. Dr. Brownfield performed it this past Monday (6/27) and I saw her again on Thursday (6/30) for a follow up. Everything is progressing well, although its been a little more intense than the Wisdom Tooth extractions.

In addition to the PAOO procedure, she also did some gum grafting to address the Gingival recession on the lower front as well as the removal of some compound filling put in by Dr. Hung to address distal fractures on my upper molars a couple years ago. All in all it added up to a long day in the chair, though I was, again, blissfully unaware of the proceedings save for another nose scratching episode. This time I was more insistent, and was actually obliged by Dr. Brownfield and her assistant until the spot was scratched.

Once again, faithful friend and responsible party Clint got me to the office and back home and settled in. Monday afternoon and evening are pretty spotty (there was some soccer viewing in there somewhere, and a lot of spit that looked suspiciously like pure blood), not surprising considering I probably had a good bit of sedative and painkiller still in my system. It wasn’t until Tuesday and really Wednesday that the full brunt of what had been done started to hit home.

Apparently I have harder bone than most folks, necessitating the shaving down of it in order for the PAOO cuts to be properly made. My face is going to ache for quite a while, I think. I finally broke down and took a Tylenol 3 (Tylenol w/Codeine) Tuesday night and turned onto my side at some point, which I was advised against due to the fact that not keeping my head elevated might result in one or both eyes blackening. Viola, instant left eye black. It’s not tender or anything, but it sure looks serious. Dr. Brownfield was duly impressed Thursday. I think the bigger pain in all this is the swelling that is stubborn in not going down (my nose feels like it’s stuffed up all the time, but blowing it is an exercise in pain (and futility, most of the time)) and the stitches all over my mouth, especially the ones on the outside of my gums poking into the inside of my lips.

The other tough part about the recovery this go round is how much longer it’s going to take and the necessity for me to take it easy for an extended period of time. I’m lucky I was able to take the entire week off, and glad that I did so. Still, I went out to run errands on the past few days and to band practice last night, which plumb wore me out. It’s frustrating, because the recovery from the extractions was relatively short and easy. I’m not the most patient person in the world, and laying around the house doesn’t feel right, even when I know it’s the best thing for me.

The ‘no solid food for two weeks’ thing is also proving to be interesting, mainly in the sense that it has all but reduced my meat consumption to zero. I’m learning quickly about what I like and don’t like in the smoothie world.

So the next week or so will be an exercise in patience and self control. The stitches come out on Friday (7/8) and the braces go on on the following Monday (7/11) Then the long road to the eventuality that will be the implants to replace the dead teeth that started all this will be underway.

Pheealzabraces: Stage 2, 2 days out

So all four Wisdom teeth are gone, almost thirty years after appearing without incident (aside from confusing and causing slight pain to their owner as they erupted). The second extraction and the recovery are going as smoothly as the first (although the gum flap over the upper socket on the left side (the one worked on yesterday) has already dropped out, almost 24 hours earlier than the right side did), but I'm not too worried. Dr. Brownfield called last night to check on me and said that it was actually a little easier than the right side. I know what to do and not do to avoid complications (he says, knocking on wood). Next up (after the follow up in two weeks) will be coordinating the ordering of the braces and subsequent scheduling of the PAOO surgery.

At Clint's (and my once I was appraised in greater detail of the annoying and hilarious details of my state immediately after the first surgery) request I was given more time to wake up before they called him to come whisk me back to the house. I don't remember coming to in any capacity during the procedure (see the infamous 'trying to scratch his nose" incident during the first surgery), but definitely was lucid afterwards while I was still in the room both in the dental chair and the wheelchair (I imagine they need to have me in one until I'm in the vehicle out front) having conversation with both Dr. Brownfield and the DA who assisted her. I was sharp enough to notice that the ice packs and headwrap that I brought with me to reuse (apparently I was their first patient to ever do that, serial recycler that I am) and remember the entire ride home as well as to wait for Clint to stop the truck, help me out, and help me to the front door. None of which I did the first time, apparently.

Now for some surreal and befuddling communication between the surgeries:

After the first surgery, Dr. Brownfield sent a treatment letter (SOP) to my regular dentist, Dr. Tim Hung. I have been seeing him for about 4 years, and he had put some fillings in on both the top and sides of some of my teeth as well as cutting one of the dead teeth down and placing a crown on it (the tooth in question (6) had darkened over many years mainly due to (voracious) coffee and tea consumption in my younger years. He had also asked me about whether I wanted to explore the possibility of braces, and I told him that I didn't, thinking that he was asking with cosmetic considerations in mind and not the issues that Drs Brownfield and Hall highlighted.

