We're two days out from my latest round trip to Regions Hospital. This last visit came this past Wednesday when Miz Susan and I put in full days of work, arriving at 7 AM and getting thrown out at about 3 in the afternoon. I'm starting to wonder how many more punches on our card in the ramp we need to deserve our own rock star parking spot. I guess that we really don't want to know.
The adventure started about 5 weeks ago. I received calls from the Heart Center to tell me that the remote monitor which watches over me while I sleep had picked up distress calls from my pacemaker which indicated abnormal rhythms. What else is new? That seems to be about all I have.
I learned during a quick trip down there that I was experiencing atrial flutter and that I was in need of an atreal flutter ablation. Who was I to argue? It turns out that my ticker was churning out rapid and weak compressions in its upper chamber and that that this was something to be avoided. And that the crack staff at the Heart Center had just the procedure for me. An atreal flutter ablation.
There were a few preliminary steps which I needed to take before the real fun could begin. One was to dispense with taking my baby aspirin in the morning and instead start taking little red martial-arts-throwing- star-shaped tablets of something called Xarelto. They loaded me up with nearly a month's worth of free samples and sent me home with orders to come back on July 10th and to get a pre-op physical scheduled. One of the attending physicians neatly ducked my question about the cost of a refill of Xarelto when the free ones ran out. Smart guy. The refill set me back $175 when it came time to do that. And that was discounted on the Walgreen's prescription plan for the overmedicated and under-insured. You may have seen Xarelto's ads on national TV.
I hate getting physicals. Pre-op, annual, army induction (as if I'd know): you name it, I hate it. I take terrible care of myself. I don't test my blood sugars regularly. OK, I don't test my blood sugars at all. I can't lose the weight that my doctor tells me to lose, not to save my life. Literally. I eat and drink all manner of things which provide instant gratification but which are irreparably bad me. I'm wracked with guilt before I go into a physical and I'm wracked with guilt during a physical as I lie to Dr. Mahmoud about how I'll try to do better. These are not good experiences for me.
Dr. Mahmoud, my family practitioner, is an adorable Pakistani who undoubtedly sees through my lies every time I trot them out. She probably rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath before coming into the examining room to see me and she probably leans back against the door, rolls her eyes and breathes a deep sigh of relief after she's left the examining room. I don't wish her any harm; I'm just a bad patient.
I got off lucky this time. My blood pressure decided to come down out of the stratosphere and I've unexpectedly and unaccountably lost some weight. I called this minor weight loss to her attention and said that I was disappointed that she hadn't congratulated me on it. She responded by saying, "David, I think you're doing very well." While looking forward to that deep sigh of relief she was just waiting to release.
I'd scheduled the pre-op physical just a day before the ablation procedure so I didn't have a whole lot of time to rest on my laurels. Really, what would have been the point in getting that scheduled any earlier? My only regret is that I had to suffer through two straight mornings of not having eaten anything since dinners the nights before.
At any rate, Wednesday morning came way too early, especially for Miz Susan who is not used to being up at 5:30 in the AM. We managed to get out of the house only two minutes behind schedule and were actually walking into the hospital at 5 minutes before 7. I absolutely love I-94 eastbound for getting us down to Regions hospital in a hurry.
We checked me in and I was whisked away to my prep room, stat (yeah, I've seen ER). Where I was visited by half the staff of the hospital for various lectures, pokings, monitorings, forms-signings and donning of hospital attire. We won't go into that any further. A bright spot of that stop on the tour of the hospital was the appearance of Alison's and Liz's friend and erstwhile coworker and roommate Andrea. She cheerfully informed us that she was working the recovery end of the operating room and that she might be my nurse if I survived my time on the table. I've heard since that she was impressed by my imaginative use of various profanities but she must have been thinking of somebody else.
I remember Miz Susan being dragged away from me and then going for a long and winding ride on my gurney to the operating room. I remember that it was cold in there and that they offered to turn up the heat if I wanted them to. I don't think they were serious. I remember that all the nurses and techs were making jokes, mostly at my expense. And I remember somebody telling me that they were going to start giving me some medicine to help me relax. Fade to black.
When I came to, my right arm was aching and throbbing. This had nothing to do with the procedure (which consisted of threading a line up a vein from the groin to the heart, determining the location of the nerve which was causing the flutter, and then zapping it dead with a laser or an electrical charge or some appropriately harsh words), my right arm always aches and throbs when I've been sleeping. An old softball injury, perhaps.
The damn arm hurt like hell and I started squirming to get it into a more comfortable position. This must have been one of the things that I had been lectured not to do because several voices at once told me to hold the f--- still. When I complained that my arm hurt, they cranked up the relaxation medicine and put me under again.
Sooner or later, I was transferred from the operating table back to my gurney and from there to the recovery room. Where we found out that Andrea was going to be my nurse and that her coworker who covered for her during lunch was an old friend whom I hadn't seen for 8-10 years. Alison's former supervisor came and introduced herself to Susan and told her how much Alison was missed. We ran into quite a few people who spoke fondly of Alison. We felt like we owned the place.
All good things, including this one, do have to end and we got discharged with a minimum of formalities. We were home for naps by 3:30. We still had to pay 8 bucks to get out of the parking ramp. I'm torn between staying healthy and getting that frequent visitor rock star parking spot.
I pictured this procedure as pretty garden variety medicine by today's standards though it remains a complete mystery to Susan and me. I asked the nurses in the OR about this and, in between jokes at my expense, they said they were doing five ablations on that Wednesday alone and that our surgeon performs several hundred a year. This was a time when, even if we didn't understand the magic that was being performed, we needed to put our faith in the expertise of the experts and go all in. It worked out well that we did. I'm happy to be here to tell the tale.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
father's day...check.
