America's Newest Trend: Alcoholic Enemas...

Experts: Alcohol Enemas are Extremely Dangerous.

Thank God we have 'experts' to constantly remind us not to do that which seems obviously stupid. I'll bet the guy who came up with that self-evident little piece of handy advice was paid at least high six-figures.

It's a good thing we're sending our children off to college in record numbers, huh? This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what some of you have saved for all of your lives. It is what you have sacrificed or deferred vacations, dental fillings, the occasional steak, knee-replacement surgery and new cars for. It is why you have indebted yourself for the rest of your natural life with second mortgages and school loans.

All so your kids can go off to college, get a Master's Degree in Holistic Basketweaving (in only 7 years, too!), and in the meantime, discover new, exciting -- and dangerous -- things to stick up their backsides, or to do with alcohol, and preferably do both simultaneously. This is what most of you are paying nearly $60,000 a year for in the vain hope that your child will emerge from the college experience just slightly smarter than when they went in.

Fibromyalgia is Bullshit...

Yesterday's July 4th celebrations saw your intrepid blogger trapped in a party he didn't wish to attend with a guest list that included six -- that's one more than five, one less than seven -- gay men, all more-or-less in a "committed relationship", which to judge from the openly frank exchange of sexual innuendo would seem to indicate that "committed" means something to gay men that it doesn't mean to the rest of us.

But that is not the point of this little screed, so I shall leave the unsavory details for another post later today.

Anyways, apparently all the rage in Gay Circles these days is to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

For The Sake of My Fat Ass...

Okay, so it's been a week since I've gotten out of the hospital, and one of the things I seriously need to start doing is taking off some of this excess blubber I'm carrying around. Truth to tell, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I stepped on that scale in the ER and the little LED display read...well, those numbers.

See, this Lunatic needs to lose approximately *cough-cough* pounds, which is an awful lot. Believe me, you never knew *cough-cough* could be such a terrible number until someone or something has pointed out to you that *cough-cough* would be impressive....if you were a fucking walrus. Thank you, smart-ass nurse!

Cheney "Just Fine" After Heart Transplant...

It has been axiomatic amongst the most rabid Left-wingers in America that Dick Cheney, the so-called Prince of Darkness, has no heart.

Now we know he's had at least two.

We here at the Asylum can't help but believe, although we love Dick Cheney with all our (no pun intended) hearts, that the whole Cheney Transplant drama sets a very bad precedent.

National Marlboros and Twinkies Day...

Yet another city government decides that smokers are fair game.

It is ironic, no, that's the wrong word...it's sad...that in this day-and-age of the West 'bringing freedom and democracy' to the brain-dead-bass-ackwards-intolerant Muslim World, the West itself becomes just a little bit more like those Muslims with every passing day.

As far as smoking bans go, this one is quite tame compared to the oppressive regime we Smokers here in Fuhrer Bloomdouche’s New Yorkistan must suffer. However, when you start to discuss the possibility of discrimination in employment because of a person’s willingness to engage in a legal activity that government has collected untold hundreds of billions from for centuries, you’re starting to wander off the reservation of 'caring' about your fellow men and into the hypocritical minefield of totalitarianism.

Smoking Bans are quite popular these days, and smokers are perhaps the last group of people on Planet Earth that one can, in a socially-acceptable sense that requires nothing more than a great deal of moral sermonizing, openly discriminate against. Oh, and the Fatties. You can discriminate against them, too.

The reason being that the habits of Smokers and Fatties have long drawn the disapproval of so-called Liberals who consider both a blight upon the landscape, an easy source of tax dollars, and a wonderful target of opportunity in the fight to bring about socialist tyranny one baby step at a time. After all, how sweet is it that one can torment, brutalize, unfairly tax, discriminate, and hold up for public approbation and humiliation their fellow Men under the cover of the bromide “I’m only worried about your health, and the health of others” and not have to mean a single word of it?

If you only ever understand one thing about Liberalism, then understand this:

Liberalism is never about your freedom. It's never about your right to live as you choose. It's never about your benefit; it's always about the Libtard being able to reorder society according to his or her own often-questionable tastes and ideals. Liberals don't want the power to 'take care of you'; they want the power to make you live as they see fit as a matter of their own personal physical and mental comfort.

Some will make the argument that Smokers and Fatties are millstones hung around the neck of society, as their habits are more likely to cost the State billions in health care costs, and thanks to many junk science studies about secondhand smoke and the supposedly bad health risks associated with excess body weight, you have, if you’re a good little Leftard with dreams of wielding the power to tell everyone else how to live, a ready excuse to let your inner tyrant fly.

I’m going to engage in a little experiment here, one Libtards engage in all the time. Bear with me, this might be instructive. It's called The Game of Moral Equivalence That Really Has No Moral Component.

If one were to say that smoking and obesity bring with them a great number of potential health risks, and these risks cause a great deal of expense in terms of rising insurance and treatment costs which others must bear, therefore, smokers and the obese must be shamed, taxed, made to change their habits against their wills, and otherwise blamed for all of society’s evils, then please explain the following:

If smoking and over-eating kill, and drain the public coffers, and are otherwise habits that can either be avoided or reformed through the use of taxation, regulation, and discrimination, then why has no one applied a similar program of enlightened oppression against Homosexuals?

After all, homosexual activity often leads to AIDS, which we all know is a deadly, incurable disease, that often requires a great deal of money and specialized medical care to treat. I wonder, if we added up the costs associated with the health risks of smoking, obesity and AIDS, if the numbers wouldn’t, in proportion, show AIDS to be every bit as deadly, every bit as expensive to treat, and as easily-avoidable as lung cancer or diabetes.

Why aren’t the health care advocates out there railing against butt sex as a deadly threat to society that costs the taxpayer billions, and as a disgusting habit that often carries with it unacceptable behavioral and health risks to innocent bystanders? I mean, because of AIDS, right here in New York City, we give free needles away to heroin addicts as an anti-AIDS measure. Because of AIDS, then, we've encouraged and subsidized drug addiction -- another expensive public health problem! -- haven't we?

Oh, right: because most Leftards are probably gay, and heroin addicts. But I (only-half) jest, of course. The real reason is because open homosexuality is one of the devices the Left depends upon to sap the moral strength of a free people, to destroy the bonds between family members and communities, and to encourage all sorts of vices and attitudes which can later be manipulated for political advantage.