When his office received the letter, they were, shall we say, less than thrilled, called Dr. Brownfield's office and proceeded to espouse in a passionate and a little less than diplomatic manner on how THEY did extractions, and THEY did braces and had spoken to me about them (Dr. Brownfield's office manager Kelly actually fielded the call, which is a normal part of her gig, albeit a pretty crappy one). Dr. Hung then called me to "answer any questions that I might have" about everything that was going on. I spoke with him for a bit and wasn't really sure where things stood with he and I even after the conversation. I spent a couple days before the follow up after the first surgery (about two weeks ago) wondering if I had done something wrong in not going back to him after the visits with Drs Brownfield and Hall (this being my first real experience with a referral). Once I had the follow up with Dr. Brownfield we talked at length about it (she had called Dr. Hung back since he called me) she gave me her take on things which boiled down to the fact that Dr. Hung was trying to offer as many services as possible out of a single facility and that his office was encouraged to try to keep as much as possible procedure wise with established patients in house. While this is certainly the way things are moving in the world that we live in today (think big box home improvement stores and grocery store size sections in Targets and Wal Marts) it doesn't sit too well with me when it comes to the medical industry. Specialists are called that for a reason. Dr. Brownfield tried to assuage Dr. Hung's apparent confusion about why I followed her and Dr. Hall's counsel concerning the braces when he had mentioned it to me earlier by explaining that sometimes it takes a person being told more than once that a certain course of action is preferable. I was also a little confused about Dr. Hung and/or his office's angst over my electing to follow the treatment regimen that Drs Brownfield and Hall had proposed since he had referred me to Dr. Brownfield and she had referred me to Dr. Hall (which she agreed with). Dr. Brownfield also said that she had told Dr. Hung that he wasn't qualified to do the Orthodontic treatment on me due to the lateral cross bite, the over bite, the crowding in the lower front, all of which he ended up agreeing with. It seemed that Dr. Hung's major concern is the two teeth in the front from the accident and how they were going to be addressed. He expressed a desire to try to save the lateral incisor (7), which Dr. Brownfield expressed doubt about, and she felt the conversation ended on a good note.

[This is probably as good a place as any to point out that Dr. Hung has a pretty thick accent and his tone is pretty consistently flat and neutral, making it hard to read him when he speaks to me about issues and procedures outside the scope of day to day tooth care. I outlined this to Dr. Brownfield during my first appointment, which she heard and agreed with after their first conversation.]

So Dr. Brownfield and I decided to do the other two Wisdom teeth next and the PAOO surgery after that (the two together would be a pretty long day in the chair, which I am happy to forego) and Kelly and I scheduled the appointment for Tuesday the 3rd. Then last week (Thursday, I think it was) who should call but Dr. Hung's office asking me to come in so that he could walk me through my options for the next several stages of treatment. I was getting ready for a call at the Opera and was getting close to my limit with him. I asked the woman on the phone (who I'm pretty sure is his wife) what exactly he wanted to talk about since I was already on a set course of treatments that I had discussed with Drs Brownfield and Hall. He came to the phone and eventually made it known that he wanted to walk me through the different replacement options for the two dead teeth in the front. After further conversation with him mainly getting across that I in fact did not have any questions and that (according to my understanding gleaned from discussion with Drs Brownfield and Hall) the replacement of the two front teeth was something we were going to consider after the PAOO and Ortho treatment I got him off the phone (not without him getting his stock way of ending a call out; "If you have any questions don't hesitate to call") and decided not to bother Dr. Brownfield with it and see if he was going to call her office.

Which is indeed what happened. She came into the room before I went under from the oral sedatives (it seems like it took a little longer than the last time) and told me she spoke to him again (I asked resignedly "when did he call you?", to which she replied with a knowing and slightly weary smile: "after he called you." She was more firm with him this time, again attempting to explain that it sometimes takes a person more than once to hear something before deciding on going forward with it. She ended the conversation on a slightly firmer note, stating that she and Dr. Hung didn't need to speak again until after the Ortho treatment at the earliest (I mentioned that it seemed to me Dr. Hung was asking me to make decisions pertaining to "step 7" of this process when I was mere days away from "step 2", which she agreed with). She did mention to me that one of the things he said to her during the conversation was that he "just wanted me to be happy" with the end result, which apparently is something that she'd never heard from a Dentist before. I greeted all of this with a bit of relief (not at the fact that she had heard from him again) but at the fact that it seemed as though he was going to back off a bit (one of the other things he kept mentioning was "coordination between the three offices of our efforts").

I mentioned a couple possibilities that had crossed my mind during the course of the phone calls between Dr. Hung and Dr. Brownfield and I to Dr. Brownfield:

He was fearful of losing control of the overall course of treatment (which I felt he had relinquished with the referral, but this being my first referral experience I am not so sure of now) and potentially me as a patient.

He was concerned about the fate of the two front teeth that prompted the referral in the first place (one of which he had done significant work on with the crown). I don't know, concern over the legacy of that work or the potential that I or Dr. Brownfield or Hall or both would consider that work a failure or at best a stopgap measure?

(A third that I didn't mention to her was the possibility that he didn't appreciate being told that he "wasn't qualified" to do the Ortho on my teeth, especially by a woman. It's another aspect of Dr. Brownfield that I admire pretty highly: establishing an independent practice in a specialized area of a field that is (to my limited observation) still rife with patriarchal attitudes while raising a pair of 2 year old twin boys).

She didn't agree with either of them outright but didn't disagree either, so I have a feeling that it's a combination of the two. Maybe this post should have been subtitled "Ego and Politics in Dentistry"

One of the other things that Dr. Brownfield has mentioned to me more than once is that my case is refreshing in that the history of the two teeth that are eventually going to have to be removed and replaced is a known one and that I'm at peace with that fact. She has told me of patients who, upon hearing such news, have refused to acknowledge that as a possibility, not understanding or being able to remember an incident that might be the underlying cause of the current need for the removal of the tooth and have burst into tears in the chair, left the office and weren't seen again by her for two years. At one point during one of our conversations when this came up I asked if there were one or more Psychology or Communications courses that were a part of the Dental School course load. She answered that there weren't, but that her Undergraduate degree was in Humanities, and that she finds herself using it every day, contrary to what many people say to her ("it's too bad that that degree is going to waste") when they find out that she has the degree and yet is a Dental Specialist.

I'll close this out before I think of another tangent to start rambling about. More after the follow up and potential additional scans/models.

