SAVE ME FROM IDIOTS PLEASE

I apologize in advance, but I MUST rant. I just had a conversation with someone about a young man I know who is a little different, and needs a particular type of girl who will put up with his idiosyncrasies. So that person said, he needs a girl, maybe from that school in Monsey,_____. That happens to be the school that my daughter and nieces attend and have attended.

Knowing the gentleman in question, I was aware as to the mind set of the person I was talking to as to what she assumed was the quality of the girls from this school. I asked her how she had this information, and she admitted that she did not have it first hand, ( she lives in Brooklyn) and actually does not know ANY girls who attended that school, but it was what she had heard.

I then became extremely annoyed and informed this person that whatever negative information she has heard about the school is just wrong, and anyone who promulgated such unadulterated B.S. ( I don't think I abbreviated the word in the conversation.) is both wrong and evil. I felt compelled to inform her that it is one of the premier schools in Monsey, and has sterling girls and a top flight administration.

It is unbelievable to me the gossip and slander that people feel free to disseminate irrespective of the truth, and mindless to the damage that it can needlessly cause when it is completely untrue. They never stop to think that perhaps this sniping and bad-mouthing is nothing more than political jockeying from the different schools themselves. They never stop to think that what might have been true 20- 30 years ago might have changed. they never stop to think of the damage their mean spirited or worse, mindless, drivel can cause to perfectly fine girls from wonderful homes. Especially when the truth is the furthest thing from the stupidity they believe to be true.

I know the girls that go to this school. I know the parents that send their children to this school. I am familiar with the high academic level that the school is on, as well as the professionalism and caring of the principals. For anyone to say that this school is lower academically, or that the girls are not of the highest caliber is just wrong, and if they actually believe it then I suggest they remove their heads from the hole it is currently in to get some air.

Unfortunately, this is not a new problem, but you just can't fix stupid.

THE LEAF

A leaf came to visit me the other day. It just popped onto my windshield at a light, waved to me, and then went on its way.

Now as the good Doctor starts its second year in blogdom, I shall mix it up a bit. Some of the blogs I read will have the random poem thrown in. I guess this is to show the literary dexterity of the authors. So I will do a little one here on my friend the leaf.

THE LEAF

A leaf came by to visit today
just to say hello, not to stay

Off the tree, across a field
to briefly rest on my windshield

he didn't stay long , just a moment
until another gust came, and away he went

but while he was there my day was a little brighter
and when he left, a little dimmer

its nice to have a quick dash of color in my day
pop in, cheer me up, then on your way

so good luck to you, my little leaf
having served your duty to your tree
you are now done, and completely free

Rememeber to Dot your "i" s....

I needed to get a blood test recently, to check some of my levels. It took a bit of cajoling to get the prescription out of my doctor, who happens to be a friend of mine as well. he finally sent it and I was just waiting until after the holidays so my numbers would look better.

I needed to do it on a 12 hour fast, which is tough for me because I am rarely home the same time these labs are open, and I can't really do it early in the morning because I get home ( and eat) so late at night.

So I decided to take care of it on Friday, when I would try to get there on my way home. This by itself is tricky, as the day is short and the lab tends to be creepily slow.

So, I didn't eat any dinner Thursday night, went to Brooklyn for a meeting Friday morning, ( no coffee) worked and drove home ( still no coffee, when I do a fast, I really do a fast). Got home around 2:30 and went to the lab. When I got there, there was a line, and I had neither the time nor patience to wait, so I took the girls ( who were with me) to the library, and I figured I would try again on my way home.

Now the lab is on a main street, and it gets real busy Friday afternoons, but I felt I should really take care of it, so I went back to the lab, eve though I saw that the traffic between the lab and my way home was already backed up at 3:30.

I went inside. no line, just me. Great. I gave my prescription to the technician and had a seat stomach grumbling. I told it to wait another ten minutes.

About five minutes later she calls me over and tells me she can't do the test because the prescription isn't signed.

I love my doctor, but he is killing me.

Election thoughts ( only one post, relax)

Just a quick one on politics now that this election period is over, and I have been really good.

I am glad Mayor moron won only because the alternative would have been Dinkins redux, and in a time when we are having Carter redux, I really have no desire to go back to that time in our City's history as well. However, aside from the megalomaniac that is Mr. Bloomberg who flaunted HIS OWN rules and bought another term, the silent tax of 10 million parking tickets last year at the higher rates that he imposed is going to continue to drive out the middle class.

The only reason why the press is saying that the election is not a referendum on Obama is because the candidates he backed and stumped for lost. Had it gone the other way, every pundit would be saying he has a mandate. One analyst said that the republicans came out to vote against Obama, believe it.

Lets just hope the trend continues before we get into a mess that will take generations to extricate ourselves and recover from.

The Man in the Middle

A great theological scholar and leader of men once enunciated a universal truth. Not having heard it directly from him, I cannot know if he meant it as a guiding principle in life or if it was an offhand remark. He was, presumably, addressing an issue of either religious devotion or social behavior. This is what he said:

"Everyone thinks he's in the middle."

When I first heard it, it struck me as merely insightful, but on further reflection and after mulling it over a while, I came to regard it as one of the truest, most universally applicable principles ever uttered. It covers a world of disciplines; mental health, criminality, religiosity, humanity, social interaction to name but a few.

No two people think exactly alike so society has, over the years, had to define acceptable and unacceptable in human interactions. What divides "normal" from really "crazy?"

People have an endless capacity for rationalizing their actions. A petty thief can point to Bernie Madoff as a real thief and to honest people as preachers' sons. A whirling dervish in the sands of Sudan can look at Al Qaida or the Ikwan as really extreme and at the Lebanese as functinoally infidels. The term "lunatic fringe" has been applied to organizations of which I am or have been a member but I can point to many other groups that are way more lunatic than mine. The list goes on. Possibly, Bernie Madoff can point to others in history that caused, qualitatively, more damage than he did.

Standards of morality, standards of honesty, standards of piety, standards of ethics, all cover a very broad range. Society has developed yardsticks for truly extreme behavior and most people will subscribe to this benchmark. But the guy out on the edge doesn't really think he's there. He's the man in the middle.

I'm constantly reminded that people see themselves in a mirror of their own making. You wouldn't recognize the person I think I am or the person you think you are if you ever met up with him/her.

The extreme person you see when you meet me is only a figment of your distorted imagination. The same one that imagines yourself as the soul of moderation.

We're all in the middle.

Happy Birthday & Thank You Readers

Only three more days and the Good Doctor will be a year old. Its amazing how time flies and how things can change so quickly in the course of a year. ( geese come, geese leave, geese return, etc.) So as I take a moment and reflect on the past year ( ..... Ok, done.) Soupeater and I would just like to thank all of you who have followed, commented, praised, criticized, challenged and made this part year fun and exciting.

Keep reading and commenting, for if we write and no one reads it, does it make a sound in the blogsphere?

Pyotr Ilyich You've Made it Big

Last night in the 8PM (EDT) hour, 3 of the 6 classical music stations I listen to, one in Minnesota, one in New York and one in Los Angeles were playing works by Tchaikovsky. It wasn't his birthday nor was it his death day and I couldn't find any explanation for the phenomenon. I don't believe in coincidences.

I wish I thought of it....

I heard a truly great expression in court this week. I was talking to a legal aid attorney and he mentioned that he doesn't care for a particular landlord attorney. He gave me an example of a line that the attorney had used on him which indicated the landlord attorney's callousness. The line was,

"You could give aspirin a headache"

Brilliant. I will have to use it. However, to make the legal aid attorney feel a little better, I told him it could have been worse, he could have said

"You could give EXCEDRIN a headache!"

Out, Out, darned snowflake

As the political season heats up, I feel compelled to at least weigh in or certain issues of the day. I will endeavor to be short and entertaining, and promise to get back to the geese and other issues after November.

Last night I heard two very interesting pieces on the news. The first is that there is a new law in New Jersey, courtesy of that failed governor, that it is now illegal to drive with snow on your car. The blurb on the news did not indicate how much snow shall constitute a violation, and knowing the past history about giving New Jersey cops discretion ( pulling over people because they are black) i shudder to think of how this will play out. I can see it now, 50 cars lined up just past the state line on the Palisades Parkway with a bit of snow caught in the groove where the wipers sit. Or hour long backups on the new Jersey bound bridges and tunnels because Fort Lee or Hoboken have to close their budget, and they are pulling over everyone coming over the bridge or out of the tunnel.

Way to go Corzine, keep it up, and you won't be able to get elected to a school board.


The second item is an interview that is being promoted on WCBS with some Israeli author who is touting the wonderful advantages of the Israeli health care system. Now anyone who has ever had to deal with the Israeli health care system knows what an absolute disaster it is. I am convinced that if airfare was around $300 instead of $1,000, every kid in Israel with even the sniffles would come home to be treated.

