The recent killing of a health insurance CEO is sad, and provides an opportunity for our upcoming government.

“Deny” was written on a bullet, and the widow said there had been threats about a lack of coverage. The likely motive is not hard to guess. You probably know a few people who have suffered money or health as a result of flaws of the U.S. health insurance industry. Many people die preventable deaths from our healthcare system. There are plenty of studies showing that most of our health outcomes are worse than other developed nations.

Most doctors don’t know much about insurance, because they don’t deal with the business end of their clinic or hospital, but I do. I’m a family doctor who runs medical, dental, and pharmacy (and previously mental health) for tens of thousands of people who bounce between no insurance, Medicaid/Medicare, and private insurance like United Healthcare. I do keynotes on healthcare improvement. With that background, here are some thoughts:.

The Problem:

1. Government programs work best! If you are lucky enough to have Medicaid, Medicare, Tricare, or VA, you can navigate healthcare much easier than the other options. These programs cover almost 36% of the population. I know you think these programs have flaws, but there are way less problems than with private insurances. If you make too much for Medicaid, I suggest you take a “Medicaid vacation” from work to lower your income for a while, then reapply.
2. If you are the 49% of the country who has private insurance through your employer, you may have noticed that your premiums keep going up, the employer covered portions keep going down, deductibles/ copays/ coinsurances keep going up, panels of available providers keep decreasing (making continuity of care almost impossible), and pricing of anything from meds to Xrays is incomprehensible. You just pray you don’t get sick, because if you do, you are going to have to pay cash for most of it anyway.
3. Another 6% of the population buy private insurance themselves, because they don’t have an employer who offers health insurance. This is the realm of the Obamacare marketplace exchange plans, which have high deductibles and let you see almost no doctors. I know these provider panels are limited because I have tried to get my own clinic on the “marketplace” panels and all local insurance companies (including United Healthcare) denied me, saying “by invitation only”. That’s right: they deny doctors as much as patients! I recently became a patient myself, with a chronic condition, and have been ping ponging around this category of self employed marketplace nomads, floored how anyone navigates it.
4. That leaves 8% of the population who is uninsured, which is people who make too much for Medicaid but can’t afford the Obamacare games, people who don’t want to pay for employer based health insurance which costs half their paycheck and covers nothing, people who choose to go naked because the math just doesn’t make sense, or those who are undocumented and can’t work. Most of these 8% use the ER for even simple problems, which your taxes pay for.

How was this piecemeal system invented? Listen to this: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/27/1234145475/health-insurance-in-america

The Mandate

1. Democrats didn’t fix it. Obama’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility was great, but his marketplace thing doesn’t work. Plus, there was not much change in private insurance, which is 55% of the population, so the UHCs of the world have continued to increase costs and decrease coverage. Maybe they can’t deny selling someone coverage based on preexisting conditions, but they sure can deny paying for coverage in a hundred other ways.
2. Republicans now have an opportunity. With full control of the government, there is no one to blame. Do they know how to fix it? I’m a private businessman like Trump and Musk, but I don’t sell luxury lodging and cars like them, I provide social services to poor people, using government money. And based on that, I can say that healthcare is one place where capitalism is not king. Profit maximization has not caused health maximization. Now is the time to get rid of private health insurance. Just leave Medicaid, Medicare and the VA, and put most of the country into Medicaid. It need not be free for all; one can easily require an annual AGI based contribution from the 1040. Nevermind the improved healthcare endpoints, the cost savings and efficiencies realized would be enough to make any businessperson turned politician happy.

The shooter studied his target so that he had perfect timing. He also studied the industry so he had perfect timing. Now is the time to talk about health insurance reform!

Donating Objects: Years ago we tried a system where you could donate old shoes or dishes for poor people to receive. It failed miserably, mostly because it bred entitlement — not from the people receiving the items, but from the donors. “You won’t take my used couch?” I remember one person screaming this at my staff on the phone, while I thought how we had no way to store or transport it. We had become a dumping ground for materialism, like how recycling trucks apparently soothe consumption guilt. Sorry, we won’t do that for you: there is an Arc on our same block. They have tremendous experience getting your extra sweaters into this community in a dignified manner. I have lost count of the number of people who have left unsolicited items in our building thinking someone would take them. No sign, just a pile of clothes or books. They are assuming that poor people are thieves who think everything has a zero ground score time. They aren’t, so these items just sat untouched until I took them to the Arc, which was hard because my car is small and my time is limited. Please donate your stuff to a thrift store, preferably in a poor neighborhood.

Donating Money: Our business moves a few million dollar a year, of which only a few hundred is from well-meaning donations. So unless your donation has a few zeros, it isn’t really helping us, it is just helping you feel good. And I don’t want you to feel good for making such a small difference; I want to encourage you to do much more! I love that you appreciate what we do and want to support us, but your kind message and supportive words are enough!

Donating Time: For skilled tasks (healthcare in our example) we generally don’t want you to come in just a couple hours per week. That is not enough time to learn our systems or populations, and results in us having to fix your mistakes, or spend more time training, all of which makes your volunteering a net time suck for us. Our work is not so simple that you can just show up and be immediately useful. Even painting requires skill, lest it be sloppy. And what about our unskilled tasks…. Wait, do you really want to do unskilled labor? I humbly suggest you try to find a way to parlay your day job skills into something useful to others on a bigger scale, or even just quit your day job and work somewhere more fulfilling, even if it makes less money. I had one medical provider who was eager to volunteer with us because she found her day job soulless, but when I offered her paid work, she haggled with me over the pay. That said, we do have one task where volunteers are indispensable: our Scout group, but it is a rare person that wants to spend 48 hours once a month with 30 rowdy kids who aren’t their own. Please let us know if you do. You might have to give up your own weekend plans though.

Shadowing or interviewing: I understand you are looking for a bit of inspiration or to even learn methods how to serve others. We get many such requests to shadow, intern, or interview, from grade schoolers to CEOs. If I entertained each one, I would have no time to myself. Even taking on one shadower for a day, or talking to one lunch meeting, results in me losing 1–2 hours if I want to do it right. If you are looking for inspiration or tools regarding what we do, please view the media links at the bottom of our website, and read some of my previous ramblings.

