12/12-19 My Eyes, Eye Charts, Lottery

My Eyes

The treatments are going well. At a checkup on Thursday, I got laser treatment on both eyes. This means the gas bubble in the right eye worked its magic and pushed the flap of detached retina back against the back of the eyeball. Since the operation on the previous Friday, I have had to lay face down most of the day and night so that the buoyancy of the gas bubble rises to the back of the eyeball. But now we're on to laser repair of the retina tears in both eyes(so the end is in sight(haha)).

Actually at this last checkup the doctor said that once the retina tears are fixed, I'll have to do cataract surgery. My optician mentioned this 2 years ago, but this is much sooner than I expected. So it just goes on and on.

Eye Charts

Once in awhile, I get an vision test at the hospital, but my eyes are so bad now they have given up for awhile, I think until the treatments are done. They do not sue this chart because not everyone here knows this alphabet.

  They could use this one, but still too English-centric.

 The one they actually use is this one. With your fingers you point in which direction the circle has a break.

 We're pretty good at studying for exams here in Taiwan, but it's probably counter productive to study for this one.

The Lottery

One of the few things I could do while face down the past week was listen to the radio through the internet. I probably listened to more National Public Radio in the past week than I ever had. Some of the news stories I heard more than once.

One thing I don't get is: Why so many people don't want to raise taxes on the Rich?. I tried to think of who I know that makes more than $250,000.00 and I can't think of anyone.

Sure, I know the arguments about the "job creators", but until 10 years ago, the only "creator" I knew of was the one in the Book of Genesis. Maybe the Rich are trying to be God-like by association. I think a lot of people have money as their God and rich people as their saints. And to be without enough money must be a sin and so because there is never enough we all must be sinners. 

The other reason I came up with is that lottery players are all against paying higher taxes whether they are poor or rich. This because their life plan sees them winning the lottery, so they of course, don't support having the Rich pay higher taxes. If they didn't think that they would eventually win then why play? This is my favorite cartoon.

 

Maybe the math teachers of America have failed to teach that it is stupid to be a gambler.