However, in the days King Obama, I am not surprised that a "news" outlet with a clear liberal bent in its language and reporting like WCBS is pushing this. I am just surprised that WINS hasn't gotten a hold of this yet.

If you value your liberties folks, speak up now or all will be lost.

Gas, Wind, and then, Solid Waste

Here's a copy of a letter I just sent to our State Senator, Thomas P. Morahan.

The Hon. Senator Thomas Morahan
Room 606 Legislative Office Building
Albany, New York 12247

Dear Senator Morahan

I just received my monthly invoice from Orange and Rockland utilities which included a small separately printed notice that the law requires electricity suppliers to inform their customers of the sources of their electricity (solid waste, wind, gas, etc) and the amount of their emissions relative to others in the state.

How can the Senate and the Assembly allow such wasteful and expensive nonsense to prevail as established law?

It costs money to print and to transport these notices, and it costs money to gather the required information. And who do you think is going to pay for all this? The utilities are a business and whatever it costs them to operate will be included in the price to their customers.

And for what purpose? I buy the cheapest electricity I can find, to provide light and comfort for myself and my family and I couldn't care less if the electricity comes from the pristine rays of the sun or from the methane produced by the flatulence of an elephant in the zoo. I am sure about 99% of electricity purchasers in this state feel the same.

Alfred Would Turn Over in his Grave

I guess the good doctor preempted me in commenting on the Nobel committee's latest eye poke to reason and sanity. Here is my take.

At least till now, the committee could only be held up to allegations of cynicism and political meddling, but now they must be held up to public ridicule.

Peace Prize or Booby Prize?

"Scrap the Nobel Peace Prize," foreign affairs commentator Bronwen Maddox wrote in The Times of London. "It's an embarrassment and even an impediment to peace. President Obama, in letting the committee award it to him, has made himself look vain, a fool and dangerously lost in his own mystique."

The above quote pretty much sums it up, folks. I will leave it at that for now.

Please try not to kill the patient

I know that I have been quite remiss in writing lately, but I have been busy with the Holidays ( as surmised at by Soupeater) and have not really had much to rant about ( prescient once again, Soupy!)

Until recently.

As many of you know, I am an EMT who is part of a volunteer EMS organization.

I was in Court last Thursday. As I was meandering the halls trying to track down other lawyers to finish my cases, I saw an older woman being escorted out of a courtroom by an officer and assisted in sitting down outside of the room. She appeared to be having some medical issue that involved the use of an inhaler. I asked the officer if he had called the EMTs and he informed me that everything was under control and I should step away.

So I did, but I didn't go far. I had no equipment on me, and without going into detail, I didn't think it was appropriate at that point for me to step in. Eventually, the officers who are purportedly EMTs did show up, and leisurely went about assessing the patient. I again offered my services to help, but was once again rebuffed. The pace that they were working is not one that I would approve of, and I felt a long time passed from when they got there until they actually put oxygen on the patient, but it was not my scene.

However, it got me thinking.

A few years ago I was asked what the purpose is for the volunteer EMS organization that I am a part of if there is a "perfectly good" EMS system in place. So the quick answer is no one does it the same way as our organization, which uses embedded members of the community. But more importantly, I can prove my point be an example. A call comes out 530 in the morning for difficulty breathing, and within 10 minutes you have three EMTs, two medics and an ambulance, as well as a breathing treatment along with the oxygen already initiated. That's the difference. A level of caring and zeal not seen in the EMS services or by other in house EMTs.

Hopefully, no one should need it, but it is nice to know that the organization is there.

A Whale of a Story

Things have been kind of dull here in blogland. Maybe everyone has just run out of things to say and write about and maybe they are busy with the holidays and back to school. Either way, I haven't seen any new posts in the last many days and feel that I have to get things off first base.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to write about either.

Congress is muddling its way through the Health Care reform mess and it could become quite interesting, like a horse race where the odds keep changing before the run.

The stock market isn't doing anything unless a .4% price change is considered significant. The news media seem to treat these miniscule moves as something to comment on, but as far as I am concerned, it is all "no change."

I did hear a story about a supposed medical advance and have been trying to decide whether this blog is a proper venue for the discussion I have in mind regarding the event but have mainly decided to shelve it for the time being.

Regarding our president, I won't look at pictures of him nor listen to any of his speeches or even his sound bites. I've never felt that way about any other president no matter how much I detested him. After years of climbing out of the currency of New Deal liberalism, it is disheartening to see us fall back into that trap. I am getting older and don't want the dream of a prosperous, free America to slip from my grasp. It will be too long until the trend reverses itself.

To end this post with some relevance to the title, here is a commentary on Jonah and whale, appropriate for this season. The scripture states that a fish swallowed him but it is popularly believed to be a whale. The commentaries point out that it took him 3 days to pray for salvation because things were roomy inside the male fish that swallowed him. So, after 2 days and some time, the original fish, transferred him to a pregnant female fish and things got a bit cramped so he started praying. The only fish I know of that carries live offspring is a whale. It also survives on oxygen from the air.

Doctor, It really hurts

Now that Max Baucus has revealed his conception of what health care reform would look like, I wrote to my representatives in congress detailing my objections to a massive reform effort. In the cause of brevity I did not elaborate on the need to fix certain gross anomalies in the current health care system on a gradual piece by piece basis, but I think that should be the ultimate approach and goal of the whole excercise.

Because it is almost impossible to gain their attention for even a few nano seconds, I tried to keep it short but my best efforts still came up with a one page letter. My wife advised me that the best way to write is to put the word "for" or "against" in big letters at the beginning and end of the communication which is all that matters. Good advice. I guess they have heard all the arguments, reasoned or not and don't have time to rehash exactly why each individual is either for or against a proposal.

So in order to enlighten at least the loyal readers of this blog, I offer my arguments.

I am concerned about the mandatory aspects of the proposed health care reform initiative. To be forced to purchase something or to join an organization is abhorrent to the principles of a free democracy and individual rights.

I am further concerned by the intractability of the public option debate. If there is a public option, it will cost too much and give government too much control over healthcare choices. If we don't have a public option, the insurance companies will reap a vast windfall at the public's expense. It also does not make sense to increase the costs of the healthcare industries by taxing them. This will only shift the costs right back to the consumer. It’s like everyone taking in everyone else’s laundry.

It is not the government's role to insure everyone who chooses not to spend the money on health insurance. For over two hundred years Americans have had the right to choose to assume risk.

In view of the above, I think it would be best if the entire initiative would be defeated.

Wildlife II

My driveway seems to be a haven for all hungry beasts in my neighborhood. I am thinking of charging admission " See the animals! Watch them in their natural habitat! (my garbage cans), much closer than Great Adventure! Take one home as a pet! (please)."

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, I responded to pick up the ambulance for a call at 3 AM. I went out to my car and saw that the garbage can was once again on its side, and there was an animal having a late night snack. Now the can was in front of my car, and a little off to the side.

Thinking it was one of the usual suspects (the cats and raccoons that frequent Chez Greun) I continued towards it, figuring I would just chase the varmint away.


Until I saw the wispy white tail.

Sticking up.

Now, I had to make a quick decision on what to do. I had to get to my car, and I figured I could still do so, but the usual escape route of this critter is to cross the driveway into the back yard. If I were to blast past him, he might freak and decide on a little eau de ewwww. So I slowly went wide around the can, hoping he would sense company and leave, which is what they usually do. However, this little skunk decided to come out and investigate.

With his tail really straight up.

This is generally perceived as not a good sign for one who wants to keep his friends and family, so I decided that a little walk around the back of the house would probably be the prudent choice of action. As I came around the second time, the critter must have decided that having his meal disturbed a second time was enough, and he politely chose to leave.

With his tail down, thank goodness.

I arrived a few minutes later at the call, and all was forgiven for the short delay, since the smell inside the ambulance would have been enough to send us all to the hospital had I kicked the can.

So that was all well and good until the other morning. I heard rustling outside my window, which usually indicates a feast is in progress, but this was early in the morn, when Chez Greun is usually cosed for the day. I didn't think much of it until around 7:30 when Lovey informed me that something was still banging around. I looked out my window, which overlooks the driveway, and into 3 of the 4 cans which don't have lids, and didn't see anything. The fourth can had the lid on it, but it wasn't moving.

Lovey decided to investigate and look in all the cans from ground level. Since I didn't think there was anything to see, I wasn't paying much attention until she shrieked. She had looked through the hole in the top of the can that one of our previous customers had made, and seen a little raccoon staring up at her. Then, after my manhood was called into question, I was forced to come outside and see this animal for myself. I asked all the appropriate agencies to please come and take this interloper away, and get rid of it, but they all refused, so I had to let it go myself.

