THIS IS YOUR REMINDER

Lest you forget….

All the woes being experienced today were caused by the George W. Bush administrations from 2001 through 2009. The insane war and the money spent on a war that should not have happened; the collapse of the economy; the whole ball of wax was caused by GWB and Co.

And if by chance you do not take me seriously, take a gander at Joe Nocera's new opinion piece in the New York Times this morning, "While the Markets Swoon".

Nocera asks, "Has any president in American history left behind as much lasting damage as George W. Bush?" He goes on to say, "In addition to two unfinished wars, he also set us on the path to our current financial mess. The Bush tax cuts, which turned a surplus into a growing deficit, have been disastrous. As James Fallows pointed out in a prescient 2005 article in The Atlantic predicting a meltdown, they reduced tax revenue 'to its lowest level as a share of the economy in the modern era.' (In its downgrade report, S.& P. suggested that it did not believe that Congress would let the cuts expire at the end of 2012, as they’re supposed to.) Then, in 2003, Bush pushed through prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients. David M. Walker, then the comptroller general, described 2003 as 'the most reckless fiscal year in the history of the Republic,' adding some $13 trillion in future entitlement costs."

And yet, presidential candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney had the temerity yesterday to say that President Obama was "primarily responsible" for Standard and Poor’s downgrade of longterm federal debt. And even though the shortterm memory of the nation can so easily call to mind the gormless machinations of George W. Bush that virtually insured yesterday’s actions by S&P, Romney also was foolish enough to say: "I'm afraid the president (Obama) is just out of his depth when it comes to understanding how the private economy works."

And I am afraid Mitt Romney is out of his depth when it comes to understanding the speed with which the nation's comics are going to jump on his irresistible quotes.

THE MIGRAINES DILEMMA

Ever since Michele Bachmann came out with her news on July 20th that she has incapacitating and debilitating migraines, everyone has been putting his oar in about the subject.

Me included. I have an article about it in Philadelphia’s “Broad Street Review”.

Predictably, there was a piece about migraines on July 26th in The New York Times Health section (“Migraine Miseries Push Patients in Ways of Coping” by Tara Parker-Pope).

As is to be expected, most people are defending the right of people with migraines to run for president on the grounds that migraines are treatable, and controllable with proper medications.

Migraines are treatable. But they can't be controlled. And there is no such thing as proper migraine medications.

There are diseases and conditions that are treatable and controllable and/or cured with proper medications: Diabetes, Hansen’s (leprosy), transplanted organs, epilepsy, psoriasis, some forms of cancer in some stages, lupus, MS in the early stages, HIV/AIDS and on and on.

But Lou Gehrig’s disease? No. Depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder? Yes, until the person goes off his meds or until the meds don’t work anymore. And then we have migraines, the disease that is now Number One on the “Defend This Disease” list.

Anyone (like me) writing about migraines and the fact (yes, fact) that no one with migraines should run for president, is not saying that migraine-sufferers are less worthy than the rest of the population.

What I am saying is this: Look at the disease and how it acts. All you doctors who are so hotly defending the medications available for migraines, take an honest look at what is happening to all the patients who are getting the best possible treatment for migraines. And what does one find?

One finds that doctors don’t know much about migraines. One finds there is no way to properly treat and control migraines. One finds that anyone afflicted with severe migraines will still have severe attacks of migraines no matter what medication is given.

One finds that most doctors who are treating migraines do not have migraines themselves. And I am not suggesting that any surgeon performing appendectomies should have performed an appendectomy on himself.

However, with migraines and the fact (yes, fact!) that so little is actually known about the malady, it would be helpful and instructive for the doctors who are treating migraines with such confidence and assurance, to at least know something firsthand about the disease they are treating.

Yesterday’s NYT column reported that, “Some migraine sufferers, including Ms. Bachmann, experience pain so severe they go the emergency room. But a recent review of emergency room doctors in Ontario found that patients were rarely treated with the proper drugs for migraine, according to a report last month in the journal Pain Research & Management…The data suggests that more education is needed.”

Well, that sounds fine and dandy. But the fact is (yes, fact), all drugs given for migraines are on a trial-and-error basis. To even suggest that there is a “proper” regimen, that there is a “proper” drug or combination of drugs, that there is a “proper” life-style that will keep migraines at bay is the worst kind of sophistry and fallacious hogwash.