I'm happy to have survived another Father's Day relatively unscathed. Not only were Miz Susan and I joined on the back deck by four of our children (the fifth flies in tonite) but we also hosted Tomas's mother Pia, who'd jetted in recently from Argentina. That made for interesting conversations with a constant hum of translation in the background. Liz and Kate were sort of able to follow along with Liz looking for hints of French in Pia's Spanish and Kate listening for what little Italian she hasn't already forgotten since December. But Miz Susan and I could only keep looking helplessly to Tomas and Alison for help as to what Pia was saying and vice-versa for her. We did OK even with a nasty rain squall chasing us inside until the dessert course.
I was generally left alone to do my usual grilling and table clearing and dish washer loading. But I was called on to hold myself up to public self-ridicule for the entertainment of my daughters. Who does it better? They hadn't heard the story of another of my recent brushes with my own stupidity (or worse). For added effect, I blew the punch line. The word's out now, I might as well let the whole world in on it. The story goes like this.
A month or so back when the PowerBall jackpot was approaching the levels of some smaller Minnesota counties' annual budgets, I hit a $4 winner on a ticket. When this happens, I don't do the smart thing and look for investment opportunities in up-and-coming penny stocks. Not me. I take the winning ticket back to SuperAmerica and roll it over into more tickets. To compound that dumbness, I usually buy a couple more besides.
So, there was this $4 winner and I asked Miz Susan if I had time to walk up to SA to secure our fortune in the next drawing. Sure, no problem. So I headed up the street for SA. But, between our house and SA, lies Cheapo Records and Discs. Never one to pass up a chance to throw good money after bad, I stopped in and browsed Cheapo. To my credit (about the only thing in this story to my credit) I didn't buy anything.
I was ready to brave the traffic on Snelling when I realized that I didn't bring the ticket with me. Pretty sure that they wouldn't take my word for it at SA, I turned around and headed for home. Sigh. Susan's seen this stuff from me before so she jumped on the chance to suggest that this would be the perfect time for me to put some gas in her car. Given the moral low ground that I was occupying, how could I argue? Out the front door and into the Tahoe for the 2-block drive to Super America. It gets better.
I gassed the Tahoe up with the usual 10 gallons (I just know that gas is going to go down to $1.99 again and soon) and went into the store to do my PowerBall business. I reminded the cashier that it was her who had sold me the winner a couple of days ago. She seemed impressed. I took my tickets, walked out the door, breeezed right past my car and walked home.
Where Miz Susan and I proceeded to have dinner. I can't remember what it was but I can guarantee you that it wasn't anything that's been linked to better brain function. We cleaned up and started to get ready for the trek up to bed. One of my new pre-bedtime rituals has become a last check to make sure that both cars are locked. This security consciousness is a fairly new routine for me and comes in the wake of our Toyota getting prowled a few weeks earlier. I can't for the life of me figue out what else got stolen other than the 47¢ in loose change. Hey, I wasn't the only sap to get hit that night.
But imagine my surprise when I got out onto the front porch and saw no sign whatsoever of the big black Tahoe which is usually hunkered down in front of our house. I'll bet it took me a good 10 seconds to reconstruct what had happened. Or hadn't happened. With a shriek to Susan down in the basement that I had to go out for awhile, I was down the steps and half running (can't really manage anything much quicker) with the set of car keys in my hand. What comes next is what I forgot in my story as we were all gathered around the Father's Day dinner table, thus blowing the punchline. Or at least one of the many punchlines in this sorry story.
When I got to the corner of Laurel and Snelling, I started anxiously looking toward SA to see if the St. Paul cops had surrounded the Tahoe with bomb-sniffing dogs or were hooking it up to a tow truck. Neither. Big sigh of relief. I got to the car, breathing hard, and hit the remote to unlock it. I might have unlocked another Toyota or two within a block's radius but the Tahoe's locks were unmoved. Wrong set of keys. Do I now really have to go home to try to explain this to Susan?
Yes. Yes, I did. I trudged back home, swapped keys, warned Susan that I was suffering an episode of early Alzheimer's onset and headed back for my car. Which, thankfully, had not yet attracted the attention of the local authorities or Homeland Security. This time, the locks responded to the remote and I was able to drag myself up into the driver's seat and bug out. Without so much as a thank you to the Super Ameica staff for keeping such a close eye on my car for the last two hours.
I did have some explaining to do to Miz Susan when I finally got home. She seemed sympathetic and concerned for me but I just know that, inwardly, she was packing a bag for a quick get-away to stay with her mother in Lamberton. In the Tahoe.
Needless to say, there weren't any winnners in that batch of PowerBall tickets. Not for me anyway.
I was generally left alone to do my usual grilling and table clearing and dish washer loading. But I was called on to hold myself up to public self-ridicule for the entertainment of my daughters. Who does it better? They hadn't heard the story of another of my recent brushes with my own stupidity (or worse). For added effect, I blew the punch line. The word's out now, I might as well let the whole world in on it. The story goes like this.
A month or so back when the PowerBall jackpot was approaching the levels of some smaller Minnesota counties' annual budgets, I hit a $4 winner on a ticket. When this happens, I don't do the smart thing and look for investment opportunities in up-and-coming penny stocks. Not me. I take the winning ticket back to SuperAmerica and roll it over into more tickets. To compound that dumbness, I usually buy a couple more besides.
So, there was this $4 winner and I asked Miz Susan if I had time to walk up to SA to secure our fortune in the next drawing. Sure, no problem. So I headed up the street for SA. But, between our house and SA, lies Cheapo Records and Discs. Never one to pass up a chance to throw good money after bad, I stopped in and browsed Cheapo. To my credit (about the only thing in this story to my credit) I didn't buy anything.
