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2010, FEBRUARY |
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February 28 These are good times for sex. Ask South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford, who admitted flying off in the state’s jet for a tryst with his mistress, but gets to keep his job. Ask Larry Craig, who was arrested for soliciting a cop in a Minnesota john. Ask John Edwards—the “family values” candidate; or Mark Foley and his underage boys; or Eliot Spitzer; or Newt Gingrich, who was carrying on with his own mistress while leading the investigation of Clinton’s pecadillos and is now again considered a leader of the Republican Party. Sexual misconduct happens outside of politics, too, but (except when it’s Tiger Woods) it seems bigger when our leaders do it and it seems worse when they are caught in their own hypocrisy. It’s no coincidence that so many politicians are sexual plunderers. I suspect the lust for power is a major reason why people run for public office, and people who lust don’t necessarily restrict their interests to one area. Which is why I recommend gelding all present and aspiring public officials. I don’t really care who’s doing whom, but if castration could reduce the lust for power, it would definitely improve the quality of our elected officials. If all prospective politicians were required to surrender their balls when registering as a candidate for office, it might result in fewer public servants whose chief interest is not in serving the public. At worst, it would give us a great majority of female representatives, which is likely to be a good thing. As a rule, women don’t vote for wars. As a rule.
February 24 I recently received, unasked, a magazine called Keck Medicine, which is a semi-annual publication extolling the wonders of the USC Keck School of Medicine. It contained a brief note lauding the success of the heart transplant program, which I quote in part:
Heart transplant program boasts top survival rates in nation. A recent national report has shown that the USC Heart Transplant Program at USC University Hospital has a statistically higher three-year survival rate than the national average. …For the second year in a row, USC achieved a statistically higher survival rating—one of only three centers…to do so for the year. …”Any program can have a good year, or even a bad year, once in a while. But year over year? That speaks to the fact that we are doing a lot of things right.”
Did you think I could just let that go? Of course not.
Dear Ms. Reeve: As someone who graduated in the top third of the lower half of my class, I was very interested in your artfully and carefully worded article about the success of the USC Heart Transplant Program. I was a bit surprised to discover that the “top survival rates in nation” of the headline translates to “statistically [i.e., marginally] above the national average.” And that two years in a row constitutes “year over year” [technically, or statistically, I suppose it does], although I’m not sure that two above average years necessarily signifies “consistency of quality care.” Statistically, that is. Still, it’s certainly better than nothing. Better than average, even. Keep up the not-too-bad work. C+.
February 20 Another decade started when I wasn’t looking. I’m running a little late here, but there seems to be some rule to the effect that before you can begin a new decade you have to look back and remember where you came from. I’m still chuckling about the big foofaraw over Y2K, which was supposed to wipe out all electronic data, like your bank account. Ten years later we know that people can screw things up even better than a computer collapse. This time last decade, Clinton was being impeached and Al Gore was slim. He hadn’t even invented the internet yet, let alone global warming. Remember when all you could do with your phone was phone? And you couldn’t even take it out of the house—or out of the kitchen, for that matter—because it was tethered to the wall with a cord? Now my little grandnephew wants to know if they really used to have those tall boxes on every street corner just so Superman could change his clothes. I still don’t have call waiting or caller ID or call transfer, but I had to beg Verizon to not give them to me. Remember when your TV only got a half-dozen channels? Remember when you had to get up to change the channel? Remember when you could turn out the light in the bedroom and it got dark? Now we have so many gadgets with glowing LED’s that it might as well be daylight. The TV receiver box, DVD player, antenna booster, modem, and clock all have their own little lights or numbers. The surge protector has six. My clock’s readout (remember when a clock had a face, not a readout?) is so bright I had to tape a piece of exposed film (remember film?) over it so I could sleep without a pillow over my head. I started Brain Static in October of 2007, as I’m sure you recall. One of my first posts was a comment about the Fish & Game Department’s poisoning Lake Davis (again) to save the trout by eradicating the predacious Northern Pike. Since we’re reminiscing, it seemed like about time to review the results, so I checked in with Fish & Game, and also asked the guy who writes the fishing report. Neither one answered, which makes me suspicious, but I gather from their website that the brown bullhead, which comprised over 80% of the kill-off, survived. Trout were completely wiped out, but that was expected (“we had to destroy the trout to save them”) and restocking began two months later. The Northern Pike, which had survived a previous attempt at piscicide two years earlier, has not been seen but even the F&G people don’t really believe it’s gone: they have signs all around the lake asking fishermen to report any sightings. Or catchings, which would of course be accidental: it’s illegal to catch them, or to possess even a dead one. You’re supposed to kill it and throw it back in the water. Anyway, nobody will give me an official follow-up on the Great Fish Fry, so I guess we will have to wait until they announce they are doing it again. For the record, I did subsequently get a reply from a DFG Senior Environmental Scientist, who says they have not captured any Northern Pike in Lake Davis or other waters in the county.
February 15 Some movie director got kicked off a plane because they said he was too fat, touching off a big kerfuffle the media are framing as "when is somebody too fat to fit in an airplane seat?" Wrong question. The debate should be: when is an airline seat too narrow to fit a human butt?
