Don't Count on It

Glenn Beck has it right, I do not like either party and I do not trust any of the politicians to do what they say they will, because they will not. So what is there to trust in? Religion aside, and I know for me it is what life really should be, but that aside what in this world can we count on?
We can pretty well plan on gaining weight. We can also plan to get older. We can plan on the fact that business will continue to make money and not give us much of it. We can count on the fact that government will not get smaller and taxes will not go down. We can count on the world trying to keep Oil king. I wonder what spurred the move away from whale blubber to oil. I know, the car, but why didn’t they create a car that ran on blubber? We can always breed whales. We do not have many dinosaurs to kill and squash under sand for thousands of years.
Why can’t we figure out how to make cars run on something else? Why do we have to grow tons of corn to put in our cars so that we cannot afford beef in a year or so? Why can’t people who make decisions look long term and not just to the next election? We can count on leadership to be mediocre at best; we can count on so-called leaders to do the expedient rather than the right thing. We can count on the fact that they will speak to us to make us excited. Public Relations is an art and political science has discovered lots of societal formulas. So we get Obama exciting everyone to hope for socialism, even though he really doesn’t believe it will work. We hear Obama saying he will get out of Iraq with his public mouth and behind the scenes, he is saying well let us talk about it and do what Bush is trying to do anyway.
Then there’s Hillary target Clinton. The one who is picked on and shot at and deserves the presidency because she lived with one. The problem is what experience did she get from Bill? It must be how to bomb Iraq when you are being impeached? Obviously, she learned to duck under fire in her mind. They always say to be successful at something you need to visualize it. It depends on what is is, whether she misspoke or lied.
McCain is old. He is too old. We did that with one President already and he forgot that he had a second term and what is is, or where it went, or why it was.
We can count on both parties to hate the result of the election and promise to fix it in the mid-term and next election. We can count on the Republicans in Congress to discover thrift again. We can count on the democrats to tax and spend and blame the Republicans who set the example.
We can count on prices to go up on everything but wages. Obama has promised to raise taxes. Hillary has promised whatever you want. McCain has promised to go on trips overseas.
I promise to be disgusted and vote. However, I also promise I will not like it. I can count on some cop somewhere trying to do his job to pick on me, instead of that person who just whizzed past us on their cell phone. I can count on someone else getting a job I would like and someone else to make the money I would like. I can count on everyone telling me to keep trying and it will work out. I can count on it will not. What I will not count on is this country surviving as a world leader much longer. We’re too busy counting on our past to sustain us, while we become a nation of lazy people, who believe someone else will do it, and those gay people aren’t so bad, and those illegal immigrants are doing my yard and cooking my food so I’m ok and they’re rotten, but I hope they keep the prices down for us, because heaven knows the economy stinks and my salary isn’t going up. Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what Mexico can do, and what courtesy you can extend to someone who violates every moral character aspect that our past was founded on. What can we count on? Nothing.

The Eyes Have It

I have a question. I’m sure some body language expert somewhere can tell us about what significance eye blinking has in a conversation. I was watching the tube again with the sound off the other night and on one of the news channels I watched the commentators, and noticed the men blink rarely. As the women spoke as they made a strong point and gestured they would blink and usually twice. It seemed that their eye blinks indicated they were stressing a point. Then I watched a few commercials. Nobody blinked, indicating honesty I suppose.

Obama didn’t blink until he shut up. Clinton is a lip licker and blinks double too. Larry King was wide eyed (he really is starting look bad though, he doesn’t look healthy at all). I didn’t see McCain, but Huckabee, if his eyelids were fan blades we would be in a hurricane talking with him. To me he looked dishonest. I know, he’s supposed to be the righteous equivalent of a Barry Goldwater, but he looks like a slime ball to me. Romney was out of the race, so I didn’t get his blink rate, but I can see an occasional blink in my minds eye, but nothing like good old St. Huckabee.

I don’t know what any of that means, but I’m finding an interesting thing happening here in Romney country. Romney fans don’t want to vote for McCain. Fair enough. But if he puts Huckabee on the ticket with him (can he really avoid it now?) these same Romney folks want to vote for Obama! Now how does that make sense? Conservatives, won’t vote for the closest thing they have to it, in favor of a liberal? Why, because he speaks well? Probably. I said here before he is sounding themes in a Kennedy style. Some think its Martin Luther King’s style. It doesn’t matter which it is. He is promising to look to the future, to bring Shambala, (i.e. Camelot) with “Vigah” and style. He is making it work too. If he can convince the reddest state in the nation to go blue next election, more power to him. Just a word of warning though to those voters who are falling on the bandwagon, look beyond the rhetoric and look at what he wants to do

He wants to surrender in Iraq. He wants to nationalize health care. He wants to raise taxes. He wants to spend money. It sounds an awful lot like Bill Clinton, let alone Hillary. To go from the conservative camp to Obama’s reminds me of a turkey volunteering for Thanksgiving dinner. I hope the voters brains aren’t in the same category as the turkey.