Having said “no”, now here are things you CAN do:

It is fantastic if you want to increase how much of your time or money you give to a cause. We need more people like you! Humans have an innate desire to help, but most people don’t know how to go about it. Please allow me to make make some not so humble suggestions:

1. If you need motivation to get started, you need to understand that you have ridiculous privilege compared to most of the world. This includes your health, education, lack of melanin, and family farm from generations ago that Abe stole you from the Native Americans. You are able to live well only because others have lived less well as a result of your actions, both now and for generations past. You are probably unaware of the majority of those who are living worse at your expense, because you are quite isolated from them. For every privelege, there is an equal and opposite oppression. No you didn’t work to get where you were, you were born into it. Once you realize that…
2. If you donate an object you used, that means you are giving your trash. If you donate a brand new object that you bought, that is much better, but you need to understand the needs of the recipient, and most donors of objects never do. If you give the recipient money, that is best. Whether the recipient is the panhandler on your street corner or in a village on the other side of the world, don’t question what they will do with the money. Just let it go. There is significant research that cash is best, and some literature that suggests giving to the matriarch of a family is even better.
3. If you spend $1500 on a flight to go somewhere for a month to help others who live on $15 a month, you need to check your intentions at the airport. They have plenty of smart people where you are going — Unless you have a special skill, they don’t need you. Stay home and send the money instead. If you give $100 to a cause but make $100k a year, that is lame. If you find yourself giving 40% of your income, now we are talking!
4. If you get paid money, what you are doing is not service, it is a job. Even risky employment like firefighting or military is still voluntary employment, unless you were conscripted.
5. If you get a free T-shirt or sticker for your volunteering, consider that pay. It cheapens your effort. If you buy an unrelated product in order to donate, remember that a large part of your donation is going to the unrelated product, like Girl Scout Cookies or when Chipotle gives some kickback to your school. It’s a terribly inefficient method of giving, but if thats the only way you are going to motivate to, then go eat some burritos and cookies.
6. If you have to compete to do something, even if unpaid, that is not service. Becoming a fireman takes tremendous competition because it is a prestigious job even if unpaid. Find something that no one else is doing, and you will be on a better path of service.
7. Recognition also cheapens service, because ego boosting is worth more than money. I once was involved in an organization that espoused service but gave nonstop plaques, patches, and photo opportunities for social media. Some people call politics service, even though that involves competition, recognition, and pay. I suggest you give your money and time as anonymously as possible. (I wish I could still be anonymous, but I realize I have some kind of inspirational role here.)
8. If you give three hours to an endeavor, that’s kinda lame. It probably cost the organization more effort to deal with you than the benefit you gave the organization. If you have devoted years of your life, that’s fantastic.
9. Here is a recipe to increase your service in a big way: Reduce your own lifestyle (car, house, objects) so you spend less. This may mean you have to move to a poorer neighborhood and take some risks (like your kid not getting as fancy an education?), but that will get you closer to a target service audience anyway. Also, reduce your lifestyle in terms of time: If you want to work more with people, you may have to realize that your pet or garden take countless hours away from your ability to serve humans, and serving humans can be just as fulfilling as having a dog or growing tomatoes. This is privilege alleviation as a voluntary method of wealth transference, because our capitalist tax system doesn’t do a good job of that. If you want to make a difference, you have to give up privilege until you are inconvenienced. Take what you save on lifestyle reduction and give it to others, either directly or by donating large amounts to some organization that helps others. Or, since you will need less income, change your career to one where you make less money but make more of a difference, using whatever current job skills you have. Of course none of this is easy, but if you want easy, just give $100 or three hours of your time.
10. You want to start small? Here is one tip to get you started: carry cash. Forget your skinny jeans or your cell phone credit card holder. Carry a wad of ones, fives, and tens every time you leave the house. Give them to panhandlers, leave it for tips at your hotel or for the person who cleans your rental car, or just pay small businesses with it rather than using your credit card for everything. If you don’t know why small businesses prefer cash, go ask your mother. Let your kids see you giving cash to people less fortunate: that is more impressionable for them than your massive online donations. If you can’t bring yourself to follow this tip, then fake it til you make it, and soon your lifestyle of service will become second nature.
11. Another tip: be early wherever you go. Read the first few paragraphs of this article. Even if you don’t have money to give, you will recognize that you have time you can give.

Thanks for reading. Now get out there and make a difference in a big way!

I’m a family doctor for ten thousand people of color in poor neighborhoods east of Denver, Colorado. That’s all I’ve done for the last decade, including almost a year of Coronavirus tests, treatments, deaths, and now shots.

When the vaccine arrived a month ago, my clinic was approved to carry it. Doses were limited, so smaller clinics would get less than the big hospitals, elderly folks would get it first, and us clinics were mandated to take vaccine appointment calls from everyone.

That all made sense to me at first. Then I filtered it through my world of underserved medicine, and thought:

1. Why don’t we prioritize small clinics? Trust in vaccines is a real issue, even from people who know nothing about Tuskegee. The minorities I work with are more likely to trust my clinic than the big hospital, the county fairgrounds, or the pop up clinic staffed by white folks working for a nonprofit that knew how to grantwrite. What’s the purpose of Family Medicine if not trust building? But I am seeing no effort to prioritize small clinics, and the opposite seems true — my clinic had my vaccine orders cancelled and we were kicked off the system for trying to order! So I whined to the state, and something amazing happened: my email landed on the desk of one state employee who somehow knew of my clinic’s work. She diverted some doses from larger hospitals to me. That’s great! But why are we not systematically favoring small clinics in dosing allocations? Some clinics like mine don’t even need the extra space, staff, or other logistics, we just need doses! Give us what little we want, and let the hospitals have what’s left, which is still the majority.
2. Obviously elderly need prioritization, but so do colored people. A 45 year-old poor black person may fare worse with Covid, or be more of a vector, than your 85 year-old rich white grandmother who can isolate. Didn’t you write a BIPOC mission statement last summer about how you want to prioritize people of color? Are you bold enough to say Category 1B includes anyone over age 65 AND anyone who receives Medicaid or Food Stamps? Or Category 1B is anyone living in blocks defined as low income? The goal should not be equal or even equitable distribution of vaccine, it should be affirmative action distribution. This isn’t reparations for something generations ago — there are poor colored people dying of Covid faster than rich white people right now. I work with poor colored communities — I know the grocery owners, the pastors, and the adult daycare staff who will promote the vaccines, in a dozen languages. I just need the vaccines! Even if we are talking about big entities, please prioritize the FQHCs (Community Health Centers) over the suburban hospitals — that is another way to prioritize poor and colored. As of the date I wrote this, my local fqhc (Stride) says all their locations have had no vaccines for 2 weeks — meanwhile I know a 1,000 person event was done at a sports stadium yesterday, drive-through. That means the vaccine is not making its way into the poor neighborhoods. Want to maximize QALYs saved? Coordinate a 1,000 person event with me in the hood.
3. The State listed my clinic in a vaccine provider directory and mandated all such clinics make appointments for any caller. That may sound optimal to you, but it sounded classist and racist to me. We took the calls, made the appointments, and, predictably, my brown and black waiting room was overtaken by rich white people. Why? Because my poor brown and black people don’t have the wherewithal to make appointments, like rich white people do. My patients may not have a phone, may not speak any language that you have a translator for, or may not have means to get to an appointment on time. This is why I run a walk-in clinic with no appointments. Listing my clinic and making me take appointments directly shifted doses away from poor old colored people to rich old white people. So I told my staff we are only seeing four call-in (aka richer, whiter) appointments per day for vaccines. Sound racist and classist? That is exactly what most other providers do for Medicaid, in reverse. You try finding my Medicaid patients a knee doctor in the metro area. No, really, call me if you find one. Those orthopedists (and urologists) say no to Medicaid, which disproportionately means saying no to colored people. At best they say “one Medicaid patient a month,” but they will happily see you today if you have Blue Cross.

