Can still see plenty, even with a deficiency

A mixture of humor/personal experience and politics. Sometimes it works and sometimes, well....


I’m depressed and confused. It has to do with a recent doctor’s visit.
The opthamologist confirmed what my wife has long suspected — I’m color
blind. I’m fighting the diagnosis, going through the steps of
acceptance. Still in denial, I think.
But in the wake of this news, I have learned a lot about color
blindness. "Color vision deficiency" is the more correct term for the
condition and it is even correct to refer to it as Daltonism, as it was
first brought to the forefront by an English scientist named John
Dalton. Eight percent of white mailes have it, less in minority men;
less than 1 percent of women are touched by it. Has a strong genetic
pass-along factor.
The most common tests to evaluate color blindness are pseudoisochromatic
plates, the cards or pages of colored dots. The most frequently used
type is the Ishihara color test, developed by Shinobu Ishihara in 1917,
and still prevalent today. I think that was the one I saw ... or didn't
see. The most distressing part of this diagnosis — aside from Spouse
continually saying things like, “Which accessory/color of paint/shirt do
you like best between those two? Oh, you can't tell, can you" -- is
worrying about what I'm missing. Am I not really getting the full impact
of that glorious sunset? Is your red, white and blue better than mine?
Am I not seeing all the layered nuances in the glorious flowers of the
new rose bush I just purchased? Are my son's eyes green or hazel or
torquiose or Pantone 452? Is everyone else -- well 92% of everyone else
-- seeing a crisper, cleaner, more pure vision of life?
I've seen deep green alfalfa fields topped by blue-on-blue skies, with
purple clouds gathering in the northwest, and punctuated by diving blue
and white gulls, complete with canary-colored beaks, just like you. And
now that I've said that, I'm worried that everyone else sees orange and
red gulls, while someone else is saying, "Who ever heard of purple
clouds?" See, I'm nervous and confused.
But even if I can't see the "12" or the "7" or the "301" hidden amongst
the myriad of dots in that blasted circle on that dang card in the
weenie eye doctor's office, designed, it seems, to weed out us lesser
folks (I'm not bitter, mind you), there is plenty of stuff I can still
see.
I can see the green tea of the new populist party, as well as the
tainted red and blue of the GOP. And I can see why Bob Bennett was
dissed by his own party after serving in the Senate for nearly 20 years.
It's been said that it was because of his recent votes for incentive and
entitlement programs, as well as voting for the so-called Obamacare
health care. No it wasn't.
This was a clear and ringing statement regarding term limits in
Congress. People -- and not just in Utah -- are fed up with the concept
of "career politician." Those are two words that should never be said
together. George Washington was asked to be a career politician and he
politely said, "Nay. For it shall be one of the downfalls of this new
republic." Well, I'm paraphrasing, but I'm sure it was something like
that. He turned down the opportunity to keep serving. The early founders
believed in a citizens' army and a citizens' legislative branch. They
believed that new blood just might be the better blood. The whole
lamentation about "loss of seniority" is a crock.
We limit the president to two terms; governors are limited in terms. But
we let our representatives in both houses in Washington stay way too
long. It is impossible to not become "part of the problem" when the
first thing a newly elected congressman does is set up his or her
committee for re-election. Imagine what good things could get done if an
official knew they were going home in two years, instead of worrying
about where their next campaign dollar was coming from. It's impossible
to not be part of the problem when your livelihood comes from wielding so much power and courting those who would influence that power. Washington is not real life and after
only a few years, real life fades fast and they forget how much a billion dollars
really is.
If ours is truly a representative government, we have to keep a fresh
flow of ideas and ideologies and new blood flowing to the capital. It
should be a citizen's Washington, much in the image of Washington's
citizen army -- leaving the fields to fight for a season. Let officials
leave their fields and serve with focus for a season, not a lifetime.
That's why Utah turned on Bennett.
Even with my failing Ishihara numbers, I can still see that
overindulgent parenting is becoming a problem that spawns
under-functioning kids. Overindulgence usually brings up images of
spending too much on kids -- which is still happening, mind you -- but I
am suggesting that the so-called "helicopter parent," will be looked
back on as a problem parent. The helicopter parent is always hovering
nearby to help make the decision of what's best for the child or on the
ready to bail them out if they stumble. Universities are overrun with
them at the beginning of quarters, as parents pick classes for their
students, choose their housing and then stand in line with their VISAs
to pay for it all.
It shows a lack of trust in the child and results in poor
decision-making skills, social skills and money management abilities. Wait 10 years and we’ll all see how easy it was to make wimps of the
rising generation.
See. I can still see a few things without squinting too hard. And maybe,
just maybe, the 8 percent is seeing it correctly and the 93 percent have
the weak version. Ha! Take that Ishihara.