Talk about baggage

Obama looks like he's getting ready to board JetBlue! There's the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, then there's his longstanding friendship with 70's Weatherman terrorist and radical Bill Ayers, we have Obama's recent elitist comments at that SanFran get-together, and then there's his book in which he rather casually talks about his little bit of casual pot and coke use in his youth when times were rough ("a little pot, a little blow but no smack").

a little Samsonite action

...toothbrush (check), clean underwear (check), socks (check)...

"Sir, can I help you with that?"

Robowhat?

Yup, the young people be experimenting with the cough medicines. New term for Webster, robotripping as in taking well beyond the recommended dosage of such cough medicines as Robitussin, say 20, 30 or even 50 liquid gels. Read an article about this the other day, more and more young people are doing this to get high, to go on a trip, but then their blood pressure skyrockets, they're totally out of it and usually some nurse or doctor then calls the bewildered parents who had no idea. The age is getting stranger by the day, used to be the biggie was pot. I never got the whole trip thing, I mean whatever personal problem you're tripping from is going to be right back there foursquare and center when you get back. Must be bored, they're not out playing baseball and fishing anymore, that's too Fred MacMurrayish I guess. So watch out for all those robotrippers out there, the newest and youngest members of our zombie-fied culture.

Our zombie-fied nation

or why do people walk in the road? Regretfully might be a new feature of this blog.

This has been a phenomenon for years now and I don't mean simply crossing the street or even jaywalking but literally people, usually they're not alone but in groups of at least two, who walk down the road at a leisurely pace. This cuts across all racial and age groups, maybe in some cases of the young it can mean a statement of defiance, dunno, but none of them even look around them. You have to ever so slowly pass them and hope a toot or two won't anger them. My .02 worth, most of 'em are on drugs, could be the illegal variety, could be over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Saw a commercial the other day for some wonder drug and the woman goes nonchalantly "I take five different medications already." Oh, OK. The way I was brought up was roads are exclusively for motor vehicles, maybe a bike or two can get into the act but that's it, "cross at the green, not in-between", but when you have people in LA-LA Land, well, it's kinda like being in some horror movie, Zoloft Nation or something.

Book reviewers

I've long held that since we're all human it is virtually impossible to be 100% objective at all times and this came to mind after reading two very divergent reviews of the new book out by Melody Peterson sarcastically entitled Our Daily Meds. OK, so her whole premise is the pharmaceutical industry is greedy and gets dubious drugs to market before proper and thorough studies are done and once on the market lobbyists for these corporations strongly ply doctors to dispense them more and more and yada yada yada and do we really have chemical imbalances in our brains and what about all these potentially serious side effects to the most popular drugs and...well you get the picture, hers is not an uncommon position on the drug industry. Now the first review I read was very positive and called it important work but the second one was just the opposite and pretty much dubbed her part of the anti-medical progress crowd which brings home the point our biases are brought to bear on everything, ditto for movie reviews of films dealing with controversial topics, think Michael Moore. The point of today's blog is not my own personal position on the meds situation though I do tilt towards her position that we are a vastly overmedicated society but how we review and critique things we may strongly disagree with (or even agree with for that matter) which kinda got me thinking are book and movie reviews worth reading and considering in the first place? In an artistic sense isn't a review of anything literary or cinematic that may be loaded with social and political themes simply a reflection of ourselves and our own moral certitudes and pieties?

You really look like you could use a glass of water

The Associated Press just concluded a 5 month investigation into our water supply, turns out there are trace amounts of various pharmaceuticals in many major American cities, things like mood stabilizers, medicine for whooping cough, high blood pressure, you name it. Guy on the Newshour last night said not to worry, only traces but then a few minutes later says even those traces can have an effect on your body, also water filtration plants don't even test for pharmaceuticals. Eh, small price to pay for our overmedicated society. Tom Cruise, we'll give you this one.

Daylight Savings Time & a new feature

They should leave the clocks alone at this point and let Nature take its course, not sure of the official reasons why this practice is still followed, had to do with the farmers years ago and maybe schoolkids getting hit in the dark so dawn "starts" earlier in late Fall but anyway we all set our clocks ahead by one hour last Sunday morning (2 AM to be exact) and the next day I felt like there were a pair of invisible hands pushing on my shoulders, "come on you slowpoke!", after such an enjoyable day (the weather was fabulous) you can't help looking at the clock and when it says 5 you go it should really be 4. Let President McCain or HillObama work with the new Congress to get rid of this anachronism, it upsets our sleep patterns and biorhythms, whew!!! into the dustbin of History.

