Cause and Effect

Responsibilities and Priorities; where is the line drawn?

            As he stands there in a heap of disarray and mounds of his own urine and feces, his legs and hooves are in pain. His hooves have grown past the point of comfortable and they have chipped and cracked from the shoes that were left on them, the nails have loosened and left holes.  He has gotten thrush and the pain goes up into his legs from the damage of the spreading of the hoof.  As he is slumped into the small shed that has been his home for months, the wood that has built this shelter has become his food. He can barely move and cannot stretch out his body. His hair has become a mess of urine, feces, and dirt with tangles and mats of mass and stench.  The bones that make up this skeleton, one could count and see every inch. His head hangs low and he doesn’t move when approached, he is barely breathing. He has been left to fend for himself and stalled in a six by ten foot storage shed. He has no access to water or food and has not been cared for in months.

            Quick on the Draw, was a beautiful quarter horse that raced and showed for the most prestiguise and elite humans around. He slowed in his age and was sold to a place that was supposed to be his retirement home. As things happened he was traded and sold and traded again.  Now he has been left alone. He has never known the wild life and has always been spoiled by his owner.  He was bathed by his human and fed grain twice a day. The hay was fresh and the grass was without weeds when he was on the pasture. His coat was taken care of and brushed regularly; his feet were groomed every six weeks and cleaned daily. His mane was combed and braided for every show, while his tail was cleaned and trimmed. He didn’t have a hair out of place ever.  He won ribbons and trophies everywhere he went.

            Where did he go wrong? What happened to his life? What did he do to deserve this? Will it ever end? These are questions that are going thru his head and along with a million other ones. He did nothing wrong and he doesn’t deserve to live like this. He did his part in winning everything he could. He stood tall when he was asked to and he ran fast when he was told to. He has become a victim of animal neglect and abuse. 

Arguementative

Obama Care

            Obama Care as we all know is one of the most controversial topics on the headlines today.  Not knowing a lot about it I made it my civic duty to get informed. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. However I’m going to try to cover a few points that I found frustrating. 

            The first frustrating point was the most obvious, or at least I thought, to figure out.  What is Obama Care?

 “So what is ObamaCare and what does it mean to you? There are really only a few things you need to know about the Affordable Care Act.

• The Affordable Care Act contains over a thousand pages of reforms to the insurance industry and the health care industry in order to cut health care costs and to provide affordable health insurance to all Americans. Despite its length and complexity, most of the important reforms are contained within the first 140 pages. Check out our summary of the many titles and sections of the Affordable Care Act.”

I was disappointed to see that already they, the government, doesn’t want us to know everything about the documents that inform us of what it is.  Also a simple explanation wasn’t what I was going to get. This was a brief statement posted to give us the basics. 

            Number two item on my list was what does it do for us? This question was even more struggling to answer. I found one statement that sort of gave me an idea.

 “• As of 2013 there are around 44 million Americans who are unable to get health insurance. The majority of uninsured are poor working families and those who simply cannot afford health insurance. One of the major things ObamaCare does is help these individuals to get health insurance through expanding Medicaid and Medicare and offering cost assistance through health insurance marketplaces”

            As I trudged thru the numerous amounts of articles and statements and the media, I seemed to get lost even more. At this point I wanted to know what exactly the hush-hush was all about. Well I found a few quotes that were to give a briefing on the over-all topic;

•” ObamaCare offers a number of new benefits, rights and protections including provisions that let young adults stay on their plan until 26, stop insurance companies from dropping you when you are sick or if you make an honest mistake on your application, prevent against gender discrimination, stop insurance companies from making unjustified rate hikes, do away with life-time and annual limits, give you the right to a rapid appeal of insurance company decisions, expand coverage to tens of millions, subsidize health insurance costs, and require all insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

 • The fact is ObamaCare does not replace private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. If you have health coverage you like, and it meets requirements of the ACA, you can keep it.

• The "employer mandate" means come 2015 larger employers will have to insure their full-time employees and their families or pay a per employee fee. Learn more about the Employer Mandate.

• In 2013, the average annual total cost of employer-sponsored family coverage was $16,351, and the share of the premium paid by workers was 29%. Between 2003 and 2013, premiums have increased by 80%.

