On A Scale of 1 to 10, ...

Can someone point me to that scale?  Is there somewhere in the sky a special official form which one can reach out and pull down to study for application to special circumstances?  Maybe it's in the ether and I just haven't yet hit the key stroke that will pull it into my working screen area so I can consult the scale on my computer.

In a blog post here quite a long time back, I wrote something about pain and discussed the fact that we cannot clearly compare pain between any two of us.  How I feel a pain is not able to be communicated to any one else so that it is thoroughly understood.  We cannot, with all our grown-up words and sophisticated forms of speech, any more clearly state our conditions than we could as children when we might have said, "Mommy, it hurts."

So someone came up with a terrifically helpful method, aiding doctors immensely; "On a scale of 1-to-10, how would you gauge your pain right now?"

That scale is so vastly flexible, it's hard to see how it would be helpful.  The nearest anyone might get to making this method very helpful would be in the case of a female who has given birth.  Now, there is at least a solid point to which a "10" can be applied.  But then, does a male doctor have a clue about the actual feeling of that childbirth pain?  No.  He could never truly grasp it.  He has perhaps observed that particular pain as experienced by one or more females, but even there, they have all had varying amounts of screaming to express pain or quiet suffering to not allow others to see their pain.  And even if said doctor had witnessed hundreds of births and therefore had a large comparison chart to call upon, his grasp is still guesswork based on what other bodies feel and his own body will never feel.

Based upon the worst pain I have ever experienced as my "10" level (and believe it or not, I do not think of a specific pain to put at this apex of the pain-understanding world), I have to tell medical personnel each time I visit another doctor for an exam, that my pain is "a 3" or "about 5" when those are just floating numbers with no readily attached relevance.  Then there is the big question of "Which pain do these people want to know about - the minor discomfort pain I am feeling at the very moment I'm being questioned, or the slamming, voilent crash against my body that almost rendered me unconscious about an hour earlier just before I took that last pill?"  My sweet wife who cringes in fear and sympathy during those attacks that strike many times per day, in which my body spasms in a way that must look like a man being hit with a tazer, wants me to tell them that my pain is "above 10."  Of course, that isn't supposed to be possible but using poetic license (or just license), I am allowed to tell them that I am experiencing quite a few attacks at "about a 14" - just to emphasize the magnitude of my sporadic pains.  Still it's all based on a completely mystical and incomprehensible scale that floats somewhere in the vague world of "How are you feeling?"

On a scale of 1-to-10, I assume this post will be understood by about 3!  (This estimate will be down-graded if only two actually read it!)

History's Clear(er) View

Given enough time, the utter idiocy that flaps in the breeze of Washington D.C. will be blown away and the clear(er) picture of our current times will shine forth in our history books.  And though it's said that hind-sight is 20/20, (which is far from correct!) don't relate this in any way to the year 2020 with expectation that by that date most of the true history of today's world will be clear.  No.  Expect it to be practically as muddy and confused as it is today.  Remember, most of the deeply dedicated fools who are busy today trying to re-write history will still be doing so in 2020; little will be seen through the glasses of honesty until maybe sixty or eighty years - or more - have elapsed.

Whenever that clear(er) history is written, it will shock a more educated and enlightened society to read of what actually took place in government in the beginning of the 21st century.  The massive list of accomplishments accrued to one Barack Obama, the preponderance of them at long last understood and widely appreciated, will very likely stagger the mind.  Especially will it strike one who is reading in perhaps 2075 and being unbiasedly informed of the Obama administration as compared to the previous eight years of madness.  From a future perch of researched information, looking back over the long view of history, one might think we must have been two different nations that allowed these two different kinds of politicians to occupy the seat of our highest office.

And while that future student of this era will be impressed with the progress made between January, 2009 and January, 2017, it may not be very easy to grasp the magnitude of force and the mountains of obstacles thrown against President Obama.  There might be a few mentions of people tossing around the word impeachment during this presidency, but there will almost surely be inadequate coverage of the sheer numbers of efforts to unseat the President.  Amazing!  That future reader will surely scratch his/her head in wonder at the lack of such rumblings during the years of Bush 43 and before him, of Reagan.  Both of these (Republican) presidents were quite worthy of being put on trial before the Senate; Reagan's lawlessness most assuredly was over the top in any logical constitutionally directed look into impeachable offenses.  The fact that he avoided prison time is quite amazing.  He managed everything with his force of personality; poor old "I'm not a crook" Nixon needed Ronnie's charm.  Tricky Dick's offenses were minor in comparison yet he had to leave office in disgrace.  Then George W. did more than any other president in our history to destroy our international standing and respect.  Oh, yes, and there were those many thousands of deaths of soldiers and civilians, including children, sustained unnecessarily in our only unprovoked war. 

But during the time this brand of disgraceful man is in the highest office - when yet another destructive Republican has been put into that position of power - the millions of reasonable and forgiving people who label themselves Liberal, Independent, Democratic or who offer perhaps other descriptions of their attitudes, simply do not jump to forceful judgment and loudly cry for impeachment.  Most of us who are not Republicans are far more likely to wait and hope, giving the benefit of the doubt when things look pretty awful in Washington.

Today, when things on our national scene are gradually recovering from the devastation left in the wake of the most destructive administration in our history, loud and ugly Republican threats are continually hurled at the one person who took on the burden of rebuilding the United States - and who has done so at an amazing success rate.  With no help and continual hindrance from Congress since 2010, our President has remained steadfast and strong in his determination to see this job through.  Yet even today (and has there been a day when impeachment hasn't been shouted in the last many months?) while our strong leader is firing heads of departments over mismanagement within days of first learning of irregularities in lower levels of the Internal Revenue Service, it is he who has to hear yet again that he should be impeached!  Really pathetic. 

Here is an overwhelming fact about our nation and about democracy:  You who will read about all this in wonder and sometimes disbelief in the century to come, also possess the rights of citizenship that allow you to be lead and mislead by the idiots of your own time - with much of that privilege of democracy handed to you as a result of such leaders as Barack Obama who restore and rebuild after devastation.  Impeachable?  I'm not completely sure we have had many presidents who exhibited UNimpeachable ethics and/or efforts.  If that level is attainable, this 44th president is perhaps the best example of it.  This one we have today is probably the most complete leader our nation was fortunate enough to find.

My friend Al over at The Age of Reason -- 21st Century discusses the fact that our government does not allow its top elected official to merely snap his fingers or shout at someone to get things done.  It is a built-in obstacle course our chief executive has to negotiate in order to accomplish much during his short (even if two-term) tenure in office.  And in a post of mine back in September of 2012, I cited the article from a news outlet in January 2012 about the study done by a Florida Professor, Robert P. Watson.  Even by that month, after only three years in office, the President had amassed quite a large body of work relating to the restoration of our society.  He keeps on succeeding against the tide.

I would love to be able to read the researched and clear history of our nation, many years from now.