Would You Like A Fortune, Cookie?

Hail, hail rock n' roll.

(Always wanted to start one of my posts with that.)

Your Pope (that would be me, John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church and Massage Parlor; the history of my meteoric rise to Papal stardom appears above), recently moved from the sunny climes of Southern California, specifically the San Fernando Valley area of LA (pronounced "LAH"), back to my roots here on the frigid plains of Northern Illinois ("Illinois" in the Hulahoop Indian tongue means "flat as a table and up to your butt in icicles"); a number of my more sane friends questioned the timing of this move, coming as it did in November, which, while still relatively warm in SoCal, is considered winter, i.e, effing cold, in table/butt-icicle land.

"Why are you moving back there in winter?" asked my erstwhile ex-neighbor Susie, better known (to me) as TL, which is short for TennLamb, her email handle, TennLamb being a contraction of Tennessee Lamb, as in "If you'll be my Dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb," from the great Lowell George/Little Feat song "Dixie Chicken".

The answer to her question was, hell, I don't know; like the guy that jumped naked into a cactus patch, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. (Actually, I wanted to be home with my family for the holidays; I've come back to visit every year for the last several, so, I figured, why make it a round-trip?)

Honestly, the cold and snow really didn't concern me when I was considering the move; I lived here for many years previously, still had my long underwear, hats, scarves and gloves and knew how to drive in winter ("steer into the slide"), so I knew the gig. Besides, as I told Susie, and everyone else who questioned my sanity, now that I'm mostly retired, having no day-job to get up in the mornings and go to, hell, what did I care what Ma Nature was inflicting upon the world outside; I don't have to go out in it if I don't choose to.

Not calculated into this plan was a certain amount of time for my body/physiology to adjust from daily 70-80 degree Valley weather to, are you kidding me, the wind chill is WHAT?

I hadn't been here three weeks when I got the flu; sickest I think I have ever been in my, using the term guardedly, adult life. Spent a week in bed miserable, figuring that I would have to get better to die.

Got back on my feet and, within a week, promptly caught a cold; lacking bad luck, I wouldn't have any at all.

It was during my second stint in bed sick (this time for 5 days), that I learned of a phenomena of which I had previously been blissfully ignorant.

The company that makes those Halls "triple soothing action, mentho-lyptus" cough drops puts pithy little sayings on the wrappers.

Word.

And I quote:

            "Don't waste a precious minute."

            "Get through it."

            "Put your game face on." (Which begs the question, "On whom?")

            "Take charge and mean it."

I love this one:

            "A pep talk in every drop." (That one was trade marked.)

Now I don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon here, but after spending half of the first six weeks subsequent to my triumphant return to the Land Of Lincoln in bed, hoping to die, my appreciation for these gems of wisdom was limited.

I have never really liked or appreciated the little slips of paper with the brief Oriental philosophies contained in fortune cookies either; frankly, although I like the cookie part, I've always thought most of the sayings were trite or, in a lot of cases, rather stupid. No slam to Confucius, but I mean, is there a point to these?

My all-time favorite fortune cookie messages:

            "You just ate cat."

            "Never tease an armed midget with a high-five."

And of course, at the end of a dinner with friends in a Chinese restaurant, some too-clever-for-words-genius will invariably comment to his/her (usually her) fellow diners, "Oh, read your fortune and add the words 'in bed' at the end", which, in my mind, typically only makes the message sound even more inane.

"You will inherit a potato farm and make a killing in tubers." Yeah, Einstein, add "in bed" to that.

I'm going to lobby someone to try my cough drop/fortune cookie sayings as alternatives to what they're using currently.

To wit:

            "The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list."

            "If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong."

            "I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you."

            "Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until they speak."

            "You do not need a parachute to skydive; you only need one to skydive twice."

            "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car."

            "You only live once, if you're lucky."

Besides being infinitely more clever than the ones on the cough-drop wrappers and in the fortune cookies these companies are boring us with currently, mine are a lot funnier.

