So the chemical weapons from Syria are going to be destroyed. And guess where? Oh just 20 miles away from me, in Port Arthur, Texas. Yes, I know all about the NIMBY stuff, but still. Can’t they find a better place to destroy them? Like on Mars or somewhere. Or maybe North Korea?
The environmentalists won’t be happy. And frankly, I can’t blame ’em.
Perhaps I have been a bit inattentive lately. I swear I have an excuse. But you know what they say about excuses — Yes, everyone’s an ass****. Well, maybe not.
My right knee has, quite frankly, hurt like a sonofabitch for the last month. It still does but I’m hopefully getting a little closer to the reason why. I went to a non-VA doctor and he says it looks as it I have a torn cartilage. Probably a meniscus tear would be my guess. I am awaiting an appointment for a MRI that may tell me what’s up. In the meantime, the orthopedist told me no standing for more than two hours a day. I might have to get him to add no sitting for more than two hours. It feels okay when the knee is bent. It is standing up that is tricky.
Just putting my two scents in on that Beatles tribute on CBS earlier in the week. Sunday maybe? Whenever.
Someone once told me there are two kinds of people in the world. There are Beatles people and there are Stones people. Well, I’m a Stones people, uh, person. I saw them in concert 30 years ago at the Superdome and figured it amazing they were still getting around very well back then. And now. Damn, Mick must be 100 years old. Keith Richards looks 200 at least. But their music is still … great.
I like the Beatles too. Some of their music I liked more than others. Wasn’t much of a Sgt. Pepper’s fan. Abbey Road is my favorite Beatles album and one of my favorite all-time works. The White Album comes second. George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” is one of my favored songs from that album. It was played powerfully during the Beatles 50-year tribute by guitarists/vocalists Gary Clark Jr., Joe Walsh and drummer Dave Grohl. Clark is an Austin bluesman, whom sadly, I had not heard of but perhaps heard. Walsh, from James Gang and later Eagles guitarist and presidential candidate rounded out a great leading trio on the Harrison song with Grohl, of the Foo Fighters, drumming his heart out.
Not so much did I care for the covers by Maroon 5, although I like some of Adam Levine and the band’s songs, mostly “Harder to Breathe.” Katie Perry, Grammy queen, was seemingly panned by most writers I have seen after the tribute concert for her take on “Yesterday.” But then what do writers know anyway?
The two surviving Beatles? They still rock. I wonder though, what they might look like if they looked their age? Ringo? Half-bald and a pot belly? Paul, like he did singing on the Rooftop Concert. Even 80-year-old Yoko Ono was dancing during the tribute and … I wonder what John was thinking, way back when?
For your reading pleasure I will not be the Monday afternoon quarterback after the latest version of the “Big Game.” Blowouts do not make for good games when you aren’t really wild about either team. I liked certain individual players, Peyton for one. There are several local guys, Earl Thomas and Red Bryant, come to mind, who played for the Seahawks. Seattle came, and must have brought actual fans rather than corporate types, they saw and they conquered.
I am extremely happy Peyton Manning had the remarkable season that he did. Especially coming off four cervical spine surgeries. I didn’t think he could do it. And I really didn’t think he should have even played. I have had two neck surgeries. The first was when I was about Peyton’s age and the second one, where they cut a piece of my hip and fused it with a titanium strip with screws, when I was 45. I recovered okay from the first one but it wasn’t a long time that I had additional C-spine problems that are virtually inoperable unless I have some serious bodily or life-threatening conditions. The difference is that I have never been close to being in similar physical condition as Peyton. Hell, he was in better condition when he was under anesthesia and on the operating table for five hours than I have ever been. I probably could have beat him in a 40 had I been 27 and he still under on the operating table, but even that is questionable.
Maybe Peyton gave me hope that others don’t have to go through the pain and other bullshit that I do with chronic pain from degenerative arthritis. One must remember though, Peyton has those Manning genes. All three boys were exceptional athletes, even though all three didn’t have the best necks. Peyton and Eli’s brother Cooper Manning had to give up football prior to starting at Old Miss. He had spinal stenosis, which I had prior to my 2001 surgery, though his was more severe so that had he been hit he might end up paralyzed. These Manning boys remind me of the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito characters in the movie “Twins” in which the unlikely pair were part of an experiment to build the better human being. Kind of like Frankenstien, except more handsome and more engaging with uncanny athletic abilities, the young Manning boys.
The Super Bowl commercials also pretty much sucked this year. I did think a few were good. Audi’s “Doberhuahua” hit it out of the park, I think. I also thought the Volkswagen German engineers sprouting wings when their cars reached 100,000 miles was pretty funny, especially upon the young girl’s suggestion that at 200,000 they also shoot rainbows out their butts.
A few highs and a few lows this Super Bowl XLVIII, but mostly lows.