Added 3/13/21: The State told me that I can target certain populations but can not exclude anyone, and that their vaccine strategy for the underserved is “pop up” clinics (one day events). This is strange to me, because it seems that targeting advertising to population A is a secret way of excluding population B. It is like the State wants providers of underserved medicine, like me, to be in the closet, not telling others that we really are discriminating against privilege. Don’t tell the rest of the litter that you are feeding the runt, and don’t make that milk predictable lest the others steal it. Such secrecy and inconsistency is a sad strategy for the less fortunate. I popped up here 10 years ago to serve poor people and no one else, and have been open every day, including now to give them corona shots anytime they want.

I appreciate everyone that has made this vaccine possible, but if you want to take a shot at racism in healthcare: please prioritize doses to clinics that are small and/or deal with poor minorities, and let them decide how they are going to distribute it.

Until they have lived with you for 7 years. Then stop giving them food and medical assistance.

At least that is how I understand it. I am family doctor for ten thousand refugees who have resettled to the Denver, Colorado area. In 10 years of doing this work, I have learned a few things about the process.

Warning: This writeup is about a specific corner of a specific issue, so may be dry unless you have specific interest in this subject.

This subject has to do with poor immigrants only, not rich immigrants, because rich ones speak English. Poor ones are those who come as refugee or asylee, which are legal pathways to citizenship, but then hit this roadblock described in my writeup here.

Refugees are legal residents on arrival. A year later they can easily get Permanent Resident Status, also known as a Green Card.

About five years after arrival they can apply to be a citizen, which allows them to vote and travel abroad a little easier, but more importantly, to keep their public assistance benefits. That means free healthcare (Medicaid), free food (food stamps), and free money (TANF aka Cash Benefit aka welfare). Taken together we call these “benefits.” I think this is the modern society interpretation of that Leviticus verse. These benefits are how you take care of those foreign born, or the poor, or poor people who were foreign born.

Certainly many refugees get jobs or open businesses, and have too much income to qualify for these benefits. But many don’t, because they are handicapped by language, culture, age, or disability, or simply because their job pays too little. So they get these benefits. However, by U.S. law, if they have not become citizens by seven years after arriving, they lose these benefits.

So they start trying to apply for citizenship at five years, and hope they get it by seven years. That’s 2 years to get through the red tape of the citizenship process.

The crux of the process is a test of English and Civics, administered in spoken English. It is 20 factual questions, taken from a list of 100 questions, and 12 of those 20 must be answered correctly. Many refugees speak enough English, and they memorize the answers to the 100 questions. Actually the number of questions recently increased to 128, some of which are not simple facts, and many “native Americans” may even find it difficult. Click on those links to learn more or try the questions yourself.

To an elderly refugee, 100 vs 128 questions doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that they only have to answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly (if over age 60), not 12 out of 20: They are never going to learn English to pass that test. Have you tried learning a second language? It is difficult after age 30 and almost impossible after age 60.

Some of these refugees are not only elderly, they are also blind, deaf, mute, have seizures, are missing limbs, have mental disorders, are on dialysis, or have other medical problems that make it hard to get around, much less learn anything. I know this because I am their doctor. These are medical issues shared by many Americans who were born in America, who are disabled and can’t work. These are exactly the Americans that need benefits like free healthcare, free food, and free money. But if they are refugees, these are exactly the ones who can’t get it, unless they learn English.

Or unless they submit a form “N-648,” where a doctor says that they can’t learn English for a medical reason. If the N648 is accepted by USCIS (the government immigration department), then they need not take the English and Civics test, and can just do some paperwork to become a citizen and keep their benefits.

You would think a doctor’s writeup would be readily accepted by USCIS, just like doctor’s notes are accepted by every school, workplace, airline, and more. But it’s not that easy.

I’m not an expert on immigration or the Bible, but I do have a degree in 648ing. I’ve done hundreds of 648s — so many that I have a clock in my office, with the hands permanently set to 6:48. I will now describe the 648 game.

About two-thirds of my 648s are approved on the first try. The rest come back rejected. I redo those ones, and the applicant submits it again. Some get rejected multiple times. One was rejected 5 times. Each reject takes a few months or a year to fix and reapply, by the time the bureaucratic wheels turn. So this process takes years for some people, making them lose their benefits in the process (if their 5 years passes 7), or lose their mind and just give up. Some move to another state because they hear the USCIS agents pass you easier there.

I have many refugee patients who passed the 7 years, and have no insurance, and we usually see them free in our outpatient clinic. But they can’t get free ER visits, free hospital stays, free medicine, free Xrays, or free specialists.

Some try to get a lawyer or a mental health professional to help with the 648 process. I have learned those things do not help. Whether the 648 is approved has nothing to do even with what I write. It has everything to do with the agent they meet the day they go for the interview. I have never been to the USCIS office, but I know some folks who help take many refugee patients for their “interview”. They tell me that the moment the door opens, they see which agent it is, and they know whether their 648 is going to be accepted or rejected. One might think there were more rejections under Trump, but it seems about the same as under Obama. The President doesn’t matter, the USCIS agents do.

I have learned to try to not write about any physical problems like missing limbs, dialysis, blind or deaf. I only write mental problems now, mainly dementia.

What does it look like when a 648 gets rejected? That is what I have here, a parade of rejections from the last 10 years.

You will see that many of the rejection letters have template wording, with only a few sentences that are unique to that letter. For each one, I have circled the substantive part in red and wrote some comments in red.