I was ready to brave the traffic on Snelling when I realized that I didn't bring the ticket with me. Pretty sure that they wouldn't take my word for it at SA, I turned around and headed for home. Sigh. Susan's seen this stuff from me before so she jumped on the chance to suggest that this would be the perfect time for me to put some gas in her car. Given the moral low ground that I was occupying, how could I argue? Out the front door and into the Tahoe for the 2-block drive to Super America. It gets better.
I gassed the Tahoe up with the usual 10 gallons (I just know that gas is going to go down to $1.99 again and soon) and went into the store to do my PowerBall business. I reminded the cashier that it was her who had sold me the winner a couple of days ago. She seemed impressed. I took my tickets, walked out the door, breeezed right past my car and walked home.
Where Miz Susan and I proceeded to have dinner. I can't remember what it was but I can guarantee you that it wasn't anything that's been linked to better brain function. We cleaned up and started to get ready for the trek up to bed. One of my new pre-bedtime rituals has become a last check to make sure that both cars are locked. This security consciousness is a fairly new routine for me and comes in the wake of our Toyota getting prowled a few weeks earlier. I can't for the life of me figue out what else got stolen other than the 47¢ in loose change. Hey, I wasn't the only sap to get hit that night.
But imagine my surprise when I got out onto the front porch and saw no sign whatsoever of the big black Tahoe which is usually hunkered down in front of our house. I'll bet it took me a good 10 seconds to reconstruct what had happened. Or hadn't happened. With a shriek to Susan down in the basement that I had to go out for awhile, I was down the steps and half running (can't really manage anything much quicker) with the set of car keys in my hand. What comes next is what I forgot in my story as we were all gathered around the Father's Day dinner table, thus blowing the punchline. Or at least one of the many punchlines in this sorry story.
When I got to the corner of Laurel and Snelling, I started anxiously looking toward SA to see if the St. Paul cops had surrounded the Tahoe with bomb-sniffing dogs or were hooking it up to a tow truck. Neither. Big sigh of relief. I got to the car, breathing hard, and hit the remote to unlock it. I might have unlocked another Toyota or two within a block's radius but the Tahoe's locks were unmoved. Wrong set of keys. Do I now really have to go home to try to explain this to Susan?
Yes. Yes, I did. I trudged back home, swapped keys, warned Susan that I was suffering an episode of early Alzheimer's onset and headed back for my car. Which, thankfully, had not yet attracted the attention of the local authorities or Homeland Security. This time, the locks responded to the remote and I was able to drag myself up into the driver's seat and bug out. Without so much as a thank you to the Super Ameica staff for keeping such a close eye on my car for the last two hours.
I did have some explaining to do to Miz Susan when I finally got home. She seemed sympathetic and concerned for me but I just know that, inwardly, she was packing a bag for a quick get-away to stay with her mother in Lamberton. In the Tahoe.
Needless to say, there weren't any winnners in that batch of PowerBall tickets. Not for me anyway.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
long day's journey into whatever
I woke up with a start this morning at about 3:20. I remembered right away that I'd forgotten to set the alarm on my phone. No big deal, either way. I can't remember the last time I slept through a night without waking up and seeing the red numbers on the clock radio reading somewhere between midnight and way too early. Once in a awhile, I'll actually be asleep when the alarm goes off at 5:10 but that happens like a night or two a month.
I was still a little bit rattled by all this at 3:20 this morning. Rattled because, even though I hadn't set the alarm last night for good reason, I remembered right away when I woke up that I'd forgotten to set the alarm and was thinking that I needed to be up for work in another couple of hours, what with today being Thursday and all.
The good reason that I hadn't set the alarm last night was, of course, that last night was Friday. And today is Saturday and I didn't need to be awake at 3:20 or 5:10 or any time much before 9 o'clock this morning.
Maybe I was compensating for last week when I was convinced that we were a day further along on the calendar than we actually were. Neither state of mind is particularly productive though I guess that being just one day off last week was better than being two days off this morning. Thinking that I needed to go back to work on Thursday and Friday after having already worked them has to have been a bad sign, though of what I don't know. I really should have known better because, if I'd thought about it for even a second, I'd have realized that I sure as hell wasn't gonna get paid twice for those days even if I did work them again.
Or maybe I'm entering some early stage of dementia which is messing with my internal clock. I worry all the time about an early onset of dementia even if I still do OK on the Friday crosswords. I haven't yet headed off to work one morning to come out of some driving-induced coma two hours later in Fergus Falls surrounded by Egg MacMuffin wrappers, having missed all three exits for Brooklyn Park. I suppose that's a good sign. And I haven't yet headed off to work one morning only to get to work and realize that it's Saturday or Sunday.
There may be hope for me yet.
I was still a little bit rattled by all this at 3:20 this morning. Rattled because, even though I hadn't set the alarm last night for good reason, I remembered right away when I woke up that I'd forgotten to set the alarm and was thinking that I needed to be up for work in another couple of hours, what with today being Thursday and all.
The good reason that I hadn't set the alarm last night was, of course, that last night was Friday. And today is Saturday and I didn't need to be awake at 3:20 or 5:10 or any time much before 9 o'clock this morning.
Maybe I was compensating for last week when I was convinced that we were a day further along on the calendar than we actually were. Neither state of mind is particularly productive though I guess that being just one day off last week was better than being two days off this morning. Thinking that I needed to go back to work on Thursday and Friday after having already worked them has to have been a bad sign, though of what I don't know. I really should have known better because, if I'd thought about it for even a second, I'd have realized that I sure as hell wasn't gonna get paid twice for those days even if I did work them again.
Or maybe I'm entering some early stage of dementia which is messing with my internal clock. I worry all the time about an early onset of dementia even if I still do OK on the Friday crosswords. I haven't yet headed off to work one morning to come out of some driving-induced coma two hours later in Fergus Falls surrounded by Egg MacMuffin wrappers, having missed all three exits for Brooklyn Park. I suppose that's a good sign. And I haven't yet headed off to work one morning only to get to work and realize that it's Saturday or Sunday.