Gov. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., went before cameras and reporters this afternoon to take the blame for the massive traffic chaos in the Atlanta area that ensued during this week’s winter storm. The more than 2.5 inches of ice that became an urban glacier left motorists stranded, shoppers sleeping in supermarkets and kids spending the night in their schools.
All of the mess that caused a backlash against government officials leads one to ask this question:
Does anyone in Atlanta watch the weather?
Besides the capable TV meteorologists at local stations there is the great Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it being one of the last Cox newspapers — Cox being a company from which I am retired — still standing. And does anyone watch The Weather Channel? It’s based in Atlanta, for heaven’s sake! I mean, I think TWC is a shell of itself these days. I believe its idea of naming winter storms is ridiculous. I guess the channel got some traction with “Super Storm Sandy” but I doubt many people in the areas hardest hit by the baddest snow and ice storms could tell you the “name” of that storm.
Yes, I am sure some of the blame should go to city and state agencies for a lack of preparation. I wouldn’t blame the National Weather Service at all even though I am sure some blame gets stirred up toward them by those who seek to privatize the weather service. Hell, I went through this same winter storm, which hit with a little of the ice that goes a long way, in Beaumont, Texas. And while I’m not the biggest fan of our city government, I do have to praise them for taking steps that I’m sure looked overreaching to some. The city of Beaumont was fortunate to learn from its mistakes, as it has been pretty good at doing at least in the last 8.5 years I’ve lived here. Plus, I lived here in 1997 as well, when a gosh-awful ice storm paralyzed the city for almost a week.
A winter storm hit here last week that was worse that this week’s. The storm resulted in almost 140 traffic accidents in Beaumont and Jefferson County, including one fatality just down the road from where I live. This week’s storm tallied slightly more than two dozen wrecks with no fatalities in the city and county.
I doubt many who will read this would have as an abiding interest as I do in weather. Yes, I am a weather freak. No doubt about it. It, as “they” say is a force of nature. In the old days I would watch “Cowboy John” write the temperatures and cold fronts with a grease pencil on a glass board. Now I can get radar 24/7, on my phone. I can also read the story behind the weather that NWS folks publish on the internet. I may not have a lot of information on things I should have these days, but by God, I know what’s happening with the weather!
Atlanta and Georgia folks, the weather is out there. You need to take a couple of minutes to find out what’s happening with it just as you’d read or watch some report about stock prices, basketball or Justin Bieber.
Never among life’s surprises did I ever expect to see marijuana legalized. I think I said that maybe three years ago. Well, it still is not legalized in the United States, at least within federal statutes. But many states are beginning to either decriminalize the drug or send it to a brave new world of legalization. Come Wednesday, pot becomes legal in Colorado.
Legalized weed does not mean that one may do what they please for a Rocky Mountain high. For instance, smoking pot in public is supposedly against the law. And though driving under the influence will be enforced, it will likely take a great deal of profiling — a smoke-clouded car with the driver and passenger eating an entire fried chicken for instance — to make any substantial impact on this type of DUI.
Make no mistake about it, the same wolf cries that have been heard for all our lifetimes will likely be howling louder. But meanwhile a greater body of study has emerged over the past century or so during which marijuana has been vilified by both the misinformed and the powerful.
Practically any argument about pot will likely bounce head-to-head among those who have a vested interest in a flourishing marijuana industry against those who seek the weed’s destruction.
Mass media already provides a wink and a nod for some celebrities who smoke weed almost openly. My hero, Willie Nelson, for example. Although I love his work on its merit, not because he smokes pot. I would be willing to guess that in 40 or more years dabbling in drug may have actually helped his creativity by smoking reefer than say getting s**t-faced on Wild Turkey.
You hear about so many athletes getting busted for pot, mainly because that’s what they do, just as the jocks did 10, 20 and 40 years ago. Some have even claimed that marijuana can help athletic ability. I don’t see how, though I’m no athlete. I would be interested in studies on marijuana and its effect on adrenal in. Many a stressful incident resulting in disaster are blamed on weed intoxication. But how many of those situations found people in the situations merely with pot ingredients in their system, and in which they seemed like a logical scapegoat?
There continues to be studies as to the medicinal effect pot has on a variety of illnesses. I can say with confidence, that if marijuana was legal I would use it for the chronic pain now treated with the powerful and powerfully-addicting methadone. I would find one of the sugar-free cookies or cake as a delivery system because, as an ex-smoker, I prefer not to smoking anything. There are various methods being developed which will use the drug’s properties for various maladies while not having the buzz that goes with it. That is well and good, but it’s kind of like drinking a Shirley Temple or near beer.
One thing for certain is we will read and hear more about marijuana than in history. I would say that people should use their own smarts to have an informed opinion. Unfortunately, I see too many people who like their news to fit their point of view. With that in mind, I have no guess as to whether the new reality of marijuana is here to stay, or it will be a flash in the pan.
I am sure for many of the Coloradans will for now abide by that sentiment from the band, Traffic, from some 40 years, that one should just “Light up and leave me alone.”