I will start with a standard example. They almost always pick on question #10.

Huh? Unable to remember language, names, directions, activities- doesn’t that indicate that they can’t learn English?

Another common one. They like using the word “nexus” to make their rejection sound reasonable:

I failed to establish how illiteracy, lack of education, and psychological trauma result in an inability to speak English or answer Civics questions in any language.

Here is one referring to 5 years prior, 2010, when the refugee arrived in the U.S:

Not all genetic mental disorders manifest at birth. Many start in teens or 20s.

And here are some about patients with hearing or speech problems:

Hellen Keller wasn’t age 60 when she started communicating.

Here is another deaf and mute that should learn English visually, or lose their healthcare:

I guess I forgot to ink sign that one. It only had my signature printed by my printer.

But really, so what if this guy learns sign language, and can answer questions about the U.S. government in sign language? Does that make for a better society? This patient is not going to ever interact with anyone other than his immediate family anyway, because he is so disabled.

This is the same deaf 42 year old as just above, with his 2nd rejection.

Not only do they maintain that he can learn visually, they again go after my signature. I signed in ink next to my printer printed signature. Two identical signatures is certainly fishy.

Here is an elderly, mute and deaf patient:

Since this one, I have a paragraph about how a lack of education leads to earlier dementia.

And the 648 asks for DSM codes, but DSM codes are for mental issues, not physical ones like mute+deaf. So I listed no DSM code. Just for reference, here is the N648 form asking for the DSM code.

I get a bunch where they say that if you can remember your kids names, address, and special dates, then you can learn a new language:

Another similar one. If the applicant answer a couple questions correctly, the USCIS agent says they can learn English, and that the doctor is lying:

And an ironic one about templates:

Everyone in any industry uses templates. But since this one, I now use “she” or “he” instead of “one” or “them”. Also, note the word “regrettably” — it is patronizing the way it is used here.

An update in 2025: one applicant (patient) came in asking for a N648, saying he passed the verbal test, but failed the written English test, because of this: he was told to write a sentence something like “Lincoln was a president a long time ago,” and given a signature pad (like at the bank) to write on, with either his finger or stylus. He could not see what he was writing. The result showed up on a screen. His g looked like a y, and USCIS rejected him saying his writing was not good enough. He lost his $900 in application fees and was told to apply again. This time he is going with one of my 648s in hand.

By the way, the only thing worse than this process, is when the applicant thinks they need to get a lawyer (and even worse if they pay the lawyer). Even well intentioned lawyers then start sending me requests for me to edit my writeup, as if what I write has anything to do with the outcome. It doesn’t. This becomes multiple layers of craziness.

As you can see from my examples here, they use their templates to reject my templates, and we go back and forth like this.

If you are like me, you may see this as a big cup of WTH. Are these USCIS agents trying to help refugees or get in their way?

These letters remind me of circular talk that A. pretty much any lawyer does, B. crazymaking that some of my exes do, and C. ridiculous grading done by some of my past English teachers who simply cared about length, not content.

When someone is looking for any reason to reject you, it says more about them than it says about you.

If this is not bad enough, we had at least one example where a refugee killed himself because he could not pass the test, and was worried about losing his benefits. Here is a link to that story.

I don’t have any deep conclusions here. I just wanted to share a bit of my world, for anyone who cares to learn about the process that elderly refugees face. I’m pretty sure that no one can effect change on this topic, so I just keep redoing 648s, for the benefit of the refugees.

If I could change the system, my solution would be to get rid of the English requirement for citizenship. Yes, many other countries have the same requirement, but really, in a day when you can readily use Google Translate, or when you can live your whole life in some cities speaking only your mother tongue, there is no purpose for this requirement. And if you are going to have such a requirement, then allow exceptions, just accept the doctor paper, like every school, and workplace accepts doctor excuses.

…but won’t.

I am brown. I am an Eagle Scout. I earned my Eagle Scout before I became a citizen of the United States.

I then worked for the Boy Scouts of America for 15 summers, during which I was asked to be in promotional material because of my color many times. I then started a Scout Troop for refugees, and ran it for a dozen years. It was Troop 1532, and was covered by the media dozens of times, for example CNN, Washington Post, and a movie. This was alot of positive media coverage for Scouting, at a time when most Scouting coverage was negative, about child sex abuse.

In this manner, I was a proponent for Scouting and inclusivity in Scouting, for decades. And I failed.

In some of those media spots I said that Scouting is a very accepting place. At this point I realize that simply is not true. After trying for 30 years, I can say that it was never really was accepting and never will be. Here is why:

While some local Troops can be very accepting, the national Scouting organization is not. We all know that Scouting is mostly a rich white conservative straight male organization. This was exposed as a problem in the era of BLM , and was put back in the closet during the anti DEI movement which followed.

If you are involved in Scouting, what can you do about it?

1. Stop kicking out people. First of all, forget diversity: just try to stop kicking out anyone. Scouts is already circling the drain in terms of numbers. At its peak in 1972, 7% of boys were enrolled, now it is more like 1%. I’m not talking about colored or gay people getting kicked out, I frequently observed Scouts kicking out people while smugly declaring that they don’t need to give a reason.
2. Diversify your Management: Look at any group photo of a Scouting management team. It is homogeneous. This includes in thought: staff are promoted based on their ability to maintain the status quo, while innovation is seen as a threat. If you worked in Scouting as a full time professional in the last 50 years, meaning while membership has been plummeting, then you are part of the problem. Especially if you worked decades. You probably surrounded yourself with yes men and kicked out the rest. Big nonprofits have a tendency towards stagnation and closed mindedness, unless the opposite culture is created from the top.
3. Sexual orientation: Have an LGBTQ week at your camp, or a reunion weekend for LGBTQ alumni. I’ve known dozens of people who had to hide their identity while in Scouts, going back decades.
4. Ethnic diversity: Reorient programs towards nonwhite history. Hispanic vaqueros and Black cowboys might have outnumbered white ones in your area.
5. Colonization: Apparently the Order of the Arrow has finally stopped portraying Native Americans, but you can help make sure that is a reality on the ground, including in Mic-o-say or by removing offensive art from your dining hall wall.
6. Economic Diversity: If you name things after rich benefactors, please also focus on the many people who helped him get rich. They were poorer, and may have been minorities. All lives are equal and deserve equal recognition, rather than a broken record hailing rich white men.
7. History of Prejudice: At the National Scouting museum, have a permanent display on the “History of Prejudice in Scouting.” Discuss gays, girls, atheism, sexism, racism, the use of Native Americans, and the firing of long haired employees. Own this history, lest it be continued. Invite affected people to post their stories, and have an online version of all this too.
8. Diversity of Opinion: For example, if you run a gun program, including merit badges, please teach about different gun philosophies. As it stands, kids are pressured by camp staffs, their adult leaders, and their peers to shoot guns, led like cattle to the range, often under the guise of gun safety and leadership advancement. Give voices and names to people who were harmed by gun violence at schools, in neighborhoods, or by police. Talk about the environmental damage of firing ranges.
9. Religious diversity: allow atheists. Stop forcing them into a closet. Not believing in a God does not take anything away from Scouts who do believe in one. Plus forcing religion has the opposite of the intended effect. Let them discover it on their own.
10. Treatment: Hire a therapist for your staff, on site if possible. Have a bank of tele therapists available nationally for anyone involved in Scouting. A Muslim Scout may not open up to your Catholic chaplain. Similarly, for medical issues, use general practice providers. That means NPs, PAs, or physicians who work in FM or EM year round, not just any doc who will happily practice outside their scope in exchange for a free vacation, as is done at Philmont (where a gynecologist will treat your boy).