I know Lovey is a good cook, but this constant invasion is getting ridiculous.

End of Summer ll (click here)

I was off today so, needing to do some banking business, I went to a local branch, not my usual one. Upon entering the premises, I immediately realized that this place was understaffed. It is a highway branch and was currently manned by two tellers who had to take care of a line of 4 people and about 6 cars. I waited patiently (the cars waited even more patiently - I didn't hear any horns blowing) and while waiting, a young lady got on line behind me. She was about the age of my middle child and we got to chatting about how the bank branch we were in was going to handle the extra traffic from the other local branch which B of A decided to close.

When I exited the building, I noticed a baby blue convertible BMW z4 with the top down, bathed in brilliant sunlight, parked next to my car. I examined the roadster, noticing the fine leatherwork and the manual shift. As I was doing so, the woman who had been in line behind me, came out of the bank and said to me, "My birthday present! But it's probably the last one I'll get for the next fifty years." She got in her car and drove off, as I wistfully watched her drive away with the last days of summer.

As Sand Through an Hourglass...

There truly is a generation gap. At least among my siblings and their children. let me explain.

I was over at the Carwash's and we got into an impromptu game of charades along with my brother ( not the lawyer) and his wife. So we were running out of topics, and since we all grew up with each other, we were guessing before the person even started, so we needed to shake it up a bit.

Now, when I was younger, the movie that became real popular with my siblings was The Princess Bride ( inconceivable, really.) my sisters knew the movie so well it was to the point that we could watch the movie with the sound off, and still have all the dialogue.

For some reason, among our children, the movie that the girls in particular seem to have gotten into is Newsies. The kids seem to be in a competition as to who can see it the most, and the dialogue gets quoted constantly. I happen to feel that I should know what my kids are into, so I have seen it as well (I should note that at one point it would have been impossible not to see it, as it was playing on the DVD or computer just about every night.)

Figuring that my siblings are as involved as I am, I started to act out the movie, from the first scene on. Blank stares. I did a few more scenes. More blank stares.

Finally, after flopping over the ottoman for the third time, and realizing at my advanced age that I couldn't do it much longer, I told them what it was. Their response? Oh, we haven't seen the movie!

I was shocked that something so integral to their kids was not in their interest at all. I was also a little winded.

So I got to thinking, this isn't really that different than when we were kids and soooo into things, and our parents were completely not interested ( for instance, The Princess Bride). Just like we were not interested then in things our parents were into, that we have a greater appreciation for today.

What that is, offhand, I can't think of anything, but I am sure there are some things.

And the Gap widens... ( perhaps the name of a soap opera when we are really old??)

Pictures

We recently hosted a family barbecue. As I usually do, I took out my digital camera and started shooting at whatever moved or looked like an interesting grouping. The kids run around so much, most of my pictures are puzzlingly vapid. Especially in digital photography, there is a delay between when you depress the shutter and when the image is impressed on the electronic sensors so that I get many shots that come out like the drawing of cows eating grass, where the grass is already eaten and the cows have left.

Roll back the scene about 80 years or so. I have a large shoebox filled with photographs taken by my father from the late twenties through the seventies. The pictures taken after 1965 don't interest me too much because I have my own pictures of the same events and because I have living memories of those depicted in the photos, and, although interesting in their own right (see how young we were) they don't convey the same sense of continuity I get from the pictures of people I never knew.

There are pictures of my dead cousins dancing at some celebration or other, pictures of my aunts' weddings, random pictures of dinners and hikes and groupings of people who were related to me before I was born but didn't manage to be contemporary with me, and also pictures of young people whom I did manage to meet when they were older. I think about all of them, these personalities flitting in and out of my consciousness, as I go through the piles of photos. I think, here are people, like me, with likes and dislikes loves and hates hopes and disappointments triumphs and failures. They are mostly, if not all, gone now and we have taken their place. I long for the opportunity to interact with them.

Back to the twenty-first century. I sent my children a random shot of four of my adult children at the above mentioned barbecue; one is asleep in a chair, the other three are busily engaged in eating a corn or a hot dog concentrating on the matter in hand and oblivious to each other, sort of like Hopper's "Soir Bleu." I asked them what they think one of our descendants would think when coming across this picture in 50 years.

Here are some of their answers;

"why would anyone have saved THIS picture?"
"why would anyone have taken this picture?"
"what's Dr. Brown soda?"

I guess they don't think like me.

Happy Birthday

I had birthday this week. ( I know, A birthday, its a German thing, let it go). Lovey really gets into birthdays and thinks it is funny to tell everyone she sees that it is my birthday. So we were in an old age home visiting some relatives and she announced to everyone that it was my birthday (I only think about a third of the people heard it, though.) One man standing there perks up and says " hey, its my wife's birthday too!" so I go over to the wife and say " Happy Birthday" and she responds " Yes, my birthday is August 28th".

I felt that at this point it was just best to smile all around.

Travels in America

Any place that has a population density of less than 6 people per square mile is considered by the US Census to be uninhabited. I don't know if this is an average figure over a large region or if this applies to every square mile in the country. By the latter standard, I have been traveling in a largely uninhabited area. Every mile or two one does spot a farmhouse and some outbuildings upon a knoll or somewhere behind a stand of tall corn.

I have been driving hundreds of miles in western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota for the past few days and the word "uninhabited" keeps popping into my consciousness. Not that the land is desolate. On the contrary, it is miles and miles of verdant, rich, productive cropland giving proof to human intervention on a grand scale. Some of the towns along my route are little more than trailer parks (figuratively, the houses are all real and permanent) while others have lovely tree lined and canopied streets in a region not distinguished by trees of any sort.

Minnesota is known by its self-dubbed nickname as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes." There are a lot of lakes here but eastern South Dakota, as I have often noticed while flying across it, is riddled with one lake after the other, large and small. At ground level these lakes appear to be large holes filled with water with no accessible shoreline other than thick healthy bullrushes leading to the water's edge. I am told they are filled with fish and I even saw some water birds frolicking in their dark blue waters. Some are quite deep. But on the whole these lakes are, for the most part, featureless. Many are just round without coves and most are surrounded by flat land making the distinction between water and land a matter of only color change. The usual pattern of gently sloping wooded hills forming a bowl containing the water does not hold here.

Today, I drove more than 400 miles fronted on both sides as far as the eye can see by waves of light and dark green soybean leaves rippling in the wind, seas of brownish-yellow tasseled corn carpeting the land, golden swaths of harvested wheat and green lawns of newly mown hay fields. Depending upon the level of the fields relative to the roadway the views change, sometimes showing an incredible symmetry of rows and sometimes only showing an unbreakable surface of one color or another. All this accompanied by the redolence of livestock and other farm odors which is even more pronounced when traversing the region in an open convertible.

Of all the millions, possibly billions, of ears of corn I passed today, the one I bought for dinner this evening was the worst I have ever tasted.

Go figure.

Doctor, here's where it really hurts!

Issues in the health care debate boil down to the following:

If the puchase of health care insurance becomes mandatory, and there is no public option, the industry will acquire a stranglehold on the health care system, It will furthermore be greatly enriched by 47 million people forced to buy their products at rates that can be arbitrarily set. There is no possible way that such a scenario will not be more monopolistic than the wildest imaginings of the muckrakers of the early 20th century. Our lawmakers will be handing the health insurance industry a munificent windfall without receiving much in return.

If there is a public option it may serve as competition to the industry but with the possibility of a large increase in costs to the government and the public. Also at the cost of bureaucratically administered health care rationing. The fact that the Senate even considered a "death panel" is proof of how much personal liberty health care reform will eliminate. And this will only be the first step on the slippery slope to dictatorship.

If congress tries to limit the cost of health care for the masses by increasing the co-payment and deductible burden on a mandatory minimum health policy holder then the poor will have to shoulder close to half their medical costs plus the insurance premium. This is bad enough for those who are sick, but it is vastly more unfair for those who don't get sick who will be forced to buy a piece of junk that they don't need..If the purpose of this reform is to help the poor then how does this help them? Heads I win, tales you lose.


The most evil part of this plan is the mandatory clause. Administration spokespeople are lauding the health insurance industry for their agreement to insure those with preexisting conditions. Obviously if insurance purchase is mandatory then even the sick will have to buy it and if private insurance providers don't agree to insure the already sick it would leave the government no choice but to have a public option.

Never in this country's glorious history has one been forced to purchase anything. I have nightmares of shouting guards and barking dogs herding innocent people into boxcars.

The best solution to this fake crisis is to do nothing. The system isn't perfect, but it works. Tweak it a bit if you must but use gradualism. Write your congressman and senators and tell them that they should vote against any and all the bills for massive health care reform.

