Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/18113
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 – Daily News – 3B FEATURES Bandit brother beyond bothersome Tick fever revisited Dear Annie: I’ve had a problem with my 21-year-old kid brother for a long time. ‘‘Deacon’’ constantly lies and steals from me, as well as from my mother, other family members and friends. He’s not a horrible person, but he has no respect for property, including his own. He’s impossible to reason with. If you accuse him of taking any- thing, he gets upset and leaves, or screams that he’s innocent and we’re unfair and he gets blamed for everything. We wish we could believe him when he says he ‘‘didn’t do it,’’ but it happens too often and there is usually no other explanation. My mother is ready to tell him he is no longer wel- come in her home, but I worry about what would happen to Deacon without the little support we are able to give him. Annie’s Mailbox by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar might be. If that is the case, he needs professional help, and you should approach him gen- tly about seeing a therapist and provide a referral. In the meantime, your mother does not have to allow Deacon into the house, although it’s best not to reject him in anger. Mom should make it clear that she loves him, but he obvious- ly has issues to deal with, and until he does, none of you can afford to have him around your property. Is there a healthy way to tell some- one you need a break until he gets his act together? I love my brother, but am not willing to enable his poor choices. Is my mother’s decision our best option? — Brotherly Love/Hate Rela- tionship Dear Brotherly: Deacon’s reaction to these accusations seems almost delusional. It’s possible he does not realize what he is doing, why it is wrong or what the consequences It all adds up. That was the point made by the leg- endary Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, back in 1951 when he is said to have exclaimed:,"A billion here, a billion there, it all adds up!" Now, more than half a cen- tury later, we're talking equally casually about TRILLIONS of dollars. As I scrolled through the leg- endary wit of Dirksen at www.Dirksen- Center.or g, another of his sayings caught my eye: "We are becoming so accustomed to millions and bil- lions of dollars that 'thousands' Dear Annie: My husband has Alzheimer’s. His daughter and grand- daughter live in another state. It really irritates me that neither of them ever calls. His daughter may pick up the phone on his birthday or Father’s Day, but I think she should be calling him at least once a week. ‘‘Marge’’ is always promoting the Alzheimer’s Association, going on walks, signing petitions, etc., so why can’t she call her father? And her 30- year-old daughter never, ever phones her grandfather. Should I leave this alone or speak up? I have more stress in my life than I can handle, so please help me take care of this one. — Indian Wells, Calif. Dear Indian Wells: It’s possible Marge doesn’t think her father would recognize her voice and believes a phone call would be pointless. You (1,000,000,000) called a "billion." Most European countries call this number either "one thousand mil- lion" or, in some cases, a "milliard." You may have seen an e-mail going around the Internet offering comparisons of a billion. It con- cludes that: "A billion sec- onds ago, it was 1959. Terry Savage The Savage Truth on Money has almost passed out of the dictionary." That was in January 1964. Today, the word "bil- lion" has become a "round- ing error" -- a sum too triv- ial to notice in the larger scheme of the federal bud- get, much as "thousands" had no meaning back then. Certainly, America has grown in the last half centu- ry, our output has soared, and our population has multiplied. But in honor of Dirksen, I think it's time to point out that a billion is still a billion. And a trillion is beyond comprehension. Actually, there's some debate about what a billion is. The common definition is simple: One billion has 1,000 millions in it. Or, you could say it has 10,000,000 hundreds in it. A billion has 1,000,000 thousands in it. Those are a lot of zeroes. Interestingly, only in North America and the general scientific commu- nity is this number KWIK KUTS Family Hair Salon WITH COUPON REGULAR HAIRCUT Senior & Child Reg. $12.95 PERM OR COLOR Not good with other offers 1064 South Main St., Red Bluff • 529-3540 $200 $500 VOTE “Jim” Byrne for City Council Good Government Starts Locally James E Expires 10/31/10 Reg. $55.00 Paid Political Advertisement COMPLETE AUTO REPAIR All makes and models. We perform dealer recommened 30K, 60K, 90K SERVICES