There are other areas, like disabilities and dietary inclusivity, but this isn’t an exhaustive list. Simply writing a DEI statement or open door policy doesn’t translate to action. Dsicrimination is way more insiduous. Other excuses are made as to why someone is not welcome, like “we don’t like his tone/approach/manner.”

I test drove this list on the Philmont Staff Association, where many users thought moderation was slanted conservatively for years. 95% of the commentary was constructive, including many heartbreaking stories of prejudice in Scouting at Philmont. And many of those individuals then started DMing me their stories of racism, sexism, rape, and more, things no one wants to admit happened in Scouting. It went much deeper than I could have imagined.

The rest 5% were all white men, mostly older, saying “why fix something that isn’t broken,” or “don’t be reverse prejudiced”. Those 5% seemed to have 100% of the control unfortunately.

The refugee Troop I started and ran, with help from my friends, is an anomaly, not a model that Scouting has any interest or ability to follow.

For my background, go to www.ardasclinic.com/mangohouse and click on any of the links at the bottom

I said in the parking lot, to a refugee family from South Asia, through their car window. The patient in the back looked like my mom. She was comfortable, but had a sat of 84% and heart rate of 110. I also knew she had diabetes and lived in a dense apartment. She and her extended family had been my patients for years, since they arrived in the country.

The patient’s daughter was in the front, and grandson was driving. What I didn’t tell them was “Spend an hour with her before you go in, because as soon as she is checked in, they won’t allow you in the room to see her. You won’t see each other again, even if she dies from this. This parking lot may be the last you see of her.”

My clinic has tested almost a couple hundred patients. At first, 60% were positive, but as more worried well came in, our total positive rate has decreased to about 45%. That still seems high to me, although I don’t know how it compares to other practices. I work with resettled refugees in an urban setting, and have never worked elsewhere.

Of those positives, we have a dozen who got admitted to the hospital. Some get admitted but we don’t find out, so the real number is probably two dozen, which goes along with published ratios of positive to admits. Of those in the hospital, most have spent some time in the ICU, which means they had significant breathing problems and needed a machine to breathe for them. Some are there today. One improved out of the ICU but then went back in. Most make it out of the ICU and out of the hospital. At least one died.

“The test is free, but since you are visiting from another country, it will cost you $110.” I said in the parking lot, to a Burmese woman who was having problems breathing for a few days. I also told her I wouldn’t waste the money, and just assume she has Coronavirus and stay home anyway.

The government (Medicaid) now pays for Corona testing for all uninsured patients as long as they have a Social Security number. That is too bad, because visitors and undocumented people also contribute to the disease prevalence and hospital burden. How much better are our statistics than China’s?

“Look that way. I am going to put this in your nose for 3 seconds,” I say in the parking lot. I try to stand on the upwind side, because the test induces the patient to sneeze or cough. I feel like a sitting duck, complete with duck costume. I’m not sure if swabbing through the car window reduces the spray in my direction. The virus itself could not devise a more ingenious method of spreading itself to its enemy, healthcare providers who seek to eliminate it.

A plastic face shield protects me in the parking lot. One of my providers had her son build one from a hardware store, the other found his own, and we have a few from a 3D printing effort. On days when there is freezing rain the shield blocks some of the wind, but it could use wipers and a defogger.

“Just wait in the parking lot and call us,” we text to patients who need to see us, “don’t come in the building.” We swab the patient in the car, then wait a couple days for the result. At night, when the parking lot is empty, we stay up reviewing results. Last night I texted a dozen positives in a row. It becomes mechanical. Copy Paste “This is PJ, doctor at Mango House, your test shows you have Corona Virus.” Then I paste a blurb about staying home.

This week we had some patients whose result read negative, and we gave “return to work” papers, but then the lab told us they screwed up, and the result was really positive. Turns out only four of them, and it seems none had gone back to work yet, but maybe they did feel a longer leash in the day or two between. Uh-oh.

Actually our parking lot isn’t always empty at night. Sometimes people camp there. It comes with the neighborhood. We usually don’t mind if they are gone in the morning, or are low profile. This week we had one that was there all day blasting music and getting drunk, while we were trying to see patients a few feet away. We asked Aurora police to remove them.

We try to keep most patients from even arriving at the parking lot. We are now handling things by phone. We always knew we could, but we weren’t allowed because insurance companies required face-to-face visits. That means up until last month, doctors offices had to spread contagion in order to stay afloat. These “face-to-face” rules were written by the government programs (Medicare, Medicaid), and the private insurance companies followed. But now, suddenly, all doctors are readily paid for “televisits.” I don’t want to do parking lot medicine forever, but I sure don’t need to see you in my office to help you. Stay home and call!

“Should I get the test?” I have been asked this in the parking lot. I try to tell them that the result may not matter, that they should stay home anyway. Some want a test to see if they already had it and are better. We need a different test called an antibody test and those were just invented. We should have them this week and soon be sticking fingers in the parking lot. I experimented with one on myself yesterday and am awaiting result.

Getting the tests has been an exercise in decentralized medicine, working through reps that seem like used car salespeople with websites that look like scams, and labs that compete and give the rep a cut. Our system doesn’t allow for a reassuring government presence, even if one existed, especially not in small private practice.