• Small businesses can now get better benefits, cost-assistance and better buying power to provide employee health insurance via the SHOP (part of their State's Health Insurance Marketplace)

• Before the law you could be denied coverage or treatment because you had been sick in the past, be charged more because you were a woman, be dropped mid-treatment for making a simple mistake on your application, and had little or no way to fight insurance company appeals. Today all Americans have access to a large number of unprecedented new benefits, rights, and protections.”

            I’m still not sure on how this all of a sudden came into play with our current president. And I don’t think that it was a bad idea in its entirety, but how did it come into play? “President Obama may have signed the Affordable Care Act into law, but the truth is ObamaCare is the result of decades of ideas from both sides of the isle and the health care industry. The idea of an individual mandate was first presented by current opponents of the law the Heritage Foundation in 1989. ObamaCare itself was in fact modeled after "Romney Care", which is the nickname for the health care reform law implemented in the State of Massachusetts by then Governor Mitt Romney.”

            I am still confused if not more now than before, and I don’t have all the answers that I was looking for.  Then come to find out from watching the senate debate on all of the; who, what, where, and how, no one even read the entire thousand plus pages.  They are trying to point fingers at who didn’t follow thru with the website that we paid billions of dollars to get up and running.  I’m really tired of the nonsense that has been going on in the white house.  We just went thru a government shut down due to lack of cash flow.  I’m seeing more and more every day where our hard earned money as tax payers is going and personally I’m not impressed.  Politics is always a great debate to get the public going. Honestly I just wanted to know what was going on with this health reform information that they so kindly set up for us.  Maybe they should stop all the arguing and pointing fingers and do their homework.  I thought that was what we paid them for anyway. 

            Now that I’m beyond frustrated and confused, I'm thinking that maybe I should take a course on how to decipher the government language. I wonder if this Obama Care would pay for that?

http://obamacarefacts.com/whatis-obamacare.php

http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-facts.php

Argumentative Blogging

            I’m not sure on the blogging era yet, whether it was a thing of the past or the future, I’m still undecided.  As Sullivan, Keen, and Welch have pointed out that it is a way for anyone to be someone.  The era of face book and twitter have joined on from this basic form of blogging.  Blogging was a way for someone to post to the world their thoughts, ideas and expressions of joy, happiness, and dismay.  As more and more adjusted to this verbalization by technology the pencil and pens of the world became quiet.  I do so like a good letter from a friend, or a card from a family member saying they were in thinking of me.  By the way that era has passed on now to the back of the library in the archives section.  Maybe I’m just a little old fashion and that is why I don’t get the blogging era.

 I do have a face book account.  At one time it was to burn my ex and to rub it in on how I was moving on without him. I admit that that was what it was for and nothing else.  Then I grew up a little bit and really did move on.  As I met new friends and found: or caught up, with old friends it all changed.  I found family members that I hadn’t talked to or even thought of in years.  It’s the new “write me a letter”.  We post a lot of photos of things that we do or like.  It’s ok but I still like a letter and I like to send a letter every once in awhile.  To me it just seems a little more personal.

Keen does point out that one person can wake up and be a journalist in the morning and be a movie director by noon, with a musician by midnight.  I do agree with this statement.  With the technology the way it is one person has become a “jack-of-all-trades”.  Like all things in life we adapt to what is easiest for us and what comes more natural.  There are many sayings that one could put together for this situation but I do believe that it is all just a phase and it will pass like the rest.

Process Analysis Final

 First Ride of the Season

            Waking at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday isn’t for everyone.  I raise my head from the pillow take a look out the window and the sun isn’t even up yet.  It’s a brisk morning in the early spring- late winter.  The snow has melted away and the ground is just losing its frost line.  Most would crawl back under the covers at this point.  I however, am on a mission on this day.  After showering and getting dressed, I head for the fridge to find a bite to eat.  By nature I’m not a big eater in the morning, but today I better pack a snack also.  Grabbing my cooler bag I head for the downstairs to find a coat and a pair of boots.  The clothing at this point is needed for the warmth in the morning and evening, mid day is warm enough to wear a thin shirt.

            Pulling my boots on and packing my saddle bags are important part of the morning.  Loading the truck up with saddles and saddle pads, bridles and lead ropes, oh don’t forget the halters. Standing there going thru my mental check list I feel like I’m forgetting something.  Yes, the brushes and combs.  Its spring and you never know what they might have done to themselves the day before.  Drive on out to the barn and start to unload everything according to what goes on which horse. 