(FYI, for those of you unaware of this, my sayings actually have a name...they're called "paraprosdokians", which in the Hulahoop Indian tongue means "potato farm".

Okay, I lied about that; here's what the word really means, per WikiPedia:

"A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis."

Is it possible to have an "anticlimax"? I mean, you either do or you don't, right?

So on top of being in bed, sick and miserable with my cold, I had to endure Kraft Foods' (the maker of Halls Cough Drops) idea of uplifting messages on the wrappers of their product. (Yeah, I know, I didn't have to read them, but once I knew they were there, oh well.) Somehow, this must rise to the level of "cruel and unusual punishment".

"That wasn't moo goo gai pan, it was sweet and sour raccoon testicles."

Love and chop suey,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

There's Just No Accounting For Taste

Wow, the time sure flies by when you're having fun, fun in this case being defined as the absence of root-canal work.

Today, January 18th, 2014, is the third anniversary of the inception of the blog of yours truly, Pope John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church; that's right, oh dedicated followers and lovers of sports, three years ago today, I began my quest to bring "the soothing balm of Johnism" to the world masses, by posting my deathless prose and timeless messages of hope and frivolity online, for all to see and appreciate. Over 10,000 (TEN THOUSAND AND TWELVE, to be precise, as of this morning) page-views later, I'm still here, banging away.

So far so good.

Throughout the past three years, there have been flights of fantasy on my atomic-powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or the RU Kidding for short, along with my faithful companion and official canine of the Pope, the Harley Dog, to the ends of the earth and the heavens as we know them, pitched battles to bring "Johnism" to the teeming hordes, all sorts of administrative boondoggles to contend with as the leader of a major religion, issues brought to light to hopefully help my loyal followers understand how to cope with an ever-changing world and in general, a lot of rank silliness.

There have been nun's habits to select, 26-foot statues of Marilyn Monroe, giant fish, aliens by the bucketful, great looking cars that I can't afford, ghost stories, stories about the best team in baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers, upside-down tomato plants, intestinal vegetation, an assistant to Harley named Tucker Dog, a personal email from a rock icon, Girl Scout cookies, statues of Harry Carey being defaced, contests, a rock band named the Flaming Iguanas, jokes about three-legged pigs, news bulletins from the AJATTWC, a woman with a bra size of 102ZZZ, komodo dragons, politics and politicians and all kinds of other foolishness.

And throughout it all, I have remained your cheerful, lovable Popemeister, always ready to fly off (figuratively), at a moment's notice, to exotic lands and far-flung planets to spread a little humor (sometimes very little), and hopefully bring a smile to your face and take your mind off your worries for a few moments.

See, I'm not such a bad guy; hell, I'm not even near as bad as my ex-wife makes me out to be.

So I thought that, just for yucks, to kind of, you know, celebrate the occasion, I would come up with a "Hall Of Fame" of some of my better posts, better meaning mostly coherent and in some small way, humorous. At least I think they are. Of the 174 essays I've posted over these past three years, these are the ones that I personally have enjoyed the most. (Actually, I've written/posted more than that; I've deleted a few stinkers.)

So in no particular order, and by no means inclusive of all my great messages on the subject of adopting "Johnism" into your lives, I give you the Pope John The Tall "Greatest Hits".

Seldom have so many sunk so low for comedy.

And remember, blessed are the lazy, for while they accomplish little, they're well rested.

Enjoy. And please feel free to peruse the entire catalog of my work; 174 forays into doofusness.