“We brought you some food,” I was told in the parking lot. A few times. People are stuck at home feeling helpless and want to do something. This has resulted in free food for us, free shoes for us, free energy bars for us, and free 3D printed masks for us. The utility of each of these things varies, but it is the same theme I saw when refugees were the topic: people wanting to increase their service in times of need. I applaud it, but encourage using times like this to consider how we can all orient our lives to more service even when there is no emergency. The American lifestyle is otherwise quite a selfish, money-grabbing one that leads to great inequalities we can see in our own neighborhoods. Often we use the security or prospects of our own kids as rationalization, at the expense of other’s kids. Sure, send some free food to your local doctor, but also look around your house, and consider how you can come out of this with more ongoing service.

What do our refugee medical and dental clinics at Mango House really need? N95 masks (not really other masks), disposable gowns, alcohol wipes, and latex gloves. If you are going to bring food, we prefer random packaged snacks, especially those from Trader Joes. Or if you want to help subsidize rent for some refugee churches who can’t pay, go to our clinic website and click donate on the bottom left. If you want to help Mango House in general, please see our current volunteer or donation needs at http://1532galena.com.

Of course we have a high positive rate!

Poor people need their jobs. When we tell them to stay home, some of them return to work anyway. Guess who is making your food at the airport or packing your meat? And they live in dense housing. When you are paying $1,800 for a 2 bedroom on East Colfax, you are going to have 8 people in there, 4 sleeping on mats on the living room floor. That includes grandpa who arbitrarily rotates between purple, red, and orange inhalers for his hut lung. And the apartment next door has the same density. The whole building does. And the whole next building, the whole neighborhood. Coronavirus is going to rip through these blocks like smallpox on the first Thanksgiving. The #15 bus is a rolling fomite. Even the ones who have moved on up to the east side (Green Valley Ranch) have a dozen people in a 3 bed 2 bath, and the one or two breadwinners are bringing home corona attached to their paystub. If this sounds bad in America, their cousins still in camps overseas don’t stand a chance.

Our numbers are about same as confined places, like a refugee facility or a cruise ship, and less than unconfined places like the 20% overall U.S. test positivity rate. Even that 20% is considered indicative of too little testing.

To be exact: of people who we decide to test, which is 100% of people with any fever, cough, or fatigue, 60% have Covid-19. There are other people who come to our clinic for other medical issues, who we don’t test.

Our test percentage numbers are still early (a small n), but my conclusion is not:

Social isolation is a classist privilege.

We have positive Karen, Chin, Karenni, Rohingya, Nepali, Congolese and Caucasian. None Somali, Iraqi, Eritrean, or others as of today, but give us a few more days and we will.

We only really got tests a week ago. I won’t tell you the name of the lab, for the same reasons that you hoarded toilet paper from Sam’s.

We sure could use some more PPE. We have two N95s per employee. I’ve been using one for days. I don’t want to go to my second one until I have another one on deck, nevermind one in the hole. We have only a few gowns. If you hang it up the same way every day, it should be ok? We have migrated our patient visits from exam room, to waiting room, to lobby, to door, to outside in the parking lot at times. It’s like we scoot our chairs a few feet south every day, feeling like it does something to help, losing three HIPAA points for each scoot. Maybe next we will sit in the middle of the street.

Last week’s tax law will help our bottom line in a few ways. The business loss 5 year carryback provisions would be helpful if I wasn’t married filing jointly 5 years ago, or having to deal with attempts to impute my income to that of an average doctor. The Paycheck Protection Program will certainly help, although I had to lay off my whole dental staff last week. Can’t say I had to do that before. I suggested they get unemployment for a while. We also stopped our refugee Boy and girl Scout Camping trips for a while. That’s girl Boy Scouts, of course.

I have no idea where one pulls $2 trillion from (actually I think China, ironically), but the tax law is handy for my office, because our “payer mix” has shifted. We went from mostly Medicaid to half uninsured: breadwinners who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, too little to get Blue Cross, and are getting sick from work. Meanwhile our patients who have been on Medicaid for years are stable with enough refills of metformin at home.

I am swabbing all of our staff. They’re all young and healthy, so might even be asymptomatic. I want to catch the positives so we can know who is immune in a few weeks. Then we can send that person out to buy office snacks. Or send them flying on vacation without fear.

At Mango House we also have many refugee business tenants, including a half dozen restaurants. All are hurting for cash. But I am insisting all pay rent, and try to find the money thru the recent tax laws. I guess I will count the monthly rents tomorrow and see how far they stretch this time. Rashid’s grocery was selling out of rice, but recently closed because of positives in their community.

One observation about religion. Now I’ve had two instances where someone claimed Jesus was protecting them in some way. They were both caucasian Americans who interface with refugees in a helping way. I have not yet seen that in our other faith groups (Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Kirat, or a number of Christian churches of different dialects).

What can you do to help? Aside from sending us those N95s or gowns in your attic, just stay home. Masks made of other materials are not useful for clinical settings.

Those are all my observations for today. Here is a picture of our first round of N95s we found. I labelled them with my staff initials, like you label your kid’s lunch for school.

Update 4/17/20: after testing hundreds of patients, including many asymptomatic, we have settled at about 45% positive from all of our ethnic communities. In the last few days, our clinic has about a dozen positive per day, out of the 250–400 new positives in the state (about 3–5% of the state total). Dozens of our patients have been hospitalized, and while most have gotten out, at least one has died. JBS has closed for now, thankfully. Our staff is all negative so far, and we are doing a 4 day N95 rotation as we see all patients in the parking lot. We are short on gowns. Some more recent thoughts are here.

Sunday March 1, 2020 evening, as I was moving Boy Scout gear from the newer Mango House to the old one, I came around the corner in the old one, and there was a police parked in my parking garage, blocking my way. I could not have stopped further away unless I could see through walls. I honked to get his attention so he wasn’t surprised.

He jumped out of his car, swore at me, and pulled out his gun while running to my car. I heard a clickety click racheting type sound from his gun which, I’m not sure, but I think means he was getting ready to shoot me if he desired. I started recording. There is also police body camera video.

If you want a short news report on this, see NBC.

If you want a lengthy legal analysis of the situation by a fairly centrist, impartial source, see Audit The Audit. It ends with cop getting an F and me getting an A. No I don’t know who made it.

If you want to see a viral video, see NowThis., which includes me ranting on using your privilege.

If you have time, you can read some of the thousands of comments on those links, or find other links like those with even more comments. Then come to your own conclusions.

If you want to read my story, keep reading here:

As you see, he had his gun (with flashlight) at my head. I kept asking him to leave my property, and he repeatedly demanded for me to prove that it is my property. Instead of leaving he called in two other police to join him on my property, all of whom were then violating the 3rd amendment and 4th amendments.