There may be hope for me yet.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
here we go again. but maybe better this time
Miz Susan and I were well on our way to charting new territory in the world of New Year's Eve pathetic last night. Eyelids were fluttering at about 9:15 and I thought sure we'd be welcoming 2013 the next morning, alert and well rested. With no Downton Abbey episodes left to watch (which hadn't already been watched during the previous week's D.A. marathons) and not realizing that we were missing out on The Apartment on TCM, it was starting to look like an early evening. However, Miz Susan rallied heroically for the last few scenes of Lemmon and MacLaine and then a grudging hour of the original Ocean's Eleven. At the stroke of 12:01 AM, 1/1/13, a verdict of "lame" was pronounced on Sinatra et al and it was lights out. Our honor as party animals was somewhat preserved though I doubt that anyone's fooled. I'll have to remember The Apartment for next year. Maybe we can do better.
I'd like to do better on a lot of things in the coming year but I know one thing for sure. I'd like to be a little more charitable to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the rest of their Congressional Republican cronies. Even Eric Kantor and Michele Bachmann. Ouuchh! Jeez, that hurt. Thank heavens that I don't have to lump Paul Ryan and Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock and Chip Cravack into that charity basket.
Yeah, I'll try to be charitable despite having to see nightly video of Boehner striding purposefully through the halls of the Capitol. And having to listen to crap from McConnell such as, "Why are we stuck now doing all this backing away from the fiscal cliff thing when we should have been doing it months ago?" You moron, you're having to do it now because months ago (and right up until about 10 PM Eastern Time on November 6th) you and your dimwit Republican cronies were hunkered down playing keep away from the American electorate and plotting your delusional revenge after you'd swept the usurper from office. You believed that shit right up until early in the evening of Election Day and, from all appearances, you still don't look to have anything in the way of a better plan.
I'm not saying that it hasn't been effective in keeping that damn Obamma and his ACORN-bought-and-paid-for do-gooders from implementing the policies that he was elected to implement. The GOP and the Tea Party got away with the rope-a-dope from 2009 through 2010, came out swinging and scored big in mid-term November (which probably had more to do with the normal flow of American politics than the validity of their message). Then they lied and they nudged and winked and they insinuated that Barack Obama was a bum and a fake that he was going to go away in 2012. They'd tapped the deep pockets of the ultra-conservative corporate big money machine to fuel their gains in 2010 and they used those gains as collateral to tap those deep pockets again in 2012. With significantly less success. But they don't seem to have come up with any better ideas for 2014. The scary thing is that they might get away with it, midterm elections being what they are..
I'll admit to feeling a little sorry for the Tea Partiers and GOPers. Having put themselves deep into hock to the ultra-con loan sharks, I can imagine that they're scared to the point of wetting their pants worrying that the loan sharks are going to be sending out the muscle to collect on those debts. I'd be scared too if I'd misspent the big boys' half a bill so blatantly. I suppose that these talentless Congressional shills are worried that they're either going to get visited by the muscle or that their corporate masters are going to actually make good on the longtime blowhard promises to up and leave the country for climes more receptive to big money and its excesses. Where exactly that is, I'm not sure; China or Roossia maybe. But the gravy boat might be close to empty for the toadies and lickspittles and they might actually have to move back to their districts or embrace the totally foreign concept of governing. Bleak prospects for a bunch of otherwise unemployable slackers.
I've gone back and reread all of this and it occurs to me that I haven't been much more charitable to Boehner McConnell, Inc. than I have been in the past. Ok, I'll try to do better. Thing is, I'm pretty sure that those two have no intentions whatsoever of doing any better themselves. Is this a great country or what?
Happy New Year to all. On to 2014!!
I'd like to do better on a lot of things in the coming year but I know one thing for sure. I'd like to be a little more charitable to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the rest of their Congressional Republican cronies. Even Eric Kantor and Michele Bachmann. Ouuchh! Jeez, that hurt. Thank heavens that I don't have to lump Paul Ryan and Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock and Chip Cravack into that charity basket.
Yeah, I'll try to be charitable despite having to see nightly video of Boehner striding purposefully through the halls of the Capitol. And having to listen to crap from McConnell such as, "Why are we stuck now doing all this backing away from the fiscal cliff thing when we should have been doing it months ago?" You moron, you're having to do it now because months ago (and right up until about 10 PM Eastern Time on November 6th) you and your dimwit Republican cronies were hunkered down playing keep away from the American electorate and plotting your delusional revenge after you'd swept the usurper from office. You believed that shit right up until early in the evening of Election Day and, from all appearances, you still don't look to have anything in the way of a better plan.
I'm not saying that it hasn't been effective in keeping that damn Obamma and his ACORN-bought-and-paid-for do-gooders from implementing the policies that he was elected to implement. The GOP and the Tea Party got away with the rope-a-dope from 2009 through 2010, came out swinging and scored big in mid-term November (which probably had more to do with the normal flow of American politics than the validity of their message). Then they lied and they nudged and winked and they insinuated that Barack Obama was a bum and a fake that he was going to go away in 2012. They'd tapped the deep pockets of the ultra-conservative corporate big money machine to fuel their gains in 2010 and they used those gains as collateral to tap those deep pockets again in 2012. With significantly less success. But they don't seem to have come up with any better ideas for 2014. The scary thing is that they might get away with it, midterm elections being what they are..