Guru Watch

He even looks a little like Dr. Wayne Dyer so I had to do a double take but caught Dr. Daniel Amen's show on some PBS station the other night. Now these gurus all begin good and rational and that's how they suck you in, just look at the sheeple in their audiences with their mouths agape in Awe, but then they say something that you really have to question and one of Dr. Amen's points about brain health, the subject of his lecture, is this, that if you don't get a minimum of 6 hours sleep every night you will suffer from chronic stress. Now not to downplay the importance of a good night's sleep not to mention its pleasures but there were many times I went to work the next day with 4 or 5 hours sleep and functioned fine, it's not ideal and you're likely to feel somewhat tired during the second half of the day but imo his position seems rather radical, many of us don't get the mandated 8 hours of sleep a night for various reasons and yet we live our lives. One wonders where the very lucrative pharmaceutical industry ties into all of this, is there some Lunesta connection but keep your eye on the gurus folks, a new feature here (woo hoo!).

Some thoughts on the Sean Bell case

I've given the background to this tragic case many times in my blogging and it's easy enough to google. I was never into the whole bachelor party scene but that's just me. Re strip joints there are upscale ones and seedy ones, I'm not advertising for them but you do have men who go to these places not to relax and have a good time, they get some watered-down whiskey under their belts and before you know it there's a stabbing on the sidewalk. Happened once outside a place in Yonkers here and another incident in a "gentlemen's club" in Mt. Vernon once. Now the one Sean Bell and his friends went to on that fateful night was known for rampant drugs, guns and prostitution and the four officers in Queens who are about to go on trial for taking Mr. Bell's life were there because of the type of place it was. Moral of the story and as insensitive as this may sound Sean Bell was not in a good place, wrong place at the wrong time, and I'm sure the young woman whom he was going to marry that day knows this in her heart of hearts. I'm also more than a little tired of all the cop-bashing out there and personally have grown more pro-cop over the years, I most often give them the benefit of the doubt in these complicated cases. We'll see what happens but this case bothered me from Day One.

Seems we're living in the Golden Age of Psychos

Well not a few months don't go by before there's another one, this time at some college in Illinois, seems some erstwhile bright and normal student hid behind a curtain onstage during a geology lecture and shot and killed five students and injured several others before taking his own life. Now whenever this happens you will duly note how the meds are to blame or, more specifically the fact that the person stopped taking his meds. Well if a pill is the only thing holding this person's life together then God help us all, he ain't living right. Vast majority of people who are mentally ill are not dangerous or violent although they can be annoying at times point being if you have a strong moral code and compass to begin with you can go bonkers but only up to a point. You may walk into a road and babble to everyone, tell everyone at work that they're conspiring to get rid of you but there are limits to your madness, the Good Lord gave you free will, if you're against killing to begin with maybe they'll just put you away in a nice home overlooking a lake somewhere for a time. Our friend Britney may do all kinds of whacked out things but she hasn't pulled a Columbine or VA Tech yet, my guess is her moral code is still there although frayed around the edges. Now I'm not against medical progress by any stretch but methinks they're pushing pills on society. You don't have to agree with me though, that's a'ight.

Why libertarianism has never really taken off

You'd think such a political philosophy would be the order of the day, people like Ron Paul should be elected President in a heartbeat, I mean what is more important and American and critical to a democracy and people's pursuit of happiness than unfettered liberty? then again we have

the drug situation,

and not just the ordinary drugs that used to make for movies like French Connection grown from poppy fields in Afghanistan but things made up by weird and evil scientists, mad eggheads who can't just go off in the woods and beat off around a log fire while drinking Coronas after a bad day of fishing like most normal American men...sci-fi writer Aldous Huxley sang their praises, the father of LSD and then there's also

unfettered abortion

late-term fetuses (proper usage now) in garbage bins & a kid's right (in libertarian views) to access porn in public libraries. Libertarianism will always be a minority and eccentric political movement, people want some protection from the Ravages of Life even if it means government has to step in every once in a while.