AT LOWER PRICES Smog Check starting at $ (most cars and pick-ups) 2595 + cert. Pass or FREE retest 527-9841 • 195 S. Main St. off & Up off Reg. $13.98 "A billion min- utes ago, Jesus was alive. "A billion hours ago, our ancestors were liv- ing in the Stone Age." Double-check- ing the veracity of these comparisons at Snopes results in a finding that the numbers in this widely circulated e-mail actually underestimate the comparison slightly. But then, a billion here and a billion there ... you know. But if you think a billion is hard to imagine, what about a trillion: A trillion dollars almost defies comprehension when compared to a billion. Yes, it is three more zeroes. That is, $1 trillion is 1,000,000,000,000. But that's little help, even though we talk tril- lions every day. We say it casually, as in, "The Iraq/Afghanistan wars will cost a trillion dollars," or, "We'll have a trillion-dollar budget deficit this year." To get some perspective, look up at the heavens on a clear night. It's estimated that there are between 100 billion and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. If you go to Ask.com and ask how much is a trillion, you'll get some fascinating compar- isons, and all of them will The Electric Man For all your electrical needs • New Outlets / 220 • Fans / Fixtures • Pools / Spas • Code Corrections • Troubleshooting • Panel Upgrade • Telephone Wiring $10.00 Customer Discount FREE Estimates License# 826543 347-4441 CLOTHING & ACCESSORIES ARRIVING DAILY! A Clean, Reliable, Trustworthy, Chimney Company... Possible? ”Their tarps are always clean and my home is always clean afterward. What I like best is their reliability and quality.” “I can trust them!” Dr. Evan Reasor Flue Season 527 3331 THE Chimney Professionals need to tell her how much it would mean to him (and to you) if she were to phone more often, even for only a few minutes. You might suggest a spe- cific day of the week so she can put it on her calendar. While we aren’t so optimistic about the granddaughter, you could ask Marge to mention it to her, as well. It can’t hurt to try. Dear Annie: Like ‘‘Worried Mom in the Midwest,’’ my wife and I spent our son’s first 19 years trying to force a square peg into a round hole. He had ADHD, and we tried everything to motivate him to work harder in school and improve his grades. After getting kicked out of one college and flunking out of another, we finally retreated and accepted that a conventional degree may not be in his future. From that point on, at the lowest point of his self- esteem and confidence, we began lov- ing and supporting our son for his uniqueness. ‘‘John’’ ultimately accepted two seasonal positions and began perform- ing standup comedy, all areas of his passion. In time, his confidence and self-esteem began improving. He began relying more on himself and less on outside influences. We found that love, acceptance and encourage- ment became the better motivators. We still hold high hopes and expectations for John. We just don’t know where his success will be. — Finding Success in the Northeast The value of money has lost its meaning leave you overwhelmed. And yet, this year Amer- ica's government will spend $1,000,000,000,000 more than it will take in through taxes. In the days of Dirksen, the 1960s, Congress might have been excused for its then-legendary spend- ing by the fact that they didn't even have pocket calculators to measure the impact on every current and future taxpayer. We have no such excuse. So the next time you hear the word "billion" being spent, whether it comes to taxes or govern- ment spending, use your calculator (on your smart- phone, or laptop, or the Internet) to figure out your share. You can divide it by the number of tax returns filed in the latest year: 142 mil- lion. Or perhaps it's more cor- rect to use only the number of tax returns that showed an income tax obligation. Last year, 51.6 million returns filed had no tax obligation -- paid zero in income taxes. So perhaps you should divide the next billion dol- lars Congress spends by the remaining nearly 90 million returns. That means every time Congress spends $1 billion, if divided equally, each of those 90 million taxpaying tax returns would owe an additional $11. That doesn't sound so bad, except that the government is spending billions and billions. Well, we could borrow the money. Or we could print the money. As long as the rest of the world lets us get away with it. As Dirksen said, a bil- lion here, and a billion there. So I leave you with one more famous Dirksen story: "I remember the man who was on the wrong floor of the hospital in Peo- ria. He was on the floor where the baby ward was. There were