The levelers in Washington have taken control and I fear for our inalienable rights.

BIAS!

I am trying to recall a special catastrophic historical event which, in hindsight, was the primary cause for the assumption of absolute power by a dictator. The assassination of Kirov? The bombing of Cambodia? No matter. There aren't too many cases of homegrown dictators in 20th century history and before that, monarchy and absolute power were the norm. I have previously blogged about crises becoming the excuse for power grabs but what follows is a description of a manufactured crisis and we do have to be careful that once the "crisis" becomes fixed in the public's mind, it will be hard to counteract.

The news media needs to exaggerate and hype everything out of proportion in order to sell its product. I once called the Wall Street Journal when they used to sponsor a few minute recap of the financial news on WQXR regarding a program headlined by, "Oil prices soar!" when the price of petroleum went up a few cents. I pointed out the apparent contradiction between the headline and the story and was told that after all, they needed to attract attention.

So when they characterize the recent spate of spiteful town hall meeting rhetoric as organized mob activity and nazi-like behavior it should be taken with a grain of salt, but I think this time it's a product of their collective socialist bias.

Let us examine the facts. Yes, booing and jeering isn't very civil or mannered behavior but mob activity is more sinister, employing clubs, brass knuckles, knives and a considerable amount of pushing and shoving. The people, like the media, just crave a bit of attention.

What is really annoying the politicians and their news media supporters is that the people are angry with, and distrustful of, their elected representatives and that they see the threat the Obama administration poses to individual freedoms and rights. The public feel entitled to voice their disapproval to their elected representatives. For years, politicians have been using the so called "Town Hall Meeting" construct to conduct a one-way, staged, indoctrination of the citizens who misguidedly attended these affairs under the impression that they would be able to influence or at least have a meaningful exchange of ideas with their elected representatives.

Well, no longer. Congressmen and Senators are consequently shocked that they can't get away with it this time.

I have listened to some of the public's remarks at these town hall meetings and they seem to me to be calm and reasoned arguments, albeit oppositional and delivered emotionally and feelingly. Politicians don't like to hear from their constituents unless they represent a substantial number of voters or control a lot of campaign money.

I just read a letter in USA today which presents the following argument against the claim that health care reform protesters are the storm troopers of organized right wing opposition. There are two pictures, one showing the conservative opposition holding long winded hand written signs and the other showing supporters displaying professionally designed and printed posters. The letter writer asks: Which is more likely to be the "organized" group and which the true grass roots protest.

Hussein (III), the honeymoon is over.

Its Hard to Soar Like an Eagle......

I had the misfortune of actually mentioning to the pest who was on the highway with me that I posted about him. He has taken the term pest to a completely new level. Let me tell you about this person. He works in my office, and thinks he is the boss. This means that he really doesn't listen to anyone, and wants everyone to listen to him, including the scintillating story of how he burnt his feet. ( I have been trying to avoid the details of this riveting story, but I think that he will corner me and tell me anyhow.)

Anyhow he has become completely hung up about this, and the idea that anyone would blog in the first place. He keeps coming in to my office to give he his cumulative knowledge about the world in general (all 22 years of his experiences) and his opinion on blogging specifically. I think it is probably jealousy since English and writing is occasionally a second language to him.

Now you can imagine what it is like to deal with someone like this on an every day basis. Root canal looks more and more appealing each day (" I have to go out for a few hours and have my head drilled, to take away the hammering in my brain from you"). Unfortunately, most people have similar issues in the work place. Sometimes it can be an annoying co-worker, in worst case scenarios it can be a supervisor or even the head person in the office. There really is not much that can be done about it except grin and bear it.

And blog about them.

The Throne, or the power behind it?

We were coming back from visiting day in the mountains and a pest who works in my office was driving behind me. He noticed that I was a passenger and Lovey was driving. He (of course) felt compelled to question the hierarchy at my house, since, in his silly little single mind, the MAN has to drive, or he isn't a man.

Without getting into his psyche too much, or telling him that it is usually more a burden then a joy to have to drive all the time, I still felt compelled to inform this misguided youth that the fact that I was not driving had nothing to do with my lack of standing in the house, ( actually, a case could be made that I insisted that I do not drive, so I am clearly in control, but to say such a thing in a blog that may or may not be read by a significant other is dangerous, so I will just posit it as a hypothetical) and more to do with my not sleeping the night before. ( I could also add the fair division of labor in the household, but that could cause more problems than the previous statement, so I will leave it as another hypothetical).

Actually, on a quick tangent, I know of certain households where the distaff side does all or most of the driving, sometimes because the male does not drive, and sometimes because it is not worth taking a stand with a female who insists. But I indeed digress.

Staying on the division of labor theme, as well as who is ultimately in charge of the house, leads to an interesting episode at Chez Greunkern that might just indicate how the residents see things. At the table over the weekend, there was a discussion as to who would do the dishes. Lovey decided that I should do them, and expressed her opinion accordingly. Not wishing to gainsay her, I looked to one of the children (house servants?) and told him that he should do the dishes.

Not missing a beat, he immediately started to say "But she told...." Then he caught himself. ( Smart boy)

Having not been born yesterday, I knew the end of the statement. I also was not going to let it go. So a quick discussion ensued that I am not part of the sibling pack, where that line will get you out of a job, and I indeed do have the right to delegate any job I choose, including those assigned to me by Lovey. However, it did show me exactly where the children think the true power in the house lies.

I have to go now and hide all my pants.

Brooklyn moves Upstate

What is it with lack of courtesy and shopping carts? Do people have a genetic disposition to become obnoxious and rude as soon as they touch one? is it like kryptonite to good manners? I wonder.


I was recently in a shopping center in Monsey. We had sent off Big Sister and Lovey and me were alone for a day. ( More like 16 hours, but we take what we can get.) So we did what we always do on an off day, shop.


In this strip mall there is a lane for driving in front of the stores, and then double rows for parking. I am on the sidewalk in front of the stores and I see this woman loading her van. As she finishes, she pushes the cart in the vague direction of the sidewalk while she is still at the back of her minivan. The cart goes about 10 feet and stops on a rut in the road.



In the middle of the road.



The woman looks at the cart, and gets into her car.



I just stood there, amazed.

Square and level

I can't get over the liberals' naked power hunger. I felt it strongly in 1993 when the Clintons were hatching their nefarious health care reform proposals and feel it again as the same issue is being debated. This time it may be worse.

I recently heard a radio program which featured, as a guest, a Professor Gruber of MIT commenting on a new proposal by some in either congress or the administration ( I'm not sure which ) to tax employer provided health insurance as income to those who have superior health care plans. The proposal singles out plans where everything is completely covered, sort of a Cadillac of health insurance plans.

In the course of his comments, Dr. Gruber opined that surely excessive health care coverage should be taxed because americans are getting too much health care and also because the third party payment system encourages a lack of financial responsibility (presumably to other citizens) by not involving the receiver of health care in the decision to use what health care is available. He felt that people should have to think twice or more before availaing themselves of a doctor or hospital. In short, and the moderator caught him out on this but he sidestepped the question, it seems he was for rationing of health care. Or maybe he was a leveller and felt that everyone should suffer equally.

I wondered why, if he was advocating that everyone should have to weigh when and whether to see a doctor, he was championing health care reform in the first place. From what I have heard, it is just the necessity for the 46 million un or underinsured to have to make such decisions which is the reason healthcare cries out for reform.

You would think a professor from MIT would be able to discern such a tautology.

Many years ago, before most of you were born, there was a radio program called "The Shadow," which featured a debonair man-about-town who, while in the East, had learned the secret to the power to "cloud men's minds."

I think power hunger does the same thing.

And when they came for me...

I can be silent no longer.

As much as that statement may seems a little strange, considering I do a fair amount of pontificating and ranting herein, I am referring specifically to our esteemed commander in chief, who has truly shown himself to be the First Jackass.

Forget what I read in a magazine that-shall-not be named, that his AG is thinking of prosecuting the Bush Administration for "excessive torture tactics", which is by itself a most dangerous precedent for any President to set, in that it would severely compromise the ability of all future presidents to effectively do their job, if they knew that as soon as their party was out of power, all their staffers and perhaps the president as well would be subject to criminal charges by a partisan which hunt.

And let us further put aside the Socialist leading to Communist plans of this administration with regards to health care. Nationalization of health care has never worked for any other country, so why shouldn't we ram it through Congress here? What really ticks me off is the statement of TFJ that he won't sign it if it will increase the deficit. How absolutely disingenuous. I assume taxing the hell out of the remaining people in this country who still have jobs and businesses doesn't count. But when they lose their jobs and businesses, and the government has to pay with unemployment benefits, stimulus money, and lost tax revenues, how does that not increase the budget? Beats me. But then again, I am not as smart as the genius we have in the White House, but I digress.