 

There is no proper way to treat migraines. Whatever works, works. But anyone with migraines knows any treatment will not work all the time--it may work once and never again, and when it’s the worst possible time for a migraine to attack, that is when it will hit and that is the moment the drugs of choice--the oh-so-proper-combination--will not work.

In the NYT article, assistant professor of neurology at the John Hopkins Headache Center Dr. Satnam Nijjar, said, “If it’s not well controlled with the right combination of preventative or acute therapy, it can be very disabling. It’s probably the most common cause for time missed from work in the U.S.”

And Robert Dalton, executive director of the National Headache Foundation in Chicago, said that while migraines can be impairing, the larger problem is that many sufferers aren’t getting proper medical care. “What we want to make sure people understand,” Dalton said, “is that it’s a debilitating disease when it’s not managed properly.”

Nijjar and Dalton are just fooling themselves and desperately trying to fool you and all people who want to believe there is a way to properly manage migraines so that they don’t control one’s life.

There isn’t. At this point in time, there is no perfect, proper drug or combination of drugs and regimen for the management of migraines. Some drugs work some of the time, some drugs work for some people, some people take epilepsy drugs, some people stay away from bright lights, some people can’t drink red wine. But everyone who has severe migraines knows the day will come when they will be incapacitated and they simply will have to give in to their affliction, no matter what drugs their doctor deems proper.

And let it be said, it’s a rare doctor (and a rare patient with plenty of health insurance and cash in the bank) who will give a patient all the time he needs to explain the varied symptoms of migraines. More than a few doctors get really fed up with people whose migraines don’t succumb to the doctor’s drugs of choice, and more than a few doctors get really fed up with people with migraines.

So, at long last, here is my point.

Doctors may not want to tell you straight out and honestly, but, this is a fact: If we elect a person who has severe migraines to be our president, there will be a day when that president will have to abdicate his power to a lesser light because his migraine medications aren’t working and he is having a severe attack.

That is the day that president will be hugging a commode, vomiting his guts out, with a blinding headache and begging for relief or death. Or he will be in the hospital, sedated and uncomprehending. 

In either scenario that president will not be able to transact White House business. And we who elected him will have had prior knowledge that the day would come, as surely as death, taxes and migraines, when a severe migraine would incapacitate, debilitate and cause that president to be useless.

WHO’S TAKING LESSONS FROM WHOM?

It’s hard to know if Don Joseph Alois Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI, capo di tutti capi in the Vatican takes lessons from Don Rupert Murdoch, capo di tutti capi at World News, or the other way around. But whoever is the capo di tutti capi of evil-doers world-wide, it’s pretty obvious, lessons are being learned.

Yesterday, while being grilled by members of Parliament in London, the Murdoch Dons Rupert and James said they had no knowledge of any of the blatently illegal shenanigans going on at the Murdoch newspapers, and that they should not be blamed for the actions of underling miscreants.

Coincidentally, in Philadelphia yesterday, Archbishop Justin Rigali was sent packing in favor of a Native-American Archbishop Charles J. Chaput newly flown in from Denver.

Rigali was not driven out of Philadelphia because he had been at the center of the Philadelphia pedophile priest scandal—protecting and defending 21 pedophile priests who serially raped little boys during Rigali’s eight-year tenure. No. The Vatican says Rigali was 75 years old and therefore was required to resign.

In fact, no mention whatsoever was made yesterday of the scandal that has rocked the Philadelphia Roman Catholic community since 2005 when the first Grand Jury report became known. Rigali could have stemmed the tide of priest abuse at that time, but he chose instead to protect the priests until last February when another Grand Jury report made graphic and horrendous headlines about the magnitude of the vicious rapes of little boys by 21 priests--priests whose activities were known and protected by Justin Rigali.

Just as Rupert Murdoch allowed that yesterday was the “humblest day” of his life, Rigali made an obscure pass at alluding to his monstrous behavior by saying, “If I have offended anyone in any way, I am deeply sorry. I apologize for any weaknesses on my part in representing Christ and his church worthily and effectively.”

It’s impossible not to laugh at a sentence from Rupert Murdoch using the words “humble” and “my life”. It’s also impossible not to be incensed at Archbishop Rigali for suggesting he represents Christ in any capacity except unworthily.

