One Ringy-dingy, Two Ringy-dingy

No, no, no, you are dealing with the telephone company.

We are not subject to city, state, or federal legislation.
We are omnipotent

Next time you complain about your phone service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string.
We don't care. We don't have to. (snort) We're the Phone Company!
--Ernestine (Lily Tomlin), Laugh-In

Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows
--The Bells, Edgar Allen Poe
____________

While the Veterans Administration administrators are riding the gravy train of their own making, those of us who have had our ears damaged through blast and noise exposure are given the shuffle off to Buffalo (''Supreme Court Turns Down DAV Request to Review Bilateral Tinnitus, p. 35.'') What's new?

The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) successfully argued in 2005 that the VA should assign dual ratings for bilateral tinnitus. This was a common sense appeal on behalf of veterans who filed a claim for service connection for tinnitus--severe and constant ringing in the ears due to hearing damage--that they be granted two 10% ratings if the damage was bilateral. (10% was the previous disability rating awarded by the VA for tinnitus.)

However--the VA, ever the serviceman's friend--appealed the decision to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court, which reversed the ruling in 2006. The DAV then sought to file an appeal of that overturned ruling with the U.S. Supreme Court, but this was ''opposed by the U.S. Justice Department.'' And surprise, surprise--''On January 22, 2007, the high court issued its decision to decline to hear the appeal.''

So the Federal Circuit's decision prevails, and ''veterans can receive only a single 10% disability rating for tinnitus,'' even though the damage may be in both ears.

DAV's Deputy General Counsel for Veterans Claims Ronald L. Smith says his group will be petitioning members of Congress to ''enact legislation to authorize two 10 percent disability ratings for bilateral tinnitus.'' Calling the request ''fair and just,'' Smith compares tinnitus to any other damage that might be incurred to any other body parts.


''If both (anatomical parts) are damaged. . . (c)ommon sense rules that two disability ratings be awarded.''


This action against the veterans by the VA belies all the rhetoric that everything is done for the troops. If one believed the Department of Veterans Affairs tune, and could hear it, they might think that veterans are treated the same as our holy leader at the national level. That is, if one thought yellow ribbons conferred equality upon the population supposedly feted.

Instead, it is veterans and Gitmo detainees who are treated similarly. In this case, neither is afforded the democratic nicety of having their cases considered in front of the Supreme Court.

Even LBJ understood that a dog has two ears. Him would have been hanging in the breeze had his owner not gotten a solid grasp on both of them.