The World Cup/ The Tour De France/ Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Sooooo.... they are related. I do not not know how as of yet but I will try and pull this together before we finish. The U.S. is out of the World Cup and we are on to the semi finals. My prediction of The Netherlands going all the way looks pretty good. (Go oranje). the Dutch are of course a deeply troubled country always laboring under the misapprehension that are part of Germany (a misapprehension maintained primarily by Germans) and the fact that a lot of people (me) get confused when we talk about Denmark, Holland, Belgium etcetera and wonder why they are all not part of Germany. If The Netherlands wins their semifinal then Germany will have a chance to possibly annex them in the finals. Breathing room. With three European teams in we must assume that the boys from Montevideo might not make the finals but it would be a sweet little lark to have the boys from Uruguay steal it all.

The Tour de France has started. Floyd Landis has reprised the role of a low rent Jose Conseco (can there be such a thing) and given about 2,000 interviews laying out in detail how dirty the sport is. The only thing we have learned about doping allegations thus far in all sports is that they are true. Every time. No matter who denies what. Mc Guire, Nolan Ryan, everyone who ever ran in the Olympics, Tiger Woods... all dopers. Probably the entire NHL: does too but i do not even think it is against the rules for them. But Landis filleted Lance and his team mates directly before the Tour and now the Tour has started and, well, frankly based on the number of crashes.... it appears they are all on drugs. So we assume Lance dopes and we assume he will get away with it. I know that I do not care about professional athletes doping. I am not sure why anyone does. People who hold view athletes as role models and encourage or even allow their children to do the same are very misguided and if little Johnny's world is going to fall in because a ball player (or bike rider) is juicing then Johnny has a lot more serious issues then we have tome to deal with today. By the way, despite all the Lance hoopla and his great team, I am predicting Contador does a back to back if he remains uninjured. No one can climb with him right now. If his team protects him, he wins.

That leaves us with irritable bowel and other gastro-intestinal maladies. i know of what I speak having been suffering now, post Wagenfeld Levine and never really recovering and now with my occurrence "presenting" again. They say that stress does not cause my problems but it does cause it to..."present". What a great word. i have lost 30 LBS. I would like to think I look better but I just look week and sick, which sucks. But my pants are falling off me which is kind of cool I guess. Do to my "condition" I am not absorbing vitamins B and D. Evidently I need them to hold weight. They have me one some drugs and so maybe that will help. Perhaps it will have the same effect as doping... or a Uruguayan hand-ball...or doping....or a bad crash in the Peloton.... and a little IRB will deliver me to full health. But probably not. perhaps it will help me "win".... but probably not. Perhaps it will just let me have a solid stool. I bet there are a lot of people who might consider that win.

By the way Netherlands advanced to the finals and that means....irritable bowel or no....I am a GENIUS!

Fungus...Aong Us

Skin Cancer!
FUNGUS!










One of the many joys of being old, pale, bald and my fathers son is a genetic weakness for skin related cancers, fungises, maladies, parasites and other grotesqe things which in Biblical times would have relegated me to a colony somewhere away from people. Clearly there is a certain portion of the public which would applaud me taken and removed generally from society but this would have nothing to do with my skin condition.

In everything, in every facet of my life, every weakness, vice, failure or unhappiness, no matter how small or petty, I blame my father. It is such a simple catch all. By the time when he was my age and teaching Sunday School he had a whole raft of little Lutheran kids thinking he might or might not be the devil, because they had already carved out two chunks of his head with skin cancer problems. He is also hair impaired and evidently as a child my father was forced by my grandmother to play outside all the time (babrbaric). My father by the way might or might not be the devil but the point was that he told the children that the equidistant scars on his forehead were where they had removed his horns. That is my dad.

My mother tried to keep me out of the sun and being a rather effeminate kid with a total lack of motor skills it was not too hard. In high school and college I took to wearing bandanas and ball caps since the hair started to thin at about 18. Anyway... I have been through a number of skin doctors but have finally found one to stay with. Of the several others a few stand out in blessed memory. One who was freezing half a dozen things on my body every time I showed up and another who never got that close. Everytime I tried to show him something on my skin he would move away and tell me “it is a fungus, we all have them all over our bodies”, like he was sharing some mystical incantation. He was not. My wife has since excused he backing away from my disease as “nearsightedness”. I prefer to think of him as a quack. The other guy burnt off or froze every anomoly which was comforting in that he hurt me, so he showed me that he cared.

Now I have a gal who is supposed to be awesome. She only sees patients once a month. She is with Barnes, a "teaching" hospital so she send an intern in to talk to me, look me over and make initial recommendations. I have to strip. I have to turn slowly. I have to expose my deteriorating, flabby, hairy, old man body to this doctor. Then the boss comes in, looks at her notes and we start all over again. It is a fairly complete process. They gave me some ointments and creams for various maladies and then shaved something off my head which she said "might be a basal cell". It was like it was no big deal, very slow moving cancer. I left feeling like I had been well looked over and responsible about my bad genetics. A few days later she called me and said it is Basal Cell. I said "no big deal" and then she did her best to tell me it was serious and referred me to the surgeon. I called the surgeon immediately and she was so concerned that she set an appointment to consult with me.... a month from then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_cell_carcinoma

So this week I go see the cutter. For your knowledge and care I have posted photos of a few of the things I have cut off my head and thrown into the yard. The message here is simple... wear a hat.