Pheealzabraces: 8 days out

So here we are, a week and a day out from the first leg of this long arduous trek. The surgery went well, and I seem to be healing well and on schedule. There was a little bit of a scare on my part about a potential dry socket on Monday and Tuesday, but it appears to be some tenderness and bacteria build up due to the medicated rinse not getting to all the places it needs to, mainly due to my paranoia about swishing too hard and flushing a graft out of one of the sockets. Slightly more vigorous rinsing and local application of the rinse to the extraction areas seems to be doing the trick.

    I have to extend my appreciation to my buddy Clint who took me to the Dentist and got me home safely in my completely zonked out state, the details of which I remember absolutely nothing until we were back at the house. My only memory after falling asleep is one of waking up (I use the term very loosely, it was at most a state of 50% consciousness) and trying to scratch my nose while feeling a tugging on my lower right jaw. After about five or six attempts, each of which was gently deterred, I gave up with a weary sigh (probably only in my head) and fell back under.

    Clint got me settled in and fed me some Cottage Cheese and a chopped up hard boiled egg (he vetoed my request for some Bacon pieces), and once I was on the couch and not bouncing up every 30 seconds, left me to my own dozing, ice pack changing and baseball/Masters watching devices. Once I got my phone unlocked (Clint texted me asking for my phone pass code after he left the office and I told him that I had the fingerprint reader set up on it for both thumbs and index fingers, then promptly turned it off once I got into the operating room – it only unlocks with the passcode on restart – try that coming out of anesthesia) I added semi coherent postings to the mix between long cat naps. I’m sure my cat Bolt was a little unsure as to what exactly was going on. Time was a rather difficult concept for me to comprehend for the rest of the day. I’d close my eyes and open them after five seconds and it would be two hours later, but getting up to get a banana and come back to sit down and eat it seemed to take 45 minutes when in actuality only 10 passed at the most. I’m also pretty sure I stood in front of the freezer touching either side of my tongue with an ice cube because I could still feel absolutely nothing on the right side at 6 PM and was getting paranoid that a nerve had gotten severed. Yay drugs.

A couple other notable milestones directly related to these current events:

I had my last beer 11 days ago.
I had my last drink 8 days ago. (I’m not inclined to interfere with the Steroids and antibiotics that I’m on if they’ll help me heal faster and not get an infection)

The beard is back. I started growing it about a week before the extraction because I figured shaving would be an unpleasant prospect. The pain never got to that level, and it’s come in about as salt and peppery as I expected (although much slower than I remember it growing in the past), but it’s also garnered a couple compliments so I’m going to let it stay for a while.

My pain threshold seems to be unusually high (just been taking 400 mg of Ibuprofen four times a day, haven’t touched the Acetaminophen that was prescribed for pain), likely as a result of the experience of the wreck and my chest surgery when I was 12.

    I was back at work Friday afternoon and several people were pretty amazed that I was up, moving, and not swollen up like Rocky Balboa after his bout with Apollo Creed. My response was a simple shrug.

I go back to see Dr. Brownfield next Friday to see how I’m healing and to hopefully determine whether the next Surgery will be the left side alone or with the prep and to schedule it.

Pheealzabraces: A saga 25 years in the making.

    December, 1991: Our tale begins with a young student of technical theater studying at Temple University who spent his Summer and holiday breaks working first as a clerk/cashier at various Pennsylvania State Stores and later as a Casual Letter Carrier for his local suburban US Post Office.
   
    One morning, having gone out on an early mail collection run and mere blocks from the post office, young Phil decided that the travel mug of tea, which was in the letter tray and had tipped over while he was making a turn in his ancient postal jeep, was a higher priority than watching his path while in the middle of the turn. In the wink of an eye a parking meter was parallel with the ground, the front end of the jeep was wrapped around a telephone pole, and his face was forever changed due to its violent encounter with the steering wheel courtesy of the lack of a shoulder belt in the 1950’s era vehicle. Upon looking up in the rearview mirror and seeing his rearranged visage, including missing (actually merely displaced) teeth, panic ensued and he ran screaming back to the Post Office, where he burst into the sorting floor, shouted to all that could hear what had happened, and ran up stairs to the break/locker room to begin washing the blood off and surveying the damage.

    An ER and oral surgeon visit later, home, stitched and wired up, our hero was visited by several friends and convinced to venture out to see a movie. Not just any movie, but the latest offering from two rising young stars of the early 90s, Msrs, Depp and Rider (Edward Scissorhands). Not the best choice for someone who had just torn up his face and was still a bit loopy from the painkillers, it predictably ended with him balling his eyes out in the car after the viewing.

    Being young and healthy, recovery from the inflicted wounds was fairly quick and painless. the facial wounds healed with minimal scarring. The two teeth were reset, the bone healed, and root canals were subsequently performed on both of them.

    February, 2015: During a regular 6 month cleaning and checkup with my regular dentist, the hygenist noticed that the gums around the two dead teeth were bleeding at the slightest provocation. Some additional X-rays were taken and viewed immediately (computers are pretty amazing these days) and the dentist noted a “shadow” developing between the two teeth. We talked about a couple options, and I chose the Sonicare toothbrush and Waterpik ones. On the subsequent visit in August, things seemed to have settled down.

    February, 2016: The bleeding had returned, along with the shadow becoming more evident. The dentist introduced a new term to my vocabulary, “external resorption”. I was (understandably) concerned and intrigued.The process in question is one of the body secreting enzymes that essentially eat away at the tooth(teeth) from the outside. So the upshot of all this was that my body was done with the two dead teeth and was hastening their demise.

