A Thanksgiving Reflection

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. Not because I consider the literal meaning of the annual holiday and it’s historical context, but because it’s the only time of the year that both sides of our clans come together to share good food and conversation. Our collective families are spread out like the station markers on a wrinkled Amtrak schedule. From Ann Arbor, Michigan to the north, to Winchester, Indiana in the south; we are a close family that is spread out over two states. Unfortunately, this extended distance makes it difficult to coordinate a get-together that doesn’t involve the despair of a funeral, or the chaotic splendor of a wedding.

That’s why I like Thanksgiving.

There is no schedule, and no pretense other than to come to our house to eat, drink, and have a good time. Dinner is at one p.m. The kids go first through the buffet line, and if everyone else is being ultra polite, I make no qualms about following right behind them with plate and napkin in hand. After all, this is one of the few days of the year you can indulge your self-gluttony and not feel guilty about being unable to snap that top button on your pants. If you’re late, your only sin is not getting that first slice of Aunt Ann’s delicious pecan pie (because I have beaten you to it).

The family conversation is normally lighthearted; unless we get on the subject of politics or religion. For the hearing impaired, they can tell when the subject turns to right versus left because my mother-in-law and step-father usually get up and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen. This holiday
we had six Democrats, four Republicans, and two independents sitting around our dining room table. We kept it civil for the most part. However, I did sense a muted enthusiasm for the subject amongst my fellow Democrats this year.

Another thing I like about Thanksgiving is talking about those family members who have left us behind and now dwell in either heaven (for the Catholics and Protestants) or the great unknown (for the agnostics and atheists). I love hearing my aunt’s stories about my deceased father’s adventures as a wayward kid, and my wife’s ninety year-old grandmother reminisce about life during World War II and the 1950’s. If the kids are behaving and not pestering us for seconds and thirds from the desert buffet, I always learn a new tidbit or two about our collective family history, something that perhaps some day I’ll be able to pass down to my kids and grandchildren.

At the end of the day, after everyone has left and I’ve helped my wife straighten up the dining room and kitchen, that’s when it really hits me why I love Thanksgiving.

Our kids are healthy, happy, and thriving in school. We’ve survived a year of work-related challenges, no health insurance, and a great deal of uncertainty about our future. Our beloved cat, Sophia, scratched her way back from death’s door, and is back to her usual, aloof self. We’ve made it through ten months of the year without losing a loved one, and we have a large family that loves us unconditionally.

We have a lot to be thankful for.

Into the Fire

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own. ~Logan Pearsall Smith, "Age and Death," Afterthoughts, 1931

Memory is a funny, sometimes maddening thing. Given ample amounts of time, I have a tendency to look back on bygone events from my school years and exorcize all of the negatives (like believing that I won my first fistfight in the fourth grade but forgetting the black eye that appeared on my face the next day). Much like a revisionist historical text on the Pilgrims or Spanish Conquistadors, its much easier to forget the negatives and accentuate the imagined good.

Now, thirty years after my graduation from a small high school in the Midwest, my memory has grown still fuzzier on those details, and with each passing year I find myself selectively recalling only the good times, while with the precision of a surgeon’s knife, cutting away at the heartache, humiliation, and insecurity that accompanied me through the doors of the school every single day.

That is, until my first born son, Ethan, left the relatively easy charity of elementary and middle school, and entered into the abyss commonly known as “high school.”

Gone forever are the days when homework consisted of a spelling review and math worksheets, a mere thirty minutes of additional work before he could play with his friends in the backyard or sit mindlessly in front of the television set or computer. Ethan’s once simple life has now been replaced by weeknights consumed by history project deadlines and endless chapters of American classics. Much to my delight, he has embraced this challenge with his usual laid-back, dutiful recognition that good grades in high school begets a college education and the possibility of achieving the “American Dream.”

But what escaped me until now (that damn memory thing again) was the difficult tribulation of assimilating in a closed, semi-adolescent society of your peers. Everything is magnified in the high school arena of academics, athletics and extra curricular activities. The pressure to succeed is enormous, and while my focus has been on stewarding Ethan through homework and sports, I completely overlooked the internal pressures he is reeling from while trying to fit in and define himself as a person.

Recently, a déjà vu moment woke me up to this egregious oversight. Ethan had a rather one-sided argument with a longtime friend (via texting and online gaming, of course) that turned rather ugly when the young man accused him of always siding with another friend whenever they had a disagreement. Unlike his father, Ethan tends to be the living, breathing equivalent of Switzerland when it comes to an argument, but in this instance he was very distraught that one his best friends could accuse him of disloyalty.

“I’m just sick of it, dad,” he said, as he sat at the computer and pulled up his Facebook page. “I’m tired of getting stuck in the middle whenever my friends have a disagreement. I don’t even want to hang out with some of them anymore!”

Later, after he cooled down (his friend texted him, apologized for his outburst, and Ethan graciously accepted his apology), we talked about the ramifications of possibly shutting the door on his friendship with the boy. In a stunning, heartfelt admission, Ethan told me how painful it had become to watch as his friends, many of whom had been his baseball teammates for years, broke off into smaller groups or cliques, and how difficult it was to be stuck in the middle trying to please everyone. Trying to fit in and trying to be a good friend was tearing him apart.

Looking into his soft brown eyes I could see the innocence was slipping away, and it broke my heart.

Friendships that were so easy on the ball diamond and the long, careless days of summer, had suddenly become as fragile as egg shells under the glaring lights of the school’s unofficial system of self-segregation. I had tried to prepare him for this day. Small, fractured statements, sometimes delivered with caustic sarcasm and at other times, gently; always trying to accentuate the positives without sugar-coating the reality that who we are today is not the same person we will be next week, next month, or next year. People change and you have to accept the disheartening reality that some friendships won’t last forever.

I think he’ll be okay. He’s a good kid, and a respectful, trusted friend to his peers. He has a strong sense of who he is and where he wants to go in life. I just wish there was some way to douse the emotional fires of high school life and let him know that in time everything will be alright.

Planting a Garden in the Burbs

When you live in a state where the vast majority of fertile black soil is cultivated for crops, it's relatively easy to take agriculture for granted. Even as local family farms have been driven to the brink of extinction by large corporate operations like Cargill and subdivisions which are rapidly creeping outward from the city limits, you can't take a drive in the country without seeing thousands of acres of corn and soybeans. Unfortunately, much of what is grown in Elkhart County is now being used as cattle feed to support our insatiable appetite for meat and the bio-fuel industry. Other than our local farmer's markets in Goshen and Elkhart, where our considerable Amish population are the primary suppliers of fresh fruits and vegetables, most of what we consume is grown out of state and is purchased at our local Meijer store.