The Erata Election

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS:

Sooo... the year and new Years resolutions.... not good. Under the new modified Becker Redemption Scoring System (BRSS) I scored 16/25 possible points the first week. that seemed pretty weak. 64%... you know... thats a D... at best. I felt pretty bad about it until week two when I scored.... an 11. That is an F in any school. it is a problematic system. Doing 5 prescribed good things (virtues) every day and avoiding 5 bad ones (vices). It was interesting because Tiemann (a good German Lutheran) and I got into a “discussion” because he has co-opted the system and stretched it out to EVERY good thing he does allows the possibility of doing another bad thing.

We are both rigorous rules people. We do not like to follow them but we desperately like to know what the rules are so we can measure our own failures by them. We would like to think that we are setting up the rules so that we can encourage ourselves to do better, something to measure successes by... but...we really need to know what the rules are so we know we can... fail.
That might be hard on Tim. But it isn’t on me. But still... I like having rules... because... well I like having rules because... because I am a mess. It is like Old Testament stuff and I WANT to live under the law. Very stupid. But... I guess I will keep thrashing around with it. I would like to get back up to a D again this week. That would be sweet but it is Monday night and I am.... not optimistic.

*****

PUSH POLLING:
The Republican party seems to be a lot cause. I was raised a Republican and stayed a Republican well into being an adult and a father but somewhere in the middle of Clinton’s first terms with the Newt Gingrich “Contract with America” they started to lose me. Platitudes of a divisive nature beginning to cobble out the 51% majority that shifts and swerves so long as to keep the right people in power and in the process terrorizing all of us. We cannot be victims to that stupidity again. This party sends out polls to my wife that read as follows:

HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES:
1. Should Republicans do everything they can to prevent Liberal Democrats from repealing the USA Patriot Act and other important laws that help our intelligence agencies protect Americans? Yes, No, or Undecided.
(followed by 3 more in similar vein) 
ECONOMIC ISSUES:
1. Should we make our fight against the Democrat's massive tax hikes a central part of the 2008 campaign? YEs, No, or Undecided.
ok...I said only one, but this one is too much to leave out:
1. Should Republicans renew the fight for a Balanced Budget Amendment?  Yes, No, or Undecided.
DOMESTIC ISSUES:
1. Should Republicans oppose Senator Clinton's one size fits all, government-run healthcare plan? Yes, No, or Undecided.
SOCIAL ISSUES:
1. Do you think Congress should pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, protecting marriage as a union between one man and one woman? Yes, No, or Undecided.
DEFENSE ISSUES: 
2)Should Republicans fight Democrat efforts to impose Clinton-era cuts in the Pentagon's budget? 
REPUBLICAN PARTY:
1. Do you support the election of Republican candidates across the country and the rebuilding of our majorities over the next 10 years? Yes, No, or Undecided.

Seriously, can you believe this shit? What kind of people are they trying to appeal to. Even conservative people like my wife get offended. I know that this type of divisive rhetoric worked in the Bush administration but we have to be something better now. there is too much on the line. But we will see. Thinking about this years election I am reminded of the new movie title... “There Will Be Blood.”

*****

South Carolina. Well it was kind of interesting. I thought the Democratic Primary was on the same day as the Republican. I was wrong... again. The Republicans went and it went to form. Mc cain, Huckabee... and whoever else.... Romney was out in Nevada and he ran and won unopposed. I was disappointed that Hillary beat Obama out there although he won the delegates. It is looking more and more like everything will come down to Super Tuesday. Who would have ever thunk we could have the possibility of a meaningful convention where they actually fight about stuff and maybe even compromise about stuff. Who knows... could be fun. The Democrats his South carolina this Saturday and we will see if Obama can carry the black vote solidly and get the votes he was getting in Iowa and New Hampshire. If he does the race is over but if Hillary keeps getting all the old people... everything gets shady from there on.

*****

South Carolina REDUX: It is Saturday morning and I am... a little scared. I really think Hillary might come out on top and I view that as an absolute disaster/abomination for the Democratic Party and the hope that we can win the White House cleanly. Leave it to the Democrats to have two minorities duke it out with each other, polarize both sides, divide the party and go down in flames.... but they could do it. If Obama actually loses South Carolina I would advise him to think about taking a high road and biding his time and withdraw from this race, accept a cabinet position of some sort and start agitating for change in that administration. In four years whomever is saddles with this Bushy/war economy is going to stand a good chance of being a doomed one termer anyway. I am just filled with dread that South Carolina is going to turn this dream election into a nightmare.

