If you are what you eat, then here is a picture of my brother-in-law.
He probably has a cholesterol problem. So, let’s keep this “sweets thing” to once a week, shall we?
We want you around for a loooooong time.
Mwa.
~Blogger
I go to a wonderful acupuncturist. She knows that I don’t necessarily believe in the power of my “chi” and that I am a western-centric client. But, I am open to ways to feel better and balance my body. That’s why my acupuncturist is terrific. She doesn’t try to change me. She works with me as I am. And I have mellowed over time. I now take vitamins, fish oils, have healthy foods in my office, etc.
When I leave my office for these appointments, I tell my assistant, “I am going to get pricked like a pin-cushion.” I keep my blackberry out during the sessions — a negotiated concession from my acupuncturist — and, in response to a flurry of anxious emails, I emailed to my colleague, “do you need me to pull out the needles and run back to the office?” I was perfectly willing to do so because I am a professional first and a pin-cushion second. And I knew my phrasing would make my colleague queasy and weak-in-the-knees (for which I get a slightly perverse kick). This colleague asked me once if I believed in the good effects of acupuncture and I responded, “Nah, but it can’t hurt — too much.”
I have gotten to know my acupuncturist some, and so I need to know about her life and if she is happy. So, I have to ask, “so, are you seeing anyone?” Her response: “I still haven’t found the right person.” The use of “person” means (i) she is being politically correct/sensitive to my being gay or (ii) she is intentionally obfuscating whether she is looking for a man or a woman. But, the vibe is definitely hetero. Still, I ask, “man or woman or gender irrelevant?” because I might know someone for a shitach (a match) and I want to get the gender right. And my gaydar has been wrong in the past.
And, once, years ago, I was talking to a “straight,” ultra-religious woman who started a conversation about finding a husband (for her). In the midst of the conversation, she said to me, “how hetero-centrist of you to think that I am only interested in men!” “But you are interested in men,” I said as I was thinking something is off because she knew I was gay. “To marry, yes,” she responded.
After about a two-second pause, I realized the implications of the statement and that it was time for me to run, run like the wind. And I did. All the way home to my beloved. I am my beloved’s and she is mine. There are no ooky parentheticals or provisos to that statement.
What did this last story have to do with my acupuncturist? Nothing, really. But where I end up is rarely related to where I started, at least when I am not being a lawyer.
Someone very dear to me mentioned that something was glaringly missing on my blog — my views of gay marriage and my response to all the current strides and defeats. My response was that I couldn’t be funny or amusing about something that core to me. But, I guess I need to vent. So here goes.
I have had the many privileges of being raised white and upper middle class in this country. Even in my lifetime being Jewish was only an issue at “elite” social levels (and I didn’t like those people anyway).
But I am gay and I have less civil rights than others because of it. If I didn’t live in New York City, being gay could be dangerous. We are well-educated, well-to-do and resourceful so we have created a legal web of “equivalents” so that the inability to marry does not affect our day-to-day lives. Still, it does make me feel like a stranger in my own land.
Those against gay marriage hide behind the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the social fabric arguments.
First, if marriage were so sacred, the self-proclaimed family values politicians wouldn’t be crashing and burning in adultery and gay sex scandals every month or so. Frankly, heterosexuals are destroying the sanctity of marriage. Gays in long-term committed relationships would probably lower the divorce rates.
But all this obscures a central truth: Marriage is not a religious law. Civil law decides the rights of married people in the course of the marriage and its dissolution by divorce or death. Therefore, all married people have civil unions. Some of these are “consecrated” in religious ritual and clergy have the power to officiate pursuant to civil law. Sometimes, a couple gets married in a judge’s chambers. Sometimes, you read about a non-clergy, non-civil servant getting authorization to marry a couple.
Why is this important? Because clergy are not necessary to create a “marriage” under civil law. So, let’s fix the nomenclature and call everything a civil union — whether it is a heterosexual or gay couple. Let religions call their rituals “marriage”.
The social fabric argument really riles me: my life with my partner and our son is destroying the social fabric of our country. We pay more in taxes in any year than the average American family earns in a lifetime, we give to charity, we support universal health care, we help the elderly and the needy and we host all family holidays — civil and religious. Nevertheless, the fact of our lives is why Bubba and Jolene — who live in a rented trailer in some trailer park in Mississippi, who don’t have health care, whose children work at WalMart, run a meth lab or fight on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan — can’t get ahead. It isn’t because we have a broken public education system, non-existent health care, faltering manufacturing industries and young men and women who come back from (at least one unnecessary) war broken inside and out. Clearly, Bubba and Jolene and their children won’t have a future if the states recognize our lives as a family.
Ok, I vented.
There is a reason why No-Where-istan is struggling. Look at our minister of senior activities. This is what happens when your country has NO health care for the elderly. They sit in subway stations with a keyboard and moving dolls dressed in Santa outfits.
In one city, Costco takes tomatoes off its shelves because Sarah Palin is scheduled to appear. I am sure that Costco wanted to protect the tomatoes from an ignoble end.