February 14: Yet more headscratchers. Speaking of having an electrician working out of a gas station, which we were a few days ago, I saw an ad the other day: “Call Powell Electric; we’ll fix it in a flash!” Thanks anyway, but that’s not quite what I had in mind. Neatest trick of the week: a local theater is showing a 3-D double feature—Toy Story and Toy Story 2. “PLUS a Special Live Appearance by your favorite Toy Story characters!!” “Are you there, Gepetto? It’s me, Buzz!” The storefront window advertises “airbrush tanning.” Is this a bizarre concept, or is it just me? My neighbor went all out with the Christmas decorations this year. But I think he went a little overboard, so to speak, with the giant inflatable ark filled with two giraffes, two elephants, and a big “Peace on Earth” banner. I suppose Noah was in the Bible, but that seems a pretty tenuous connection to Christmas. At The Gorbals restaurant in downtown L.A., you can get matzo balls wrapped in bacon.
February 11 High blood pressure can be caused by a lot of things, like kidney disease. But when it happens with no obvious underlying cause, a condition known—in a delicious twist of the language—as “essential hypertension,” doctors can’t treat a cause, so they have to treat the numbers on the blood pressure machine. It’s important to treat hypertension, since it can cause a lot of things, like kidney disease. Doctors are more aggressive about treating it these days. The theory is that if your pressure is in the high normal range when you are sitting in an easy chair, when somebody cuts you off on the freeway it will go a lot higher and could blow the lid off of something important, like you. My pressure has been trending up, and though it is still technically “normal” (i.e. below the somewhat arbitrary numbers set up in the same secret institute where they decide how much you should weigh) at rest, unfortunately “rest” is a condition that never obtains in the doctor’s office where the wrong numbers are going to change your life forever. It got me thinking: what if my body is smarter than my doctor? Consider the circulatory system as a closed system, a set of pipes with a fixed volume of fluid in them—at least in the time frame that concerns us. The difference between this internal plumbing and the pipes in your house is that arteries can adjust the flow by changing size. It’s a pretty efficient mechanism, with a built-in set of priorities designed to maintain flow to the brain and heart first and other vital organs next, if necessary at the expense of the extremities. It's why your mom wouldn’t let you go in the water after you eat: the vessels in your stomach dilate and those in your arms and legs constrict to direct the blood along the path of least resistance to your gut so it can digest lunch. Now if you jump in the ocean and start thrashing about, you increase the demand in your extremities without increasing the supply and you get a cramp. If the same thing happens in your heart, we call it a heart attack. So what if some vital organ is not getting enough oxygen? The vessels in your arms clamp down, increase the pressure and direct the blood where it’s needed. And where do they measure your blood pressure? Right. What if high blood pressure isn’t the problem, but the solution?
February 8 Times are tough. In order to make their rent, the gas station on the corner has sublet a piece of their building to a separate business. The new sign reads “M.E.C. Electric.” I suppose it’s possible to come up with a worse idea than having a gas station and an electrician sharing quarters, but it would take some creative thinking. I’m just glad I live a half mile away, in case there’s a spark….
February 4 So, what exactly do they do in sex addiction rehab clinics? A few possibilities come to mind, but I don’t like to think about it for very long.
February 1 I didn’t watch the Grammies last night, but from what I saw as I was flipping by the channel, “watch” seems to be the operative word. Today’s music is apparently a totally visual spectacle, with little or nothing to do with listening. They say that decrying the current state of pop music is yet another sign of old age (yeah, like I needed yet another sign), especially when accompanied by a comparison to music “when I was your age.” So I present this with no editorial comment. The number one song for the year just past was “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black Eyed Peas. In prose, it goes like this:
Gotta get, get, gotta get, get, gotta get-get, gotta g-g-get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, gotta get, get, boom, boom, boom, gotta get, get, boom, boom, boom, gotta get, get, boom, boom, boom, gotta get, get. Yo, I got that hit that beat the block. You can get that bass overload. I got that rock and roll, that future flow, that digital spit, next level visual hit. I got that boom, boom, boom how the beat bang, boom, boom, boom. I like that boom, boom, pow, them chickens jackin’ my style, they try copy my swagger. I’m on that next, sit now.
There’s more, much more, but it’s all pretty much like that. In the interests of full disclosure, or equal opportunity, or whatever, the number 1 hit from thirty years ago was “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel:
When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes I will dry them all. I'm on your side when times get rough and friends just can't be found. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. When you're down and out, when you're on the street, when evening falls so hard I will comfort you. I'll take your part when darkness comes and pain is all around. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Sail on, silver girl, sail on by. Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way. See how they shine. If you need a friend I'm sailing right behind. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind.
A: I'm dying to hear how "Bang Bang Bang" [from the '70s] is different from "Boom Boom Pow." Can you cover that in your next post? [It goes, in part]: Bang-bang, bang-bang Bang-bang, bang-bang Bang-bang, bang-bang I hit the ground I hit the ground I shook, I shook, the ground I shook, the ground I hit the ground I hit the ground A bang, bang.
M: For a minute there I was afraid you were referring to the current, Group X version by the same name: I just want bang, bang, bang! I dont want relationship! I just want bang, bang, bang! I dont want to know your name. I just want bang, bang, bang! I dont want to meet you mom. I just want bang, bang, bang! Beish, you drive me insane when you give me that bang, bang, bang! It is more intelligible than any of the other songs noted here. More's the pity.
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect--well, yes, come to think of it, I guess they do. all materials on this site ©michael grossman. all rights reserved. |
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