    March, 2016: I was referred to a dental specialist/periodontist, who confirmed the external resorption and broke the (not entirely unexpected) news that the two dead teeth were going to need to be extracted and replaced with an implant. Her biggest concern was that the resorption was occurring at the gum line and thus was affecting the bone as well. The subject of braces was raised. It was not the first time I had been asked about them. She (Lauren Brownfield, let’s introduce her, since she is a key player in current and future proceedings) wanted me to consider the option because of other problems with my teeth (which I always thought were in pretty good shape. Not perfect by any means, but better than some of the rickety grills I’ve seen on other people I’ve crossed paths with). Once the dead teeth were replaced with the implant, braces would be less effective due to the fact that the implant would not move like the other live teeth since it would be anchored into the jaw with a screw.

I went ahead and scheduled a consultation appointment with the Orthodontist she recommended (mainly because they work together on quite a few patients, I’ll get into that in a bit). He (Tom Hall, introduced for the same reason) identified several issues (cross bite, overbite and crowding in the lower front) that he said would only be more of an issue the longer I waited. I went ahead and got some scans done at his office as well as a dental imaging lab that same day. This was in addition to a 360 degree ct scan of my upper and lower jaw at Dr. Brownfield’s office the week before. Two days later at a follow up visit with Dr. Hall, I pretty much acquiesced to the fact that the braces were a necessity and began the discussion of which ones to go with and the financials and timeline/duration of the treatment. He also casually dropped the bomb of it probably being necessary to extract my wisdom teeth, which had all come in straight (a fact which I was probably a little too smugly proud of). When I inquired about why that might be necessary, he explained that they were actually evolutionarily obsolete, having developed through evolution to deal with all the dirt and rocks that were attached to the food we pulled out of the ground and ate immediately tens of thousands of years ago, and designed to be worn down significantly by this time in one’s life (I’m in my mid 40s, most of you know this already, and for those of you that don’t, hi, and which back then was ancient and close to the end of the line anyway) the upshot of which was that because they weren’t they were potentially impeding the fulcrum of my jaw’s motion. It seemed a logical explanation, but the one from Dr. Brownfield was a bit more sound.

    When I went to see her for the follow up that we had scheduled at the end of the first visit she concurred with Dr. Hall about the wisdom teeth, explaining that they would actually be an impediment to the other teeth moving as guided by the braces. We began to speak about the timeline of the extraction of said wisdom teeth as well as other surgery to prep the gums and bone for the braces, which she had initially mentioned during the first visit and which I had found intriguing.

    Essentially what she does (and is kind of a pioneer in, from what I understand) is make a series of incisions in the bone of the mandible (lower jaw) and maxilla (upper jaw) around all the teeth prior to the application of the braces. This stimulates bone reformation and gives the teeth more room to move where the braces are guiding them. Dr. Hall (rather cavalierly, imo) said that she could perform the extractions at the same time she did the prep surgery, but Dr. Brownfield was of a slightly different opinion, mainly because I have unusually deep roots, but also because extracting all four wisdom teeth AND performing the prep surgery would be a long time to have my jaw open all the way and might strain the hinges and muscles.

    So now I find myself a little over a week out from the first extraction surgery, wondering what it’s going to feel like running my tongue back along my jaw and only feeling three molars, wondering how much this is actually gonna hurt, wondering how annoying these Incognito braces are gong to be on the inside if my teeth, and wondering how crazy it’s gonna be to have a totally different smile

(Why) America (is) the Beautiful

Greetings. Long time.

So, I'm home from D and T Icehouse, a great craft beer bar which is a reboot of an age old neighborhood ice house in the Houston Heights, where I watched the Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos tonight.

I'm seeing numerous posts on Twitter and other social media outlets about an ad for a certain soft drink that featured several people singing the song "America the Beautiful" in several different languages.

Predictably, the ad has resulted in numerous passionate  responses.

The ad and commentary can be seen here: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/coke-super-bowl-commercial-causes-right-0?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

I'm not going to try to dissect what the original intent of the ad agency and the soft drink company was in making the choices about the script of the ad. All I can comment on is how I interpreted it:

It was fine.

All the languages that verses to the song were sung in are spoken in the U. S.

There is no official language in the U. S.

If an official language is ever declared in the U. S., it better be two languages, because Spanish has always been a secondary language here, and may soon be on an equal footing with English.

THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP THIS.

The current immigration and economic policies of the U. S. dictate this. People can talk all they want about (predominantly) Spanish speaking (illegal) immigrants "taking" jobs from honest (white) Americans, but they are jobs that no white American would last a week at (just ask Georgia farmers).

This country was founded on the principle of it being a haven for prosecution of many types. Predominantly religious prosecution, but also economic, social, etc. Of course, the founders continued the fine traditions of European prosecution on the Natives of this land, but that's a subject for another post.

The point I want to make here in my post Super Bowl more than slightly buzzed state is that if we as a nation are going to start acting in a Draconian Nationalistic Isolationist manner, we need to redefine ourselves as something other than a country that welcomes with open arms your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Yes, the United States was founded by a predominantly White, Protestant  majority. But the structure of the ruling coalition is bound to change, and the worst (yet unfortunately easiest) reaction to this change is resistance, which only brings about strife and makes the inevitable change more contentious and difficult.

There is nothing wrong with diversity. There is nothing wrong with people speaking different languages. If something needs to happen badly enough, the lines of communication will be established to make it happen. And the sooner it is accepted that the U. S. is a bilingual society (and it is already), the more smoothly and efficiently it will operate as a member of the global community.

I know it's easy for me to write these sentiments living down here in the Gulf coast region of Texas, but I'm pretty sure the conditions are the same in varying degrees throughout the U. S. The sooner we all let go of any preconceptions we hold of the U. S. and (maybe) take a Spanish (or other appropriate) language course, the wider our eyes will open and the smoother our paths will seem.