little tykes squalling and bawling. The nurse came out. She had a long, dour countenance. When she got close to him, the fellow said, 'Nurse, what makes all those little brats squall and bawl the way they do?' "The nurse remembered that the portion of the national debt for the baby was about $1,971, and she said, 'Well, mister, if you were out of work, if you owed $1,971 as your share of the debt, and if your pants were wet, you would squall, too.' " Only today, if you really want to cry, each baby born immediately owes $43,580 -- a baby's share of our acknowledged $13.5 tril- lion national debt. And that's The Savage Truth. Terry Savage is a registered investment adviser and is on the board of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. She can be reached at www.terrysavage.com. She is the author of the new book, "The New Savage Number: How Much Money Do You Really Need to Retire?" DEAR DR. GOTT: I’m a 70- year-old female. When I was a child in a small town in Mary- land, I can remember every spring having to go and get a dreaded tick shot. These shots left my arm sore and almost useless for about three days. However, I never remember getting a tick on me. Now I live in Virginia where, after the small towns and cities of Maryland, this is country to me. I take ticks off me every day in the season for them, but no one ever mentions those dreaded tick shots. Is this just something that happened back in my little town? Even when I mention it to people my age, they have no idea what I’m talking about. I don’t hear of anyone dying of tick fever anymore. Are ticks not as dangerous these days? Has something been incorporated into our childhood inoculations or does modern medica- tion simply take care of tick fever when it occurs today? I’m puzzled by this and would like to know if you can answer my questions. DEAR READER: You failed to mention which ticks you are talk- ing about, so I am unsure which tick to dis- cuss. Colorado tick fever is an acute viral infection that is transmitted through the bite of an infected wood tick and should not be confused with the bacteria tick- borne Rocky Mountain spotted fever. There is also the pos- sibility of dogs picking up infected wood ticks and transmitting the dis- ease. Symptoms are similar to those of a cold: fever, chills, aches and pains. A vaccine was created for Colorado tick fever but was never manufac- tured. If you are referring to the tick-borne Lyme dis- ease, this was discov- ered only about 35 years ago, in 1975, and was named after a small town in Connecticut. This infectious disease is caused by a spirochete that thrives in deer ticks. It is spread to humans by a tick bite. Your childhood state of Maryland is one of the top 10 in the United States for ticks, preced- ed by Delaware, Con- Dr. Peter Gott necticut, New Jersey, Massa- chusetts, Penn- sylvania, New York and Wis- consin, and fol- lowed by New Hampshire and Maine. There- fore, I can appre- ciate that people in Virginia might not know about this disorder, but I would think they might know about tick fever from wood ticks. I am from Connecticut, and Lyme disease is extremely prevalent in my area. I have treated more cases than I can remember. In any event, the dis- ease usually presents with a fever, muscle and joint pain, rash or rash- es, or a bull’s-eye ring or rings anywhere from three days to several weeks following the bite of an infected tick. A vaccine to treat Lyme was developed, but pro- duction stopped in 2002 due to low demand, so it is no longer available to humans. The three-dose vaccine was geared toward people between the ages of 15 and 70 who resided in endemic areas of the northeastern and north central United States. This translated to the duration of immuni- ty and need for any booster shots beyond the third dose to remain unknown. For a time several years ago, I immunized patients who insisted on receiving the course of treatment. Some experienced such unpleasant side effects following the first or second dose that they finally (and thank- fully) refused to contin- ue. Blood testing can be ordered by a physician and may help to diag- nose or rule out the dis- order. However, a visual examination by a physi- cian familiar with Lyme might be all that is nec- essary to make a diagno- sis. Treatment for early- stage Lyme is commonly two to three weeks of an oral antibiotic. Dr. Peter H. Gott is a retired physician and the author of several books, including “Live Longer, Live Better,” “Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet” and “Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Cookbook,” which are available at most bookstores or online. His website is www.AskDrGottMD.com