Weasel ripped my soul


Gee Dubya announced today he has a plan for victory that will ensure the Crawford Pirates will win their Division II state quarterfinal game against Celina on Friday. Bush vowed to bring in the Delta Force if necessary.

I remember having a very pleasant interview with the man who would become the 43rd president of the United States. GW was campaigning for his daddy’s losing race against Bill Clinton. Dubya looked me in the eye, gave me a pleasant grin and shook my hand before telling me how the elementary school class his twin daughters were in had a straw vote and elected George H.W. as president. Cute story. Just me and George. No Karen Hughes up his butt like later when he was governor. None of the snarkiness that overcame him as governor. None of the arrogance nor the idiocy he sometimes displays these days when he opens his mouth. Either Dubya was a fraud then or somebody hijacked Dubya’s soul. Maybe a little of both.

His speech today at the Naval Academy just appears to be more of the Iraq war snake oil he and his merry band of misfits have been peddling since long before the “shock and awe” days. Stay the course. Let’s go out in a blaze of glory. Damn.

It would have been nice to recount my days as a newspaper reporter (I am now a freelance writer and write for no one in particular for those of you cruising by) of having covered GW as citizen, governor and president were George W. a great man and great citizen, governor and president. I don’t know how he is as a citizen. He wasn’t a bad governor. But God almighty, I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone who sucked as president worse than Richard Nixon. Until now.

What is really bad/sad/smell like shad/ is that I can think of no one in the official chain I would want to replace him. Cheney? He’s worse than Bush, Nixon and Clinton combined. Hastert? I’d rather my neighborhood crazy lady — who said this morning on my daily walk that she’d throw a brick at me — be president. Frist? DeLay? I’d prefer my two paroled child molester neighbors over those two crooks as president. (Hey, my neighborhood is really pretty good all-in-all, with a few exceptions.)

I really wish I could be like Rip Van Winkle and go to sleep and when I wake up, Bush and all the rest of the vermin would be gone from office. But I’m afraid that if I went to sleep for too long I would wake up and nothing would be left standing. Nothing worthwhile at least. Man oh man George W. you let me down. Not as president because by that time I knew you weren’t worth a whole hell of a lot. But as a human being. If I’m cynical, and I am, you helped sealed the deal Lucille. You seemed like a stand-up guy back in ’92. And now you’re just another weasel politician. What a waste dude.

TSA to give flying a familiar edge


It seems that the TSA is set to allow certain sharp objects to once again be taken aboard commercial airplanes. Apparently TSA officials feel the time of its limited number of screeners would be better spent searching grandmothers for suicide bombs rather than scissors.


Passengers will also be allowed to carry certain tools with them when boarding. It is still unclear whether tools such as mill bastards, flat bastards or garden variety bastards will be permitted on board. Until the TSA has all its files in order perhaps it would be wise to leave your bastards at home.

Practicing medicine without a timepiece


I will be operating under an assumption today. Please scrub in.
I spent five hours waiting to see a doctor at the VA today. When the doctor saw me, he spent about five minutes with me, wrote me a prescription and ordered an MRI. Medicine is so anticlimactic.

Those who have used the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system for any length of time come to expect long waits. I don’t know what takes so damn long, but that is just the way it is. The VA is a model for socialized medicine. And a very bad one at that.

But it isn’t just the VA that makes you wait for a doctor. I don’t think I’ve ever been seen what I would call “quickly” by a physician. If I was paranoid I would think that maybe doctors wait to see if you will die so they can say: “Hey, you’re not dead yet. I’m a hell of a medical practitioner am I not?”

I have seen and been seen by doctors from the time I was first whacked on the butt 50 years ago. And I don’t see that doctors have gotten any faster at seeing patients. Maybe they’re even a little slower. But I don’t look for any big changes anytime soon.

But here is a little capitalistic experiment to chew over. I’m not saying it would be good. It might be downright ghastly and dangerous. What if doctors had money subtracted from their fees if they did not see you in a timely manner? This happens in construction projects, such as in building big buildings or highways. The contractor is given incentives for getting the job done quicker. They have money subtracted from their contract if they don’t meet certain deadlines. I actually think such a model or something similar is being done by some hospital emergency rooms. I just think it is an interesting concept. I don’t know how much I would be willing to pay extra to be seen more rapidly. And frankly, I don’t know if medicine in a hurry is any better than medicine where time stands still.

list, list, list, list, list, list. sleep. list, list, list, list …


Not once but twice this morning I awoke after having dreamed about lists. I was going down these lists and performing tasks related to them. Just what exactly the tasks were I cannot remember. It was a very tedious exercise both times. Dreaming in tedium is, well, rather tedious. Jeez, I really hate working in my dreams. Sometimes I think I may be the hardest working man in Dreamland.