I'll admit to feeling a little sorry for the Tea Partiers and GOPers. Having put themselves deep into hock to the ultra-con loan sharks, I can imagine that they're scared to the point of wetting their pants worrying that the loan sharks are going to be sending out the muscle to collect on those debts. I'd be scared too if I'd misspent the big boys' half a bill so blatantly. I suppose that these talentless Congressional shills are worried that they're either going to get visited by the muscle or that their corporate masters are going to actually make good on the longtime blowhard promises to up and leave the country for climes more receptive to big money and its excesses. Where exactly that is, I'm not sure; China or Roossia maybe. But the gravy boat might be close to empty for the toadies and lickspittles and they might actually have to move back to their districts or embrace the totally foreign concept of governing. Bleak prospects for a bunch of otherwise unemployable slackers.
I've gone back and reread all of this and it occurs to me that I haven't been much more charitable to Boehner McConnell, Inc. than I have been in the past. Ok, I'll try to do better. Thing is, I'm pretty sure that those two have no intentions whatsoever of doing any better themselves. Is this a great country or what?
Happy New Year to all. On to 2014!!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
lies, damned lies and republicans
I know that the political ads that are bombarding us now, just like the political ads that bombarded us in the past, play pretty fast and loose with the truth. Whatever in the hell the truth is. See Henry Fonda's Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.
I remember the Wellstone ad spot from a campaign long ago which went something like, "The sky isn't really blue; it's green. The sky isn't really bue; it's green. The sky isn't really blue; it's green." and attributed it to the Boschwitz campaign. You know where this is headed. Repeat the same lie enough times and it becomes the truth. Have we ever been reminded of that more strongly than during the last few weeks of the countdown to Election Tuesday?
Romney erases 16 point gender gap. We're America's women and that's why we're voting for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Barack Obama is a (choose one or all) Muslim/atheist/anti-American/Kenyan/tool of the union thugs/job destroyer/new world orderer. (should that last one have ben capitalized?) Jeep is shipping American jobs to China. Barack Obama forced the closing of the Janesville Chrysler plant. Maybe the economy's improved a little but we could have done better. "Big spending" Jim Graves who's been outspent 12-1 by the Bachmann campaign. Gay marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage. Voter ID protects our voting rights. Nate Silver is a limp-wristed little (choose your own slur). Creeping socialsim is robbing America's will to excel. All of which plays well to the racists and misogynists and bigots and morons. The sky isn't really blue; it's green.
I think I also know that this is a game that totalitarians and demagogues play. I'm reluctant to draw too many historical parallels but there's history out there that provides food for thought. I don't recall any election where the truth has been so willfully abandoned for lies, damned lies and partisan lies. I don't want to believe that the Republican power brokers and their big money financiers will stop at nothing (up to and including rigging voting machines) to take this country into some grey politico-theocracy where big government exists only when it comes to telling people who they can hang out with, what they can read, where they can worship, whether or not they can vote. Ya gotta wonder though.
Anyone who's reading this is already a member of the choir that I'm likely preaching to. But get out there and vote. Drag your friends and family along and convince those who say it doesn't matter that it goddamn well does too matter. The two sides' visions as to where this country should go can't be any more different. Get out there and vote. And don't believe that the sky isn't really blue. It's damn well not green.
I remember the Wellstone ad spot from a campaign long ago which went something like, "The sky isn't really blue; it's green. The sky isn't really bue; it's green. The sky isn't really blue; it's green." and attributed it to the Boschwitz campaign. You know where this is headed. Repeat the same lie enough times and it becomes the truth. Have we ever been reminded of that more strongly than during the last few weeks of the countdown to Election Tuesday?
Romney erases 16 point gender gap. We're America's women and that's why we're voting for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Barack Obama is a (choose one or all) Muslim/atheist/anti-American/Kenyan/tool of the union thugs/job destroyer/new world orderer. (should that last one have ben capitalized?) Jeep is shipping American jobs to China. Barack Obama forced the closing of the Janesville Chrysler plant. Maybe the economy's improved a little but we could have done better. "Big spending" Jim Graves who's been outspent 12-1 by the Bachmann campaign. Gay marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage. Voter ID protects our voting rights. Nate Silver is a limp-wristed little (choose your own slur). Creeping socialsim is robbing America's will to excel. All of which plays well to the racists and misogynists and bigots and morons. The sky isn't really blue; it's green.
I think I also know that this is a game that totalitarians and demagogues play. I'm reluctant to draw too many historical parallels but there's history out there that provides food for thought. I don't recall any election where the truth has been so willfully abandoned for lies, damned lies and partisan lies. I don't want to believe that the Republican power brokers and their big money financiers will stop at nothing (up to and including rigging voting machines) to take this country into some grey politico-theocracy where big government exists only when it comes to telling people who they can hang out with, what they can read, where they can worship, whether or not they can vote. Ya gotta wonder though.
Anyone who's reading this is already a member of the choir that I'm likely preaching to. But get out there and vote. Drag your friends and family along and convince those who say it doesn't matter that it goddamn well does too matter. The two sides' visions as to where this country should go can't be any more different. Get out there and vote. And don't believe that the sky isn't really blue. It's damn well not green.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
if only we had pumpkins,...
...for sure there'd've been frost on 'em this morning. (love those double contractions.) 28ยบ out there according to TV's weather brain trust and the light glaze of white on the back deck as well as the sadly wilted basil plants didn't contradict that. I'm patting myself on the back for not having gone onto the deck to risk ending up on my tail end with another recurrence of a ruptured quad muscle. Perhaps age is imparting wisdom.
Nah, I still do plenty of god-awful dumb stuff worthy of someone 45 years younger than me. Proof of that is that I can't even remember any of the dumb stuff I've done recently to list here. It's just become second nature for me; I can no longer distinguish between the spectacularly stupid and the mundane.. Sort of like my proposed tag line for the insultingly ludicrous Michele Bachmann commercials (read: lies) that are running nonstop on every network and radio station. "I'm Michele Bachmann and I've approved these paranoid delusions because they seem real to me." I've got to get that copyrighted.