            Walking out to the field empty handed is not a good idea.  First there is the morning grain for everyone; two Pepsi scoops, per horse, in their buckets and a scoop of vitamin supplements.  Bring along the halters and lead ropes, too.  On occasion it is easier to put these on while they are eating.  My big guy is sixteen two hands high (that is sixty-six inches at the front shoulder); I on the other hand am only five foot tall.  When they drop their head you put the muzzle thru the smaller opening of the halter and bring the strap around the back of the ears.  I usually put all the halters on and then hook a lead rope to them.  Mine tend to walk fairly smoothly together, so I walk them all at once to the barn.  I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t know the horse, even walking two can be scary.  Bringing the buckets with me, they walk right to the hitching post where I tie them.

             Feed buckets get exchanged for a bucket of brushes and back out to the boys I go.  Each one gets the spa treatment before a ride.  Manes and tails get combed and braided if need be.  The rest of the body gets a good brushing, especially since they are shedding out from the winter.  Feet even get a brisk brushing and a good picking clean.  When the weather warms a little more they will get a bath, too.  It’s now going on 8:30 a.m., the guest should be arriving.  A couple good friends go with me on our first ride of the year.  The boys are a little anxious and so are we.

            First goes on the saddle pad.  Making sure that there was nothing stuck to the side that goes on the horse.  A picker in the pad makes for a very naughty horse.  Saddle second, setting it to the front of the horse more than to the back.  You don’t want the cinch around the belly; you want it to go just behind the front legs.  The cinch is a padded strap to hold on the saddle.  Some saddles have a bucking strap and that is toward the back legs and goes on loosely. This is for, if the horse bucks he doesn't throw the saddle over his front.  The cinch is pulled tight; it is a good idea at this time to walk the horse around so he will breathe to let out the air he sucked in.  Then snug the cinch one more time, one doesn’t want to end up under the horse.   By this time my boys know what is really going on and they start to show off a little.  Before putting the bridle on and taking off the halter and lead, I like to lunge them.  This is to let them work off the extra energy they have before getting on. I can usually tell if they are going to be a handful at this time or not.  I don’t want to put someone on a horse if they can’t handle them getting a little spirited.  Safety is our first concern, not just for the rider but the horse, too.

            Our last step before getting on is putting the bridle on. Warm the bit (the metal piece) in your hands a little. You wouldn’t want a cold chunk of metal in your mouth.  Slowly place the bit at the front of the lips of the horse.  Pulling the top of the bridle towards the ears of the horse hold the bit in place.  Horses are not always in a hurry for this part so take your time.  If they won’t open their mouth for the bit, slide your finger in between their lips at the cheek.  Natural instinct is that they want that to stop poking them and they open their mouth.  Slide the bit into their mouth and the bridle around the ears at the same time.  They should have a small smile at the cheek, just one wrinkle.  This tells you that the bit is in the right position.  The reins get draped around the tree (horn) of the saddle and you are ready to remove the halter and lead rope.  We put these in our saddle pack so they go with us, just in case.  Okay tie your saddle pack on the saddle and your ready to go.

            Getting on can be a bit tricky sometimes.  If one is having a hard time asking someone to hold the horse can help.  Step one foot into the stirrup and swing the other over the horses back to put yourself in the saddle.  You want to be looking in the same direction as the horse.  Once everyone is saddled up and ready to go, just one reminder – look where you want the horse to go.  He can feel your weight shift in the saddle so if you are looking behind you he is going to turn around.  Also this is the first ride out of the arena this spring – pay attention. 

            Everyone single file and out the arena we go.  We are heading for the trail about a mile and a half down the road.  This is a two lane paved road and we have to be careful of traffic.  As everyone eases into the saddle we are headed off road.  The best part of off road is the feel of a nice gallop.  Hold him back a little or he will head full speed for the hills.  Both can get hurt, too.  The boys are a bit jumpy to the surrounding noises but settle in nicely.  The day comes on to noon in no time and we are all out having a great time.  We are a small family in our own way.  We like to ride for the company and for the quiet.  Nothing like getting away from the busy life of mobile phones, traffic, and the kids needing something.  Brings a smile to my face every time.