Love and oldies,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

THE GREATEST HITS OF PJTT

***At Least He's Not Dating An Alien From The Planet Noloc***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/01/at-least-hes-not-dating-alien-from.html 

***On Being A Cub's Fan And Not Understanding Vaginas***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/02/on-being-cubs-fan-and-not-understanding.html 

***The Writing Of Notes And The Hitting Of Gerbils***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/02/writing-of-notes-and-hitting-of-gerbils.html 

***Living Alone, Talking To Yourself And Whale Weinies***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/04/living-alone-talking-to-yourself-and.html 

***God Of Wind***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/05/god-of-wind.html 

***Sperm Bank Announces New Policy: Home Delivery (Just Like Dominos, Guaranteed Hot)***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/10/sperm-bank-announces-new-policy-home.html 

***加倍努力，芝加哥熊 (That's Chinese For The Greatest Team Ever)***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/11/thats-chinese-for-greatest-team-ever.html 

***...And From The Totally Unintentional Irony Department...***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2012/07/and-from-totally-unintentional-irony.html 

***The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-more-things-change-more-they-stay.html 

***You Are Still My Perfection***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2013/01/you-are-still-my-perfection.html 

***Maybe It Was Caspar's Older Sister***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2014/01/normal-0-happy-new-year-one-and-all.html 

***Just For The Halibut***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2014/01/just-for-halibut.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just For The Halibut

My last post was a ghost story (see "Maybe It Was Caspar's Older Sister", 1/4/14), so now I guess it's time for a fish story. Well, not exactly a "fish story" per se (that's Latin for "accidental bowel leakage") but a plea for a new national holiday, based on this country's obsession with...

...big fish.

(I saw an ad in the Chicago Tribune last week for a new product called the "Butterfly", which purports to cure the embarrassment of ABL, or "accidental bowel leakage", which, while I'm sure isn't funny to the people who suffer from this malady, I thought was totally hysterical.)

As your favorite Pope, that is, Pope John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church (see above for a convoluted explanation of my meteoric rise to blogger superstardom), I feel it is my beholden duty to advocate for certain causes that arise from time to time in my viewfinder.

Like it or not.

In the opening scene of the wonderful Rob Reiner movie (and FYI, I'm not crazy about Reiner's politics, but I do enjoy his movies) "The American President", the Pres, Andrew Shepard, played to a tea by Michael Douglas, is striding down a hallway in the White House, while his assistant, Janie, is scurrying along beside him, reminding him of the day's schedule, and making notes of his comments.

"And at 11:00 you have the Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce here to give you a 200 pound sturgeon," says the erstwhile young lady.

(Full disclosure here: I had the movie on an old VHS tape, which unfortunately I no longer own, having FINALLY made my entry into the 21st century world of home entertainment by obtaining a DVD player just last year; accordingly, I can't quote the dialogue exactly, but I'm pretty close. Sorry.)

"Janie, make a note," says Pres Shepard, a wry smile on his face, "we need to schedule more events where some group gives me a big fish."

"Yes, sir," replies Janie, serious as a heart attack.

"Janie, it was a joke."

"Yes, sir," says Janie, who will never be inducted into the Comedy Club Audience Hall Of Fame, apparently having absolutely on sense of humor whatsoever.

FYI, that's a "Dunkleosteus" at the top of the page, a prehistoric beastie said to measure up to 33 meters in length, which in feet is about 4,953, give or take a millimeter or two.

What exactly is this obsession people have with large fish? I mean, all the way back to the Bible and the story of Jonah and the whale (three days and nights at the whale stomach resort of your choice, yuck) on through Herman Melville and his famed maimer of Captain Ahab (played with sinister abandon by Gregory Peck), Moby Dick, we seem to have this thing with fish the size of South Dakota.

(I did some research on the name "Moby Dick": according to melville.org, the name probably came from an "article by Jeremiah Reynolds, published in the New York Knickerbocker Magazine in May 1839. Mocha Dick: or The White Whale of the Pacific recounted the capture of a giant white sperm whale that had become infamous among whalers for its violent attacks on ships and their crews. The meaning of the name itself is quite simple: the whale was often sighted in the vicinity of the island of Mocha, and "Dick" was merely a generic name like "Jack" or "Tom" -- names of other deadly whales cited by Melville in Chapter 45 of Moby-Dick." The author goes on to explain that no one quite knows why Melville changed the name to "Moby"; maybe he preferred the Caramel Flan Latte.)