If we’re going to be discriminating against people because of their habits and the supposed cost/threat to society, then let’s start prioritizing the costs/threats accordingly. When the day comes when homosexuals are discriminated against because of their behavior and the health risks associated with it – not to mention the crippling financial drain incurred in treating AIDS -- then I’d say we have True Equality in America.

I know plenty of Smokers who have lived good, long lives, free of medical complaint, with nary a cancer cell in sight.

I know plenty of Obese people who have lived full, active lives, without the trouble of diabetes or weight-related bone/joint issues.

I know plenty of Smokers/Obese people who pay for their own private health coverage, and who do not have to – nor want to – depend upon the state for their well-being and health.

I also know plenty of homosexuals who have caught AIDS – and often brag about it because it brings them sympathy and a mess of attention (which is what all homosexuals want, anyways. It's why they 'chose' to be gay in the first place!) , not to mention federal funds – who do nothing but try as hard as they might to obtain the drug cocktails they need to stay alive (and thus spread the AIDS virus, because let’s face it; they’re often not giving up sex, are they?) at someone else’s expense.

It’s not an automatic that a smoker dies of cancer, or that he/she spreads cancer through secondhand smoke. It is not an automatic that an obese person is going to spend years in a hospital bed in a special ward sucking up tax dollars like a sponge for treatment, or going through replacement knees like I use toilet paper.

It is, however, an automatic that a homosexual with full-blown AIDS is fighting a losing battle, and would most certainly die without $3,000-a-dose anti-viral drugs that he possibly can’t afford for long on his own, constant monitoring of his health status, and other expensive courses of treatment.

So, why do we pick on Smokers and Fatties?

Because they’re not sympathetic ‘victims’ with a political utility, that’s why.

I think it’s time the Smokers and Fatties of the World United, and stopped this insanity, began to expose some of these double standards, and engaged in a fight to restore our right to live our lives as we goddamned please, and give the shit our elected officials and the busy-body-Nanny-staters give us back tenfold.

I hereby declare today National Marlboros and Twinkies Day. Light one up for freedom! Suck down a Twinkie in defense of your rights! And make sure you do it in the face of the most insufferable leftist douchebag you know, and if she (it’s usually a she) has anything to say about your ‘disgusting’ behavior, then blow smoke in her face and squish the rich, creamy filling into her hair, sending her screaming into that good night like a Arab who’s just found out his fourth wife has a dick under that burqa.

Or at least punch her square in the mouth. Just on general principles.

And while you’re at it, tell every homosexual you know that you’re not inclined to pay for his treatment when he finally (not if, always when) catches AIDS.

It’s time to start fighting back.

Your ObamaCare Future...

Four postponements. Institutionalization. Poor nutrition, and despite government-provided dental care, a set of teeth one would be embarrassed to show in public on anything but a nag horse. Oh, and a dead person who maybe shouldn't be dead. Great healthcare system they've got there in Britain.

You just have to love the following typically-libtard-ed quote. I can imagine it being delivered with that famous British stoicism and stiff upper lip:

'We were given the very sad news and as word spread it threw a pall over the civic dinner. Margaret was much loved and respected in this town.'

Yep, don't you just hate it when your Civic Dinners have a pall cast over them? Rather takes away from one's enjoyment of the Stilton and Port.

Now, I'm not saying this woman would have lived had she been given the advantages of the American system, or at least, what's left of it. But you have to wonder why it is that a presumably-vital surgery can be postponed four times, why there is no inquest, and why the family of this poor woman is left to wonder "what if...", or worse, left wondering "Why?" and apparently getting no answers from officialdom.

Could this happen in America? Sure it could. Would it be commonplace, though? Hell no. Why? Because six seconds after this woman expired, ther would be a battalion of lawyers talking lawsuit, a local TV or newspaper reporter looking to make his/her bones on the story, and a grandstanding politician or two to pollute the airwaves with inane nonsense that would still have the effect of at least getting someone in that hospital to take a look at their methods and procedures to ensure that everything was done to the best of everyone's ability.

It's called a 'Free Market', and even though the involvement of a reporter, a politico and an ambulance chaser would, at first blush, seem to have nothing at all to do with whether or not a woman gets an operation, they, in fact, DO. They are part of the auxiliary to the System which keeps healthcare providers honest, and even if they would have failed to keep this particular woman alive, their actions would have had the effect of ensuring better care for those who come after her in similar circumstance. Free Markets are about more than just the transfer of money from one hand to another. Read some Adam Smith and Freidrich Hayek if you don't believe me.

Personally, I hate (in ascending order of repugnance) reporters, politicians and lawyers, but even a study of basic biology will reveal that parasites can often serve a useful function, without even knowing it.

Because the National Health System in Britain is government-run, it cannot be sued when someone fucks up, and requests -- even from bereaved family members -- for information can be problematic if not damned-near impossible endeavors. The System investigates and audits itself, which is to say that the government investigates and audits itself, and so there is little motivation to be honest about costs, results, statistics, goals or conditions. The bureaucrats who run the System have no interest in letting anyone knows how it operates, because if the general public did know the truth, these assholes would have to find other jobs, and let's face it; no one pays as well and expects as little as The Government (any government) does.

This is what's headed your way, whether it's Canada's infamous 10-month waiting list for the Maternity Ward, or Britain's onerous "We've only budgeted for 1,000,000 emergency appendectomies this year. Unfortunately, you're Number 1,000,002, please come back on January 1" standard, or Holland's "Why should we fix your leaky heart valve? You're 84, for Chrissakes! Have you thought about Euthanasia and medical marijuana?" routine.

It sounds like (and I have no evidence to back this up whatsoever) they shuffled this woman from one ward to another over a series of weeks or months, while some nameless, faceless bureaucrats, actuaries and accountants discussed whether or not it was a worthwhile investment to save her life.

So much for being loved and respected in the community.

The sooner ObamaCare is defunded the safer -- and healthier -- we'll all be. We'll at least have the choice about whether we have a surgery or not.

Welcome Smartsilvers.com Readers...

Been a lot of you coming here for the last four months or so, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say hello, and thanks for stopping by...and mind your own business.

Of course, you're all here to read the same four-months-old post, and judging from the e-mail that it still continues to generate, it would seem that you're all shocked...shocked...that someone would say such horrible things about his own mother without having a clue as to our family dynamic,or history. A few have expressed concern for her safety, and some, mostly you Asian twits -- who have come here from that Lady in Singapore's blog which linked to the original post, which will get no traffic from me -- want to know what the fuck is wrong with me that I show such blatant disrespect for my own mother. This would never happen in Singapore/China/Japan/Korea, et. al.