Earlier this week, after spending several hours working in the yard and planting a few blueberry and blackberry bushes, I paused for a moment beneath the shade of a large oak tree and stared at a sunny patch of earth in our backyard. With the current oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and our sour local economy, I have been thinking a lot about about what our family could do on a limited basis to help sustain the environment. I don't know if it was the heat or the dark black soil that stained my hands, but the twenty by ten foot stretch of grass (and a few dandelions) suddenly looked like the perfect place to plant a garden. After mulling it over for a few minutes and then discussing it with my wife and children, we decided to collectively take the plunge and try our luck as suburban farmers.

The positives appear to far outweigh the negatives. As a child I can still vividly recall the joys of eating green beans and tomatoes picked fresh from my mother's garden. Unless my memory is playing sentimental tricks in my head, there is nothing that tastes better than something you have grown and nurtured with your own two hands. Other than possibly upsetting our new next door neighbors, who have a lush yard and expensive landscaping that looks like something you might see in a copy of Better Homes and Gardens, we all agree that the "family garden" will be a good opportunity to spend some much-needed time together and discover if we have green thumbs or minds addled senseless by imagination.

After digging through our shed and garage for almost an hour, we came to the conclusion that we have all of the tools we will need to use for this modest endeavor. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. In an effort to keep it simple and affordable, we are going to dig up the yard by hand this weekend (using a diabolical-looking garden cultivator, spades and hoes) and then plant tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cucumbers, and perhaps a few canteloupes. Nothing too ambitious- just a few of the basics for a good salad or a homemade batch of spaghetti sause. While this certainly wouldn't have kept the Pilgrims alive for more than a week or two during their first harsh winter in New England, it should be an interesting experiment in home-grown, sustainable vegetable gardening.

As long as we don't accidently dig up our deceased pet rabbit, guinea pig, or one of the half a dozen or so goldfish that now claim our backyard as their eternal resting place, I think we are in for an interesting summer.

Another Disaster for the Gulf Coast

How many more ecological disasters is it going to take until America wakes up? Today, after a third leak was discovered at the Deep Waters Horizon rig that exploded and sank fifty miles off the Louisiana coast on April 20, 2010, some officials are now estimating that 210,000 gallons of oil are leaking from the site every day. While this accelerated pollution of the gulf waters takes place, British Petroleum (BP), which reported 4.4 billion dollars in gross profits during the fourth quarter of 2009, is finally admitting that they don't have a clue on how to handle the disaster.

BP's Chief Operating Officer, Doug Suttles, announced today that "we'll take help from anyone" in an effort to stop the leak and clean up the oil spill, which is rapidly advancing towards the Louisiana coast. How can a company that makes every penny of their profits from drilling for oil not know how to cap the leaking oil at its source? Even worse, how can the most profitable industry on the planet not have contingency plans for disasters?

The only logical answer is greed on the part of big business and our own stupefying indifference to the consequences. From the oil companies and their shareholders reaping record profits, right-wing pundits like Sara Palin and her obscene "drill baby, drill" motto, our elected officials like President Obama (who recently announced his intentions to allow oil drilling off the east coast of the United States), and our own selfish gluttony to consume and ignore alternative energy resources, we are killing ourselves.

While the fall-out from this disaster will be witnessed in the months and years to come in terms of government and business declarations to "protect the environment" and the reality of dead wildlife and contaminated coastal wetlands, we continue to deny the absolute fact that some day the last drop of oil will be pumped out of the earth, and all we will have to show for our ravenous consumption is dead oceans, rampant air pollution and poisoned drinking water.

It's been twenty-one years since the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, and we haven't learned a damned thing.

Remembering Sally Conrad

Earlier this week I received tragic news that a long time friend, Sally Conrad, had succumbed to cancer in Pennsylvania. Through Facebook messages and some conversations with her sister, Peggy, I knew the cancer was aggressive and had been discovered in its final stages, but her sudden demise still left me with an empty, gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. After over ten years of being apart, it saddened me deeply to know that our phone conversation several months earlier would never be replayed. Sitting alone at home in front of my computer, I found it hard to believe that her battle with cancer had claimed her life so quickly.

When someone dies suddenly and in a far away place, it gives you pause to reconcile and relive, if only for a brief moment, the breadth of your friendship. Sally had come in to my life when I was a junior in high school. She drove a school bus then, and part of her routine was ferrying our speech team to various competitions on the weekends. From the first cold morning that I stepped in to the warmth of her bus, I found Sally to be anything but your typical bus driver. For starters, she smiled, laughed and talked to the kids- something that was totally foreign to most of us. The bus drivers of our youth were grumpy old men. They smelled of sweat and tobacco, their thoughts focused on their farm fields that needed to be tilled between bus runs. The only time they spoke was to admonish us for horseplay or to inform us that we were temporarily kicked off the bus for bad behavior.

Riding on Sally's bus was a breath of fresh air.

We could laugh and sing on her bus... sometimes in such a silly and ear-piercing manner that even Mother Theresa would have been forced to pull over and give us all a good tongue-lashing. But Sally was different. She seemed to enjoy our company, even pausing between driving and taking sips of her ever present cup of steaming coffee to banter back and forth with us. When we finished with our competitions, sometimes deflated after a poor performance, Sally was there, patiently waiting for us in her radiantly warm bus. Her kind words of encouragement and radiant smile always managed to take some of the sting out of a bad day.

In later years, Sally developed a deep and lasting friendship with my mother. It was through this relationship that I came to know her as a dear friend. In a crass world populated by narcissistic mortals, she was one the most selfless people I have ever known. If something was wrong with your kitchen sink or you were just having a very bad day, Sally was always there for you. She would give and give, often times to the point of physical exhaustion. If the measure of our days has anything to do with personal benefaction, Sally was a colossus who had few peers.

She was also a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with. We spent more nights than I can count playing board games or cards at my mom's house, often times playing until the wee hours of the morning. Our game nights were punctuated with incessant laughter and banter. In more serious discussions about life, politics and world events, Sally was open-minded and had a passion for those who were less fortunate. She was sentimental and loved her family deeply, especially her sister Peggy, and her only child, Billie.