.....ooops, just a little more,

Saw a commercial for Efflexor last night, if your other antidepressants aren't really helping you there's this but potential side effects MAY include an increased risk for suicide especially in children and young adults (kids are depressed again because why?) and so help me out here, you're depressed and this pill MAY make you kill yourself, I'm not getting this one but look on the bright side, you won't be depessed any longer (but other people will because of what you did and then they'll take Efflexor)...reminds me a little of bequeathing,

Truthfully, only Rudy Hillary and Barack are the only real interesting candidates here. Watching the Sunday morning shows, now I know politics is a dry subject but these shows are so BORING, z-man just wants to go back to mast...masturblogging. I mean even before he was a serious candidate John McCain must have on these shows at least a thousand times, Tim Russert always looks like he has the trots and the men's room is ocupado.....prison boredom.

I'm not a big fan of talking and eating at the same time, for me it's an effort, you go visit people, it's a birthday party and everyone's chowing down talking a mile a minute about whatever, they're not bad people but can we have some rules here? Z-man, being the contemplative type, wants to stay home next time, watch the car chase in Bullitt one more time, really study it.

The bee-itch

You may have heard, a woman on one of John McCain's campaign stops asked him "so how do we beat this bitch?" to which he replied "that's an excellent question." Usual denunciations, now if you make the case the sitatution was highly inappropriate, well ok, I won't argue with you there, just seems to me in a more humorous, less pc age it would all have been so hilariously funny. McCain's from the olde school, for cryin' out loud the guy was a POW for 5 years, can't have a little fun?

Ever walk out of the store at the mall and forget where the hell you parked? So you're walking with your bag and you don't want to look like an idiot, all the silver Honda Civics begin to look alike - "Mommy, who's that man who can't find his car? Is he on drugs?" - and you begin to think your car was stolen until you finally find it and vow it will never happen again but it does.....

If Hillary wins it all you can thank Ken Starr

Had he done a better job with Whitewater and how Hillary made 200G on cattle futures instead of issuing a report on Blowjob-gate I don't even think she'd be pursuing the Grand Prize right now and yet conservatives still refuse to admit this, that it was wrong to impeach Bill Clinton for lying in a sexual harassment case when they haven't been big fans of sexual harassment law all along ever since the days of Anita Hill (neither have I but z is a very consistent writer). Travelgate, Filegate, Chinagate, any other 'gate would have done fine except for Sexgate. Makes you wonder a little about Ken Starr, was he really on their team all along? Memo to conservatives, if you haven't noticed the mores of this country have changed drastically over even the last decade. Going after a sitting president solely on a sex charge (sorry Sean, I know, lying about sex) elicits more sympathy from the voting public these days than it would have in the past. There is a reason why the GOP keeps staying the Stupid Party.

The Sean Bell shooting case should come to trial soon. He was the 23-year old black man who was shot to death on Nov. 25, 2006 by cops in Queens NY after a bachelor party at the seedy Kalua strip bar, a gun, drug and prostitute-infested joint. He was to be married that same day. Two of his friends who were also in the car with him that morning were shot but survived and two of the four officers who fired some of the 50 bullets were indicted by a grand jury. I submit this - you're minding your own business and walking down the street, you're not breaking any laws, your chances of being shot and killed by a cop are infinitesmal at best, there's a better chance of Yoko Ono putting out a good album. There's also the ambience of crime in poor black urban areas to consider and cops are on edge, an angle the black activists never focus on. NYPD guidelines say a police officer cannot fire his weapon at a moving vehicle even if it is being used as a deadly weapon. The same guidelines don't say what a cop can do to save his life in such a situation. Careerwise I would not like to be a cop, a pimp gets more respect.

Broward County ME Joshua Perper's Sylvia Browne moment

Though she died of a drug cocktail of no less than nine (!) different prescription drugs including chloral hydrate and methadone the coroner assures us that foul play was not involved in the tragic Anna Nicole Smith case, not only that it wasn't even suicide which end a reasonable person might draw. Seminole tribal Police Chief Charlie Tiger seconds the motion and says no cause for concern here (would twenty prescription drugs in a person's system be the barest minimum for concern?). In the wake of the controversial Schiavo case it is now the politically correct thing to do to go out of our way not to demonize people even if this means we should ask far more questions than we do or even that justice has to take a back seat to sensitivities. To this day we don't really know with any metaphysical certitude what caused Terri to collapse on that fateful morning of Feb. 25, 1990 and likewise we cannot state with any metaphysical certitude, as Broward County ME Joshua Perper has done, that Anna Nicole's death at such a young age was purely an accident. Is our legal and justice system no longer intellectually curious anymore? Is enabling a person's drug dependency no longer a crime? Is it just easier these days to let the dead rest with their secrets? WHY must I rely on sources like the National Enquirer for really vital new information in the case?