Okay, so we have a "thing" for large, gill-bearing aquatic craniates (thank you, WikiPedia). So I figured, given everything, we should have a National Big Fish Day, to celebrate our grand obsession.

I would think, given Congress' willingness to throw money at just about anything, that our national legislators could cough up a few bucks for another national holiday. And surely our good President (played by Barrack Obama, in a manner reminiscent of other great performances by such acting luminaries as Corey Feldman or the Muppets) would have no problem signing into law a bill that establishes a particular day to commemorate and celebrate all the over-sized ichthyological wonders of the deep. Of course, the Republicans would oppose such legislation, but I think it could garner enough support from states with a strong fishing industry to pass both Houses of Congress.

Of course, with the track record of the 113th session of Congress, just getting a bill written and to the floor would be a miracle, let alone actual passage. But one can hope.

Maybe it has something to do with being a Pisces, but I think this is an idea whose time has come.

National Big Fish Day; Red Lobster and Long John Silver's would love it.

So I'm starting the movement officially, as of this writing; I'll be lobbying my Congressperson for a bill to this effect, and indicating that I expect his support, even if his idea of seafood is tuna casserole.

National Big Fish Day...coming soon to a holiday near you. 

Okay, another full disclosure here: I don't really give a hoot in hell about having a National Big Fish Day, I just had a bunch of big fish pictures I had accumulated over the past few months and I needed an excuse to post them to my blog.

National Big Fish Day, what, are you kidding me? That's as ridiculous as someone wanting to name February National Canned Food Month.

Oh, February is National Canned Food Month.

Never mind.

Enjoy the photos, and remember, you can tune a guitar but you can't tuna fish.

Love and Chicken Of The Sea,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

Maybe It Was Caspar's Older Sister

Happy New Year, one and all, from your favorite Pope, John The Tall (see above for a detailed and most likely confusing explanation of how I came to rise to this lofty pinochle); my best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2014, or whatever year it is where you are.

I'm going to tell you a spooky story, so if you're inclined to be weirded-out by such tales, you might want to stop here and go read something else, you sissy.

Now strictly speaking, I don't put much credence in stories of the "supernatural", although I thought Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" was the most frightening book I have ever read, and I am literally getting goose bumps as I write this, thinking about Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting Of Hill House". I didn't sleep real well for a night or two after I saw "The Exorcist" for the first time, and "Poltergeist" gave me a pretty good rush as well.

But in real life, day-to-day living, not so much; I can't say that I've ever even given the subject much thought. Oh, there was an incident back when I was about 16 when, along with a buddy of mine who swore, at the right time of night, you could see lights moving across the altar of an old church in our neighborhood, we entered said church (folks were MUCH more trusting about leaving church doors unlocked in those days, which was just after the Civil War, don't you know?), and promptly exited, an hour or so later, in a bit of a rush, having witnessed something that didn't seem completely kosher.

But I was, like a lot of 16-year olds, a bit of a doofus then, and I'm unhappy to say that the ensuing years haven't changed me much.

But belief in the supernatural, nah, not really. To my way of thinking, things that go unexplained, like UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and why anyone could possibly think Miley Cyrus has any talent whatsoever are just things which science hasn't stumbled onto an explanation for yet.

You know, like why this country elected George Bush twice.

Okay, here's the tale (Edgar Allen Poe, eat your heart out).

I recently returned to the city of my roots here in Northern Illinois, after 13 interesting but increasingly lonely years in Granola City ("What ain't fruits and nuts is flakes"), Los Angeles CA; loved the weather, but my family is here and I wanted to come home. I'm semi-retired these days (very small "semi"), working only a few hours a week for the several clients that still remain from my sales/marketing firm, and since money is tighter these days, and since I, apparently unlike many others, found the process of on-line apartment hunting to be impossible ("First Month Rent Free, Roaches No Charge"), my initial long-distance forays into the local housing market were less than successful.