In later years we grew apart when Sally moved, first to New York, and then to Pennsylvania. Through Facebook, we reconnected last year, and sent each other messages from time to time. When she called me back in January of this year, it was as if we had never been apart. Although I didn't recognize her number on my cell phone, I knew immediately who it was when I heard her beautiful, crackling laugh. It was a joy to finally be back in touch with such a good friend, and I feel sick now knowing that I allowed time and distance to cheat us out of a reunion.

When Sally died on April 16th, fighting for every last breath until she could fight no more, she left behind a lifetime of wonderful memories for her family and friends.

Goodbye, my dear friend. You were loved...

Support Dr. King's Legacy

This month marks the 42nd anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In honor of Dr. King, the clergyman, civil rights leader, and peace activist, a National Memorial is being built in Washington, D.C.

The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial is a scant 16 million dollars away from reaching its funding goal of 120 million dollars. This is a Memorial that will rightly take its place on the National Mall in honor of Dr. King and his ultimate sacrifice in the name of equality and civil rights. The tentative dedication of the Memorial is scheduled for the Fall of 2011.

There are a number of ways to support the Memorial, including direct bequests via the website and text messaging donations. Please visit the MLK website at www.mlkmemorialnews.org and help America honor Dr. King's legacy by making a donation today.

Back to Nature

With my children's Spring Break fast approaching, my wife preparing for a business trip, and my daughter getting her turn for the annual vacation with the grandparents, I found myself wondering what I could do with my son for the week. At fourteen, he is at the age where spending time away from his friends and his obsession with X-Box Live, all factor in on what he might consider a good time with his father. Due to other commitments, including a medical appointment later in the week, we were consigned to a two-day window to plan something enjoyable for both of us.

After ruling out a trip to Chicago (the Cubs were out of town) and some other inexpensive options, I decided to take Ethan on a trip to southern Indiana to hike the trails of Harrison-Crawford State Forest. Located on the Ohio River near the historic town of Corydon, Indiana, the state forest offered over forty miles of remote hiking trails and the prospect of very few hikers and campers this early in the season.

I had been to the area once as a small boy, accompanying my dad and one of his hunting buddies on a trip to scout deer hunting locations. It was a quick trip, spent mostly driving up and down dirt roads, but my recollection of the area was one of lush forests and towering hills, something totally foreign to me after growing up in the glacier-leveled plains of central and northern Indiana. Instead of meticulously planning every facet of the trip (something I am notorious for doing when planning family vacations), we decided to just pack up and go, even leaving open the possibility of camping under the stars.

Tuesday morning dawned unseasonably warm with temperatures near seventy degrees. After loading up the Rendevous with the bare essentials (including a compass, trail food, gloves and two rain ponchos), we hit the road. Unlike the typical family trip where the kids sit in the backseat and listen to their I-Pods or watch a DVD, Ethan sat up in front with me and we talked a great deal about school, sports, girls, and life in general. The conversation was refreshing. It was the sobering kind of interaction that reminds a parent that their child is two-thirds of the way to adulthood.

Not counting a quick pit stop south of Indianapolis, we made the three hundred mile drive in a little over five hours, arriving in Corydon around three o'clock. Since Ethan seemed less than thrilled about spending the night outdoors, we stopped at a local motel, checked-in, and got a quick bite to eat before heading to the state forest. With the temperature now at a balmy 84 degrees, we rolled down the windows and drove silently through the countryside. Turning off of State Road 62 to enter the state forest, we paused for a moment on a bridge over the Blue River, both of us entranced by the sight of two kayakers paddling down stream in the bluish-green water.

A few miles down the road we stopped at the entrance of O'Bannon Woods State Park. While Ethan waited patiently in the car, I spent five minutes talking to a cheerful park ranger who seemed very happy to see us. He asked about our plans, pointing out that it was not uncommon for people to get lost on the miles of trails, and stated rather mischievously that they had never lost a hiker for more than a day or two. After collecting a trail and topography map, we set out for a trail that followed a ridge line overlooking the Ohio River. Other than a lone hiker and two people on horseback, it appeared that we had the entire park to ourselves.

We were both excited as I parked the car near the trail head. Ethan laughed out loud while I struggled to put on a fanny pack filled with our supplies, especially when I put it on backwards the first time. The view from atop the bluff was surreal, almost as if we had stumbled back to the 1800's. No barges, boats or industry as far as the eye could see. The trail was well-maintained and clearly-marked. Two hawks circled overhead, effortlessly rising and falling with the wind as we walked silently, taking our time to enjoy the sweeping views from the ridge, and pausing at several spots to stand on the rocky outcroppings that perched over the river.

While I cautiously approached each overlook, Ethan negotiated the rocks with athletic ease, completely oblivious to the fact that one missed step could lead to a tragic end. Walking fifty paces in front of me, he shouted suddenly for me to join him on a large, flat rock that formed one half of a chute that led straight down to the forest between the river and the bluff.

"What is it?" I asked, surprised to hear the sheer excitement in his voice.

"I found a big black snake!" he replied. "Quick... Grab the camera out of your pack!"

By the time I had extracted the camera from my pack and joined him on the outcropping, the snake had vanished, undoubtedly annoyed at being interrupted during his late afternoon sunning session. We explored the rock for a few minutes, marveling at the dozens of cracks and crevices where snake could have sought refuge. I was actually somewhat relieved that it had been a black snake. Southern Indiana is Northern Copperhead territory, and one of their favorite places to den is in rocky crevices. Disappointed that he wouldn't have a picture to show his friends, Ethan finally agreed to give up his search and we continued on our way.

Fifteen minutes later we emerged from the trail at the bottom of the ridge. Instead of continuing on another trail that angled away from the river, we decided to walk back to the west between the bluff and the river. There were no trails leading up to the base of the cliffs, which presented us with the challenge of navigating the steep hillside filled with brambles and fallen trees.

While Ethan led the way, I carefully followed behind, choosing each step with the knowledge that a fall would probably result in a bruised backside. Sure enough, about fifty feet from the base of the cliff, my left foot slipped in the wet foliage and I tumbled first sideways and then downhill about eight feet. Pulling myself up with the help of a sapling, I was surprised to see that other than a few small cuts on my calf and a wet behind, I was none the worse for wear. Ethan, who was standing at the top of the incline, laughed for several minutes as I wearily made my way up the rest of the grade.

"Not very graceful, dad." he chuckled good-naturedly, extending his hand to mine for a final assist to join him at the top. "I'm surprised you didn't fall all the way down to the river!"

"It was the fanny pack's fault." I replied, before taking a paper towel out of the man purse and dabbing my bleeding calf. "It threw me off balance, probably because I packed those extra batteries in the left pocket."