Random Memory Triggers

The phenomenon of social media is still making its inroads on my life, being a member of the generation that knows just enough to be aware of what’s happening in the early part of this new century, but old enough to not quite be on the up and up in terms of the pace of the development and change of technology and said media.

To wit, Twitter and an application, or APP, known as Untpped, which allows a user to check in whenever they imbibe a malt based alcoholic beverage, for the purposes of networking with persons of similar inclination (fellow drunks) and also various commercial interests (brewers, distributors, advertisers, etc.) was key to a flood of memories recently.

After checking in during a late breakfast following a yard work session I engaged in a discussion of the subject beverage of the check in in question and proceeded to engage in an exercise of metaphor mixed with memory that dug deeper than I expected it to. The beverage in question was an anomaly of a beer which called itself a stout and looked like a stout, but upon consumption drank like a lager and had similar effect. In my discussion on Twitter with a fellow beer aficionado I likened the illusion to hearing the knocking of a diesel engine behind you and turning around expecting to see a large truck and instead seeing a small Volkswagen diesel powered car.

This was drawn from an actual episode in which the event in question occurred. After my family moved from Kansas City, Mo to the Philadelphia area my Father, Brother and I would take an annual road trip back to KCMO to visit his parents and give our Mother a break from the Testosterone fest she had to deal with for the other 50 weeks of the year. It was on one of these trips, during an early morning in a motel parking lot, that I heard that exact sound and turned around actually looking up to see above the tall grille of the Freightliner or Peterbuilt Semi Tractor that I expected to see there (I was enamored with the big truck and was considering a life on the road as a driver at the time) and instead being disappointed by the sight of a diesel powered VW Rabbit idling in the next parking space. My Dad laughed to split a gut, and I had to grin myself.

I hadn’t thought of that moment in several years, and actually had gotten to a point where days could go by without me thinking about my Dad (which I understand is an advanced step in the process of dealing with the death of a loved one) but once I realized where that memory came from and started reflecting on it, I realized how much I still wish he were around.

None of this is bad, just unexpected in terms of the cause of the stimuli. I think that any thing that these new technologies and interactive media formats do to help preserve contact between people is extremely valuable. We are ,and always will be, social animals, no matter how much we try to hide behind our keyboards and terminals. We long for contact and interaction on some level or another.

The struggle contiues (and the stakes get higher)...

Forced transitions

As those of you who follow my Tweets and/or FB updates know, a new acquisition was welcomed into my world yesterday in the form of a new laptop. This followed a rather sudden and (briefly) traumatic morning of loss when my trusty iBook laptop decided to crap the bed after being moved over on my desk a few inches while running. The hard drive started making sad noises, followed closely by the pinwheel icon of death (familiar to MAC users), followed by repeated failed reboot attempts. After a brief period of wailing and gnashing of teeth, I realized that the time had come for the new acquisition. The biggest pain about it was going to be starting from scratch vis a vis web browser bookmarks, calendar entries, and music library contents. I viewed this as a major bummer, to coin a phrase dating back to the eighties, seventies, and even sixties.

Having previously committed time to Janet at KPFT for premium packing and mailing, I headed over to the station, where I could fulfill the commitment as well as get online and make an appointment at the Apple store to confirm the demise of the iBook and secure the replacement.

Halfway to the station (an amazingly straight shot down Studemont/Montrose over the course of a few miles) I was set straight in terms of the state of my world (which I thought had ben severely inconvenienced) by the sight of a fender bender involving an innocent motorist and the cab which had rear ended said traveller. I thought to myself "man, that cabbie's day has just begun to suck", not in a gloating way at all, merely in a way that put my seemingly earth shattering circumstances in perspective.

It helped quite a bit, and also brought to my attention the power that technology has managed to hold over us as a society in a very short time. I had a very palpable pit of the stomach feeling for the few hours between the time I new that the iBook was dead and I had the Macbook in hand and then at home and running. It was similar to the feeling that I have had on the few rare occasions that I have forgotten my mobile phone and been without it for more than an hour (OH MY GOD, WHAT IF SOMEONE (THE OFFICE) CALLS?!?!?!?)

Wasn't I swearing less that 10 years ago that I would never have a cell phone because of its essential function as an electronic leash?

I suppose that I'm still clinging to my fleeting memories of being able to roam away from home unable to be contacted in any way, yet realizing that the world is at a place where one is contacted via these mediums that you can have with you anywhere, and where one is expected to be contactable anywhere. It's actually kind of rude when you stop and think about it, but then again, maybe it is if you can remember a time when it wasn't the norm. I suppose this is the onset of what getting old and watching the world move on feels like (while still (begrudgingly) adapting). It also feels like it has a bit to do with things in my life passing on (Scooter, the compy of 6 yrs) in close succession, but that is probably something for another post, since this one has exceeded my attempt at brevity, which was inspired by Crystal, but has not panned out.

Microbursts from the Overactive Brain

Having received a concerned email concerning the lack of activity here over the past eighteen months or so, I felt compelled to inform anyone who still may be checking in with any semblance of frequency that the majority of snarks and commentary can be found at my Twitter page. Initially created as a single conduit to bounce status updates along the line to Facebook (morphing into the new empirical Goliath with questionable motives (or not so questionable - profit is very transparent and the noblest of causes, right?)) and MySpace (thrashing and woofing a Stegosaurus's demise in the tar pits of online obscurity and obsolescence since its acquisition by the Murdoch information empire), I find myself utilizing it as a forum for random thoughts and information dissemination similar to what was done here in the past, albeit in a much briefer form (this entry, for example, is already 723 letters too long and is a mere breath in comparison to some previous missives).

So, if you're still interested in my thoughts on anything and everything, the Twitter feed can be viewed here.