My beautiful and extremely bright daughter, Fred (not her real name; all names have been changed to protect the innocent and confused), being made aware of my inability to find a place to live by my constant complaining about it, called me one day with a suggestion: "Hey, Dad", she says, "I was just talking to Mohandas (my son-in-law's mom), "and she suggested you move into her basement so you could be here and check things out in person. Plus that would get you home for the holidays." (This was back in October of last year.)

What???

"Yeah", says my erstwhile kid, "she's got plenty of room; her basement is ginormous."

Give credit to my offspring: what her description lacks in proper grammar is more than made up for by how descriptive and accurate it is; the basement is, indeed, "ginormous". Mohandas and I cut a deal, and in I moved, after the moving truck loading, the 38-hour cross-country trip with my son-in-law, complete with trailered car, the unloading at the house and storage unit, etc.

I filled up about 1/2 of her basement with an easy chair, my TV/stereo, my desk/computer/printer stand, a bedroom set, complete with queen-size bed, a refrigerator and some odds and ends, and I'm thinking about scheduling NASCAR events in the other half. I use a map to find my way around.

Last night, not feeling like cooking nor disturbing my extremely decent and thoughtful landlady by banging around in her kitchen, I went to a local eatery, had a very nice meal, complete with a quite interesting conversation with my wait-person, who was, a) very bright, b) quite attractive and c) young enough to be my other daughter, which pretty much cancelled out b).

Arriving home, I switched on the Blackhawks game, and settled in for the evening.

(I have recently become a hockey fan, after years of disliking the game for all the gratuitous fighting; said daughter, above, and her hubby have become big fans of the Chicago team, and she kept assuring me that the fighting wasn't near as bad as it used to be. Deciding to see if she was tugging at my extremity, I watched a game or two when I got back in town and, I'm happy to report, got hooked. The games are exciting, fast-paced and populated by some incredible athletes that can do things on skates at high speed that the majority of us couldn't do on the living room rug bare-footed, in slow-motion. Go 'Hawks!)

Game over, and the 'Hawks triumphant over the NJ Devils 5-3, it was now 9:00pm and decision time: go to bed and read or sit in my chair and read. (I'm not much of a TV person; sports and an occasional movie.)

One of the beauties of retirement (even semi), at least for me, is the flexibility of the schedule: if I want to crash at 9:00pm, or even 6:00pm for that matter, although I only did that when I had the flu a few weeks ago, who cares? I mean, there's no desk to be at nor clock to punch in the mornings, so I don't concern myself with my rather, at least to some people, odd schedule (you'll understand more below). Besides, I'm going to wake up at least once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom anyway, so why not?

(I am the embodiment of the old joke about a "senior" all-nighter being not having to get up once to pee. As I've aged, my bladder has shrunk to the size of a walnut and my brain has installed software therein that does a "WARNING! WARNING, OLD PERSON! BLADDER IS NOW AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY AND MUST BE EMPTIED IMMEDIATELY! WARNING! WARNING!"  kind of a thing. My friend Ron, who is the same age as I am, says he never wakes up to pee at night, but since he smokes dope all day and goes to bed stoned, I don't think that counts.)

I'd give 1000 bucks to, just once, sleep all the way through the night. Shit.

So I crashed at 9 o'clock, dove into "Eisenhower, Soldier and President", which is pretty interesting, although when I first started reading it, after 12 pages or so, all I could think was that I hoped the author, Stephen E. Ambrose, could fornicate better than he could write, otherwise I would have predicted a lonely life for the man; it read like a high-school textbook. It's gotten much better.

I managed about a half-hour's worth, turned the light off and fell asleep.

Right on schedule, Ol' Walnut Bladder woke me up about 1:45am, and believe me, after turning on the light by my bed, walking the 200 yards across the basement, turning on the light in the basement stairwell and trudging up the steps, walking down the medium-length hallway to make a right turn into the short hallway that leads to the bathroom, turning on the bathroom light lest I urinate all over the toilet, the floor, the tub and myself, washing my hands thoroughly, then reversing my steps to return to bed, I am now completely awake.