And Romney... if he wins in Florida becomes a prohibitive front runner. And he might with Guliani fading and their economy in a shambles over the housing nightmare. A Romney/Clinto election is a low road election with two powerful machines gearing up to swift boat each other to hell and back again for that sacred 1% margin it takes to win leaving the rest of feeling sick, disrespected, margianalized and well.... used. That could make a very ugly and unhappy four years. More then ever we need someone to unite us with a passion for what it means to be an American and Obama is still the only one I can see inspiring a lot of us to be better then what we are. The others pander to the special interests of their “core” but people in the middle need a President too. It should be out turn.

Diner Review Pics Bush As Worst Ever

Sooooo... if your lucky enough to be reading this then you will one day in the position to tell your children and/or grandchildren that you had the blessing of living through the eight year term of the worst President...ever. Seriously... I mean I didn’t live through the Harding (supposedly he was fabulously corrupt as was his administration which frankly seems like an upgrade on where we are at now) years so I cannot really comment on them one way or another. I also missed out on James Buchanon (Presided over secession of the the south), Andrew Johnson (presided post Lincoln and took the side of the South in reconstruction and Franklin (Doughface) Pierce who tried to expand slavery to the western states. I have been however been conscious for Lyndon Johnson (14 who would have thunk it?), Richard Nixon (32), Jimmy Carter (28 tie), Gerald Ford (28 tie), George H.W. Bush (25), Ronald Reagan (15), Bill Clinton (21) and now this putz. According to historians this group in my life has been a pretty middling, muddling bunch. I mean, we have had 42 Presidents and if my math is correct they average out to about a 20+ and that is pretty much right in the middle.

But think about it. This guy won (some say stole but that is a whiny weak response because if he stole it we ALL watched it happen) an election by the barest of mandates inheriting a White House at peace, a robust economy with projected budget surpluses (whoever those guys were projected that need to be treated the people who put together Communist China and Russia’s much vaunted 5 Year Plans) and was off to just being a screw up, a caretaker President busy figuring out how to make the rich get richer with tax cuts for the rich and tax breaks for business, trashing the environmental laws and ignoring global warming. He did not believe in interventionism of “nation building” since they were bad for business. He was trying to be a good dogmatic, pro business republican. he paid lip service like a good business republican to abortion issues and gay marriage which helped elect him but did nothing because they had nothing to do with getting his friends richer.
Then we have 9-11. A disaster, devastates a mentally weak nations psyche and he becomes a hero. He invades Afghanistan with massive focused force and although he fails to get the bad guy, he and the folks he surrounds himself with suddenly see the vision...a stable democracy in Iraq. Lets clean up dads screw up there not unseating Saddam. It can all be ours...the oil, the glory, the no bid contracts... That is when his Presidency teetered and then fell with a thud. Either he lied us into the war or led us into war relying on such fantastic incompetence that he and his cabinet should be water boarded and executed in short order. WE WERE THE ONLY SUPERPOWER! We had a moral gravitas and a budget surplus to do so much good in the world and...he and Cheney literally...pissed it all away.

Perhaps we judge our recent Presidents too harshly because their failings are apparent but their long term victories are not yet judged. Lyndon Johnson at 14 seems like a stretch and Nixon at 32 seems unduly harsh for just being a mean spirited greed head. I mean he opened up China and that took a little guts and forethought. He messily got us out of Vietnam which was not his war. Makes you wonder how we will treat Hillary or Barrack for what will be a very messy retreat from Iraq (and it will be a shameful retreat). I think when comparing Bush to Nixon that Nixon comes out very favorably. Sure he surrounded himself with hustlers and crooks but they were used car salesmen type crooks. Fast talkers with wide ties and white shoes and bad teeth. Perhaps they were trying to screw us but it was a kinder gentler time.

Bush has surrounded himself with Haliburton type neo-con crooks who are looking to rape not just us, but the world in favor of lining their pockets, their family members pockets and implanting their “vision” all over the map. I guess the difference is that these guys are smarter, meaner and more dogmatic then Haldeman, Erlichmann, Mitchell and Dean could have ever mustered. Nixon had his enemies “audited” by the IRS. Bush sends his to Guantanimo. Nixon listened in on phones, Bush “data mines”. Nixon at least genuinely liked pro football (according to Hunter Thompson) and I do not think Bush likes anything. Since his PR Campaign of coming to Jesus he no longer has any public use for vice and that is just wrong on so many levels that it makes me queasy.


Sure Clinton was banging his aides (only to fulfill his Kennedy fantasies) but it is comforting to see the man in the White House has human failings, even very public ones. It really was not until Clinton that we knew it was wrong to carry on such dalliances because the prior guys since Kennedy were all to old and mentally screwed up to have sex anyway and I suspect sadly that the same is true of George now. There is something meaner about Presidents who are not getting laid regularly while in the White House. That is my theory. Hell, Kennedy was all smiles even when invading Cuba and enmeshing us in Vietnam. Perhaps that is the key lesson of the Bush Presidency. I would like to be able to draw at least on lesson out of it because this guy is going to be sitting in the bottom 5 sooner rather then later.