The occasional post will still be found here, preceded by an announcement of some kind on the feed.

Thanks & Peace,

Phil

Arthur was right

about many things, but chiefly about the daily struggle of people to survive in today's world being more than enough to keep them busy enough so as to preclude any definitive action in response to the inane, insane crap that our porportedly wise elected leaders are foisting upon us in the guise of policies geared towards the best interests of the common person.

A recent email from a surprising source:

It would appear that perhaps you have been lured to the dark side: a typical distracted American too wrapped up in the struggles of everyday life to be bothered with updating the postings on his blog. It's hard work, but it is important.

Yup! I checked your blog, only to find that the author has not checked it recently. I've been taking some classes, so depending how the work schedule falls, I can spend up to 87 hours a week in either work or class, with a maximum of six round-trip commutes which average 74 miles each. Say what you want about the money, I would rather have serenity and time to look at my feet.

In my copious amounts of free time, I have to ponder my country and the wise choices which have led our economy to circle the toilet. So, really, I have put all of my ponderances about the rest of the world on hold until the middle of May, but then there are all of the people who used to be my friends that I have not had time for either, so perhaps the international community is on hold until at least June.

Since leaving the Alley, the structure of a typical day for me, not to mention week or month has been radically redefined. Instead of trudging off to the same location every day to perform pretty much the same tasks over the course of weeks and months, my cell phone has become the key to gainful employment through the local office of IATSE, the stagehand's union here in the U.S. and Canada. Earlier last year I was working quite a bit with the Houston Symphony which gave me a little bit of structure, but that has gone by the wayside as the result of some jealousy, a blackball vote on my membership, and a decision to pass on the gig due to its glaring similarity to what I had just left at the Alley. I am doing most of the shows for the Society for the Performing Arts, but for the most part the bulk of my gainful employment is achieved by "working off of the roster" waiting for the phone to ring (or buzz in my case - old habits die hard). Most times the gigs are one or two day affairs, but one never knows when a call may turn into a little more. Case in point: the office called last Tuesday at 1 in the afternoon asking if I could be down at the Ballet for a load in. I was able to get down there to replace an electrician and figured it would be good for a few days of work. I transferred over to carpentry on the third day and am now on the show crew for the run. So what began as a potential two or three day gig has morphed into a three week stint. I've met a bunch of guys I hadn't worked with before, and gotten to work in another space in town.

It's a scary existence (especially in this day and age), but also an exciting invigorating one.

However, it affords me a lot less time to sit in tech, surf the net for news stories, get outraged, and write reflective blog posts full of long run on sentences. I'm still thinking on all of the events and personalities in our lovely world, just not purging as often as I'd like. I guess my priorities have changed a little since leaving the Alley. My posts and their frequency seemed to be an unintended result of being cooped up in a dark room for 12 hours a day over stretches of two weeks every two or three weeks between September and July for nine years. The time that I have now not spent working is filled with some of the things that I wrote about here: working at KPFT, albeit not in the capacity I initially anticipated, but I'm happy doing whatever it is they need me to to keep the place going - and playing bass with a band I joined in September, Fahl and Folk. And the time spent not working on those projects is spent dealing with life rearing its ugly head in the form of roof replacement (planned), furnace replacement (surprise!), and triangle trips on airplanes during the holiday to see the folks that otherwise would be relegated to phone calls every two or three weeks.

Lately my pondering has been turning in the direction of the lyrics to a classic from The Who ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...") when confronted with not necessarily reneged upon campaign pledges, but certainly re-conceived ones (declassification of White House emails, complete draw down of forces in Iraq) and also the concept of just when a faceless coldly calculating inhuman multi national corporation stops becoming a group of individuals that have the same base needs and wants and fears as the rest of us and becomes the entity (Sorry to disappoint you Arthur, but I still have to believe that we all have some things in common - like eating and sleeping and craving physical contact from another being). More on those and other conundrums later.

Meanwhile, check out Arthur's latest posts and help out if you can. Things over his way seem to have taken a dramatic turn the wrong way if we are to continue enjoying his eye opening unique commentary.

And above all, continue to ponder and talk and/or write about your thoughts and feelings on the state of your world with others. It's one of the only ways that things may improve eventually.

An Excursion

Well, the first title for this particular post was to be "Dan Piraro gets it", based on this comic from about a few weeks ago, but alas, the comic syndicate or some bout of paranoia on his part prevents me from lifting a copy of the strip and linking to it from my photobucket account. I hope you enjoy the satisfaction that I felt when I saw the strip printed in The Houston Chronicle, no less, the only daily newspaper that (dis)serves the fourth largest city in the country, which is also known in some circles as the "Petro Metro".

There has been rhetoric spewed forth by activists and campaigning politicians who are focussed on the war in Iraq and its origins which refers to the fact that the M1 tanks and Humvees cruising around that country should be flying an Exxon Mobil flag instead of Old Glory. While this is amusing and inflammatory, it lacks irony due to the outlandishness of it as a concept. While Facism is technically defined as a nation state which is essentially controlled by corporate/commercial interests and entities, those entities will never let it be blatantly known (i.e. with the display of a flag on war vehicles or vessels) that they have this influence and are actively asserting it. Instead, they will use the cover of the nation state's political and nationalistic identity to conceal that influence and the degree of the corporation's role in the running of the country.

What I do find darkly ironic is the fact that another of the huge multi-national oil corps that are deeply embroiled in the run up to and have a huge vested interest in the ultimate outcome of the situation in Iraq (I really can't think of any other way to put it - war isn't appropriate any more, and all the other buzzwords - insurgency, conflict, uprising, sectarian strife, are all too narrow in their scope for me, even though 'situation' does have a sterile quality to it) essentially took their logo and name from one of the oldest and most common of military insignias signifying rank: Chevron.