My Current Affair

I am doing something I should not. My wife drove me to it. Therefore, the blame really is hers. But I would not want her to find out about it either. She asked for it really, so it really should not surprise her, but never the less its best if she does not know. Life is too short to have to deal with such a potentially divisive thing.
I do not mean to hurt her by doing this. I just have needs. At some point, I recommend this to everyone to try this sometime. It is an interesting “experience” and opens your eyes a lot to what really goes on in today’s world.
Oh, no! Not THAT! I am talking about when we get into bed my wife does not like me watching television because it keeps her awake. I need to have some time to unwind and watch the news and get caught up. I mean there is a real election fight going on right now. It is fascinating to follow. So what I did is wait for her to fall asleep and I turned the TV back on to CNN and MSNBC and Fox News. Flipping back and forth to try to stay out of commercials as much as possible. However, I had the TV muted. Aside from the scrolling newscasts at the bottom of the screen, “What,” I hear you cry, “Do you think you’ll get out of something like that.” Not much if it’s just Larry King blathering on about something liberal. Nevertheless, watch the debates, or even better a rally for one of the candidates. I watched a Bush press conference with some group that way. Have no idea what he said, but it was sure fun to watch his expressions.
Doing this I realized how old McCain is getting. How phony Susan Surandon is standing in the middle of a bunch of Edwards supporters in Vermont. How old Bill Clinton is getting to look…and how totally rehearsed he is when he stands behind Hillary. It is probably not fair, but I also learned Hillary wears a boatload of makeup, and is quite chunky. Romney is smooth, Huckabee is a jerk, putting on a show, and Obama…well I think Obama believes he can win and might even believe his own message.
That is telling right there. I am a Romney fan politically, so not much danger of voting for Obama there, but he is beginning to feel a bit Kennedyesque to me…and Hillary a bit Billesque (or was that Burlesque, hard to tell). Reagan’s heir appears to be Romney, even though McCain wants to be. Thompson, though he would not look very good in the shorts he wore on Love Boat, still can play to the camera, he just cannot campaign. I am missing someone…oh yeah Rudy…I think he is missing something, a campaign.
Try it; you will have a new outlook on life. Just do not wake my wife.

All I want for Christmas

I should have probably recognized the signs early. We were just finishing a difficult year, full of court cases and other trauma, and were getting ready for the second round when the year started. Then Cholo died. We were still on the outs with extended family. My mother was not overly supportive of our view. My dad’s dementia got worse. Then I lost my job. I appreciated the job; I really liked the company. I just hated what I was doing. The money was starting to get interesting too. So now, I was a big loser on top of it all. My Dad decided I was a charity case and was making up reasons for me to work for him. I could not find a job even though I now hold an MBA. I think that is actually part of the problem. As our big day in court approached, I landed in the hospital nearly dead. I missed the court date. We won, sort of. There was a smudge that did not belong. Now I do not like most of my extended family, I have a besmirched name and no job and because of no insurance financially ruined. A friend of mine from school gave me a low paying job with him that might develop into something. My wife has worked her guts out this year trying to keep us afloat. Now my dad ends up in the hospital with chest pains and the hospital acts like a bunch of jerks, threatening to report us to social services. They did not give him his dementia medicine and kept him there for four days when two would have been plenty. Now he is staying at my stepsister’s house and I am supposed to figure out what we are going to do with him.
It has been a bad year, but I am not really all that down about it. Maybe a little worn out, but I really am not in the mood for the “holiday season” right now. I do not want any gifts. I do not want any parties. I do not want to be invited anywhere. I want to be left alone and leave town. Some nice peace and quiet would do nicely. I do not want to hear the kids argue, I do not want to shop, I do not want to over-eat. I want to be left alone for now. I do not want any more problems. I do not want any more experiences that will make me grow. I want to be happy. I want to stop worrying. I want to do something I want to do and make it matter, whatever that might be. I do not want to listen to Hillary and Bill, Obama and Oprah, or Mitt and all those other people who think they are the answer to the world’s problems. I want the Jazz to win a championship. I want my family to be happy and together and out of trouble. I want gas prices back at 25 cents a gallon. I want some hope for the future, and I want to stop feeling as if my life is a failure. Give me that stuff, and then we will talk about Christmas and Happy New Years. Until then turn off the commercialism and on the way out turn out the lights on the tree.

Baseball

I like baseball. I am sad it is over for another year. I was sorry to see a sweep in the World Series, even though it was fun to watch. Nevertheless, it ended too soon. Boston was dominant this year and could be for several more seasons. I enjoy the intrigue and chance of winning up until the last out. I love baseball for the statistics and what they tell about a team and players. I spent 20 years working in little league and figuring stats. It gave me a career in radio with the announcing I did, but I loved watching the kids develop and become stars. I loved the statistics that showed them exactly what the team could work on. I do not watch the stats that closely in the Majors now, and I do not watch a ton of games, just an occasional Saturday game, but the playoffs and World Series are my season.
I will say I was upset that Fox would only show the New York and Chicago teams this year. I like the Dodgers. I would have liked to be familiar with Colorado, Arizona, Seattle. The Red Sox, Mets and Yankees are fun to watch, but there are more teams out there. I suspect Fox was a bit disappointed Colorado got into the World Series from a ratings point of view. But for baseball lovers it was a great story and great for the game to see somebody else for a change. Now it is over for the year. Fortunately, the basketball season starts not too far behind it. So now, I am watching that with interest. However, it is not baseball. It is harder to be the star player in basketball than baseball, because there are usually only one or two stars on a basketball team. In baseball, you have nine chances (sometimes 10) to have a star. The stars shine, but so can the others on the team. At any given moment, someone can get a clutch hit, make a great defensive play or even score a run. So I will put baseball out of my head for another season. It was a fun one. Go Jazz.