Well, this here is America, not the Orient (I don't care if that term is Eurocentric, I'm fucking using it).

Here's the news: My mother is still alive, despite being the biggest pain in the ass since that (in-)famous Englishman (who's name I cannot be bothered to look up) was executed at the Tower of London by having a red-hot iron poker rammed up his Poop Chute. She is well, and no, I haven't beaten her to a bloody pulp...yet...and -- probably -- never will. So you can stop saying novenas for her safety. She is not liable to meet her untimely demise at the hands of an ungrateful son.

That post is what we refer to in the trade as SATIRE. It's actually not very far from the truth, but still satire all the same. Your generation (and just which generation is that, anyway? How many of you went to school with King Tut, John The Baptist or Atilla the Hun? Show of hands?) has the unfortunate habit of believing everything you read without engaging your (rapidly-fading) critical thinking skills. You figure that if it wasn't completely, literally true then no one would bother to write it down.

What I really enjoy -- other than the indignation of old folks who have little time left on this Earth but choose to spend their last, waking breaths questioning my sanity -- is the palpable fear that's contained in those e-mails. Now, when I say this, I don't mean that I actually get off in some sexually-perverted way on your fear, just that it's interesting to note just how frightened many of you are at the thought of your children completely abandoning you just as you begin to enter your Terminal Incontinent Stage, and think I've just given then a How-To-Manual on how to treat a sick parent,or a Permission Note to mistreat you.

Apparently, this is a common worry amongst the Lived-Longer-Than-They-Ever-Deserved-To-and- Collected-More-In-Social-Security-Than-They-Ever-Paid-Into-It demographic. Yeah, I know: you're entitled. You fought Hitler.

If I have to explain it again:

1. My mother is not, and never was, circling the bowl. She only had a knee replacement and is/was in no immediate danger of dying, unless she took a header down a flight of stairs. However, she was never left alone, and had no intention of ever approaching a staircase in her condition.

2. She pissed me off with her incessant whining, so I blogged about it. Then again, she's been pissing me off with her constant and ungrateful whining for 44 years now, so I can't imagine why I waited so long. Even at that, I was here, taking care of her. People who have no class, empathy, or sense of obligation don't do things like that. Like my sister who only lives eight blocks away and couldn't be bothered to do more than make a daily phone call, and my brother who might as well be on the side of a milk carton. More people have seen Bigfoot than have seen my brother in the last three years. Got anything to say about those ungrateful and disrespectful children? Didn't think so: they don't blog, after all.

You should read all the e-mail I got from 'kindred spirits' (i.e. other children taking care of sick parents) that ran the gamut from 'I hear ya! These old folks suck!' to 'Do you think I should ask the doctor to give Dad a Hot-shot and just be done with it?' Now you tell me, just how bad was my post, or my actions on my mother's behalf? Compared to some of those lunatics, I'm a friggin' saint.

If this fear preys on your mind in your final days, instead of worrying about me and my mother, you should start worrying about what kind of monster you've raised, or perhaps start making amends for having been a rotten parent before it's too late.

By the way, my mother will eventually die so poor she won't even be able to pay attention, let alone her bills in years to come. So I certainly didn't do it to get a bigger piece of the inheritance, as some of you have suggested.

3. She received the absolute best of care that I could provide. I fed her, washed her, changed her dressings, administered her medications, saw to her comfort and otherwise fufilled every whim, wish and need, no matter how fucking stupid, time-consuming, retarded, unnecessary, or annoying. I've done the research: in at least seven states, the kind of crap she pulled would have been grounds for justifiable homicide. I paid for all the Visiting nurses she needed, and have paid for physical therapy twice a week for the last two months.

4. I warn everyone who comes here that they're liable to be offended. I don't care if I offend people because, believe me, no one gives a shit if they offend me. Those of you still following the New York Times link were warned by the author of that post that you would probably be offended. You are owed no apologies, and since most of you asking for one (why?) will soon be dead, anyway. Good luck getting one.

5. The absolute LAST thing I need is to be lectured to by complete strangers. Especially ones who apparently don't understand what they read, or who rub hemorrhoid cream into their hair because they had 'A Senior Moment' only three minutes earlier, and then get on the computer.

6. I DO NOT HATE THE ELDERLY. Only the whiny old bastards who won't help save their country the cash and finally let slip this mortal coil, already. In fact, I only wish every goddamned day that my grandparents were still here, because they were the only people who ever gave me any guidance, or who talked any horse sense. My mother, incidentally, will only be 65 this August, so technically, she's not elderly at all. She just behaves as if she is.

7. Yes, I use a lot of foul language. Like you never have in the 3,000 or so years you've walked the Earth? Just deal.

Other than that, I'm happy to see you. Enjoy your (unfortunately brief) stay.

From the "Psychiatry is Bullshit" Files...

Yesterday, as is my wont, I was watching television, when there happened to be a little program on the Learning Channel entitled Searching for Sanity. The premise of the show was that 10 strangers, five with diagnosed mental disorders, could be forced to live together for a week or something, given a bunch of onerous tasks to be completed as a team, all the while under the observation of a team of "psychiatric experts" who are kept in the dark about all the stranger's mental conditions.

The challenge was for the Psych Team to be able to pick out the head cases based on their activities and reactions. The Pshrinks were being tested to see if they could accurately distinguish the Moon-Howlers from the 'Normal' folks, and if they could make a diagnosis which was in line with the disorders on view. In addition, they were also being tested to see if they could distinguish between characteristics which are more accurately described as personality traits as opposed to full-blown mental diseases. And guess what happened?  
                                                                                          
The Pshrinks -- a Psychiatric Nurse, a Renown Psychiatrist, and a Professor of Psychiatry --were wrong about 60% of the time. They managed to tag members of the 'Control Group' as mentally ill when they weren't, and missed some of the insanity of the Rubber Room Brigade entirely.