Regarding the pedophile scandal in the RC church, Capo Ratz said in March 2010 that he “would not be intimidated by gossip”. On Monday when Scotland Yard assistant commisioner John Yates resigned because of his close ties with the Murdochs, Yates said, “huge amount of inaccurate, ill-informed and, on occasion, downright malicious gossip” had forced his resignation.

In the end, all criminals sound alike.

RUPERT AND RATZ

Any chance the head of the notorious News Corporation Rupert Murdoch and the head of the notorious Roman Catholic Church Pope Benedict XVI aka Joseph Alois Ratzinger were twins separated at birth?

No, I suppose not. Ratz was born in Bavaria, Germany in 1927, and Rupert was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1931.

Still, their similarities are stunning. They both are ambitious beyond the ken of normally ambitious men. Neither one has an ingrained sense of right and wrong—they only know what feeds or damages their egos. Both men equate self-worth with the success of their corporations. Both men are viciously protective of their corporations. Both men are dictatorial, tyrannical and despotic.

I’m thinking both men have small-man’s disease. Info from the Vatican says Ratz is 5’7”. But I suspect that’s in heels…I mean, who would know what’s under those frocks? However, just try to find out Rupert’s height. Conjectures on Google run from the size of a giant toad, as in, 3’2” to 5’1”. What’s really wonderfully perfect is that this man who is so incredibly ugly inside and out has managed to keep his height out of the newspapers because of his vanity.

In any case, both Pope Ratz and Rupert Murdoch have jumped the shark.

Both men, at the peak of their power and influence, have done things so reprehensible that they can never regain their reputations or recover from their own self-inflicted wounds. It is fair to say that both men would not have engaged in their arrogant acts of coercion, oppression and intimidation had they not been psychotic in their need for power, and unconcerned with the extent to which they had become toxic and malevolent to gain that power.

Pope Ratz willingly and willfully harmed little children, intimidated underlings and faithful parishioners, lied and cheated in order to protect the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church and to protect his reputation during his climb to the top of his profession. There is no difference between Pope Ratz and Rupert Murdoch who has lied, cheated, intimidated and oppressed thousands of cohorts, coworkers and underlings in his climb to the top of his profession. 

I firmly believe that both men have used the services of thugs, gangsters and murderers and have sacrificed the lives of little children to gain their unholy ends.

HERE IT IS...MICHELLE BACHMANN IN A NUTSHELL

Bachmann (R-Minnesota) returned to Waterloo, Iowa on Monday June 27 where she spent the first 12 years of her life, in order to announce her presidential candidacy.

The last two paragraphs of the New York Times report on her Waterloo visit illustrate Bachmann’s grasp of facts, in general, her monumental stupidity, and are a microcosm in the macrocosm of why her candidacy is doomed.

As the NYT reported: “’John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa,’ Mrs. Bachmann told Carl Cameron of Fox News in an interview. ‘That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.’ 

“The actor was actually born in Winterset, Iowa, which is about 150 miles southwest of Waterloo. It was John Wayne Gacy, known as the killer clown who raped and murdered 33 teenage boys in the 1970s, who lived in Waterloo.”

OH NO! COLUMBO HAS DIED!

When I was Secretary (Executive Secretary, if you please) at the Actors Studio in New York, Peter Falk came in to sign up to do an audition.

I sat at a desk which was positioned at the far wall of the first room of the old church on West 44th Street where the Studio is located. This was in 1959-1960. I had to take the names of the people who wanted to audition and then inform them when the preliminary audition would take place. A lot of people signed up and never actually did the audition. If I remember rightly, Jake LaMotta was one of the no-shows…Raging Bull Jake LaMotta. It was always a treat to see the celebrities in the flesh.

I can’t remember what play or film Falk was doing at the time. He had been in The Circle in the Square’s production of O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” in 1957, and he was in the film of Jean Genet’s “The Balcony” released in 1963. But anyway, I was pretty star-struck by him at the time, and I tried to be really cool when he came sauntering in.

The funny thing is, Peter Falk did three separate auditions at the Actors Studio. I’m pretty sure he passed the first audition each time, which meant he went on to a Final Audition in front of Gadg Kazan, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford. And he never got into the Studio.

I’d be the last one to be able to tell you what the criteria was for the Three Directors. It may have changed with the year. I remember when James Earl Jones was accepted. I remember when Ron Leibman got in. I even remember when little Peter (Bat) Masterson got in--he was adorable--his daughter is Mary Stuart Masterson.