Yeah, summer's probably over and that's bad. But at least the colder weather and earlier sunsets suggest that this painfully abrasive political campaign season is in sight of being over. That can't come soon enough. The spots from the purportedly smart ad guys on the red side of the ballot do nothing for me other than to elevate my blood pressure. That's maybe cheaper than a third cup of coffee in the morning but I suspect that it's taking a toll on my mental health and, consequently, those in contact with me. Poor Miz Susan.
I listened to the first half of the debate until the stream from MSNBC froze up and then went upstairs to watch. That was all pretty unsatisfying. I hate the way that Mutt is being credited for a resurgence in his campaign based on a strong showing on Tuesday night. I think that he comes off as a rude, smirking blowhard but I would think that. Wonder how many cups of coffee he threw back on Tuesday to come out as hyper as he was. I met one of the neighbors in the street on Wednesday morning and we both had the same reaction. The debate and its deconstruction by the pundits afterwards left us badly unsettled. Neither one of us was all that comfortable with Mitt being credited for lies and bullshit and condescension based solely on having delivered them with panache.
I don't know what to think of the Dems' spin on the President's perceived poor showing as the product of being dumbstruck at what a blatant liar and smug snake-oil salesman the other guy is. What's this? Mitt's a pathetic flip-flopper who talks out of only two sides of his mouth because that's all he has? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. This guy would crawl into bed with anybody to get elected. Look at who he's already crawled into bed with (I know, bad syntax.). Some of the most heinous cockroaches in the history of American politics: Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum. These are politicians who are happy to see American citizens fail as a tool to deny Barack Obama a second term. I'm looking forward to the Thursday debate between the Veep candidates if only to see if Biden gives Paul Ryan and his lies (so far, even more blatant than Romney's) the same free pass.
How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to call an affordable health care measure "Obamacare" with it's palpable schoolyard, racist overtones? How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to accuse the Dems of dismantling Medicare for seniors? How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to blame the Dems for the Wall Street and auto industry bailouts and the stimulus program as bad things when, in fact, those measures pulled this country back from the brink of another Great Depression? How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to pin the costs of two wars (entered into by their guy) on Obama? How long are they going to be allowed to spin good economic news as bad economic news? Oh yeah, I forgot, these are the same cockroaches who are happy to see American citizens fail as an acceptable cost to denying Barack Obama another term in the White House. And they might get away with it. Thank heavens that Florida has cleaned up some of its more easily recognizable disenfranchisement tools since 2000.
We'll have at least one night of respite from the obscene election wars before Election Day. Halloween comes less than a week before the polls open on November 6th. Whatever the fright factor Halloween might normally bring to your front door, that's gonna be pretty tame in comparison to the horror show that's being played out against the truth by the millionaires' and corporate America's toadies and lickspittles of the GOP.
And by the way, if you're one of those people who contend that there's not really much difference between the Republicans and the Democrats and that your vote for a third-party candidate is a viable option then consider Florida 2000 and Ralph Nader's effect on this country's next 12 years. And who knows how many more down the road?
Nah, I still do plenty of god-awful dumb stuff worthy of someone 45 years younger than me. Proof of that is that I can't even remember any of the dumb stuff I've done recently to list here. It's just become second nature for me; I can no longer distinguish between the spectacularly stupid and the mundane.. Sort of like my proposed tag line for the insultingly ludicrous Michele Bachmann commercials (read: lies) that are running nonstop on every network and radio station. "I'm Michele Bachmann and I've approved these paranoid delusions because they seem real to me." I've got to get that copyrighted.
Yeah, summer's probably over and that's bad. But at least the colder weather and earlier sunsets suggest that this painfully abrasive political campaign season is in sight of being over. That can't come soon enough. The spots from the purportedly smart ad guys on the red side of the ballot do nothing for me other than to elevate my blood pressure. That's maybe cheaper than a third cup of coffee in the morning but I suspect that it's taking a toll on my mental health and, consequently, those in contact with me. Poor Miz Susan.
I listened to the first half of the debate until the stream from MSNBC froze up and then went upstairs to watch. That was all pretty unsatisfying. I hate the way that Mutt is being credited for a resurgence in his campaign based on a strong showing on Tuesday night. I think that he comes off as a rude, smirking blowhard but I would think that. Wonder how many cups of coffee he threw back on Tuesday to come out as hyper as he was. I met one of the neighbors in the street on Wednesday morning and we both had the same reaction. The debate and its deconstruction by the pundits afterwards left us badly unsettled. Neither one of us was all that comfortable with Mitt being credited for lies and bullshit and condescension based solely on having delivered them with panache.
I don't know what to think of the Dems' spin on the President's perceived poor showing as the product of being dumbstruck at what a blatant liar and smug snake-oil salesman the other guy is. What's this? Mitt's a pathetic flip-flopper who talks out of only two sides of his mouth because that's all he has? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. This guy would crawl into bed with anybody to get elected. Look at who he's already crawled into bed with (I know, bad syntax.). Some of the most heinous cockroaches in the history of American politics: Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum. These are politicians who are happy to see American citizens fail as a tool to deny Barack Obama a second term. I'm looking forward to the Thursday debate between the Veep candidates if only to see if Biden gives Paul Ryan and his lies (so far, even more blatant than Romney's) the same free pass.
How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to call an affordable health care measure "Obamacare" with it's palpable schoolyard, racist overtones? How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to accuse the Dems of dismantling Medicare for seniors? How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to blame the Dems for the Wall Street and auto industry bailouts and the stimulus program as bad things when, in fact, those measures pulled this country back from the brink of another Great Depression? How long are the Republicans going to be allowed to pin the costs of two wars (entered into by their guy) on Obama? How long are they going to be allowed to spin good economic news as bad economic news? Oh yeah, I forgot, these are the same cockroaches who are happy to see American citizens fail as an acceptable cost to denying Barack Obama another term in the White House. And they might get away with it. Thank heavens that Florida has cleaned up some of its more easily recognizable disenfranchisement tools since 2000.