All Ethan could do was smile as he scrambled up twenty feet to a rock ledge that appeared to run for several hundred feet beneath the outcroppings. Suddenly feeling my age and nursing my bruised pride, I declined Ethan's invitation to join him on the ledge, and instead followed beneath him, snapping pictures and watching every damn step I took. The rock ledges were both foreign and fascinating. Large and small crevices dotted the rocky formations, the product of millions of years of weather and erosion. Around a small bend, several hundred feet from our starting point, we came across an actual cave. The entrance was about ten feet wide and six feet tall. Ethan made a brief attempt to climb up to the cavern, but thought better of it when he realized the rock wall actually inverted outward.

Exhausted after about two hours of climbing and exploring, we both decided it was time to head back up to the car. Ethan had drained his water bottle in the first hour of our adventure and we were now sharing my half-drunk bottle. The point at which we chose to descend was fairly steep, and in a fearful moment of history repeating itself, I decided to tie a 25 foot line from a sturdy tree and rappel-stagger-slide down a particularly steep portion of the hill. I made it to the bottom of the incline without incident (although I wouldn't describe it as a graceful maneuver). Ethan was excited about the prospect of doing the same until I informed him that he couldn't because it was his job to untie the rope and throw it down to me. We couldn't leave it behind. Determined not to suffer the same fate as his father, Ethan did an excellent job shifting his weight to his down foot and slid down the incline without incident.

After some more good-natured ribbing back and forth, we made our way to the bottom of the hill and walked back to the base of the ridge. We stopped for a water break fifty yards from the river and during our break discovered two walking sticks that had carved, pointed ends. Tired, and hungry, we used the walking sticks to guide us back up the ridge. Watching my son navigate the long, upward stretch of trail with ease and grace, I couldn't help but feel a tinge of both sadness and joy knowing that my youth was gone, but Ethan's wonderful journey was just beginning.

At the trail head we stopped once again to admire the beauty of the river below us. The two hawks who had sailed overhead at the beginning of our trek were still floating effortlessly in the warm, humid air. We considered briefly taking the walking sticks with us for our next day's hike, but instead decided to set them next to the trail head marker for the next hikers who would follow in our footsteps.

As we trampled through a small meadow back to our car, I smiled and hummed an old Dan Fogleberg song. It had been a good day for both of us, father and son.

A Just Verdict in the Heartland

Today, Sedgwick County (Kansas) District Judge Warren Wilbert sentenced anti-abortion killer Scott Roeder to life in prison for the murder of Dr. George Tiller. Judge Wilbert could have given the convicted murderer a lesser sentence, opening up the possibility of parole in 25 years, but in a remarkable example of responsible jurisprudence, he recognized that Mr. Roeder is not only a murderer, but an evil miscreant who believes he can kill people in the name of his god.

Spurred on by organizations like Operation Rescue, former Republican Congressman Bob Dornan, and thuggish talking heads like Bill O’Reilly, who referred to the late doctor as “Tiller the Baby Killer” at least 28 times from his bully pulpit on Fox News, radical anti-abortion opponents terrorized Dr. Tiller’s family, staff, and patients for years.

Inspired by a belief that women had a right to safe, clinical abortions, Dr. Tiller endured thirty years of death threats, a fire-bombing of his clinic in 1986, and survived after being shot five times by Shelley Shannon in 1993. Scott Roeder, after months of stalking the doctor, finally succeeded in the name of the radical anti-abortion movement, murdering him in cold blood during services at a Lutheran Church in Wichita, KS., on May 31, 2009.

Abortion is legal in the United States, and Dr. Tiller provided a lawful medical service to the women of central Kansas. Mr. Roeder, age 52, will not be eligible for parole until 2060, when he will be 102 years-old. I hope he takes a long hard look at the walls of his prison cell, because he’s going to die there.

Why We Needed Healthcare Reform Now

After a long, drawn out battle complete with racist, hate-filled diatribes courtesy of the Tea Party protestors and a Republican opposition that brought nothing to the table except a warped desire to block every initiative of the Obama presidency, I was overjoyed when our chief executive signed the healthcare bill this week. For the first time in months, Democrats seized the initiative and delivered on one of the President's campaign platforms.

The system is broken, plain and simple. Our unregulated, for-profit health insurance companies have become the scourge of the middle class and working poor. Unlike many of my friends and some family members, I believe that affordable healthcare in one of the wealthiest nations on earth is an inalienable right, not a privilege. According to the Health Affairs website, 52 million Americans will at some point be without insurance in 2010. That's one in every six Americans, and it's absolutely shameful.

Thankfully, the entire healthcare bill is available online at opencongress.org. In numerous debates I have had with conservative friends and foes in the last week, the vast majority of them are relying on information from Fox News or the usual right wing scare tactic of e-mail chains filled with lies and outrageous claims. I can rebut ninety percent of their falsehoods with specific sections in the bill (healthcare for illegal immigrants, IRS access to our bank accounts, health care rationing, ad nauseum), yet they only believe what Glenn Beck told them about "the socialization of medicine in this country" and refuse to use their reading skills to separate fact from fiction. It's not only maddening, but also a sad indictment about the paranoid inroads that these so-called pundits have made on the American psyche.

It reminds me of the Jack Nicholson outburst from "A Few Good Men."

"You want to know the truth? You can't handle the truth!"

I understand that people are scared of this legislation. Not only is it a significant change to the current healthcare system but it also contains some ambiguity regarding cost reductions in the Medicare budget. I think it's also realistic to question whether the nonpartisan, Congressional Budget Office's assurance that the legislation will reduce the deficit by 138 million dollars over the next ten years and 1.2 trillion dollars in the following decade is accurate. It's not a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a start.

Regardless of whether the number of Americans who die each year because of their lack of access to affordable healthcare is 40,000 or 25,000, we must accept the fact that is an atrocious legacy of our system. All of the right wing's incessant lies about government run "death panels" have in fact been a sanctioned corporate parade of death for years. Shareholders profit when the insurance company drops a sick newborn or cancer patient from their rolls, and the consumer or their family member pays that price, sometimes with their life.

Hello Spring...

It’s been a long winter for my family here in northern Indiana. We had snow on the ground for nearly eight consecutive weeks and it seemed like we would never see a day where the mercury hit fifty degrees. It wasn't a particularly hard winter. My kids only missed a half day of school due to the weather, and that was due to a fog delay of all things. No major snow storms, just four or five inches here and there, a seemingly never ending reload whenever the earth threatened to melt the white stuff away.