What of Howard K. Stern?

Be careful what you wish for

or the perils of a sex-obsessed society

Bob, the partly balding mid 40-something accountant in all those Levitra and Cialis ads, the kind you don't want to imagine having a ball-slapping good time with anyone, can't salute the missus anymore but he finally has the Magic Bullet.

Bob: "Honey, it's been about 3 hours and 20 minutes and it hasn't gone down yet. Should I call the doctor?"
Missus: "Just wait a little while. Wait about 20 minutes. The threshold of the warning hasn't been reached yet and in the meantime try to concentrate on something else like world famine or Rosie O'Donnell masturbating."

(Later at the doctor's office)
Doc: "I really don't know what to tell you. I haven't been trained in this. Maybe I should just break the damn thing."

(audience - arrrrgggghhhhh)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.People who masturbate your mind

Left-wing Hollywood

America is primarily a Christian nation but I've been wondering of late do Americans hate their own religion? I'm thinking they made The DaVinci Code #1 at the box office and now the DVD is at the top of the charts too. The most common refrain of defenders of the book and movie to critics is "you moron, it's only fiction!" but this is disingenuous. It's like that movie starring Tim Robbins, Jacob's Ladder, his Jacob Singer character is a Vietnam vet and he's having all these weird hallucinations and he later finds out it was all a government plot to conduct mind-altering experiments on American soldiers and there is even the obligatory scene where the G-men pull him into a black limo and say don't pursue this or else. It's a great movie as a work of fiction but you're left wondering did they really do this, why make a movie out of it all, and I think this impression is intentional on director Adrian Lyne's part, he who directed Fatal Attraction. Also, the fact that it stars uber-lefty Tim Robbins. The normally very conservative Danny Aiello must have really needed the work. Point being DaVinci Code and Jacob's Ladder are not just fiction, there is a message behind them, like somebody planting the seed you never suspected your spouse before but now you're like thinking about it, these are message movies to question your own faith and government so it would be refreshing if the creators of such works were at least honest about it all. People who masturbate your mind

The Sean Bell case

Let's also say the Rev. Al Sharpton is also not part of the solution. Last Saturday night cops opened fire on a car outside the drug, gun and prostitution-infested strip club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens killing a young black man of 23, Sean Bell who was to be married that very day to 22 year old Nicole Paultre. All in all 50 shots were fired and two other male passengers in the car were injured. Bell's fiancee says they "murdered him" which seems to be the standard line in the African-American community these days whenever cops shoot and kill a young black adult. Bell was unarmed but an undercover detective says he was trying to run him over with his Nissan Altima. It all began when cops observed a man leaving the skeezy dive with a gun and another guy saying "let me get my gun." Now I never knew this before but apparently the NYPD has a departmental "rule" that a police officer cannot open fire at a moving vehicle even if he feels that vehicle is being used as a deadly weapon against him, there have to be passengers with guns inside first. What else can the NYPD not do when their lives are directly threatened?

Now is it within the realm of possibility that there was one psycho cop that night or even a cadre of them? Sure, most everything is within the realm of possibility but not everything is probable, a club of psycho shields is possible but it is definitely there on the outer fringes, more likely the undercover officer's line of events is closer to the truth but here you have the usual suspects, racial arsonist Al Sharpton indicting the cops once again even before any kind of preliminary investigation is underway and NYC Councilman Charles Barron practically calling for a race war and that RINO Mayor of Gotham there, Mike Bloomberg, cozying up to both of them. Now a pertinent question might be what was a young groom to be spending the last night of his single life at such a crime-infested bar in the first place and why was he allegedly trying to run over a cop? He and his two male cohorts all had some type of criminal records involving guns and robbery and such and yet the liberal media always show that picture of him with his fiancee and their young child. Are most cops really this evil?

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is a disappointment but he was chosen because he can be counted on to be politically correct all the way in such tragic circumstances but that's what you get when you have a RINO as mayor. I don't think the problem is so much about racist cops as it is about young men in the black community who choose time and again to not obey the law and when this is the way you decide to live you put yourself and others at risk but you'll never hear Sharpton and Barron say this. They say what's up with the cops these days and I say what's up with the crime?People who masturbate your mind