All that clinical training, all that education, all that experience, and they had the same results you would expect as if they had simply guessed at Who's the Loony, or had a chicken peck at the Dingbats completely at random. Might as well have been blindfolded for the entire week. Before I completely destroy the Mental Health Profession for such dismal results, we need to take two things into consideration:

1. The test took place in England, where the Socialized Medical system has probably resulted in doctors who really don't give a shit. They're basically better-paid factory workers or trash collectors, who can't be sued for malpractice, and who have operated for years under a mess of government guidelines that are probably both contradictory and convoluted, and so there's bound to be some apathy, some bad work habits, and a lot of complacency within them.
                                                                                             
2. Some of the Mental Patients had been undergoing therapy for many years, or were on medications which masked their symptoms during the test. But the results were astounding, and reinforced, in my mind, something I've been saying for a very long time: Modern Psychology is complete and utter bullshit, very often practiced by individuals who only initially took psychiatry up in school so as to discover what was wrong with themselves.

After a near-decade on the couch myself, I've come to the conclusion that a Psychiatrist is merely someone who is often in a position to offer you some common-sense advice, but refrains from doing so because they like the $400, 45-minute hour too much. Only with a prescription pad. They substitute whatever cancer is eating away at your brain --Mommy didn't love me, the Little Green Men live under my bed, the World is out to Get Me -- with the super-addictive drugs of sympathy and empathy. That they're faking both doesn't occur to you. That sympathy and empathy is what keeps you coming back, like the heroin addict to the Spike, and allows Dr. Douche to get the leather and wood interior in the new Beemer this year. 
                       
And speaking of prescription pads, the Mental-Diseases-are-the-result-of-chemical-imbalances- in-the-brain school of psychiatry probably does more harm than good, dispensing a variety of meds that:

1. No one knows exactly how or why they work, and sometimes, even if they will.
2. Probably have no long-lasting therapeutic value.
3. Can be addictive.
4. Produce other health risks when used for extended periods of time.

Because giving you some drugs is a lot easier than having to listen to your bullshit, and then having to offer you some decent advice. Besides, it's covered by insurance, ain't it?

About Charlie Sheen...

Sometimes, when you take a certain position on a subject you have to expect that there will occasionally arise circumstances which either blow your stance to smithereens, or which thrusts you into the curious conundrum of having to split rhetorical hairs in order to justify your viewpoint. For example, I have, on this page, tried to make distinctions between, say, Mohammed Atta and Jared Lee Loughner (one the 9/11 'leader; and the other the Arizona lunatic who shot Rep. Giffords this past January). Both have committed murder, and the immediatly-obvious differences between the two are the scale of their heinous crimes and the motivations behind them.

Atta was a religious fanatic, pumped up on the Islamic propaganda that blames Western Culture for the plight of hapless Arabs (instead of, say, the totalitarian mindset, seventy generations of inbreeding, the sheep-shagging, and a bad mixture of politics and religion), and Loughner was a known nutjob who could find no help in a country with the best healthcare system ever known to mortal men.

I make no excuses for the actions of either. There are no excuses for either, however, I can (and often do) make the following, important distinction; Atta was a trained killer -- a volunteer -- who went into his kamikaze mission convinced of the righteousness of his cause, and the correctness of his method, while Loughner is probably a schizophrenic; before Loughner went off and killed six people and wounded a dozen more, he was simply a very sick man that the "System" (the mental health services, the courts, the Police) -- not to mention his own family -- utterly failed. Had Jared Loughner gotten the same attention as Charlie Sheen at some point in his miserable life, six people might still be alive, and Gabby Giffords would have one less hole in her head.

If Mohammed Atta had found at least one blond with no self-esteem, taste, or gag reflex, there would probably still be two buildings sitting over the 19-acre hole in Lower Manhattan.

People who read this blog regularly ask me how it is that I can make excuses or distinctions for murderers, to which I reply: I most certainly don't, in the sense that I don't try to explain away the actual crimes that they commit. What I have done is simply to state the following truths about people like Jared Loughner, the Discovery Channel gunman, the guy who flew his Cessna into the IRS building in Texas, et. al.

These people have serious medical problems. Their issues are often well-known to the people around them, who never seem to actually do anything to help these guys before they go off, but then in the aftermath will tell any douchebag with a microphone that they knew he was a danger to others, and they were frightened by the prospect of his going ballistic, but never seem to have cared enough to actually take any meaningful actions which would have saved someone's life. But when you state opinions your detractors are always looking to turn whatever you say or write upside down in order to advance their agendas...or, maybe they're really just very poor readers who just don't (want to) understand what I've written...and so the next time someone goes off they want to know what you have to say about THAT, Mr. Defender of the Mentally Unstable?

And so we come to the curious case of Charlie Sheen.

I was hoping to avoid this topic for the simple fact that while Sheen obviously has issues (you have to be a democrat or an Irish Setter to miss them), there is a fine distinction to be made between him and the Jared Lee's and "Crazy Pat" Sherrill's (the Original Post Office Shooter) of this world; Sheen's problems are, probably, mostly self-inflicted wounds. The schizos and the psychotics are born that way and they can't help themselves. People who do enormous amounts of cocaine, bang porn actresses (and really, who in their right mind would? They've only been liberally painted, inside and out, by the jizz of a thousand men. The thought is so disgusting that I'd rather bang Hillary -- twice, with my eyes open, too -- than take a swing at any of those whores), and spend three-day weekends on a drug-and booze-fueled bender that either ends in an exploded ticker, or AIDS, or a combination of both.

Do not equate the Caligula-like excesses of Charlie Sheen with the plight of the seriously mentally ill. While there may be some indications of (minor) mental illness present in Sheen (and his Comrade in Porn-Star Excess, Tiger Woods), the real issues for him appear to revolve around poor impulse control and extreme narcissism. That is NOT the same as some dude born with a poorly-wired brain or a genetic defect that will eventually see him talking to his neighbor's Wiemeraner and coming to the conclusion that the best way to bag Jodie Foster is to shoot at the President of the United States.

Charlie Sheen isn't so much mentally ill as he is someone who's probably never been told "NO". He's living proof that certain personality traits -- which of themselves usually offer no direct threat to anyone -- combined with the ability to actually FINANCE the worst excesses you might imagine, can combine to create a monster. Charlie Sheen would probably be 'cured' if someone just took his fucking credit cards away, denied him access to his bank account for a while, and placed him in an environment where he could not exercise his piss-poor judgement. Given time, the thrills of cocaine and threesomes with extremely-well-used concubines would probably disappear. With the benefit of hindsight and sobriety, Sheen would eventually come around to the idea -- on his own -- that he's been nothing short of a complete ass.