They left after about 10 minutes, but not without him making every excuse as to why he was there: He said he was “writing up a report.” The report had nothing to do with my property. He says he “kicks people out” of my garage. Really? Whose decision is it as to who is on my property? He said I shouldn’t “drive up on a police like that,” even though he was on my property and I arrived same manner as I have hundreds of times. He said I attempted to assault him with my car. I had come around the corner and stopped as soon as I saw his car, and honked to announce my presence. And he said “I’m gonna figure out whose property this is because I’m not taking your word for it.”

I thought about calling 911, as I previously did when people on my property refuse to leave. When I call 911, they always ask if a weapon is involved. I would have said “Yes, a gun pointed at my head. It is scary, I fear for my life. Actually the guy with a gun brought two other friends with guns.” But I didn’t call, because when I do, it usually takes so long for the police to arrive, that the offender is already gone. In this case the police were the offenders.

He was parked in the north side garage of the old Mango House, halfway in the handicap spot (he had no handicap placard), and halfway blocking the path of travel of any vehicle, including mine. There is no use he has to society or me being there. He was sitting there because it was a place to relax on his shift, out of view, and out of the snow (you see snow in the videos).

The police are not terribly useful in my work. A couple times I have really needed their help, including when we had bomb threats. They told me “we have murders to deal with”. And when I call them to kick someone disorderly off my property, it always turns into an interrogation of me (the one asking for help) that has less to do with the topic at hand and more to do with asserting dominance. Their communication style is crazymaking. They cut me off while I’m trying to answer their questions, they say “just answer the question” (even though I am answering it), they laugh/smirk at my responses, and they say “that’s not what I’m asking.” They apply these techniques until I give up and exclaim “how can I help you?”

It’s not every police in every department, but it is most of them. It is their style of behavior. There might be a few good apples.

During the incident, I was upset because he was on my property without asking, because he pointed his gun at my head, because he was in my way of doing work, because he wouldn’t believe I owned the property, and because he said he kicks other people off my property without asking me.

I was also upset because he was gaslighting. Gaslighting is when you catch someone doing something wrong, and they try to convince everyone of an opposite reality. The classic example is when you catch your partner in an affair. Here the cop said I shouldn’t “drive up on a police like that,” that I “attempted to assault” him with my car, that I should be cited for reckless driving, and that he was “writing a report”. Those all obfuscated the fact that he was on my property without asking, and that he used excessive force. His ego needed placating, as one’s does after a narcissistic injury. I told him I had better things to do than to placate him.

That night after that incident, I felt guilty, like I instigated his aggressiveness. But after sleeping on it, I don’t think so. I was driving into my own property — he was startled, and jumped on the defensive.

I wrote this up, posted it on Facebook, my local state congresswoman saw it and asked the police chief to investigate. I knew an internal investigation would lead to nothing, because, well, how many times have you read the news talking about some investigation, only to have the issue disappear over time?

When the investigator cop called me, he told me that maybe the officer felt like he was being ambushed. I was not impressed by that notion. Do ambushers honk on arrival? He also asked me why I didn’t stay in my car when I was told to. I emailed him a response, where I told him to watch this video at 1:52.

I was then contacted by Officer Dudley, who seems to be the only non-white person in Aurora Police leadership, and who was jockeying to be elected as Aurora Police Chief. He asked to have a Zoom meeting with me, and we did for an hour, talking all aspects of the case and society. He then told me he can’t talk about the case because it’s an open investigation. This was more crazymaking.

I was too embarrassed to seek legal help, post my video online, or even share it with friends. The shame comes from trauma, from a lifetime of situations like this that all people of color face. Being doubted that I own the property felt worse than having a gun at my head. It resonated with being searched by the TSA dozens of times, having my color used against me in family court, being passed over for jobs, attracting dates who were looking for someone exotic, being used in promotional material for token purposes, being beaten by racist classmates, and having my fellow kindergartners call my grandfather “towel head” for his turban.

It reverberated through generations of British rule.

The main reason, by far, that I didn’t speak up was because last time this happened in a significant way, my ex wrote it up, and filed it in court, attempting to take our kid away from seeing me. No kidding.

That police, Justin Henderson, murdered someone named Shamikle Jackson just 6 months prior, in September 2019 — and had the case cleared by the same District Attorney that cleared the 3 cops that killed Elijah McClain in August 2019. That DA is David Young, who was busy adultering at that time. Now on this occasion, Justin Henderson failed to file the required report after using his weapon: He has no regard for rules. Do you really think that 6 months ago he was justified in murdering Shamikle Jackson? Here are some petitions to sign if you think petitioning will get Justin Henderson or Dave Young fired.

It wasn’t until the George Floyd protests that I felt any societal support on this. But then my shame gave way to helplessness. My posts about this incident got less attention on my business Facebook page than did my posts about falafel, despite a thousand progressive followers. I watched as countless white people denounced racism and police brutality with inconsequential words on social media. I even asked many of them very directly to do something about this investigation, and only a few did.

Posting support for a cause on social media feeds your ego and soothes your guilt, not much else.

When I finally got the courage to post the video to social media, the regular media started picking up on it, and thousands of people commented.

Most reflected support for me, especially on leftist or centrist media sources. But some, especially after it was on front page of Foxnews.com, bought the officer’s gaslit notion that I sped up to him to provoke him, which is actually impossible if one knows the layout — I came around a corner and stopped immediately. Had I entered the other direction I would have come around another corner the same distance away. It’s not a smart place for a cop to sit if he wants to avoid surprise. Some questioned why I would record the interaction, as if I had purposefully baited in order to record.

Some said that I should have been more docile after he had a gun to my face. I thought about this. In stressful situations, like a gun at one’s head, we go to reflex responses dictated by our pasts. For some people of color like me, we have a thousand previous traumas to draw from. If I were white with a whiter upbringing, I might have been able to speak softer, but if I were white, the officer would have treated me differently also. That police Justin Henderson was on autopilot also, from his childhood, which I’m guessing also included power struggles. Actually one of my staff’s sons went to high school with Justin Henderson and said he was a bully there.

Interestingly: most viewers were much more appalled at the police than I was! I’ve gotten used to this kind of stuff.

In some form of victim blaming, some would say this is “trauma repetition”, like I purposefully (or subconsciously) put myself in such positions. Like if I worked for a suburban clinic instead of private practice for refugees on East Colfax, this might not happen. Yes, if I had a whiter upbringing, I wouldn’t be doing the work I do, in the place I do, on a Sunday evening in the snow. I would be on the other end of the gun, with a badge.