So I read some more, and finally fell back to sleep about 3:45. (This is pretty much every night; remember what I said about the "odd schedule" above? Yeah.)

And dreamed.

I sleep on my left side, for no other better reason than explains why I'm right-handed, that is, I just do/am, on the right side of the bed; I'm not democratic enough to sleep in the middle.

Suddenly, I was aware of a woman, a rather tall woman, standing at the foot of my bed, just at my feet, clothed in what looked to be a long, white nightgown, wearing a straw cowboy hat. (Hey, it's a dream, they're not supposed to make sense, okay?) She was facing the same way I was, to my left, with her left shoulder to me, and muttering something under her breath that I couldn't make out. It was scary how real it seemed, so there somehow, like I could have reached out and touched her.

(At first, I thought it was my mother, who met her demise about a year ago at the ripe old age of 98, but realized in an instant I was wrong; this woman was much younger, with flowing blond hair. Glad too that it wasn't Fran; she and I stopped speaking about 5 years before she died, then she cut me out of her will, which I found out about when my brother called to tell me that she had died, and I didn't go to the funeral. There's a LOT more to that story, believe me.)

My spectral lady began to move to the other side of the bed, and as she moved, still saying whatever in her low voice, I found myself trying to call out to her, to ask her what her name was, to tell me what she was saying, (to try to get her to climb in with me; I am the epitome of what Jean-Paul Sartre said about guys: "I breathe, therefore I perv"), to try to get her attention in some way. I kept trying to say something, but nothing was coming out.

She stopped a few feet past the bed, and as she did, I was finally able to croak out a sound, and that's when I woke up. In that moment of startled wakefulness, in maybe 5 seconds of passing time, I flipped onto my back, glanced to my right and saw it was 4:18am, realized that I had had this same dream just recently, although I hadn't awoken that time, and turned back to look at the spot where my dream-lady had stopped moving.

Which was directly under the smoke-detector, which like my printer, my clock radio, my modem, my computer and other myriad devices here in my basement home, has a small, green LED light that glows all the time, steadily, not on and off or blinking or anything, just on, only right then, it wasn't glowing, as it always does, but pulsing, becoming brighter and dimmer and brighter and dimmer until, after a few moments, it stopped.

I ran, shrieking and half-naked, into the cold Illinois winter night, never to return again. (Okay, that part isn't true.)

But the rest of it is, and I have to tell you, it was weird; not Justin Beiber weird, not unexplained lights across the altar weird, but pretty weird. I know what you're thinking, that I was still asleep, but I wasn't, because I had to get up and go pee again.

Honest.

I'm hoping she comes back tonight; I mean, yeah, it was just a brief encounter, but I gotta' tell you, she looked pretty hot.

I wonder if this kind of thing ever happened to Peter Straub?

Love and Lovecraft,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc

Doing The Math (Somebody Has To Do It)

Yes, that's right, sports fans, your ol' Pope (Pope John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church and Gambling Casino; see above for the explanation of my meteoric rise to this lofty pinochle) is finally back from his self-enforced hiatus from writing here on the blog for the AJATTWC; I'm sure you've missed me terribly.

All I can say is that I've been busy; being Pope has some tremendous duties and responsibilities: there's all those holy cards to bless, all that sacramental wine to be tasted and approved, keeping track of the Sisters from the Society Of Our Lady Of The Holy Fundament (see my post dated 6/10/11), boy, the list just goes on and on, much like I do sometimes.

Anyway, I'm back, and like it or not, I have some comments I want to make, so there.