I've seen the interviews: That man is still high, fucking wired, and I don't care how many 'drug tests' he says he's passed in recent weeks. People who are clean and sober don't talk at supersonic speed, don't express ideas that would strike the average person as incredibly bizarre, and aren't convinced that they're Superman and ready to do it all over again -- if only you'll leave him alone. The clean-and-sober also don't cry about being wanting to be left alone while simultaneously begging every swinging dick with a video camera to come and interview them. Charlie Sheen is simply a drug addict with a rather high opinion of himself and more money than most small nations available to boundlessly finance his stupidity; he's not on the same plane as someone who finally gives in to The Voices and shoots up their HomeEc class.

Now, I can't claim to have special knowledge of Charlie, personally. I just recognize the symptoms of his particular collection of issues. The first of these is that he probably has no self-esteem whatsoever, and the string of high-priced-courtesans-with-even-less-self-esteem are merely the first clue. He spends the majority of his time in these recent interviews beating his own chest, posturing, extolling his supposed virtues, bragging. He's proud of what he's 'accomplished' , i.e. ingesting enough cocaine to kill a woolly mammoth and surviving, and making a public spectacle of himself. He truly isn't, though; it's all bravado. Somewhere in his head is the thought "I'm worthless" and the coke-drenched soirees are both escape and deathwish being played out simultaneously. I know this because I've had the same relationship with Rye Whiskey, Tequila and a certain recreational plant in my own life. I look at Charlie and shake my head; been there, done that. The only difference is that I never had the sort of bank account one normally equates with an Oil Sheik, or I might have died a long time ago.

He really wants to destroy himself, on some level, I think, but just doesn't have the courage to put a gun to his head, step out in front of a moving freight train, or jump off a bridge. He's either hoping the booze, drugs and chicks will erase the feeling of helplessness and worthlessness, or, if he's really lucky, take him out without him having to take any action whatsoever. Mostly, it's a front designed to get attention and sympathy. More than likely, he's hoping to 'kill' this version of Charlie Sheen, thinking there's another Charlie beneath it all, misunderstood, unheeded, just itching to bust loose...if only we'll take the time, and give him enough attention, to drag it out. It's a game; Charlie wants us to peel back all his complex layers, all the while putting up a show of resistance. This behavior is probably subconsciously designed to lead him to some tragic event which serves as the "time to grow the fuck up moment" which releases the 'real' Charlie.

Sheen's underlying mental (so-called) 'illnesses' are treatable, but never really 'curable'. Most of these problems are solved with simple behavior modification. Feeling sorry for one's self, narcissism, poor impulse control, craving attention (even negative attention) stupidity and an unerring ability to consistently make the wrong decisions are simple character flaws -- not illnesses. The Psychiatric Establishment has a vested interest in classifying such things as diseases because otherwise it would go bankrupt, and have no reason to exist. It's one thing to 'cure' you of your fingernail biting, addiction to smoking, or poor social graces -- those are the easy ones that don't even involve any actual medicine be practiced at all -- it's an altogether different thing to 'cure' someone who hallucinates without drugs, or who is convinced the Pope is sending him coded messages through his fillings that Piers Morgan is the Anti-Christ. There is no (permanent) medical regime for that, no matter how much the Pshrinks would like you to believe the contrary.

Modern Mental Medicine understands the underlying factors inherent in bad behavior and how to change them; it knows comparatively jack-shit about the inner-workings of a healthy human brain -- let alone one that is laboring under the weight of schizophrenia or psychosis.

But then again, Sigmund Freud was a cocaine addict, too. And he's their God. But, I digress...

You can get over your anxiety disorder or drunkenness by modifying your behavior or recognizing when you're about to do something stupid and taking positive action, but those are not options when you're truly sick. When you're really ill, the only options psychiatric medicine can offer you is either some 'wonder pill' that even the experts will admit to you that they can't explain how, or why, it works, brain surgery, or long-term commitment to a facility, and even all of those options are largely a hit-or-miss affair. Sheen doesn't have a mental illness; he's just a a great, big, full-of-himself douchebag.

So, for all of you jerkoffs filling my mailbox with "Why don't you defend Charlie Sheen, the Obvious Mental Patient, with the same fervor and feeling with which you defended the man who tried to assassinate Gabby Giffords" screeds, I can only reiterate:

The two cases are not comparable. Jared Loughner was/is a deranged man, suffering from a severe mental defect that cannot be cured by medical science, and who was made a pariah by a society that is quite happy to go through life expecting that 'someone' will 'do something' about him, and so spare them the necessity -- and personal inconvenience -- of having to take some responsibility for a sick son, brother, or friend, only to stand around shaking their heads in mock disbelief that the man they all knew was a ticking time-bomb would go berserk and start shooting up a supermarket parking lot.

Charlie Sheen, on the other hand, is just a douchebag with a large bank account, no self-discipline, and a huge ego that combined to become a perfect storm of stupid excess. The reason he gets attention before he does something that gets someone killed is because he's a celebrity, and somehow, in the Great Cosmic Code of Justice that I just don't understand, that makes him someone worth saving, and someone worthy of more sympathy than a would-be political assassin, right?

Fuck no! If all things were truly equal, Jared Loughner would have gotten the same attention Sheen has gotten -- before he killed and maimed -- without having to have been rich and famous. Celebrity Doctors would be rushing to treat Loughner's particular brand of crazy with the same breathless exuberance with which they try to explain away Sheen's on the Boob Tube. Loughner would have gotten the expensive course of 'treatment' (read; internment) that Sheen will no doubt retreat to when he finally tires of playing that 'leave-me-alone-no-come-bask-in-my-badass-self-routine' he's playing at now. Sheen, like Mohammed Atta, knows exactly what he's doing -- he's voluntered, in a sense, too.

There is no excuse for their actions -- whether it's murder or making a public spectacle of yourself -- but Loughner has this mitigating factor in his favor; he's truly sick in a way that medical science cannot comprehend, or effectively treat for very long. His course of 'rehab' now consists of an orange jumpsuit and ends with a lethal injection . Charlie Sheen is just plain sickening, and most --if not all --of his' illnesses' are probably just the result of his own stupidity, and his life will probably be saved.

ObamaCare in Microcosm...

Don't they have fucking NyQuil in Britain?

This is your future if ObamaCare is not repealed, and if genuine, real, needed reforms of the Nation's Healthcare system continue to be delayed by politics, sloganeering and posturing.

Nationalized healthcare systems do not work for the simple reason that supply and demand can never be adequately judged by nameless, faceless, anonymous, parochial bureaucracies given the contradictory missions of providing the Best for the Least, with no penalties whatsoever for abject failure in this endeavor.