Well, with all that being put aside, as well as all the other issues, the part that I cannot get past today is the most powerful man in the world has shown the entire world just how absolutely petty and stupid he is, to make a comment on a local matter concerning one arrest, without having all the facts, and in the process demeaning and insulting the people who are charged with protecting us, the police. ( Another post on the silliness of the entire issue later.)

Now those of you who know me know that I am not a big fan of police in general, and I sincerely believe that they have a tendency to abuse their power, but nevertheless, you would think that a president would not get involved in something so silly.

Obviously, the overriding agenda of TFJ is to foster racial hatred in this country, something that the country itself showed it is trying to move beyond by electing him. Not for him. He has continued his agenda to completely destabilize this country, financially, racially, economically, and militarily.

How long before the left wing press realizes that they cannot cover for him anymore?

Are the Redwoods Superannuated?

I recently heard a piece on the BBC's Newshour which confirms the newsmedias' insidious biases. It was a story on a group of scientists mapping all the trees in a sequoia forest where the trees, some of which are over 3000 years old are dying prematurely.

First of all, I don't understand why they think that if the trees in this forest have started dying during the past 50 years it signals premature death. If the trees are indeed 3000 years old, what makes scientists think that this is premature death. Maybe they are dying of Sequoia old age. OK, so maybe there are some older trees, but as you see in human life, some people die in their late 80's and no one considers that premature even though there are plenty of ambulant, robust people in their high nineties living alone and doing all the things people in their 50's do and maybe not even more slowly. I personally know, and know of, many people like that.

But back to my point on bias. The lead up to the piece, by the announcer, went something like this..... "Scientists are mapping a forest of ancient trees which are dying prematurely due to climate change."

I thought to myself that it seems that scientific research is now directed by political agendas rather than by a desire for truth. That would have been a blog post by itself (and it may become one - a pathologist acqaintance of mine insists that all science today has a definite agenda [religious, not political in his case]).

But upon listening to the article, and I listened very carefully, nowhere was there even a hooded reference to climate change. The scientists were only describing their tribulations in camping out and doing the work and what it will mean when it is finished and that its significance will only be noted 25 to 100 years in the future.

At the risk of becoming like Cicero I must reiterate that environmentalism is the single greatest threat, past or present, to American freedom, liberty, capitalism and democracy.

We're in second, and MOVING UP!!

I don't believe that competition among family is right or necessarily healthy. I think that you should love your family without limitation, and should always be happy for all their successes.

However,


We here at the Soup are happy to announce that we have passed a secret blog of a family member in hits. This could be because we actually post from time to time, and the other blog has been curiously silent ( a shame) , or it could be that we have two different contributors, or it could be that the people running the blog are just going back to the page again and again to pump up the numbers. ( vehement denial)

Nevertheless, we are thrilled that we have managed to achieve this result, considering our counter went up later, and started at a lower number. Now we are hot on the trail of another one, and only have about 3,500 hits to make up.

Stay tuned, and keep checking back for updates.

many, many times.

Where are America's guts?

The world as we know it has gone nuts, or we are truly heading for an apocalypse. I saw this article on the Bloomberg website. The Chinese are suing U.S. companies for patent infringement! This completely boggles my mind.

For years and years, the Chinese have been illegally knocking off our products, and we have been completely powerless to stop it. I guess now with the new policy of the United States of apologizing for everything to everyone, the Chinese feel emboldened enough to have the audacity to come to our country, use our courts to try and enforce our laws to their benefit.

Personally, I think the trial should follow along these lines.

Yes China, you are correct, you finally had an original thought, and you should be protected. We will award you damages, but first, we are going to calculate the counterclaim of all the American companies that you have ripped off for all this time.

Then we can go back to the tried but true MaterCard commercial formula.

Award to China: $4.6 Million

Award to American Companies: $7.3 Trillion

Finally giving China a taste of their own medicine: Priceless.

Sahara Obama

Fresh from his triumphs in Italy where he and 7 other national leaders laid out their demands to G-d insisting that they would not accept a global temperature rise above 2° (C or F? - not sure) he has gone on to visit his native continent with a stop in Ghana. Ghana is a democracy on the shores of the Atlantic with a history of being a gathering point for slaves going to the new world and is the Africans' Auschwitz, so to speak. They talk about them being chained, naked, in dungeons beneath the forts guarding the coastline. This is billed as being the white man's persecution of the black man but they don't mention that the slaves were taken captives and forced into slavery by African slave traders who offered them for sale. Sort of like the drug trade. The producing countries blame the consuming countries for creating the demand.

Obama is immensely popular in Africa (local boy makes good) but I heard a pro African analyst questioning the honesty of Obama's campaign promises in that his first priority as President of the United States of America should have been the succor of Africa, and it wasn't. But lest you think he is blaming the continent's golden boy, think again. This analyst had the effrontery to suggest that it wasn't Obama's fault since he is getting bad advice from his advisers. We all know who his closest advisers are, according to Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former mentor, it is "them jews."

This does not bode well for Jewish - Black relations, which have never been easy. To some extent the jews will be the scapegoats for Obama's inability to deliver on some of his more radical promises. In the end, Obama himself is going to be torn between loyalty to this country and loyalty to his masters in Africa and the muslim world. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Now that the stimulus money is beginning to come into the economy the sheer stupidity of the Democratic congress in drafting the original bill is coming to the fore. Although billions are being released, it has become abundantly clear that much of it is going to social services where there is no multiplier effect and although the money is being introduced into the economy it is like giving food to someone with dysentery; it doesn't do any good. Social services, health research and the like, although very commendable and legitimately in need of funding, cannot grow the economy and any extra funding for this purpose has no business in the stimulus package. Funding for these things don't affect the economy in any meaningful way. and if they were to be cut or kept at current levels nothing would change in the economy. The only effect the stimulus money will have in this sector is to fatten those feeding at the public trough.

What the economy desperately needs is a boost to the manufacturing economy which is about to get another whammy from the proposed control of carbon emissions, a bill for which has already been passed by the House. I think the stimulus is conceptually the right way to go in a near depression but it must target the right things. Infrastructure constrution and all capital projects, in addition to increasing employment also increases manufacturing and commodity purchases which further increases employment and brings some confidence to the entire nation.

Not that this concerns Obama much. He's too busy making friends among his father's countrymen.

BAGEL STORE REVIEW

I have heard it said that in order for an eating establishment to be successful, 2 of three elements must be met. Good Food, Good Price, Good Service. i agree with this and feel that if you hit 2 out of 3, you have a chance to be successful. 3 out of 3 is even better, but less than 2, forget it.

Which brings me to a new feature here at the good Doctor, restaurant ( if they can all be called that) reviews! ( You lucky lucky readers!)

So the establishment is question is the bagel store in Passaic. We have friends there, Lady G, (who has been mentioned before) and her husband, Someone ( more on his name later). Over the years, we try to meet on legal holidays for breakfast. Usually we would meet in Monsey, since that is where the bagel stores were. Recently, one opened in Passaic, and they couldn't really get away for long , so we agreed to meet there.

Now, I have been there before, but fortunately, I have a short memory for unpleasant events, so I didn't remember much about it. This time, however, I think I will remember.

We got on line with one person ahead of us. Keep in mind that it was a holiday weekend, and many people were off. Our friends ordered first. I was next up. Now, I usually go for a breakfast special, since those are relatively difficult to mess up. However, having has experience with these as well, they usually don't have the potatoes, which make the whole deal. Even better is a HOBO, which is less egg, ( 1 vs. 2) less potato, all on a bagel for less money.

So I was prepared to order the HOBO, but alas, it wasn't on the menu. So I was about to order the special when I saw the second guy behind the counter make up 2 breakfast specials, and i realized there were not a lot of potatoes left on the grill. I ordered it, for almost six dollars (much more than the Monsey price) and the man at the counter told me that I was the last one. ( since they were out of potatoes at 10 AM , apparently). Lovey ordered a wrap, that they were at least smart enough to prepare beforehand, so that we took right off the fridge shelf.

Well, I went to get the coffee that comes with it and my friend said I should probably wait, since speed is not a strong point in this place, and I would probably have to wait. I have also heard since from others that if they want to stop for a quick sandwich even in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, this place is NOT the store to go to. So I waited. And waited. And sat down with our friends, who's order was finally ready. And waited some more.

It was during this time that I realized my friend's real name was Someone, as in " Someone was supposed to fix the sink" and "Someone was supposed to deal with the camp."

Finally, I went to the counter and asked what had happened. Did they have to wait for the chicken to lay the egg? Had they sent someone out to hoe some potatoes? Was the grill in fact on?

