Yesterday was a frustrating dealing-for-dollars (medical expenses) day. I spoke to people at Community Surgical, Visiting Physicians, and the V.A. (I should get a medal for valor). Had to FAX documents here and there and heard from the V.A. that they won't pay for the recent EMT visit--or any other when Pat wasn't taken to the hospital. That means we owe the parent outfit--Monmouth Something Or Other--a cool thou. I told Pat that next time, I don't care if he has a stubbed toe, he's going.
Dr. Z., the podiatrist, came and worked on Pat's feet. The nails do look better, so something went right.
The bright spot was a web cam call from D.D. Ellen. We commiserated together over various woes and I felt better after. Today I meet sister Betty for lunch in Galloway and I'm looking forward to that.
Wider: Anti-War.com carries a long and chilling article called "America's Wars" by David Bromwich. In it, he emphasizes an ominous shift in thinking: Throughout U.S. history,war had been considered an aberration, but now it's beginning to seem in the natural order of things and is being planned for, far into the future:
"Robert Gates put the latest thinking into conventional form...(saying) 'I wanted a department that frankly could walk and chew gum at the same time, that could wage war as we are doing now, at the same time we plan and prepare for tomorrow’s wars.' The weird prospect that this usage – 'tomorrow’s wars' – renders routine is that we anticipate a good many wars in the near future. We are the ascendant democracy, the exceptional nation in the world of nations. To fight wars is our destiny and our duty. Thus the word “wars” – increasingly in the plural – is becoming the common way we identify not just the wars we are fighting now but all the wars we expect to fight."
The import of this is overwhelming. "Tomorrow's wars"--and the day after tomorrow, and next year, and in two decades, and the twenty-second century...