And I definitely remember that Peter Falk did not get in. But I don’t know why. It may be that he did the auditions as a lark and only because one of his best friends, Ben Gazzara, was a Member. In any case, it will forever be a mystery to me that Peter Falk did not get into the Actors Studio, because he was a great actor with the best of them.

With the rest of the world, I greatly mourn Peter Falk’s passing.

The Lutheran Pastor Was Right

Okay…what am I referring to?

There was a story in the “New York” section of the New York Times today--May 31, 2011--about a Lutheran Pastor’s daughter who now is a Rabbi in Brooklyn.

When the Lutheran Pastor’s daughter (Heidi Hoover by name) fell in love with Michael Rose, a Jew, she went to a Lutheran Pastor (not her father) to get counseling over the thorny issue.

The issue being their issue. That is to say, Michael Rose was just as in love with Heidi Hoover as she was with him, and he wanted their children to be raised as Jews.

So during the counseling session, Heidi asked the Pastor what God would think about her situation. And the Pastor said, “I don’t know what God thinks.”

Well, my dears, this infuriated Heidi. As quoted in the NYT story, she said, “I was very angry…I was like: ‘What’s God’s deal? How could God want two people who love each other to be kept apart?’”

And this circumstance lead to this-and-that, and now Heidi Hoover Rose is a rabbi in Brooklyn.

All of which is an interesting human interest story.

But the point is, the Lutheran Pastor was right. He said he didn’t know what God thinks.

There are a great many things that are taught in seminary. But the knowledge of what God thinks is not one of them. The certain knowledge of what one should do in any given situation because one knows, or an enlightened being knows, what God thinks about it, is not taught in any class or seminar in Christian God- schools.

I suspect it’s not taught in rabbinical school either, but I don’t know for sure. 

When Moses married a Cushite woman, what did God think? We know Moses’ brother Aaron and sister Miriam were not pleased. But did they ask God what he thought, and did he tell them? We know many people's thoughts on the Cushite woman. We know that being a Cushite may not have been the deal-breaker we have thought it was. We even know that maybe the woman we thought was a Cushite wasn't a Cushite. But what God thought? We don't know.

If someone in Rabbi Hoover’s congregation asks, “What does God think about Sarah Palin?” Will Rabbi Hoover cite writings and ruminations from the past to indicate what men have thought God might think about people like Sarah Palin? Or will she kindly suggest that Sarah Palin is not a subject about which one can or should query God? 

Or will she honestly say, “I don’t know what God thinks about anything.”

Why Mistrust Politics, Religion and the AMA?

Because there is a common failing in the Big Three.

And it’s not because the practitioners are evil bastards out to corrupt humanity, which also may be true.

I was reminded of the nonsense going on in the Big Three when I read Gail Collins’ op/ed column (“Medicine on the Move”) in the New York Times this morning. Collins was commenting on the fact that the medical community has gone from falling down in awe of estrogen therapy for women, to loathing estrogen therapy, and now is back to a guarded love for estrogen therapy for some women, sometimes.

Likewise, the AMA has gone from loving calcium supplements to despising calcium supplements, from castigating eggs to absolving eggs of cholesterol crime, from loving mammograms to suspicion regarding mammograms, from hating coffee to prescribing it for elders.

And why are doctors so vacillating and so drug-therapy happy? Yes, of course, the whole AMA is in bed with the pharmaceutical industry, but that’s not the real reason its aim is to have every man, woman and child in the USA under a doctor’s care and on drugs.

The reason is: The people in the medical community want to make their patients and clients happy. They want to keep their jobs.

Which is exactly the reason you cannot trust anyone in politics--they want to keep voters voting for them.

And religious leaders want you in their religious edifices on the sabbath in order to keep their jobs.

Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing for these providers to want to keep on being providers. Who doesn’t want to keep his job so that the dough keeps coming in, so that the rent gets paid, so that food gets bought so that kiddies and constituents get fed?

But still…most of us have harbored the hope that people in politics, religion and medicine have a higher calling.

Forget about it. It’s not true. Get over it.

Keep fighting the good fight in politics. Keep on believing in God. Go to the doctor when you must.

But don’t for one minute think that the guys who profess to be the loyal messengers of religion, politics and medicine are in any way a cut above the rest of us as far as being vulnerable to lying, cheating, flattery and corruption.

   

These guys simply want to keep their jobs. Just like you and me.