Better.

I was told that he had told me that there were no more breakfast specials available. To which I replied in the negative, relating our conversation to him. he just lost the order in the 3 feet from the counter to the grill, apparently.

Now since I had to run to a funeral, I told him to forget it, and just refund the money I had paid for it, less the coffee I have finally poured. We worked it all out, and we left.

So here is the review. Its a holiday weekend, with lots of customers coming in, realize this and have more or better help. If you mess up something, at least comp the coffee. This eatery could seriously use some competition to hopefully whip it into shape.

Price, lousy ( higher than Monsey prices)
Service, even worse.
Food, I have no idea, since I didn't get it ( I tasted the wrap, it wasn't bad, though).

I would not recommend this place, unless you have an entire day for breakfast or a sandwich, aren't really hungry, or have something to eat in the car, just in case.

Sap and Fade

The current debate about "climate change" revolves around control of carbon emissions (read fossil fuel particulates) since there really isn't anything else that has been identified as humanly produced causes for the apparent warming of the planet. Climate change as an idea has created a worldwide hysteria far surpassing the hysteria over swine flu. In the american debate, industry and its supporters are claiming carbon control will lead to permanent injury to the industrial foundations of the nation and supporters of carbon control are claiming that lack of control will cause irreparable worldwide disaster.

I recently heard Henry Waxman state that he thinks industry is exaggerating the costs and results of his carbon control bill.On the program I listened to (NPR of course) corresponding claims that environmentalists are exaggerating the results of doing nothing about carbon emissions were completely absent.

I think this point needs to be stressed in the ongoing debate. I think it is no accident that the same forces which proclaim that carbon emissions are warming the planet also claim that these emissions are causing more frequent storms. In fact, it seems that every force of nature that historically has generally been considered to be the exclusive purvue of G-d is now considered to be controllable by human beings. This explains the impetus behind environmentalism. The desire by atheistic individuals to deny the power of G-d in the world translates into a philosophy that puts humans in charge and incidentally gives the movement's leaders the political power which is their ultimate goal.

Wildlife I

To continue the theme of (ones) human interaction with wildlife, I present to you the riveting story of a cat and his domain.


Next door to us lives a cat, a huge heavy lumpy thing which we shall call Lumpy. I have never seen him do much more than lumber about from resting place to resting place. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we were looking out the window at the neighbors, and saw Lumpy in the front yard. When we looked into the back yard, we saw another cat, obviously a stray, which we shall call Grey Stray. ( There seems to be a family of them about recently, and they looooove my garbage cans, but that is for another day.)


Well, we watched Grey slowly make his way towards the front of the house, wondering if this would rouse Lumpy from his usual torpor. his ears pricked up.... then Grey advanced to the side of the car....

OUT CAME THE POPCORN!!!! THIS WAS BETTER THAN A MOVIE!!!!

Lumpy was definitely engaged now, but it was still too much effort to get up completely, Grey continued under the car....

THE PLOT THICKENS!!! MORE POPCORN FOR ALL!!!!

We were a little concerned for Lumpy, that this interloper might cause some damage to him, and i was wondering if the usual feline instincts concerning territory would kick in. We were wondering if we should tell the neighbor sitting on the front stoop ( and not able to see around the house and car) of the impending potential showdown, but felt this would prove that we were snooping on them, so we decided not to, and to let the fur fly on its own.


All of a sudden, Lumpy leaps up! ( after a fashion) and takes off after Grey. I was so amazed I threw the popcorn container into the air. He actually ran towards him under the car.

At this point, the neighbor caught on, and with our hearts in our throats (and popcorn in our hair) we watched the neighbor go after the cat.

Then to our extreme relief, we saw Grey take off back into the yard, with Lumpy hot on his heels. I ran through the dining room onto the deck to follow this riveting National Geographic worthy story, but by the time I got outside, Grey was gone and Lumpy had collapsed into an exhausted, albeit happy, heap in the back yard, secure in his prowess as the king of all he sees.

I went back in to clean up popcorn.

GEESE IV

Well, there I was, once again, on the day of rest for some religions, ( Saturday, for those who might not know.), walking through what I shall from now on refer to as Goose Field. However, this time, I was coming from the other direction, having tried to meet Soupeater somewhere on the road, and having missed him. As I came down the hill, I could see my usual flock ( gaggle?, gang?) of geese ahead of me. They were sort of spread out between the two ball fields.

I was late, and decided to cut the corner, and save the time where it curves around. However, I realized that I would end up walking right through them. Now, as I had a wee bit of liquid courage in me, coupled with the fact that I am a human, and felt that we should be in charge here, I would walk right through them.

So once again, I found myself heading for a showdown with this gang, yo. I put on my best strut and just headed right for them. ( They were NOT in takeoff position, and they were on the wrong end of the runway in any case.) There was a bit of an opening between two factions of the gang, and I felt that I had ample room to go right through the group.

As I got closer to them, my steps began to falter a bit, and I thought about going to the side, since I had visions of having my ankles pecked into bloody messes by these hoodlums. However, I thought " this is ridiculous, there is no reason to be afraid of some geese", even if they move around in a pack, and stare at you balefully.

So I kept going, straight for the opening between the two main sections of geese. As I got closer, a few of them ( I guess the lookouts) pick up their heads, give me a stare, and start to honk a bit.
Not to be deterred, I continued on.

As I passed through the opening, the geese closest to me sort of slunk away, shooting me annoyed glances before looking away, and muttering quietly. If I understood Goose, I would assume they were saying "the nerve of this guy, interrupting my meal of grass and constant bathroom time. Why can't he go around like the rest of the pesky humans?" I then safely emerged on the other side, and continued on my way.


Thankful to have both my ankles and my dignity intact.

Hits and Missives

What is our fascination with Hit Counters? I see that here at Dr G we are approaching the next level in the decimal system, and that brings me a wonderful feeling. So I thought to explore the issue a bit.

To continue what Soupy has recently stated with great erudition, it could be that we feel vindicated knowing that people are interested in what we have to say, and they come back to see what new pearls of wisdom have formed in the oysters of our minds?( darn, that is a good one!)

Or in a slightly different vein, it could be a validation of our selves, and the fact that we are relevant ( to some people at least) and they want to keep up with us due to other social ties.

Maybe it goes back to old rivalries of our youth, and the need to be "better" than someone else for ridiculous reasons. ( "MY bedtime is ten minutes later than yours. so there!" " Oh yeah, well I have THREE baseballs, and you only have TWO!") Especially when there are family members with different blogs, and counters on each, then it goes right into sibling rivalry, which, as many of you know, has been SOOO much fun to follow here.

All these reasons could be why some bloggers feel the need to start their counters at an artificial number, either to justify the time before a counter on the site, or to make them feel EVEN better about themselves. (That being said, there is of course the usual potential for abuse, where a blogger hits his or her own site many many times to get the number up. I don't mean checking it to see that a post looks good, if there are old comments, etc, which can be ten times in a row, or something of that nature, I mean just driving up the numbers. )

Either way, thanks for your continued interest and support.

And keep coming back, we have people we need to pass!!!

Speakin , writin, and ....

Us bloggers write as much in order to get our views publicly aired as we do to satisfy our need to create a work of art - a word painting for lack of a better simile. A real neat turn of phrase, a pleasing juxtaposition of long and short words creating a natural rhythm while artistically expressing a thought or concept or criticism or praise. A poem in prose form. That is the true goal; expressing our opinions in style.

Not wishing to adopt false humility, I can state that I think I have this area covered quite well. However, when it comes to speaking in public, I am envious of just about anyone who gets up behind a lectern or a microphone and lets loose a stream of words no matter how banal or inane. The problem is that when I speak, I sound like the word painting I was just talking about. That doesn't go over well at all. The two disciplines don't mix or even come close to each other.

Yes, a speech needs, first of all, to be written out so that the speaker can practice its delivery or sometimes just thought out and with experience the speaker doesn't need to actually see the words on paper. The content is all important, the style less so. A speech must convey a message in the simplest form and catch the listeners' attention from the first moment. Fancy phrases won't do it unless you are really aiming for your speech to be read and understood only 50 years in the future, and even so, it must be relevant and interesting now.

So how do you deliver a speech that will energize your audience, be reasonably erudite and grammatically correct? I don't know and am hoping for some helpful hints from our readers.

A Fool's Game

Things have heated up again, as they do every time a new US president tries to make his mark on history and sends his envoys to beat someone up in order to force a settlement in the middle east. The truth is that it is an unsolvable problem because each side wants the same unique piece of geography.

I recently read an article which mused that Israel someday will be serious about trading land for peace. It seems to me that Israel has very little land left to trade away, especially for some evanescent "peace" which is sometimes nothing more than a temporary lull in the existential threat. The arabs are like the mafia running a protection racket. When you stop paying, they go back to destroying your store or beating you up or worse.