After all, how do you punish a Government Ministry? What does bankruptcy mean to them? Unemployment? Personal ruin? It's the government, and it has the resources (it takes them as it needs them, you know) to reinforce it's failures -- often to the point of complete lunacy.

You need a free market system to do these things. Only a free market system can do them.

Otherwise, you get a hospital system that is bursting at the seams because of the fucking flu.

Here in New York, we pretty much all catch the flu beginning in December and hold onto it until March or April, picking up all sorts of other viruses and infections along the way, and somehow, civilization doesn't come to a screeching halt, nor are the hospitals stuffed to overflowing with people who should be home eating chicken soup and watching I Dream of Jeannie re-runs on the couch in their Snuggies.

The secret weapons in our arsenal? NyQuil and Tylenol Cold and Flu.

Here endeth the lesson.

Barking Up The Wrong Tree...

A few weeks ago, I posted a rant about the trials and tribulations of caring for my mother after major surgery. By some trick of fate, that post became a cause celebre amongst a certain set, and the next thing you know, I'm being interviewed by the New York Times. The gist of the post was that my mother was a pest, and I was merely pointing out that professional caregivers probably do not get the accolades or respect they are due. Because if given the choice between setting myself on fire and having to care for a crazy woman with a martyr complex and an insatiable need for sympathy again, I'll be the guy in the street with the gas can and Zippo.

That post has brought me a lot of attention; not only have I gotten offers to write freelance humor pieces because of it, but I have somehow become the guru of choice for exasperated and desperate people who seem to think that I'm some kind of authority on how to take care of difficult parents. I must be -- I was in the New York Times, you see.

Here's a sample of my mailbox, every day, for the last five weeks (and liable to continue because people are still coming in to read the original):

"Hey Matt, read your story, great! But, I was wondering if I might get your advice. See, Dad is 86, and has trouble controlling his bowels..."

"Could you please tell me what I should do? I'm almost at the end of my rope..."

"...you may joke about killing your mother, but I'm thinking of killing myself...."

"Mom no longer recognizes us. There's nothing in her eyes, anymore. She just looks at us "strangers", and tears run down her cheeks. She's lost, confused, and frightened, and there's nothing we can do about it. How did you communicate with someone in this state? Please help!"

"...waiting for the inevitable is worse. I may be a bad son for saying this but this bedside vigil stuff is for the birds. I wish she would go already, and let the rest of us get on with our lives. What do you think of that?"

That's on a GOOD day. The rest of the time, it's people who want to regale me either with their (ultimately) pointless feel-good stories, that always end with: "hang in there, buddy!", or scold me for being such a heartless, insensitive pig.

In one of those mysteries of human nature and the inner-workings of the brain, different people somehow manage to read the same thing, but come away with different interpretations. I don't know how this happens, but a simple internet post managed to become:

1. A Professional Credential; I am now qualified to speak on all matters pertaining to Elder Care, or at least, some people think I am. Whenever I remind people that I know absolutely nothing about this subject, beyond my own experiences, it does not seem to register. The Times would not have given me the time of day, otherwise, they think. I can make no appeal to logic, cite no example, make no point, that is not summarily ignored because folks want to believe that I'm going to solve their problems with impossible parents, or help them through the slow agony of waiting for a loved one to die.

Sorry, but I'm not your man. I don't do sympathy (except for children and dogs). I can empathize with some of you, to a certain extent, but I don't have any answers for you, nor do I share your pain. I can't counsel you on whether or not it's good idea to have the doc give Mom a "hot shot", or pull the plug on her. I really don't want to hear about your ancient father's bathroom habits and how they annoy you.

Also, I don't really give a crap about your life story. While I'm certain that your childhood memories of Sunday picnics, baseball games and fishing trips, hold some sentimental value to you, they hold none for me. Why it's necessary to write your autobiography before you get around to the question of "so, do you think it's okay to leave Dad alone for a couple of hours a day while I get coffee and do my shopping, so long as I lock him in his room?" baffles me.

First off, I don't care what you do with your father, so long as you aren't hurting him or plotting his demise. Otherwise, it's not my concern. I have my own problems, thank you. Staple him to the wall while you go about your business, if that's what you think you need to do, but don't think I'm encouraging or excusing that sort of thing. I'm getting the impression that people who think this way don't want advice so much as they want someone to justify their questionable behavior or thought processes. You think I'm bad with what I wrote? I'm getting e-mail from people who would lock an elderly person in a closet, consider leaving them in the care of young children while they go off and gallivant, or who just might chain their mother to a radiator so that they can go to Starbucks, or take in a movie. Considering how many admonitions I got, I wonder what my detractors would have to say about these people?

Secondly, I'm not giving you any eldercare advice, anyway -- I'm not qualified to do that, after all -- so save yourself some typing and possible Carpal-Tunnel.

2. Proof that I am The Biggest Jerkoff on Planet Earth; and this on a planet that I am forced to share with the likes of Al Gore, Barack Obama, LeBron James, Tom Brady, Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, and the cast of Jersey Shore? I'm a bad person with no sense of shame or decency, who was disrespectful to his mother, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some are shocked that such a respectable publication like the New York Times (I wonder how respectable it is now that Krugman pretty much shit all over it reputation this past week) would give me any publicity, and I must be a morally-reprehensible person.

"Oh and by the way...", my super-sensitive respondents will always add, and then it comes: paraphrased " I'm a much better person than you", and then they cite some long-winded and totally disconnected example of their superior powers of "caring". Fuck you and the horses you all rode in on. People like you are almost as bad as the insufferable douchebags who think being able to quote Scripture makes them better than everyone else, and assures their place in Heaven.

Everyone has different ways of coping with things. Everyone has differing levels of patience and tolerance. Those of you with incredibly high levels (perhaps you are high to begin with?) of both should take this piece of advice from me:

Everyone else secretly hates you. We normal people, the ones with normal emotions --not you Bizzarro Vulcans -- we seriously think of killing you. Sometimes, some of us actually get together and discuss how we're going to do it, so as to get as many of you as possible in one fell-swoop. We figure we'll start with the ones who can't shut the fuck up about how much better they are than anyone else so that the rest will get the message and lay off.

3. The biggest mistake you can ever make as a blogger is to directly answer somebody's e-mail. Unless you absolutely have to. I have lost count of how many I have answered (badly) on this topic, but it seems that there's a percentage of people who write to you who don't want answers as much as they want a dialogue; they just want to talk to you. More like AT YOU. A good many of them don't even bother to consider what's been written back, because they'll respond in a repetitive manner, asking the same questions over-and-over, or making the same points in repetition. A good number are simply thrilled that someone answered them, at all.