Well, it finally happened two weeks ago. Several consecutive days of fifty degree weather finally allowed us to see grass in our yard. Even the black squirrels were happy. Instead of hanging out up in the trees or digging through last year’s flower boxes on our deck, the squirrels have been darting around the property checking for hidden stashes of walnuts. The birds seem happy as well. Cardinals and even a Red-Wing Blackbird have been making touch and go landings in the backyard, ever vigilant of the Cooper’s Hawk that has taken up residence in our cul-de-sac.

Both of my kids have abandoned their video games, computers and the television, instead spending their time outdoors playing with friends or sharpening their baseball and softball skills. They haven’t broken any windows yet (which seems to be a spring ritual), so we go about our chores in nervous anticipation of that first hard sound of shattered glass. Between playing family games of “horse” in the driveway and cleaning up the collateral damage of broken limbs in the yard, we have rediscovered the joy of being unburdened by coats and mittens.

Even our neighbors appear to be on a “spring high.” The dog walkers have an exaggerated bounce to their step and contented smiles on their faces. The kids are getting fewer after-school phone calls and more knocks on the door inviting them to jump on a neighbor’s trampoline, play hopscotch or shoot hoops. People are out working in their yards, pausing from their tasks when we drive by, and shouting greetings that I haven’t heard in six months.

I’m not quite ready to dust off my golf clubs or get the bikes down from the racks in the garage, but it won’t be long. Summer is a marvelous season, but spring is the time when we shake off our chilly exteriors and embrace civilization again.

Vacation

I am on the last day of a three day break that was supposed to last a week. We haven’t done a whole lot (went to the movies, had a cookout with the in-laws, laid around and dreaded going back to work on Monday), but I find myself wondering if we will ever get back to the days of taking that much needed summer hiatus of year’s past. Like many typical American families, we have grown accustomed to taking one week every summer and heading for the beach or the mountains. Unfortunately, over the last three years I haven’t managed to get out of the state with the wife and kids due to work commitments and our son’s grueling baseball schedule.

Frankly, this has been the summer from hell. Between working a job that has become increasingly stressful and unfulfilling as my hours have continued to increase to the point that I’m working ten hours a day, six days a week, my son tore his MCL playing baseball and my wife tore a calf muscle playing kickball. In the course of a just a few months, we have become a family that was constantly on the go to one of crutches and doctor’s appointments. No baseball was the perfect excuse for scheduling a quick trip to Savannah or the mountains of Tennessee , but the thought of carting one half of the family up the Appalachian Trail on a dolly didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, not to mention the fact that my nine year old daughter would probably hop on the daddy-pulled four wheeler as well.

So here we are rapidly approaching school and we have yet to have that defining moment of summer’s past. How do you give your kids that “wow” experience when you live in the northern part of a state that has a cooler-than-normal summer season that lasts about as long as Janet Leigh in the shower scene from the movie “Psycho?” We have to drive four hours to southern Indiana just to see hills (the kind of land buds that the glaciers laughed their asses off and didn’t even give a second glance to as they headed east millions of years ago). Hell, the tallest point in Indiana is in the middle of a corn field in the east-central part of the state where I grew up. How many Sherpa’s would it take to summit a corn field?

We’ve already done the Lake Michigan day trip this summer, a quick 75 minute drive to Saint Joseph, Michigan, on a chilly weekend in June. It’s a beautiful town on the lake, but about the only thing it has in common with the sunny Gulf of Mexico is water. And let me tell you, it’s really cold water. It’s the kind of water that comes out of a drinking fountain that’s so close to 32 degrees it gives you a brain freeze. If I ever want to experience water that cold again I’ll just go jump in the Elkhart River in January.

I guess I’m just thankful that I’ve got pretty good kids. The type of kids that understand how hard we work to provide them with the creature comforts of a decent life, don’t give us a whole lot of grief when we fall asleep at the movie theater watching a PG movie, and say “thanks” when we deliver them safely home from practices and sleepovers. When I look at our lives in that dimension, I can rest easy at night knowing that even if we didn’t make it past the state line for a ten day vacation, my children understand that we are doing the best we can.

And that’s all I can ask of my family. Work, love, and dream of a better tomorrow.

This Journey

As my son, Ethan, quickly approaches his fourteenth birthday, I’ve found myself reflecting on the wondrous journey that has brought us to this first summit in our lives; the beginning of manhood for himself and the long, slow recognition of this milestone on my part. There is a hint of sadness in this realization, even though I’ve know for years this day was coming. I guess I thought it would be a little later in his teen years (like sixteen or seventeen, which is around the time I started pulling away from my parent’s arms). Either way, I should have been prepared for this unmarked date on my calendar, but truthfully, the years have raced by so quickly that I find myself stunned at where we find ourselves today.

In many respects, he is still the same delightful child that we brought home from the hospital bundled in a blue blanket. He is honest, respectful to adults, opens doors for little old ladies, and works hard at school to bring home honor roll grades. His sparkling brown eyes and infectious laugh still bring a smile to my face, but at the same time he is beginning to assert his independence in a way that sometimes leads us to hours or days of sullen silence. In this supposedly enlightened age of cell phones and instant communication via text messaging, I’m still struggling to loosen the reins and set him free.

Trust is like swimming. I know he can dog paddle from one end of the pool to the other, but could he save himself if he got swept out to sea by an invisible rip tide? Those parents who can cut their kids loose at the county fair with a twenty dollar bill (o.k., maybe two twenty dollar bills) and brief instructions to meet at the entrance in three hours are a marvel to me. In my heart I know he will almost always behave and do the right thing (like staying away from strangers who look like Billy Bob Thornton on a three day Budweiser binge), but I cannot seem to get past that parental hump in the road that our children have to learn from their mistakes.

I’ve also noticed subtle changes in the bonds that have wrapped us together over the years. Many of the activities we used to do together have been cast aside for his need to constantly be around his friends and my growing need for down time from a life that has become more stressful in the last twelve months. Those frequent intersecting times when we would go to see a movie, play golf, or go fishing have dwindled to the point where we seldom spend just father/son time together. Looking hard into the mirror, I have belatedly started coming to grips with the fact that, like his mother and younger sister, he is an extrovert- and I am an introvert.