But instead, I work to protect the minority, and he works to protect the majority.

Really, is it my job to make him comfortable enough to not shoot me?

Aurora has a problem with disorderly police, Colorado has a problem with police aggressiveness with guns, and the United States has a problem with excessive police force and racism.

If one is wondering why I even mention the race card here, one is living under a rock. If I looked like the policeman’s brother, he wouldn’t point a gun at my head on my own property, or even ask twice when I say this is my property. Just four months before this incident I wrote “For poc (people of color like me), guns in the hands of police are not even for our protection. We are just as likely to be at the wrong end.” And now I post a picture of being at the wrong end.

I often get asked why I do my work. This incident is actually a basis of much of it — helping colored people be buffered from, and navigate, a society that is not built for them — and in fact was founded on oppressing them. I take risks and navigate these things to help my refugee patients and tenants move forward. In this case it was moving gear for one of my refugee Scout units (our female Boy Scout group actually), but at other times it has been creating safe places for a dozen minority religious groups to practice their faith, helping dozens of refugee small businesses start, or creating culturally sensitive medical and dental care for tens of thousands of refugees. This is all as a private business, not a nonprofit nor government entity. This is part of doctoring, dentisting, Scouting, restauranting, small businessing, and property owning, in this neighborhood. In case you have read this far, and don’t know what work we do — I own two buildings called Mango House in Aurora Colorado, where I have a variety of services for refugees, including my medical clinic and Scout Units.

Update: Justin Henderson was suspended by his police department for this. That may sound impressive, but it wasnt: he was given 40 hours off work unpaid to be used nonconsecutively. Who wouldn’t like that? Still it shows the police department admitting guilt. I filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against him and the department, and their lawyers tried to get rid of the case. One federal judge denied them dropping the case, but another allowed it.

Some action points and takeaways:

1. Reform the police. Defunding doesn’t mean totally eliminating, it means moving some money from policing to social services. Read this if you want background. If you don’t take action, this guy will kill next time (oh wait, he already killed last time), or someone else in his department will (oh wait, they already have, and they gleefully reenact the chokeholds).
2. Guns are dumb. If you have one, get rid of it, and if you run programs (like Scouting) where you put guns in kids hands and teach them to use them, please stop doing that. Please stop putting your kids in front of violent TV or media, which is most of it, yes including star WARs. There is nothing honorable about the size of our military, the biggest perpetrator of violence on the planet. I work with thousands of patients who are refugees, which means they have been affected by government funded gun violence, and actually I used to clean up pollution from gun ranges as an environmental engineer. There are big negative effects to what some people consider a hobby, a means of getting food, a constitutional right, or a security. Like dead school kids. Your legal guns find their way into poor communities and cause death. As long as we have a culture of violence, we will have police who have been primed their whole life to shoot a brown man, and brown men who have been dealing with it their whole lives. These police can’t provide friendly customer service so long as they have to worry about a gun behind every encounter. Police violence is a reflection of our societal culture of violence.
3. Again, maybe signing these petitions will get Justin Henderson or Dave Young fired?

“You were put here to protect us, but who protects us from you?” — a song from 30 years ago by BD

Goodnight streetlight. Goodnight fire escape.

Goodnight bugs.

Goodnight dinner smell from downstairs. Goodnight English shouting from downstairs.

Goodnight fuzzy teeth.

Goodnight Messi, goodnight Ronaldo. Goodnight Instagram guy from California.

Goodnight honey mustard dip. Goodnight Takis.

Goodnight mister teacher.

Goodnight grandpa’s map.

Goodnight mail.

Goodnight socks. Two more days.

Goodnight bruise.

Goodnight sirens. Goodnight honks.

Goodnight daddy. I wish you were here.

(inspired by the Goodnight series)

If you have a gun, get rid of it.

If you run programs that involve guns, stop them.

When enough people say it’s not cool to have guns, political pressure will cause law changes that result in less guns and less kids killed. Like the tide change on same sex marriage over the last 10 years. I am here to tell you, with peer pressure, that guns are dumb (just like vaccines are good, and brushing twice a day is good).

Guns are not for food, recreation, sport, teaching history, home safety, or carrying in public to stop others with guns. Humans are smart enough to do those things even better without guns. And statistically the most likely person to get hurt with a gun in the home is your own family or friends (even with a gun safe). It is true that guns don’t kill without a person, but that doesn’t mean just focus on the person — focus on mental health AND get rid of guns. The U.S. has like 50 times as many school shootings as all other developed countries combined.

For poc (people of color like me), guns in the hands of police are not even for our protection. We are just as likely to be at the wrong end. See recent DFW area news. And black on black crime may have decreased in NYC but is still big in Chitown.

By my decision, my Scout programs use no guns. That goes counter to most of Scouting, including Philmont, but I just don’t see a point in putting guns in kids’ hands. There are plenty of other programs one can do instead. Same with the Sikh fundamental notion of carrying a knife for protection. Sikhs carrying swords and Americans carrying guns have a similar foundation, because both America and Sikhism started with wars, a right to bear arms (the only reason Sikhs carry knives and not guns is because guns didn’t exist when it was founded). Those wars are done. It’s time to leave that violent history behind. Scouts need no guns and Sikhs need no knives. There is no romance in Boy Scouts with Daisy BB guns, gangster kids glorifying guns in rap music, Sikhs preaching self defense through violence, or Islamic jihadi — all are the same form of teaching violence to kids.

I work with thousands of patients who have been affected by gun violence. It shows up in their chronic pains and anxiety, if not more overt injuries.

Plus, shooting guns into a hillside fouls your soil and water. When I was an environmental engineer, my first job was flying around to closing military bases, cleaning up small arms shooting ranges (under contract with afcee as part of the brac initiative). I would never drink water downstream from Sawmill, although the animals unfortunately do.

Don’t worry, if you have guns, we can still be friends. You probably will just not invite me to be a part of your endeavor, and, well, your endeavor may look a bit monotone.

A note on my Jeffco schools, which have a top rating in school shootings (and the area has a top rating in carrying guns) — I signed up to be a “Watch Dog” months ago, and they still haven’t started this program for this year. So I sit a few blocks away at home, instead of in front of the school, where I could be a deterrent or catching bullets…while my kid practices “bear at the door” drills. I asked the staff why half the semester has passed and no Watch Dog program, and they said they have to ask the lady who coordinates — and she is gone hunting.