All of history proves that the arabs will never give up their demands for what they want. To them, Israel is a cancer patient and they are the doctors. They say: cut off this limb and you'll live a little longer, cut out this organ and you'll feel better for a while, but we know, and they do as well, that eventually you'll be so weakened from the amputations and operations that you'll die from the treatment. If you give them a State of Palestine, regardless of their promises and international guarantees, they will use it as a platform to rearm for a while and then once again to attack Israel. They want all of the Mediterranean coast and won't stop till they have it.

This isn't a fictive scenario. Germany did the same thing, under far more restrictive conditions than would be imposed in a mideast two state arrangement, during the interregnum between the two world wars. They rearmed and again tried to expand their borders to what they considered their historical ethnic territory.

And now comes Jimmy Carter, private citizen, the most feckless and incompetent US president in history, with a long record of virulent anti-Israel bias,to further muddy the waters. He has meetings with bloodthirsty terrorists and murderers dressed in western style suits to further the impression they wish to convey that they are civilized humans, to plot against Israel and its allies. The US has suffered for 35 years from this bumbling fool, first as a president who brought our country to the nadir of its popularity and then as the poster child for every crackpot cause that took his fancy and made the US look bad. He can best be described by Harry Truman's phrase: "itinerant saboteur."

I think Carter is the last straw. No one is serious and nothing is going to change. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

More Anonymous

Truth be told, there is some difference of opinion here at Dr.G on anonymous posts. The Grain seems to be swayed toward allowing anonymous posts, mainly for some of the reasons pointed out in some of your comments. The Soup would like to ban all posts from anyone whom we don't either personally recognize or can't get any information on. That's why we have this half baked policy.

This blog was established by Dr.G in order to present clear and reasoned positions on the issues of the day as well as mutual entertainment for the reading public and the writer. I was asked to join the creative staff to lighten the load on Dr.G who is busy composing for other blogs and rants. While this blog was never envisioned as a social networking site on the order of Facebook or linkedin, neither was its purpose as a public convenience, open to opportunistic barbs by unknown ill-wishers who hide behind their anonymity and then disappear.

The advantage to requiring some sort of identity by which a commenter becomes an individual (by using the same name all the time) is to establish a more meaningful and serious dialog among the participants.

We feel that our comment policy is the best way to establish a community that cries together in distress and laughs together in happiness.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ANONYMOUS

Dear Anonymous,

We love to hear from you hear at the good doctor, but the Grain and the Soup have both decided that there shall be no anonymous comments posted, no matter how on point or pithy, since it is TOO easy to hide behind, and people occasionally get a little too carried away when they are hiding behind complete anonymity. This is the posted policy herein, ( please glance to your right and see the first entry there.)

So I implore you, dear readers and commenters, please pick a name, any name, so long as it is not anonymous.

Specifically you, anonymous commenter to materialism, we liked the comment and want to share your pearl of wisdom with the rest of the greunkern community. So just resend it, just pick a name first.

This post really does not need any comments to it, but know just writing this shall cause a flurry of comments, mostly from you ornery people. ( now I REALLY did it!)

Materialism

People are imprisoned by their desires. Life is good, no real problems and then they want, want, want. What is it they need? Something they don't have, and what they do have suddenly becomes worthless, tasteless, giving little or no satisfaction. They yearn for what they don't have especially if others do have it. And when they finally achieve, at what cost, their current goal, it satisfies for a while but the novelty soon wears off and the next object of desire puts them back into the state they were in before their latest, must-have, acquisition. So why go for the first thing? You know the hunger will return and it costs so much to only diminish the feeling for a small while so why bother?

How many things in life have you acquired that still gives you satisfaction today? The things G-d gives you for free; light, air, springtime, summer, fall, winter, children, cherished spouses, parents, children, grandchildren, give you real satisfaction at little material cost.

To quote a noted religious leader, author and lecturer, " The enemy of good is better."

S day

A previous post by Soupy, who has been real quiet lately, mentioned that he runs into family. I had a similar situation that is so momentous to me that I feel I should share it with all of you (you are indeed lucky people today!).

I spoke to all of my siblings yesterday.

Now this may not be a very big event for most people, and certainly not for some, but it really stood out to me.

I am , of course, not counting family get-togethers or occasions, when there is G-d forbid a family emergency, or when I see them and speak to them in person, I am referring to when we are all busy with our lives.

I am not a real phone person, and I don't just pick up the phone to casually shmooze with people. In fact, I speak to a friend of mine, who I consider to be one of my closest friends, about every six months, and it is usually because I need something from him.

So for me to speak to each of my siblings by phone is really something out of the ordinary for me. Granted, if you have been following the last few posts, you will see that there is probably a good reason for it, in that I seem to be a lightning rod for any and all comments and opinions, usually unsolicited, often pointed. However, they are family and still must be tolerated, since you can't choose them, as the saying goes. (In truth, my friends are no better, but I don't have that many anyhow, and as I said, I rarely speak to them, so they are manageable.)

Maybe I am mellowing at my advanced age, and appreciating them more. Maybe I have found a new talkativeness and feelings of closeness with loved ones, or maybe I enjoy their collective sage advice and opinions.

I'm not sure, but I AM sure THEY will let me know why.

Just Setting the Clock

My Grandfather was an interesting man. Not wishing to eulogize him here, which would not have been his wish, ( and would be almost 19 years too late) I just want to explore one facet of his psyche,

Clocks.

with apologies to anyone who knew him better, these are my recollections.
This was a man who was punctual to a fault and appreciated clocks. His house was LOADED with them, and they all were set to the correct time.

In fact, it was well known that daylight savings time, and the switch back, were momentous occasions in the house, as each clock was reset to the correct time. I remember sitting in the kitchen in Paramus and thinking that I never had to turn my head to see what time it was.

To a degree, I have a similar attachment to time keeping devices. I love clocks. I think there were 17 of them in my first one bedroom apartment, and I have always attempted to relive the experience of never having to turn my head in ANY room to see what time it is. At home we also have projection clocks that shine the time on the ceiling at night. Currently, we have about 25 clocks in the house. ( I counted them last night, a lot fewer than I thought, much to my chagrin. I shall try to gt more, if I can sneak them past Lovey.)

However, I am remiss, ( and I guess the blood has thinned somewhat) in keeping all of my devices set to the same time, or sometimes set at all. I have endured ribbing from Lovey and others that all of the clocks in the house show a different time ( including, incredibly, the atomic clock, until I figured how to set the DST button, so it stopped going back an hour every time I reset it). I also am not so diligent about keeping up with the daylight savings time switches, and sometimes a clock will go ( gasp!) a day or two before I get around to changing it. However, others in the family have kept up the tradition. Let me explain.

I have one cousin who has three oven clocks, and they were ( at the time I was there, might still be) set to all change at THE EXACT SAME SECOND. Now that is dedication, but all this is a prelude to my real reason for this post.

I went to the Yankee game a couple of days ago with one of my favorite cousins. One who was very close to my grandfather and this clock thing must have rubbed off in a big way. We were going home from the game when he looked at the clock on my radio and saw it was off. Now I bought this car second hand, and there was no manual for the car, much less the after market radio. I was off by an hour ten at first,which went down to ten minutes with the DST switch, then I had some battery issues, and each time the battery died, it reset. When I finally changed the battery, it was EXACTLY 47 minutes fast, so I would just do the math.

This would not fly for my dear smiling cousin, so he started trying different combinations to get it to work, finally took off the detachable face, and pulled the model number. (Tinkering to get things to work better was another habit of my Grandfather, and that has been transferred to many members of my family.)

I wasn't home ten minutes when he e-mailed me both the manual and the specific section that covered the clock. ( He also absorbed a tremendous ability to take care of things IMMEDIATELY, which is something I admire, am envious of, and should aspire to).

Well, I got in the car the next day, and promptly SET THE CLOCK. It was at that point that I had this tremendous feeling of elation that I FINALLY had a clock that was correct! I was thrilled, I called my cousin to thank him, not realizing how good it felt to actually be able to look at a clock and have the correct time without doing any math, especially for the timing of the traffic updates, which rule my life twice a day.

I guess there is more of Opa in me than I realized.

If you cut me, I will bleed ( maybe)

This public castigation and critiquing ( see comments to GEESE III) has to be addressed. I can be silent no longer.

Why is it that everyone feels my business is theirs? I have somehow muddled my way through 42 years of life, granted, with alwaysolderthanyou in the picture the entire time, but without the help of FBB for the first 8 years, and I would like to think that I am doing a somewhat decent job of existing.