But the bond between a father and his son is a funny, quirky sort of thing. It hits you very hard and at the least expected times. It happens after a frosty exchange of “Why you can’t spend the night at your friend’s house three nights in a row.” It happens after a bad game where the ball just wouldn’t fall through the basket. It happens when I’ve said the word “no” so many times it flies out of my mouth before I’ve had a chance to consider the question.

Just when I think this impenetrable wall is sliding between us, when I think he only needs me to put a roof over his head or give him spending money, he will ask me something that knocks me back a few steps. Something like “Are you proud of me for getting straight A’s in school last semester?” It’s times like these… that after I’ve assured him how very proud I am and that he has the potential to do or be anything he wants in life, that I find myself getting teary with the knowledge that he is my lovely son, and that we have a bond so strong and resilient that it will never be broken.

Happy Hour at Shooter's Bar, Grill & Crime Scene

Where else but in America can you go out and drink while packing a .45 caliber handgun? Thanks in large part to the election of President Obama and a Democrat majority in Congress, gun nuts across the country have become convinced that Big Brother is going to break down their doors and confiscate their beloved handguns (as well as their Thompson submachine guns, hand grenades and their treasured collection of vintage Hustler Magazines).

Today, the Tennessee State Legislature became the 38th state to allow gun owners to bring their weapons to their local watering hole. The measure, which of course was supported and encouraged by the National Rifle Association (NRA), does have a caveat that you cannot actually drink while playing with your gun, hence, you must be sober before entering the nightly game of Russian roulette at Shooter’s Bar & Grill.

That server not hopping fast enough for you with your drink order? Show him/her your killing piece and you’ll be amazed at how quick that pitcher of beer hits your table. Sick of losing every game of pool? Instead of hitting your opponent over the head with your cue stick, pull your legally licensed six-shooter from your ankle holster and kill the cheating bastard. Tired of getting hit on by Tom, Dick and Harry, ladies? Pluck that nickel-plated nine millimeter from your purse and start shooting. After all, that’s why we call it Happy Hour, right?

Is it any wonder that we have the highest death by handgun rate of any civilized country on the planet? The inmates are running the asylum in this country these days, and with the paranoid greenbacks of the NRA fueling their political fervor, politicians are passing some of the most asinine gun laws this country has ever seen. I have nothing against people owning guns (I even have one myself)- but mixing alcohol with stupid people who have a John Wayne complex or the mind of a frat boy, is a recipe for a sloppy reenactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral every Saturday night at your favorite watering hole.

I guess we’ve reached a point of lunacy where if you live in one of these 38 states where you can carry and imbibe (I’m not sure if we can in Indiana, although you can carry a weapon in our state parks- just in case you get attacked by a rabid mole on a grub binge), it’s probably safer to stay home and listen to the crickets from your back deck while you knock back a Budweiser.

The World Without Us?

I’ve never considered myself to be a day-to-day environmentalist, but late last year I read a book titled The World Without Us, written by Alan Weisman. The book was a fascinating “what if” scientific perspective of what might happen to the planet and all the crap we’ve built- if one day man simply vanished from the face of the earth. Not exactly a pleasant thought (especially since we’re planning a family vacation in early August), but a very interesting thesis given how mankind has treated our home as if it were a giant porta-potty.

I have to admit that I picked up the book primarily out of a fascination of how long it might take the average American home (like mine) and the Gotham-like super structures of our cities to erode, corrode, and simply fall apart or collapse. The book didn’t disappoint in that regard. I was simply amazed at how short a lifespan my house, and for that matter, New York City, would have if we were gone and nobody was home to take care of basic maintenance.

I was also pleasantly surprised to read that cockroaches might soon follow our great leap into oblivion. Apparently without our nuclear-fired squalor and propensity for leaving Cheetos laying around the house like stale popcorn on the floor of your local cinema, these disgusting little bastards would starve to death. Other than mosquitoes and the common house fly, I can’t think of another creature I would rather have rotting beside my dusty corpse.

However, the true beauty of Mr. Weisman’s tome wasn’t the scientific expertise of how our post Dark Ages structures would fall apart, but the resurging aftermath of nature taking back the earth once we are all gone. No more fishing trawlers (or human demand) decimating the ocean’s vast species of aquatic life, no more man-made poisons in the fields, and no more cars spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Environmentalist or not, it’s hard not to fall in love with the thought of a distant future where plants and animals reclaim what was, and is, rightfully their place in the cycle of this planet.

We currently live in a worldwide culture (with apologies to China and their one child per couple policy) where we have lost our ability to count. I’m not even remotely capable of doing the math on how we are going to feed the estimated 10 billion people who will probably be walking the earth in 2075, but I do know that too many people equals not enough food, a messy kitchen, and a very empty refrigerator.

Except for the premise that all mankind would simply disappear with the snap of Mr. Weisman’s talented fingers, I really don’t think it’s such a far-fetched scenario. At the rate mankind is overpopulating the planet, catastrophic disease and famine could be a very real possibility in our lifetimes. Add into the equation our reliance on everything nuclear, and you have the recipe for a disaster of biblical proportions. Given the scenario of the earth looking like a poisoned version of the moon or a landscape repopulated with towering forests and pristine waterways, I’ll take the National Geographic version every time.

Seriously, would it really be all that horrible to imagine a world without us?

Elkhart Will Be Back

Just a few scant years ago, when the manufacturing sector of the economy was humming along at a breathtaking pace, Elkhart was turning out record amounts of recreational vehicles, musical instruments and marine products. Fast-forward to 2009 and Elkhart has become the symbolic dust bowl of America’s faltering industrial machine. Elkhart is down- and the referee in the ring is counting upward to the apocalyptic number ten, but we are rising confidently to our feet, refusing to take the count while lying flat on our backs.

We are staggering to our feet financially poorer, but yet somehow wiser. Gone are the days of decent working wages on the backs of a high school diploma or G.E.D. The classified section of the local newspaper, The Elkhart Truth, has dwindled from three or four pages of “Help Wanted” ads to a quarter page on a good day (like Sundays). A weekend drive along County Road 6 or State Road 13 reveals a montage of industrial “For Sale or Rent” signs in front of empty factories that used to teem with activity five or six days a week.

Many of these hard-working neighbors and friends have packed up and left, leaving foreclosed homes and vacant rentals behind after losing their jobs. The sad thing is that many of these people are not moving to some industrious promise land, but are moving back in with family, even if that means shacking up in Grandma Jean’s spare bedroom in Fort Meyers, FL. But those who have remained, both native Hoosiers and migrants from Mexico and Central America, are doing what is necessary and planning (not hoping) for a better life.