The messages I truly despise are the "kindred spirit" e-mails, the "oh yes, I know all about that...don't have to tell me! I know exactly what you're going through..." routine. Suddenly, a complete stranger and I have some deep and meaningful connection because we have had an (arguably) similar experience. At least they like to think so, and these folks, too, want a dialogue. A one-sided dialog, usually. They wear out the "I" key on their keyboards, I'll bet. If I had the ability to wish people like you out of existence, I most certainly would.

Only slightly worse are the pathetic cases who ask me out on dates, because we have the common experience of taking care of a sick and difficult parent. This gives us a bond, they tell me, so any potential relationship would be starting out on a strong foundation, and we'd have something to talk about (and some of you, really, put your clothes back on!). In psychology, I think they would liken this to the formation of a Trauma Bond, a situation wherein two people who have shared a, usually horrific, experience -- experienced it at the same time, together -- form a partnership wherein they look almost exclusively to each other for support, encouragement, safety, security, and so forth. Each sees the other as "the only one who understands what you've gone through", and is therefore, the only reliable person in your little world.

The problem with Trauma Bonds is that they usually disguise or mingle with other mental issues; people develop co-dependence issues, they withdraw from the rest of the world, there may be self-esteem issues involved, and they may develop damaging or even dangerous repetitive behaviors if the bond becomes the central focus of their lives. People in Trauma Bond situations certainly have trouble forming relationships. People exhibiting this behavior have even been known to plan, and carry out, murder-suicide pacts, believing they are helping each other deal with their pain.

Yeah. I need a woman like this like I need a hole in the head. I don't care how much money you have, how many liquor stores you own, what you can do with your tongue, or how many of your girlfriends will watch/join in. Been there, done that, vis-a-vis crazy bitches. No thanks.

So, let's recap for the retarded amongst you:

A) No, I am not an expert on Eldercare. Never was, never claimed to be. If you need advice, seek professional help; I'm liable to tell you things you don't want to hear, that won't work, or which might put evil thoughts in your head.

B) I write what I write. I usually never apologize for it (why should I?), and I'm not particularly concerned about whether some of you like it or not, nor am I concerned about your personal opinion of yourself, or your exploits in eldercare. You're probably a douche in real life, and lying to me anyway, just to present yourself to the rest of the world as something you're not because you have serious self-esteem issues. Get psychiatric help.

C) No, I'm not dating you because we've both cleaned a bedpan once. Stop sending me photos (unless you're actually hot, of course). No, I don't want a relationship with some chick who's already scheduling our nuptuals around Mother's funeral, and Father's next round of radiation treatments.

This has certainly been a learning experience for me.

Update: If you need help dealing with issues surrounding the care of an elderly, or seriouisly ill family member, please check out www.thefamilycaregiver.org. They have the resources and expertise to help you through what is a difficult and stressful time for all involved.

The Insane, and What We Don't Do About Them...

Saw this at PajamasMedia this morning:

Mental Illness and Mass Murder.

This guy says things I've been saying for a very long time; there are people out there who need help, who are a danger to themselves, but especially to others, but we never seem to get them any help, or to protect ourselves from them, until it's way too late. Everyone knows the guy (Jared Loughner, in this case) is batshit insane, but no one wants to do anything, particularly not the authorities who usually know who the walking time bombs are (they've encountered them at least once before), but mostly because of the pressures exerted by cash-strapped state budgets, civil liberties advocates, and a lot of so-called doctors with degrees but no common sense, these folks are left to their own devices with often-devastating results.

We've just had a fifteen month debate (and constitutionally-suspect vote) on Health Care in this country. At no point in this debate did I ever hear anyone, not the President, no Senators, not a single Congresscritter, mention the words "Mental Health Care", except in the context of the rising costs of the standard prescription anti-depressants for the self-absorbed and clueless(which don't fucking work after a few weeks or months, and which do nothing at all for schizophrenics and other violent mentally ill).

We wasted 15 months arguing about how to put bigger tits on an aging Baby Boomer at government expense. We argued about how to ensure that Ricardo and Lupe can get the insulin they need, despite having broken the law and entered the country illegally. We argued about the health problems caused by gross obesity in people who are eating a steady diet of Hot dogs, Wing Dings and Dipsy Doodles entirely funded by Food Stamps. All we have done is have an argument about how to give all of those folks even more silicon implants, more insulin, and another heaping helping of government-subsidized Double-Fudge-Marshmallow-Swirl...with Caramel... without them having to pay for it, or accept the consequences of their actions.

And Our Congress wrote a 3,000-page bill which none of them read; none of those folks has Clue-fuckin'-One about what it says, or what time bombs are contained within it, but somehow they passed it through a suspect "Reconciliation"process, which apparently, has reconciled no one. In fact, it only made people angrier. They did it for base political reasons, and all the talk about compassion and caring is a load of bullshit.

Go on and get fat of Food Stamps; you won't have to pay for your heart attack, thanks to Uncle Sam! Take these $300 drugs for your erectile dysfunction because we want 75-year-olds to be able to fuck like teenagers, and then faint and end up in emergency rooms because of problems with low blood pressure; The Government will pick up the tab! Enjoy your free insulin; even though you've come here illegally from another country and pay no income taxes, and have brought measles, whooping cough, malaria, dysentery, and polio back with you.

The libtards patted themselves on the back for finally making Universal health care a "reality" (such a reality that it doesn't kick in until 2014, and then will be severely underfunded and drive up deficits and public borrowing), but they were aiming at the wrong targets (no pun intended, and I'm certain Dick Durbin will scream like a menstrual banshee about my extreme right-wing use of a violent military analogy in the context of a political debate ).

What Obama Care aimed at was a two-part charade of mere appearances; it wants to give The Poor (only in America could The Poor be grossly fat, own cellphones and drive SUV's) the illusion that they had the same things as The Rich, in this case, medical insurance. Technically, everyone has access to medical insurance -- it's just that you have to work in order to pay for really good medical insurance. In the democratic (small 'd' intentional) party world of race and class warfare, it is positively dangerous to insist upon this so-called "work ethic" or point out that our free-market capitalist society works this way, or to even speak of either. In the meantime, the real health issues this country faces are conveniently papered over, or dismissed entirely.