Now, if the definition of existing means spending $14.00 for a slice of chocolate cake, of course called something like Piéce Magnifique de Chocolat to justify the price, then I will have to beg to differ.

I am a simple man, with simple tastes. Now don't get me wrong, I will enjoy an occasional expensive meal, look forward to it, in fact. I feel what you pay for is the ambiance, the change, of location, and superior food served to you by surly people. However, when it is done, I don't feel that I need to go that extra distance to complete the effect and have the dessert in the same place as well. I like donuts, I like coffee, I like a good deal. Hence, a donut/coffee shop for dessert, in another location, which extends the night out, as well as the dollar, seems like a logical choice, irrespective of the name of the store.

I truly do not know how I managed to survive the first 8 years of life without good advice foisted upon me.

Now moving on to more unsolicited advice. As I have been forced to state, and shall reiterate herein again upon being attacked for my prose, (although I appreciate the over 600 visits thus far, and realize that a word printed and not read may not have been heard in the forest, ( to mix a metaphor)),

this is MY blog.

I will respect all comments and opinions, but it is still my call whether to accept them. For those of you who may or may not have blogs of your own, feel free to use any stylistic devices you wish. I will take any comment under advisement, and proceed accordingly. It is not sibling rivalry, it is free speech and choice.

Nevertheless, I will knock down the fourth wall and allow a peek at the thought process behind the decision to use English. When this blog explodes on the national stage, and the hits come in fast and furious, I do not wish to alienate anyone ( who I haven't already alienated by snarky responses) who is not familiar with certain sectors of the population. Therefore, I keep the language generic.


And Hamayvin Yovin

GEESE III

The geese are back with a vengeance. As you may recall, I occasionally have to go through a field on foot to get somewhere. Well, I was on my way there again this Saturday when I decided that as I was trying to catch up to Lovey and the girls, and I was going a different route, I would cut right across the first field, instead of using the winding path. (Note: even though I was going to the shul on the other side of town, I had not eaten or drank anything beforehand, so the CANNOT be blamed on any outside influence).


So I hit the field and I was going towards the far end when I noticed that the geese were back. But then I noticed something different about them. They weren't in the usual skulking about looking surly mode. Nope, something was definitely up with them. They were sort of lined up in a row, about 20 across, just looking at me, and not moving.


I just continued walking across this very large field, feeling like I was participating in the shootout scene at the OK Corral. The geese were puttin' up a racket, honkin' and hollerin' about, but I just kept saunterin' towards them, one foot in front of the other.


Well, all of a sudden, when I was about 200 feet away, the honking reached a crescendo, and then they started to move.


Towards me.



Fast.


And I realized that I was standing, all alone, right smack in the middle of the goose airport runway, and they were taking off in formation.


Now, if you have ever seen geese take off in unison, it is a sight to behold, they start running and honking and flapping, and slowly get airborne. Right at me. Then over me. It was both thrilling and a bit Hitchcockian.


Well, after they cleared the trees at then far end of the field, I continued on my way, passing the five remaining geese who, I guess were the ground crew, or on lunch, or something.


They, at least, were skulking about.

Piff to You

I have been getting snide remarks from others that I have not posted in a while. The truth is most of what is in me has to be distilled down for the masses, so as not to cause damage. ( To who, i will not say) .

Now I have looked about at other blogs, and there have been gaps of, would you believe, 2 WEEKS where there were no posts, even though it is posted to by a couple of people who seem to have plenty to say! From the 7th of the month, to the 21st. And THAT blog did not have one of its contributors on vacation.

So now we have a similar scenario here, where this blog has been resting our fingers a bit before we ramp up for the summer surge of blogs. ( As well as tooling around the yard). The last post here was the 7th. This one is the 21st. So i just duplicated the other slothly blog and kept the same gap, without going one shorter, and grandstanding, or one longer, and letting them come back with " Oh, yeah, well OUR graphics are better than yours, and we have shorter gaps, so there!"

So enjoy another post about posts, the old standby when the other thoughts are still percolating about in my head, and today, being baked in the sun as I enjoy the top down.

Gotta go ride.

Random Thoughts While Whiling Away the Time at an Airport

I usually travel to Virginia and the Carolinas in the springtime. Their's is more advanced than ours by May with most of the fruit trees having blossomed before I got there. The strawberries are ripe and delicious, sweet as the sweetest candy, while ours aren't even thinking of coming up yet. Maybe it's my imagination, but the quality of the morning light on the deeply green trees is somehow different from other places. I have taken many pictures over the years to capture the mood but they don't do justice to the reality.

Driving around in this area of woods and shacks, I am struck by the prominence and seeming importance religion plays in the area. Churches abound here and they don't come small. Sure there are your little roadside clapboard one room churches, but many are huge, with high capacity parking lots and much activity even during weekdays. There are billboards proclaiming the need to repent and pray. I even saw one sign which read, simply, "HOLINESS!" Not sure what that was supposed to mean but it certainly has somethiing to do with religious observance. The radio stations, those that aren't public radio and that don't play rock and roll, offer up a steady diet of sermons, scripture readings, and gospel songs as well as interviews with repentant sinners who offer advice on how to keep your marriage afloat and stay out of debt. Some of it is really quite interesting, especially the scripture readings. Some of the programs contain some pretty anti-jewish bias but that comes with the territory.

Speaking of religion, apparently, a very popular radio personality catholic priest was photographed on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, bare chested, embracing a woman in a bathing suit, and the picture was published in a spanish language tabloid. This caused his boss to remove him from his post for a violation of his vow of celibacy. I don't know. They finally get a priest with normal proclivities and they punish him for it.

Georgia is known to be the second largest chicken producer in the US, after Iowa. On entering Gainesville, GA, a large water or oil tank on the side of the road proclaims "Gainesville, the poultry capital of the world." As I came into Gainsville the other day, I was behind a flat -bed truck carrying live chickens in coops. I subsequently passed another such truck on the highway (the coops on this one were empty) and counted the coops. There were about 600 of them stacked eight high in four ranks and about 18 rows all on one truck and the one with live chickens had a lot more than one chicken in each coop. They were just hunkered down in the coops, looking balefully at the traffic behind them. At least these could see the road. The ones inside probably couldn't see anythiing.
Naturally, driving 802 miles in four days ( a little less than on some trips) I have to listen to the radio, and when I have enough of the preachers, I listen to, you guessed it, NPR. NPR seems to have a bit of a truth hangup when it comes to the Mexican flu. They keep insisting that both scientists and themselves are baffled by the fact that no one seems to die from this disease anywhere but in Mexico and they offer up some really strange reasons for the phenomena, that it's been around Mexico for a long time and therefore is very potent, etc. It seems to me that any child could tell them that the state of hygiene and medical care in Mexico is not a standard a country should aspire to and in a filthy crowded and congested place like that it's a wonder there haven't been more deaths. It's that political agenda again.

The longest lines in the United States are to be found in the post offices. As you enter a post office, there is a line at the stamp vending machine. Proceding further into the manned (or womaned as the case may be) section, you will see a bar usually shaped like the letter L where people can place the item(s) they are mailing. Rarely are there fewer than 15 people waiting along this bar and just as rarely is there more than one person handling the customers. There are plenty of other people behind the counters walking back and forth and pointedly ignoring the line of patient potential mailers. I think the line of customers scares them and that's why they retreat behind the wall as soon as the crowd builds up. If they would fire these people, who don't do anything anyway, they wouldn't have to raise the postage every two years.

Someone should throw a pair of shoes at the chief of the postal service.

I Remember When...

Talk about the generation gap. I feel like Arnold Fine today. Here's what happened.
I was talking to Boo about when Lovey and I were kids, so I threw out during the conversation that the person we were talking about should have just used her cell phone. Now to Boo, this made perfect sense in her 11 year old mind, as she has no concept of a cell phone free world. So I told her the person could not have used a cell phone, because no one had them.
Incredulous look.

Well, since Boo thinks I'm kidding her all the time, she didn't really believe me. I told her, and Big Sis, who had joined the conversation at this point, that when I was a kid, no one had a cell phone, and when I was a teenager I know a person who had a car phone. Even then, I had to stress A person, as in only one. Boo then asked me how people communicated. I told her pay phones, but when I started working I had a beeper.
Absolute.
Blank.
Stare.
This one, she couldn't even COMPREHEND, never having seen or heard of the technological advance of its time. So I explained that you called a number, and left a number, then the person would get to a phone and call. She still didn't truly grasp the concept until I told her that newer advanced models had answering services send text messages. THIS she was able to understand.
Its incredible how what was a great advance in our day is considered an obsolete relic by the current generation. I finally can imagine the wonders that the generation before me experienced with even more amazing advances, and I have a new found respect for older people who adapt and utilize the new technologies.
But I still feel old.