Form(s) and function

Steve received two applications yesterday in the mail (his mail is directed to Barney's), from the Social Security Disabilities office. Combined, there were eight pages of medical and employment questions for him to answer, beginning with the question: Where is your pain located? He has fourteen days to return the papers. He is required to list the names and addresses of his employers for the past fifteen years and I'm curious to know, why doesn't Social Security already have this information?

We spoke briefly again yesterday about the loss of his TennCare coverage and again, I'd like to stress the fact that he isn't bitter and has never held anyone accountable for his problems. But, this is the conclusion, as he sees it:

It wasn't the sick people that ruined TennCare. It was the doctors and the hospitals and the pharmaceutical companies. They're the ones who ruined TennCare.

Here is today's opposing viewpoint, from Glen Dean. Mr. Dean notes that Tennesseans take more prescription drugs than any other state. If Tennesseans are over-medicated (and I believe they are) how exactly does a blanket rule of five prescriptions help? For example, if I'm abusing the system in order to receive Oxycontin, that's going to be my number one, name brand choice. Meanwhile, those individuals who require seven or eight prescriptions, sacrifice either their lives or their (already compromised) quality of life, based on the abuses of others.

This is a book of religious poems that Steve's girlfriend used to read from. The photo was taken a couple of years ago. The poem, her favorite, reads:

FORGIVENESS
So Little and So Much

In that I have so greatly failed thee, Lord,
Have grace!
A place!
So little of fair work for thee have I
To show;
So much of what I might have done, I did not do.
Yet thou hast seen in me at times the will
For good.
Although so oft I did not do all that
I would.
Thou knowest me through and through, and yet thou canst,
Forgive.
Only in hope of thy redeeming grace
I live.
-John Oxenham