In Copenhagen, 193 nations are trying to agree on something — anything. When was the last time you got consensus in a family of three members?
Did you know that the food industry is responsible for 1/3 of all of the world’s carbon emissions? Give up grapes in winter and the save the world.
We are trying to agree with China on important things — North Korea, carbon emissions, sanctions for Iran. How about we start with something small, like, “it’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”
Now, no one likes the health care reform bill. The Congress behaved so badly, but of course it is Obama’s fault.
A Republican senator wanted to run out the clock on health care by requiring the reading of a laborious and largely symbolic amendment to the health care legislation. Debate, I get. Screaming and yelling, sure. Stonewalling? Outrageous. That senator ought to be in the penalty box for the rest of his term.
I can drive my Hummer, but Obama, Obama, needs to save us from Waterworld (I really can’t handle that horrible 1980s/90s movie turning out to be prophetic).
If Obama doesn’t fix health care, lower carbon emissions, balance the budget, reduce the deficit and increase jobs, ALL IN ONE YEAR, he will have failed. If I remember my anniversary, I am golden for 12 months. Wow, his job really sucks.
Being a pundit or a talking head must be great. Sanctimony with no responsibility.
That is the buzz word that Republicans are using to describe the Democrats’ attempting to reform health care in this country.
Arrogant is how the Republicans have behaved. “No” is not a reform plan. What is arrogant (and unconscionable) is that Republicans dare to use the word “arrogant” when referring to the Democrats.
The Democrats are struggling to reform a broken system and keep costs down (or at least tax those who can best afford it). The Republicans (save two senators and one representative) have done nothing.
Mitch McConnell, you should be ashamed.
The GOP can just buy popcorn, sit back and reeeeeelax. The Democrats are snatching defeat out of the mouth of victory.
We have Democrats who won’t let the health bill out of committee for a debate. Not a vote. A debate. Joe Lieberman, Mr. GOP in an IND’s clothes is also squelching debate. And to think he was almost a DEMOCRATIC Vice President.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH DEBATE?? Yes, if it goes to debate and most people vote on party lines, it will pass, so those opposed definitely want to kill it in committee where it takes a super-majority to open debate (a little ODD if you ask me) but that is the risk with democratically elected representatives.
Also, will the Democrats PUH-LEEEEEEZE stop spending TARP money. Everyone wants to claim a couple billion here and there to fund projects.
Before we spend more, let’s see if it is necessary. In the meantime, reduce our daily interest costs by paying down the deficit. Do you like paying half a billion a day to service our enormous debt?If my father thought that I ever carried a balance on my credit cards, he would wonder if he raised me right. (For a year or so in law school, I did.)
All this does is make it impossible for our President to succeed. And, if he fails, America fails. We cannot stand still and survive as a prosperous nation and a superpower.
(As much as I disagreed with George Bush, I always hoped he was right because he was (at least once) the democratically elected President of the United States.)
http://www.whorunsgov.com/Projects/Reform_Tracker/Bluedogs
Some Blue Dog Democrats are undecided about any or all of the following options: public option, cooperatives, free market, individual mandatory coverage.
It is no longer ok for you all to stay undecided. You need to take a stand, one way or another, on each of these options. If you take a principled stand, you will be respected even if people disagree.
But if you wait to see which way the winds of public opinion blow, you might experience a blow-out in the next election cycle.
Times a’wastin’.
Mr. President, I am sweating. I am sweating the outcome of the healthcare reform votes. I am sweating the outcome of financial system reform. I am sweating the recession. I am sweating Iranian nuclear proliferation. I am sweating global warming. I am sweating more troops in Afghanistan, which just seems to be a quagmire. In short, everything on the micro-level of my life seems still as precarious as it was when you were elected.
We elected you in part for your No Drama Obama comportment and you words of empowerment and calm assurance. But now I want to see you sweat, too, Mr. President, in a take charge way. Twist some arms to get the reform you promised. Support the process of stripping health care insurers of the anti-trust immunity if they are bad players.
LBJ was not Mr. Nice Guy when it came to getting Medicare passed. And generations of Americans are in his debt.
Mr. President, be principled, be honorable and please be ready to rumble in order to get things done.
Last night, Jon Stewart skewered CNN on its coverage of the health care debate. I love Jon Stewart because he points to the idiocy of the 24 hour news cycle and the schnews (schmooze plus news) or newsertainment that passes for pertinent information about our cities, our country and the world.
All the networks do is talk about finding out information, but they don’t really. They ask us what we think and then read from the Twitter responses. Fact-checking Saturday Night Live skits and not fact-checking what the politicians are saying is sheer idiocy. Spending more time on whether SNL is a bellwhether for Obama than the issues is a disservice to viewers.
Other than Jon Stewart and Bloomberg News, I don’t know where else on TV to get pertinent information. If I want comfort TV, I watch Rachel Maddow, because I agree with her views. But for cold, hard, factual news . . . Comedy Central? What an irony.