We'll have at least one night of respite from the obscene election wars before Election Day. Halloween comes less than a week before the polls open on November 6th. Whatever the fright factor Halloween might normally bring to your front door, that's gonna be pretty tame in comparison to the horror show that's being played out against the truth by the millionaires' and corporate America's toadies and lickspittles of the GOP.
And by the way, if you're one of those people who contend that there's not really much difference between the Republicans and the Democrats and that your vote for a third-party candidate is a viable option then consider Florida 2000 and Ralph Nader's effect on this country's next 12 years. And who knows how many more down the road?
Sunday, September 2, 2012
the week in review
It felt like an active news week, plenty going on in the country and the world at large. Somewhere behind Joe Mauer's name getting floated out onto baseball's trade waiver list and my first sighting of Schell's Oktoberfest (yes, of course I bought a 12-pack and I'd have bought more if I hadn't had to get down on my hands and knees to fish the last one out of the back of the cooler at BigTop. do you have any idea of how vulnerable you can feel when you're down on your hands and knees at the BigTop in the Midway?)...but I digress...somewhere behind baseball and beer came big news out of the RNC down in Tampa. I'd have been there too but for having had to help push close to a million and a half dollars' worth of textbooks out the door at EnHenn. That and the fact that the GOP brass didn't send me an invite. Word must be getting around.
The week's turned into sort of a blur, twelve-hour work days having that effect on me. But I do have some memories of the goings-on in Tampa. I can't really say whether those come from nighttime channel surfing for something better to watch or from the recaps on The Today Show the following mornings. But what I saw obviously struck some chords for me. And I know that it did for you, too.
It must have been Tuesday night when I saw Ann Romney in real time. The commentators (aka the evil liberal media types except for Fox Newsers) had suggested that it would be her job to humanize the Mittster. She did a helluva job. It really hit home when she told us that after traveling the width and breadth of the land, she'd really come to feel like she knew a lot of us guys. Click of the remote. Oh well, I'd been hoping to get a chance to catch that Valerie Bertinelli Bikini Body infomercial. Here was my chance.
I learned the next morning that I should have tuned in to the Republicans earlier or hung around longer, Valerie Bertinelli's bikini notwithstanding. My favorite GOP governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey, also fired up the crowd though I don't know if that came before or after Mrs. Romney. I don't know what it was that he said but I couldn't help but imagining myself goin' out eatin' with Chris and my favorite Minnesota right-winger, former state GOP chair Tony Sutton. We could start out with a half a dozen happy hours, hit the Asian buffets up and down University Avenue and close out the night at Old Country. Or, if we did it on a Friday night, maybe one of the all-you-can-eat fish fries. The three of us would strike terror into the heart of any economy-minded restaurateur.
I don't know exactly what it was that Governor Christie told the American viewing public. My loss, I'm sure. But at least one of those evil, biased media commentators was peddling the line that Christie would be speaking to dispel idle gossip that the Guv had voiced doubt that Romney would be able to beat Obamma in November. As if!! If Romney can't do it then who can? Not Bachmann, not Santorum, not Perry, not Paul, not Newt, not T-Paw. Mitt's the one. Maybe Pat Buchanan or Sarah Palin but, for sure, Mitt. Paul Ryan, of course, but that'll be in eight years. C'mon, Republicans wouldn't have been so stupid as to pick a candidate who can't win. Say what you will, I think Chris Christie is no dummy. Therefore, he couldn't have possibly let such a vile slander pass his lips.
I caught a little of Paul Ryan's shtick on Wednesday night. It might as well have been Notable Midwest Republicans Week in Tampa. Not only were we treated to Ryan but his fellow Badger homey Scott Walker, on Tuesday, and Minnesota's favorite son Tim Pawlenty, on Wednesday, got shots in the spotlight of the main stage lectern. There were news reports that Walker teared up during Ryan's speech. If he did, it was probably from being grief-stricken that the granddaddy of all Wisconsin plain-talking patriots, Senator Joe McCarthy, couldn't have been on hand to see the local boys make good. I'll bet old Joe was beaming down from above.
And how could Minnesotans have seen Tim Pawlenty's standup routine without longing for for the good old days of his residency on Summit Avenue. Oh yeah, he makes those election fraud, marriage freedom, union backing Democrats squirm. What were we thinking? We could have torn the state Constitution to shreds and installed him on the throne as Governor for life. Gee whiz.
And speaking of Minnesota notables, it was great to see Michele Bachmann's beaming mug when the cameras zoomed in on the state's delegation reporting in from convention floor. Doesn't she remind you of the attention seeker from high school who managed to get his or her face into half of the photos in the organizations section of the yearbook? And with the same vacuous smile in every photo.
Personally, I view Clint Eastwood's Thursday appearance as a loving tribute to the two terms of the Reagan Presidency. Clint talking to an empty chair was a fitting nod to the last few years of the Great Communicator's time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Gosh, I'd love to see the tapes of him looking for the corners in the Oval Office.
I'll plead guilty (again) to not watching much of our presumptive President-elect's speech. I hear that he's got it all figured out. None of us are any better off than we were four years ago so we're going to roust that backsliding Obamma out of office. Right. We're going to ignore how the country got into all this trouble in the first place. We're going to throw money at the fat cat corporate sponsors and offshore money havens of the Republican Party, and, by God, it's gonna trickle down. We're going to give credit where credit is due to John Boehner (and Paul Ryan) and my all-time third favorite Kentuckian (behind Abe Lincoln and Jim Varney) Mitch McConnell for blocking, obstructing, delaying, log-jamming, double talking and generally slowing the democratic progress to a crawl to render Obamma ineffective. And then blaming the President for being responsible for the gridlock.