While compacting our lives into manageable means, we are staring hard into the mirror and peering into the future. It is a future where you absolutely must have a skilled trade or education to survive and flourish. Local colleges and trade schools have seen their enrollment skyrocket as the unemployed have enrolled in welding, medical and business classes. We are collectively thumbing our noses at the paradigms of yesterday and shouting “To hell with minimum wage fast food jobs and temporary employment on manufacturing assembly lines!”

We are also recognizing the importance of family versus a monotonous existance of punching the clock and working that Saturday shift for overtime. We are spending more time with our children, an investment that will pay us back in spades with precious memories of mom and dad at Little League games and taking walks in the park. You can’t measure family leisure time spent with grandparents, parents and children in monetary terms, but you can measure it in quality of life.

Mark my words, Elkhart will be back. We may have fewer people and fewer national chain restaurants and stores in the future, but so what? We will be better educated and less dependent on manufacturing, even more culturally diverse, and more appreciative of having battled through the worst of times as a community- a populace that refused to roll over and die.

Goodbye, Texas...

Will the last five people in Texas who don't have tails and crossed eyes please hop the state line and relocate to Louisiana? According to a recent Rasmussen Poll, 33 percent of Texans believe their state has a constitutional right to secede from the Union, and 20 percent would actually like to see it happen. The current talk about secession in the Lone Star State is just another example of why Santa Anna and Mexico should have kicked Sam Houston's ass back in 1836 and taken back the godforsaken place.

The current governor of the Redneck State, Rick Perry, recently flamed the secessionist fires during an anti-tax, tea party in Austin. Terrified that he's going to lose a primary fight to current U.S Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison next year, Perry was at his political worst pandering to the "tea party" idiots and the right wing freaks that produced the likes of Timothy McVeigh.

"We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their noses at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Huh? Have you forgotten about the Civil War and the fact that 600,000 plus Americans died in an apocalyptic excursion that nearly destroyed our great Union? You're not independent, Rick. You're a bunch of racist, misanthropic assholes, who have bought into the Marlboro Man fantasy that Texans are characters in a Zane Grey novel.

The last great governor of Texas, the late Ann Richards, has got to be laughing her ass off somewhere in the great beyond while watching this latest version of "Quest for Fire" meets "The Alamo." The intellectual bastion of Austin aside, Texans should pull out their history books and reflect on the fact, that for better or worse, we are stuck with their sorry, chapped asses.

Unless of course, we can talk Mexico into re-annexing the entire state. Or better yet, allow Texas to leave without so much as a whisper of protest. The new replublic could be called Texico, a funky mix of oil wells, steers, beers, and enough defective people to make Cro-Magnon man look like John Houseman in "The Paper Chase."

Bad Used Car, Bad Buyer

My 2004 Buick Rendezvous has accumulated a fair amount of body damage over the last four years. Every day when I go to work, I stop in front of my car and quickly glance at the broken rear tail light (I backed into a garbage can), several paint scrapes and dings on the back doors (where my daughter has single-handedly managed to door-ding one third of all vehicles on the road today), and the eighteen-inch crack that is creeping up on the passenger side of my windshield (it started out very small until one idle Saturday morning when I decided to wash it- and voila, the damn thing blossomed into a cracked web so big that Charlotte could birth a billion little baby spiders on it and still have room for more).

After four years together, I have finally come to realize how much I hate my car. In fact, hate might not be vitriolic enough to convey my feelings for a silver piece of space junk that’s spent so much time in the shop that I’m now on a first-name basis with the manager of the local Enterprise Rental Car franchise. I’ve seen soap box derby cars engineered and put together better than this vehicle. I’m also pretty sure that the design team behind my weathered hunk of metal and rubber was not only hitting the bottle on Friday afternoons, but every single day of the week. In other words, if these bozos had built Noah’s Ark instead of Buicks, there wouldn’t be a fucking animal walking around on the face of the earth today…

Here are just a few of the brilliant features included on my SUV-wanabee:

A battery that’s so hard to reach, a cardiologist could change out your aortic valve faster than me trying to attach jumper cables to the posts. By the time I finished jump-starting my wife’s minivan half-a-dozen times this winter, my hands looked like I had run them through the meat grinder at the local Kroger’s store.

A funky plastic knob for adjusting the driver’s seat that falls off every other day, and I still haven’t figured out exactly what it does adjust when the damn thing stays on. If I wasn’t so afraid that this do-nothing knob was my car’s linchpin, that one stop-gap device which keeps my Buick from running head-on into a 1985 Peterbilt carrying a load of hogs to slaughter, I would have thrown the damn thing away years ago.

Two compartments for storing four pairs of sunglasses. Who in the hell carries four pairs of shades in their car? Maybe the designers were watching an endless loop of Top Gun, and thought every future Buick owner was either a test pilot or Tom Cruise.

A molded plastic piece for holding drinks that you have to slip into a plastic sleeve before firmly placing your beverage of choice in the cup holder (my "special" sleeve lasted about a week before I accidentally pitched it out the window still firmly encased around a half-empty bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper).

I could easily add another three pages of design insanities, but it won’t make feel any better. In retrospect, I only have myself to blame. I am the world’s worst car shopper. I should have let my wife, Julie, go out and buy me a car while I mindlessly spent the day watching Sports Center on ESPN. She’s a tougher sale than me, knows more about cars in general, and doesn’t view the whole buying process as a complete waste of time.

I was at my absolute worst the day I bought my car from hell. Instead of researching the vehicle on the internet, I was watching the U.S Open Golf Tournament on television and the endless play of Tiger Wood’s Buick commercials. Two hours later, I decided I was going to trade in my trusty Ford Explorer and buy something new. Maybe even something like the cool Buick Rendezvous Tiger Woods was racing around the streets of New Orleans to the tune of “I Put A Spell On You.”

My biggest mistake was probably talking about all of the things that didn’t trip my trigger during the test drive with the salesman (his name was Nate, and he looked like he was thirteen year’s old). Instead of discussing all of the negatives, I spent twenty minutes driving around Goshen talking about golf. I didn’t even object later that day when I picked the car up and found a purple sucker stuck to the fabric in the cargo hold (that would later have to be cut out with a pair of scissors), the gas tank only a quarter full, and the somewhat important fact that the car had done its first 15,000 miles of life as a rental car in San Francisco (which might explain why the shit-faced brakes had to be replaced six months later).