On to the excursion from which this post gets its name:

A couple months ago I was able to venture up to Anna Lee's farm for an annual festival that spans several days around the beginning of May essentially celebrating Spring (although it's usually pretty much Summer by then here in Southeast Texas). This particular visit I was able to catch up with an old friend from the Alley who has also since moved on and is working up in Little Rock at Arkansas Repertory Theater as the Prop Head, Linda and I reminisced about some of the haunts that we used to frequent down on Galveston Bay where she lived when she worked at UH Clear Lake before the Alley. We commiserated about places that have since closed and she recommended one that I hadn't known about.

I decided to drive down to the Bay area and visit some of the sites of haunts gone and hopefully some of the haunts themselves. First stop was the bar we went to the most, simply known as The Point, a nod toward the geographic feature that it was located on, Morgan's Point in Barbour's Cut. A few years ago a trip down there was organized that I didn't make it to, but it was just as well since I got a phone call that day with the sad news that it was gone. Since I was in the general area I decided to swing by and got verification for myself: The site of many a beer and sun soaked afternoon was no more than a cement slab and the small pier that stretched from the patio out into the bay (I guess it's really the ship channel that far up). Folks were still using the pier to fish for Reds, which I found slightly comforting. Next was a tiny little bar by a small boat launch on an inlet bayou a few miles inland, called Mike and Edna's Red Lantern, if memory serves me correctly. Another cement foundation greeted me behind a metal white rail fence along the two lane highway right before the bridge over the bayou. I had to turn around and drive by it again to confirm that it was the right location.

With a slightly heavy heart about the loss of these local watering holes, I headed South to try and find the bar that Linda had recommended, Sneakin' Out. She gave me a few landmark locations and roads that would hopefully lead me to said bar (with a great name), but they were curiously far apart. I followed Red Bluff Road over many twists and turns only to find housing development upon housing development. I then continued down highway 146 to Baycliff and followed one of the local streets to the Bay. No establishment with the name that Linda gave me, but a couple interesting looking places, one of which I couldn't pass up called Junior's Hideout. It was essentially a shack with a covered concrete tarmac out back for grilling and sitting. The bar was in two sections and there was a great cooler behind it - wood doors with glass windows so hazy you could barely tell what beers were behind them. Along with the unique decor was the group of local folks in the bar. There were two women who I can only guess were mother and daughters with three young girls in tow. The kids were hurling plastic darts at an electronic dartboard with mixed success. After a little while the women shepherded the girls outside to the patio area. I inquired of the few others in the bar about the existence and location of Sneakin' Out. One of them was able to give me some directions that would take me further down the road that the Red Lantern was on.

Before leaving, I was treated to some local rivalry and angst between this fellow and a woman who had just returned to town. She came into the bar with another guy and they sat down for a beer or two. The first guy sat at the bar for a few moments and then went out back, only to return less than a minute later. He went right up to her and started talking about how great it was to see her now that she had gotten back to town since she had never bothered to say goodbye or anything after he loaned her some money and his leather motorcycle jacket. The exchange got more and more heated until the girl and the guy she came in with got up and left followed by a continuing stream of invective from the first guy. He sat down and apologized to me in case he had offended me, to which my reply was 'no problem, it's your and her business.' Not long after I thanked hime for the info and headed back North.

Wending my way back up 146 toward Barbour's Cut but going inland on Red Bluff road to Genoa-Red Bluff I found no Sneakin' Out (possibly another casualty of times gone by), but did Find the Genoa Cove Social Club, another unique watering hole with a colorful cast of characters. The highlight of this encounter was the combination of the number of golfers in the population of the Sunday afternoon crowd and the proximity (right across the highway) of the local landfill mound to the bar. As the afternoon wore on, the trash talking about how high anyone could drive a ball up the hill that day got more and more animated. One of the crowd went off to get his clubs so that the challenge could be realized. After about 45 minutes (during which there were many jibes about how his wife (who was apparently cooking steaks for their dinner) wasn't going to let him out of her sight once he got home (especially not with his clubs in tow)) he appeared and the fun began. The climax of the proceedings came when one of the guys drove a ball across the road with out much lift. It hit the far side curb and began to bounce around on the roadway, eventually making its way in front of a car and getting hit by it. The driver slowed and then kept going, only to reappear go in the other direction and turning into the bar parking lot. He got out and asked in an animated way what the fuck the deal was, only to be met with quizzical looks and questions about no one knowing what he meant and earnest denials that anyone on the patio had been hitting golf balls across the highway (in spite of the bag of clubs in plain sight. The driver sized up the number in the crowd, decided it wasn't worth it and got back into the car and drove off, much to the amusement of everyone there (and, truth be told, I couldn't see any damage to his car when he hit the golf ball or when he drove up).

Soon after I said my goodbyes and made my way back to Houston, unsuccessful in my quest for the bar Linda had told me about but satisfied with the bars that I had found and the people that I had met.

Arthur has asked the question several times about why most people are not more aware of what's been happening to their basic rights and freedoms over the past eight years, and more subtly over the past several decades. Chris Floyd has pointed it out in numerous posts (I'm going to paraphrase him here):

The typical American is too wrapped up in the struggles of everyday life to be bothered with staying informed and forming critical opinions concerning the machinations and high crimes of this administration and of this country's government and ruling elite over the past several decades, perhaps even centuries. The ruling elite even goes so far as to manufacture conditions that contribute to and further distract people from what is actually going on. Spending money they don't have with credit they aren't eligible for and they can't afford to buy crap they don't need and don't really want even though they've been momentarily convinced they can't live without it even though in less than six months they'll have either a) broken it and thrown it away b) relegated it to the garage or the attic or c) given it to charity for dispersal to a disaster victim that will look at it and say 'what the heck am I supposed to do with this?!?