I was recently made aware of a video by a man named Dave Ramsey by someone close to me, and after viewing Mr. Ramsey and listening to his remarks in said video, I thought I might take a moment (or two) and respond. (If you're not familiar with Mr. Ramsey, I quote from the WikiPedia article on him:

            "David L. Ramsey III is an American financial author, radio host, television personality, and motivational speaker. His show and writings strongly focus on encouraging people to get out of debt.")

I have on several occasions availed myself to Mr. Ramsey's radio show and some of his various writings, and I will tell you that I like his ideas and mostly agree with his points of view. He is engaging, articulate, funny and, as far as I can tell, clear-thinking.

The video (see below for the link) that he produced was entitled "Dave Ramsey lays out the facts of Obamacare for both Democrats and Republicans", and was featured on the website Poor Richard's News on October 11th of this year. In it he gives his take on the Affordable Care Act, and it's implications for all of us.

poorrichardsnews.com/post/63737924453/video/dave-ramsey-lays-out-the-facts-of-obamacare-for

Mr. Ramsey makes the theme of his talk "do the math", and repeatedly returns to that phrase throughout; his general idea is that, Democrat or Republican (and I assume those of our citizens who are Libertarians, Green Party, National Socialists, et. al., are included as well), everyone should do the math on Obamacare and realize that, gee, guess what, our health insurance premiums, for those of us who have existing healthcare policies, are going to go up as a result of the enactment of the ACA.

As far as I can tell, he's right: somebody is going to pay for all those cheap health insurance policies. And that somebody is all of us.

Now a little "full disclosure" here:

A) I have considered myself a "moderate Republican" all my adult life, having voted for GOP Presidential candidates starting in 1972 with Richard Nixon, and continuing through 2004 when I finally broke with the Party and voted for John Kerry, because I couldn't imagine another four years of that crack-brained moron George W. Bush. I made another break in 2012 when I voted for a third party candidate, namely Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, when I felt that Mitt Romney had no more business being President than my 10-year old grandson, and I couldn't bring myself to vote of Barrack Obama.

B) I agree completely with the views expressed by Dave Ramsey in his video.

I do not like Obamacare, for reasons too numerous to delve into here; suffice to say that many of it's prime characteristics are anathema to me as a small-government, controlled-spending, personal freedom first Republican kind of guy.

The problem (you knew there was one coming, didn't you?) with Mr. Ramsey's position is this: Dave, it's easy to be against something you don't like or of which you disapprove; how about some concrete, positive ideas as an alternative for a change?

Our genius GOP legislators in the Congress just recently managed to hamstring this country once again with their hair-brained idea to shut-down the Federal government and force a reexamination of Obamacare, with the thought to defund it. In the process, they damaged the fragile recovery our economy is experiencing, cost the country an estimated $24 BILLION in lost business and lowered our already shaky esteem in the world marketplace.

And in the midst of all the rhetoric and accusations back and forth between the Republican Tea-Party Congressmen and the President, not once did I hear ANYONE advance a viable alternative to the ACA.

And like it or not, as Mr. Ramsey keeps repeating in his video, everybody should do the math, but that's not enough; somebody, somewhere needs to stand up and take it one step further and suggest a better idea.

Because we have approximately 46 million of our citizens here in this country that lack healthcare insurance, and thus, access to care for their medical needs.

46 million people with no insurance that allows them to see a doctor, get treatment for a sickness or injury, a prescription for medication, or any other healthcare-related process.

And the math is that these 46 million people will eventually show up at clinics and emergency rooms in need of help for an sickness/injury, which by the way might have been completely avoided had they had access to a doctor's ongoing care in the first place, and lacking the ability to pay for their treatment (and Federal law says the healthcare provider must treat them), they run up bills that are then absorbed by the hospital/clinic/whatever, and guess what, folks: that expense is then added on to the cost of ALL of our healthcare, in the form of increased fees for doctors, nurses, facilities, medicines, etc. and passed on to all of us.

Don't believe me? Get a hold of a hospital bill and see what they charge for a dosage of Tylenol.

Yep, do the math: the lack of health insurance for all Americans costs each of us plenty.