Who are you Smarter than?

For the past year or so, I have spent most of my viewing pleasure on Fox and PBS and occasionally the CW. Now that “Malcolm in the Middle” reruns are off the air, and Fox and PBS played around with their schedules, I moved around a bit to some of the other networks, CBS, NBC and ABC. I was caught up in “Law and Order” and “Criminal Minds,” among others. With the new season, I like programs such as “Life”, “Reaper” and” Back to You”. My guilty pleasure is “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader”.
This is not a review of the new season. However, maybe it is. I suspect, though, it is more of a commentary on television in general. I am not amused. I know with cable or satellite there are some different choices, but what I see on broadcast television is a sorry commentary on the creativity of the program makers, the network gurus and perhaps society in general.
All I have seen lately revolves around two themes. Murder and the supernatural are the primary story lines. Sex is tiresome and offensive (I turn those shows off).
Some shows obviously are better. For instance, “Supernatural” puts “Ghost Whisperer” to shame. Nevertheless, the themes all revolve around blood and ghosts or vampires. Did “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” miss a few, and they bit the necks of TV executives, and now they are all under the spell of the dark-side?
Even though I like the show, “Bones” gets grosser and more shocking every week. All in the name of good fun and realism, I suppose. “House” beat up on Mormons recently, and has a God vs. Atheists agenda. Why can no one come up with something besides cop or hospital shows? What is the fascination with the occult these days? It seems the writers, producers, and executives in TV land are not smarter than a third grader. I think I will go read something and plan a vacation to meet Jeff Foxworthy (by the way, the statistics on this article put it at a seventh grade reading level, so I’m afraid the TV executives won’t get it…sorry).

Angel Nurse

My stay in the hospital was no fun obviously, but there was a time when I felt like someone really cared about me. There was a point where I was bleeding my first night in and they had to do an emergency colonoscopy and endoscopy. My blood pressure was so low, I could not have anesthesia. I did not enjoy the torture. I could feel the hose the doctor used and feel them pushing it through every curve and cranny in my body.
I do not know which end was worse the upper or lower gastrointestinal track. The thing made me gag severely and the other just plain hurt every time they moved it in further or twisted it around. It is not a good experience.
There were three big people holding me down and making sure, I did not move, or that I kept the thing you hold in your teeth in place. Those people were effective, and necessary. Much of the movement was involuntary. The language was not horrible, but I was not G rated either. Didn’t get as far as R. They even had me strapped down on top of it all. That was not pleasant to have these people on top of me, and the restriction was irritating, but I really did not protest or mind. I knew what they were doing. Funny thing is I did not even hate the doctor running the hose. I knew she was doing her job. I did not like it and in the end was just begging them to take out the hose. They never found anything, through all the torture.
However, in that time that seemed to be an eternity, there was a female nurse there. I did not see her face; I did not know who she was or where she came from. I did not see her again that I know of. Through the entire process, she stroked my hand gently on the back of it. Even when everyone was telling me to just relax and concentrate on my breathing (how do you do that when your mouth is full of a hose and your gag reflex is going nuts?) she just gently stroked and patted the back of my hand.
Do not get me wrong I was miserable but too weak to do anything about anything that was going on. I even thought, so this is what it feels like to die. However, there was an angel nurse there. I wish I had her name. She seemed to genuinely care and try to make me feel better. I do not know if that is something they train nurses to do to calm people down (I was not agitated, just in pain), or if it is something she just did instinctively. Nevertheless, it was nice and made the experience less traumatic.
It is interesting even though I was very low on blood and blood pressure, I never passed out and I always was intellectually there, if not always able to speak. The only time I really went out during the whole ordeal was when they gave me the drugs to do so. I was not prepared or expecting that. I remember the whole thing. When the Paramedic wanted to get me to respond to him, I had my eyes closed and he wanted me to look at him. I did and I told him I was there and answered all his questions, I just could not move and wanted my eyes closed, and never passed out. I really appreciated too what the paramedics did, they had to get me down the stairs and I was just too weak to do it myself. They brought in a chair that rolled me down the stairs. I felt bad for them, but they did a great job too. I believe they saved my life. I hated the ambulance ride though, very bumpy. Picture yourself riding in the back of a pickup truck lying down.
I am almost back to normal, still a bit sick and dizzy, but up and about again. Thank you my angel nurse and paramedics.