I may not have been able to pay much attention to Tampa but I'm gonna be sure to find a spot at the Inaugural Ball in January of 2013. Oh hell, probably not. I'll just be finishing up another textbook rush in Brooklyn Park and won't be able to go. But maybe, just maybe, Scott Walker's influence will jump the St.Croix River and I will, along with all my fellow public employee union members, get fired for being a lazy, unproductive, benefit sucking, union thug slacker. Oh yeah. Then I'd be able to let my deluxe union pension fund a trip to DC or anywhere else I wanna go.
Remember, corporations are people, too. The Supreme Court just affirmed that. And at the same time, affirmed the rights of corporations to buy elections. Is this a great country or what?
The week's turned into sort of a blur, twelve-hour work days having that effect on me. But I do have some memories of the goings-on in Tampa. I can't really say whether those come from nighttime channel surfing for something better to watch or from the recaps on The Today Show the following mornings. But what I saw obviously struck some chords for me. And I know that it did for you, too.
It must have been Tuesday night when I saw Ann Romney in real time. The commentators (aka the evil liberal media types except for Fox Newsers) had suggested that it would be her job to humanize the Mittster. She did a helluva job. It really hit home when she told us that after traveling the width and breadth of the land, she'd really come to feel like she knew a lot of us guys. Click of the remote. Oh well, I'd been hoping to get a chance to catch that Valerie Bertinelli Bikini Body infomercial. Here was my chance.
I learned the next morning that I should have tuned in to the Republicans earlier or hung around longer, Valerie Bertinelli's bikini notwithstanding. My favorite GOP governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey, also fired up the crowd though I don't know if that came before or after Mrs. Romney. I don't know what it was that he said but I couldn't help but imagining myself goin' out eatin' with Chris and my favorite Minnesota right-winger, former state GOP chair Tony Sutton. We could start out with a half a dozen happy hours, hit the Asian buffets up and down University Avenue and close out the night at Old Country. Or, if we did it on a Friday night, maybe one of the all-you-can-eat fish fries. The three of us would strike terror into the heart of any economy-minded restaurateur.
I don't know exactly what it was that Governor Christie told the American viewing public. My loss, I'm sure. But at least one of those evil, biased media commentators was peddling the line that Christie would be speaking to dispel idle gossip that the Guv had voiced doubt that Romney would be able to beat Obamma in November. As if!! If Romney can't do it then who can? Not Bachmann, not Santorum, not Perry, not Paul, not Newt, not T-Paw. Mitt's the one. Maybe Pat Buchanan or Sarah Palin but, for sure, Mitt. Paul Ryan, of course, but that'll be in eight years. C'mon, Republicans wouldn't have been so stupid as to pick a candidate who can't win. Say what you will, I think Chris Christie is no dummy. Therefore, he couldn't have possibly let such a vile slander pass his lips.
I caught a little of Paul Ryan's shtick on Wednesday night. It might as well have been Notable Midwest Republicans Week in Tampa. Not only were we treated to Ryan but his fellow Badger homey Scott Walker, on Tuesday, and Minnesota's favorite son Tim Pawlenty, on Wednesday, got shots in the spotlight of the main stage lectern. There were news reports that Walker teared up during Ryan's speech. If he did, it was probably from being grief-stricken that the granddaddy of all Wisconsin plain-talking patriots, Senator Joe McCarthy, couldn't have been on hand to see the local boys make good. I'll bet old Joe was beaming down from above.
And how could Minnesotans have seen Tim Pawlenty's standup routine without longing for for the good old days of his residency on Summit Avenue. Oh yeah, he makes those election fraud, marriage freedom, union backing Democrats squirm. What were we thinking? We could have torn the state Constitution to shreds and installed him on the throne as Governor for life. Gee whiz.
And speaking of Minnesota notables, it was great to see Michele Bachmann's beaming mug when the cameras zoomed in on the state's delegation reporting in from convention floor. Doesn't she remind you of the attention seeker from high school who managed to get his or her face into half of the photos in the organizations section of the yearbook? And with the same vacuous smile in every photo.
Personally, I view Clint Eastwood's Thursday appearance as a loving tribute to the two terms of the Reagan Presidency. Clint talking to an empty chair was a fitting nod to the last few years of the Great Communicator's time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Gosh, I'd love to see the tapes of him looking for the corners in the Oval Office.
I'll plead guilty (again) to not watching much of our presumptive President-elect's speech. I hear that he's got it all figured out. None of us are any better off than we were four years ago so we're going to roust that backsliding Obamma out of office. Right. We're going to ignore how the country got into all this trouble in the first place. We're going to throw money at the fat cat corporate sponsors and offshore money havens of the Republican Party, and, by God, it's gonna trickle down. We're going to give credit where credit is due to John Boehner (and Paul Ryan) and my all-time third favorite Kentuckian (behind Abe Lincoln and Jim Varney) Mitch McConnell for blocking, obstructing, delaying, log-jamming, double talking and generally slowing the democratic progress to a crawl to render Obamma ineffective. And then blaming the President for being responsible for the gridlock.
I may not have been able to pay much attention to Tampa but I'm gonna be sure to find a spot at the Inaugural Ball in January of 2013. Oh hell, probably not. I'll just be finishing up another textbook rush in Brooklyn Park and won't be able to go. But maybe, just maybe, Scott Walker's influence will jump the St.Croix River and I will, along with all my fellow public employee union members, get fired for being a lazy, unproductive, benefit sucking, union thug slacker. Oh yeah. Then I'd be able to let my deluxe union pension fund a trip to DC or anywhere else I wanna go.
Remember, corporations are people, too. The Supreme Court just affirmed that. And at the same time, affirmed the rights of corporations to buy elections. Is this a great country or what?
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