Now I suspect that Mr. Ramsey, given his points of view and proclivities, is a very conservative Republican, and good for him; for example, he drags out the very GOP talking point of "privatized" Social Security accounts for each person in the country. (Investing in mutual funds for the average person as an alternative to Social Security? Brilliant. Let me give you a quote from the prospectus from one of the funds I'm invested in:

"As with any mutual fund, there is no guarantee that the fund will

achieve its objective. The fund’s share price fluctuates, which means you could lose

money by investing in the fund."

Yeah, great idea, dude.)

He also mentions the rights of all of us under the 2nd Amendment, and I haven't a clue what that has to do with Obamacare, but, whatever.

So I have a feeling that, given Dave's rather conservative approach, he's not going to like my "better suggestion" to the ACA, something that he didn't have in his speech. Ready? Here goes:

One-payer. As my daughter would say, easy-peasy. Or at least extend Medicare-like benefits to all U.S. citizens.

Yes, that goes against everything the GOP stands for and believes in (as do I): the free-market system, the profit principle, entrepreneurship, apple pie and the American flag.

Big pharma, hospital corporations, doctors, insurance companies, all those folks would have to find ways to survive in a climate of "walk into an emergency room or a clinic or doctor's office, present your ID card, receive care or treatment, no charge."

I can hear all the air being sucked out of the room while my Republican friends read this. But it would cost less if everyone took a fair cut and just provided quality care, period.

Dave mentions "communism" in his video, and that's what one-payer healthcare probably sounds like, right? But "communism" is defined in my dictionary as "an economic theory or system of the ownership of property, means of production and distribution by the community or society".

Nobody is going to own Merck, or Blue Cross or ABC Hospital Corporation but the stockholders; the distribution of funds would just be different.

One-payer, everybody is covered.

Do the math, Dave, because either way, under the present system or under Obamacare, it's costing us all.

And we're all getting screwed.

Love and stethoscopes,

PJTT

You Are Still My Perfection

You are still my perfection.

You are my wonder and my wanting

You are that which can't be said

and you are my totality

The years have come and gone

with ceaseless march and the shadows

of age

And all that would be and

need be

I still find in you

In a world of disappointments

You are my constant

In a world of regrets

You are my victory

You are still my perfection

And you are still my life.

I want no other.

Verse copyright 2013 Krissongs Inc

Photo "Laetitia" by Jimmy Bollaerts

Once More, With Feeling This Time

On Saturday, 1/19, I posted the essay "Please God, Never Again" which spoke about the need I feel the Republican Party has in the 2016 Presidential campaign to field a much more moderate, middle-of-the-road candidate, a candidate that can, hopefully, build a coalition of diverse blocs of voters, leading to a GOP victory.

As a follow-up to that post, I offer the following quote, which I will attribute in a moment:

"Polls indicated that a majority of the electorate favored the middle of the road. The Republican right-wingers denied it. They were convinced that out in the country there was a hidden conservative majority. It was, they insisted, the key fact in American politics. Lacking a home, these disgruntled conservatives had scorned both parties. Nominate a genuine conservative, said the...ideologues, and this hidden majority would come swarming into the streets and elect a real American."

The above quote comes from the book "The Glory And The Dream" by William Manchester, the distinguished, award-winning historian. The book was written in 1973, and in this particular chapter, he was discussing the 1964 Presidential election, wherein the GOP nominated Barry Goldwater, one of the most conservative, right-wing candidates ever to run for the Presidency. His opponent was Lyndon Johnson.

The final tally of the popular vote for that year's election was:

Johnson: 43,126,218 or 61% of the votes cast;

Goldwater: 27,174,8998 or 38% of the votes cast.

The Electoral College vote was:

Johnson: 486

Goldwater: 52

Isn't it interesting that no matter how much things seem to change with the passing years, they always seem to stay an awful lot like they were previously?

Love and voting machines,

PJTT

copyright 2013 Krissongs Inc.