Worry about money not paid back or focus on spending more than one can afford on equipment to play an elitist game that wastes more land than any other in its sprawling courses across the world are only two of an infinitismal number of factors that keep our eye off of what should bear closer watching: the fact that there a re a very tiny amount of people in the world who control a hugely disproportionate amount of the world's resources and power and will do whatever they can to keep and expand that ownership and power, including letting people die in natural disaster and premptively going to war with country after country.

I don't blame the people who are distracted. I'm one of them and am easily distracted myself - witness the drastic downturn in posts here since my self inflicted employment realignment. It's hard work to stay informed and form opinions about these things, but it is important.

D'oh!!! (Or: The guile of the Dragon and the seething frustration of American and Western Multinational Oil Barons)

AP (via Raw Story):

Iraq and China are close to re-signing a $1.2 billion oil deal that was called off after the 2003 U.S. invasion, an Iraqi Oil Ministry official said Thursday.

Saddam Hussein's government signed a deal with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. to develop the billion-barrel al-Ahdab oil field, despite U.N. sanctions that barred direct dealings with Iraq's oil industry.

Beijing was waiting for the sanctions to end when the U.S. invasion overthrew Saddam. The two countries restarted talks in October 2006.

"We are expecting that the next round of discussions, due to be held in April, will finish the negotiations," the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had no information about the talks.

Mmmmmm hmmmmmm.

Officials with CNPC and China's Commerce Ministry could not be reached for comment.

Really?

Meanwhile, in another part of town...

On Wednesday, another oil official said that Iraq's Cabinet has given the nod to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with international oil companies to help increase the nation's crude output.

The two-year deals, known as technical support agreements, or TSAs, are designed to develop five producing fields that would add 500,000 barrels per day to the country's 2.4 million barrels per day output.


"But that's not enough! That sixth field in Wasit should have been ours as well!!!"

Sorry, chums.

In memoriam

Breaking cover and revealing my geek/gamer roots, but one must give the appropriate props to one of the masters...

Courtesy of Penny Arcade:

Does anyone have any more questions?

Because I sure as Hell don't.

BBC:

The CIA has for the first time publicly admitted using the controversial method of "waterboarding" on terror suspects.

CIA head Michael Hayden told Congress it had only been used on three people, and not for the past five years.

The Horses have left the Barn. Repeat, the Horses have left the Barn. Operation Horse Secure Padlock is no longer a viable option.

He said the technique had been used on high-profile al-Qaeda detainees including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

George W. Bush:

Mon., Nov. 7, 2005

PANAMA CITY, Panama - President Bush on Monday defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. “We do not torture,” Bush declared in response to reports of secret CIA prisons overseas.

Almost Forgotten

For all practical purposes, the event that has by all reasonable reaches shaped every single development worldwide for the past 90 years finds itself with fewer and fewer people that have an active memory of participating in it, albeit tangentially:

AP:

Harry Richard Landis, who enlisted in the Army in 1918 and was one of only two known surviving U.S. veterans of World War I, has died. He was 108.

Landis trained as a U.S. Army recruit for 60 days at the end of the war and never went overseas. But the VA counts him among the 4.7 million men and woman who served during the Great War.

One has to reflect on the apparent fact that we as a race of beings haven't really learned much from past horrors that we have inflicted on each other when the last vestiges of a generation that endured them are passing away like a wisp of smoke and all we can do is mention them in passing while focusing on persecuting similar and even greater horrors on the latest fellow members of the human race that happen to be in the way of "progress":

Seattle Times:

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military faced complaints Tuesday from its Sunni allies over claims that more civilians had been killed by American forces — amplifying tensions as the Pentagon tries to calm anger over an airstrike last week that claimed innocent lives.

The latest deaths occurred Tuesday when U.S. soldiers — acting on tips — stormed a squat mud-brick house in the village of Adwar, 10 miles south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The predominantly Sunni area is home to many former members of Saddam's regime, and has been the frequent site of American raids.

The U.S. military said a gunbattle broke out after the troops came under small-arms fire by two suspected terrorists. It acknowledged a woman was killed and a child was wounded, but said it was not clear who shot them.

Two other men were killed and the military described them as insurgents.

But Iraqi police, relatives and neighbors said a couple and their 19-year-old son were shot to death in their beds. Iraqi police also said two girls were wounded and one later died.

How does that catchy phrase go about history and those who ignore it being doomed to a predetermined path of repetition?

WTF, Over?

Ummmm, try swallowing this without choking:

A chilling report prepared by a group of top military commanders from the US and its NATO allies declares that the alliance must be prepared to launch a preemptive nuclear first strike because of “asymmetric threats and global challenges” posed to the West.

“The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, in order to avoid truly existential dangers,” declares the report, which is titled “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.”

Captain Patrick Ramsey: "Attention on deck. Von Clauswitz will now tell us who the true enemy is."

Lieutenant Commander Hunter: "In my humble opinion, sir, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."

--Crimson Tide, 1995

WOPR: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

--Wargames, 1983

The more countries and coalitions that profess to having the "right" to a first strike option when it comes to the use of Nuclear weapons, the closer the world comes to the vision of Robert Oppenheimer upon seeing the first successful test of an Atom Bomb in New Mexico in 1945:

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

--Interview about the Trinity explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, produced by Fred Freed, NBC White Paper, 1965

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of this world must unite or they will perish.

--Acceptance Speech, Army-Navy "Excellence" Award, November 16, 1945