The rest is history. In the span of a summer’s solstice I came to despise my Tiger-inspired purchase. I’m stuck with it for at least another year or two because of the economy, and I’m going to drive it until the damn thing shudders and collapses. I have no clue what vehicle I’ll be driving after that, but you can bet the farm that Julie will be out picking my new ride while I sit impatiently at home, Tivoing through every damn car commercial featuring Tiger Woods or Buick…

The God Question, Part 3

Now, at 46, I find myself lost in limbo. Intellectually, I cannot fathom that anything but evolution has gotten us to this point. Science is our savior and also the destroyer of faith. Genetics, the human genome, and a myriad of other scientific breakthroughs have taken us to a place where we know almost everything about the origin and history of our species. When I compare this knowledge to Biblical myths, my rational mind cannot accept the theocratic dogma as anything but an interesting story.

But I’m also a moral coward, and cannot let go of the faint possibility that something exists beyond the death of our physical bodies. While I have absolutely no faith in the Bible or the Koran- I’m not ready to declare myself an atheist. Call it hedging my bets, but I just cannot make that leap with some of the weird things that have been recorded regarding near-death experiences and that haunting sense of déjà vu I sometimes get that I’ve been somewhere else in another place and time.

Without an afterlife, what is the value of our lives? Why should we go through the motions of being our brother’s keeper if we aren’t accumulating tickets to Heaven? If there isn’t some tangible reward for good behavior, why bother? This is a question that haunts me as I vacillate between god versus nothingness. Do the horror and atrocities of two thousand years of religious hypocrisy outweigh the threat of damnation that has kept most of us walking the straight and narrow path for centuries? If we all woke up tomorrow and declared that God and Heaven are myths, would we become a civilization of murderers and thieves?

I can’t answer that question, but I’m relatively certain that we would not, as a species, degenerate into a horde of barbaric misanthropes, ala Attila the Hun. While it is true that the Bible (at least the New Testament) has a code of ethics that we would all be wise to follow, there is something beyond the Ten Commandments that is instilled in most of us, some innate understanding that human decency is part of our genetic code, and without it, we have no future and no chance of sustaining the human race.

Several months before my dad died from cancer, he told me in a moment of candid honesty on the golf course, that he didn’t believe in God, Heaven or Hell. His revelation didn’t surprise me. He had never been very religious, despite a strict Catholic upbringing, and he was always one of the most pragmatic people I had ever known. His statement also didn’t make me feel any better or worse about his impending death. It did make me realize that we are all lost when it comes to the question of faith and the possibilities of life just coming to an end.

So, my long search for spiritual truth has led me to the brink of intellectual freedom and the fear of a life that will end abruptly, without conscious transition to another dimension. I am paralyzed. Secular humanism is the factual light at the end of the tunnel, yet I find myself trapped in a self-imposed purgatory, caught between the truth of science debunking the religious fantasy and the fear that there is something beyond the light.

I’m very uncomfortable in this place, but I’m stuck here for now.

Limbaugh Crawls Back Out From Under His Rock

Eight years of shitty Republican governance sure goes by fast when your chilling on Oxycontin and getting pinched for the illicit possession of Viagra in a third world country. I guess all of those illegally acquired prescription pills must have sent you into the mother-of-all hibernations. Or perhaps you went on a little eight year journey in search of your soul, and of course, came up empty-handed.

What in the hell got you to crawl back out from under that rock? Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House? Harry Reid as Majority Leader in the Senate? Was it watching televised same sex marriages take place in the Northeast while you were sporting a three Viagra erection?

No, of course not. It was the election of Barack Obama, and gasp- not only is Barack a Democrat, but he’s black, and he’s from the Daley-fueled infernos of Chicago!

Limbaugh and his band of nutty neocons finally have the highest of all political figures to chat about and malign. The thinly-veiled racism of Rush has come back with a muted flourish now that he and his fourteen million Neanderthal listeners can dig their pressed, white sheets out of the closet (of course, one-third of all Republican males were already in there) and call once again for the White Male Revolution.

Rush Theater is back in business, and the lobotomized right-wingers are lining up in droves to buy tickets. He even looks like the old Rush, fat as hell and fun-tanned. I guess the brief version of the slimmed down bozo came to an end when he discovered that Oxycontin gives you the munchies worse then getting high in a rusting Cavalier while sitting in the parking lot of the local Pizza Hut.

After a brief monologue of unadulterated, narcissistic self love, Rush opens his new production to the mad applause of five hundred white males in cheap suits, nine sheep, and a shady-looking character named Doctor E. Rection.

Act One: “I hope he fails (President Obama).”

Rush wants the country to die a slow, four year death, because unemployed white guys don’t have anything better to do than to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Higher unemployment means higher advertising rates for all of the pharmaceutical companies who target his audience of flaccid, heart-troubled goobers.

Act Two: The Emasculation of RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

Thirty days into his chairmanship of a party that is crawling around the front yard looking for that lucky Budweiser pull-tab, Steele had the misfortune of telling CNN Host D.L. Hughley that Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush immediately went on the offensive and twenty-four hours later had Steele groveling at his feet. I guess this Republican Icon's new moniker should be “Rush Limbaugh of Nazareth.”

Act Three: “Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill."

This comment was made in reference to the proposed health care revisions anticipated by the Obama Administration. Senator Edward Kennedy is fighting a debilitating battle with brain cancer, and Rush Limbaugh is a compassionless prick.

“Rush is da man!”

“Rush is Right!”

The production ends with loud roars of applause as the genetically challenged audience gives their God-King a standing ovation while collectively wondering if Avacor makes a magic pill that will repopulate the pubic hair on their itchy, wrinkled ball sacks.

Keep up the good work, Rush. Keep talking and keep loving yourself. The Tony Awards are only three and a half months away…

Macey

Tonight, as I sit here typing on the computer, something is missing in our house. It’s not the sound of children bounding up and down the stairs or the constant blare of the television or You Tube on our computers. What’s missing is a panting mass of black hair and four stubby legs. A Darwinian creature that was bred to hunt for rabbits in holes and would eat anything that fell off the kitchen table.

It’s Macey, our twelve year-old Scottish Terrier. She died today. She was put down gently by our veterinarian in the sterile confines of her office while my wife, Julie, gently stroked her panting face and whispered goodbye. Despite the diagnosis of a stroke that left her walking around in circles and unable to lift her head for the last few days, Macey’s eyes never left Julie’s bereaved face as she took the needle without a whimper, and slipped quietly away.

Goodbye, Macey. Somewhere in the great beyond, may you find a squirrel around every corner and a comfortable place to rest.

You were loved…