The second-part of this great scam was to cater to the insanity of an aging generation (the Baby Boomers) which is positively obsessed with it's health and ability to screw well into heir 90's, that usually already possesses health insurance, but just doesn't want to continue to pay for it as costs increase. That costs increase because of this obsession with their health and fear of dying, an inevitability, is not spoken of. Giving the impression that we were doing something nice for the "downtrodden", and garnering votes for it, was more important. It's nice to be able to be selfish while appearing generous with other people's money, huh?

One of those problems that went unexamined is how we treat the mentally ill, and more specifically, what we do with the really dangerous ones. No one wants to tackle that question, because we don't really give a shit about the mentally ill -- until they shoot a Congresswoman -- and then the response to the tragedy is to have a debate about banning the use of crosshairs in political advertising. We are cursed with the dumbest, most short-sighted, most self-absorbed and clueless politicians and media in the Solar System. These people couldn't tell the truth to save their lives -- even to themselves -- so it's no wonder they miss "Bigger Picture" issues like Wandering Gunmen who Hear Voices...and whose mental instability is generally known, acknowledged, and then goes untreated for lack of funding or stupid theories about how far Civil Liberties can be pushed.

One has the right, apparently, to go untreated, or with the ability to forego the medications that will (might) keep your symptoms under control, and if it happens to step all over my right not to be murdered in the street by a gun- or sword-wielding douchebag whose cocker spaniel says I'm sending coded messages to him through his fillings, then that's just too bad; just the price we pay for upholding an iron-clad Constitutional Principle.

Only a fucking lawyer (the next batch of lunatics we should lock up) could argue, and then sleep soundly at night, that letting the destructive moonbats of our society loose is an exercise in purest liberty.

The truth of the matter is that if we weren't absorbed by questions of how to give medical insurance to those who won't work for it, won't pay for it, and will simply misuse and abuse it once they have it, we could have had a much-more useful debate about how to lock up and treat the Jared Loughner's of the world, and save someone's life. Without the Jared Loughners, the emergency rooms would be a little less full, and so would the cemeteries.

Mental Illness as Your Gateway to Stardom...

Dr. Drew Pinsky is a pimp. He's not peddling flesh, as much as he is human misery. He's the Jerry Springer for the New Millennium. If he isn't exploiting teenaged mothers on MTV, then he's taking the piss out of people with serious mental and substance abuse problems, and calling it "reality television".

A despicable human being. He's not worthy of the honorific "doctor".

It's gotten out of hand. It's not fair to people who have real issues, and it's making addiction and teenaged pregnancy seem glamorous, and to be a really good career move.

Andrea Peyser in yesterday's NY Post says it all.

Because Even Morons Can Sometimes Learn to Use A Computer...

A few weeks ago, I attained a (very) small measure of internet fame with this post on my mother's post-operative recovery. The original blog post was linked to in the New York Times Healthcare blogs, and beyond the "Holy shit! I'm really in the New York Times!" period of absolute shock, I didn't give much thought to it afterwards.

But,there's still an absolute ton of people following that Times post back to my blog, which means it's probably still rather popular, and so I decided to see what people were saying in the comments section over there. Idle curiosity, and all that. Two particular comments jumped off the page, and should be addressed here for entertainment's sake.

The first one:

It figures that a systems programmer would feel especially overwhelmed by this task. They tend to be systematic thinkers rather than empathizers. There's no program you can write or system you can invent to solve these kinds of problems. His main coping technique is useless. No wonder he's losing it so badly.

Spoken like someone who probably has a shelf full of dusty-and-unused Self-Help books, and who believes that Dr. Phil's brand of McDonald's Drive-through psychology is exactly what the world needs more of. Actually, I was not overwhelmed by the task of providing care; the feeding, bathing, arranging pillows parts were not that difficult. No, the difficult part came about because my mother is a raving lunatic. I happen to know this, because I have first-hand experience of her vast array of mental disorders which begin with clinical depression, take a long detour through OCD, with a little sightseeing at the Monument to Narcissism, and finally come to a screeching halt at Anxiety Complex.

After my initial phase of discomfort with having to do things which one would rather not do, if given the choice -- like injecting your mother with a daily dose of blood thinners (in the stomach) which might actually kill her without great care being taken, or washing a parent who is quite capable of doing so herself but decides that the opportunity to play helpless victim is too great an opportunity to pass up for the sake of garnering pity and sympathy -- the actual "doing" part of the process becomes quite easy, if repetitive and annoying.

The issue, which this particular commenter missed because she was in a rush to pontificate about what a superior douche she is, is that beyond a certain point, it's not about medical necessities; it's about milking the situation so as to scratch the itches of her own neuroses. If she doesn't call my name out and have me respond every 20 minutes, she's afraid I've packed my bags and left her alone. If I do respond, then there had better be something for me to do, because otherwise, she'll have to answer that most basic of questions"What did you want?", and have no answer for it. If she doesn't have a reason to have called me beyond this fear and anxiety, and she doesn't have a medically-necessary reason for calling me every 20-minutes, then she must invent one to avoid looking foolish or pissing me off, because Narcissists do everything short of murder to avoid looking foolish.

Once the initial list of necessary "must do's" quickly exhausts itself, she must invent another list of "must do's" which have absolutely no connection to her health, immediate comfort, or necessity, but are intended to ensure that I'm not leaving her alone, or which play to her selfishness and compulsions; hence, "when you get a chance, go chop the hanging branches off that tree outside", or "as long as you're up, would you check to see if there's any canned peas in the pantry", when she knows damned well there aren't. And that's when the branches and the canned peas, or lack thereof, don't actually consume her every waking thought, because my mother is a compulsive worrier over the pettiest of details (that's the OCD talking).

It's not about her needing me to take care of her as much as it is her needing me to take care of all the stupid bullshit that keeps her up at night because she's a crazy woman with far too much time on her hands and no distractions. She's been seeing "professionals" about this for over 20 years, and it doesn't seem to have helped any. Either she's an extremely rare case, or psychiatry is bullshit.

And no, my 'coping mechanism' is not to systematize or write a computer program; it's to vent, usually with humor that could be considered 'dark'. This is a far sight better than my old 'coping mechanism' which was to drink...heavily (I was the best goddmaned functioning alcoholic you ever did see!) , or my even more-primordial 'coping mechanism', which was to punch someone in the fucking face because my goddamned fuse was so short, and I was probably drunk, too.

Then there was this gem, most-likely written by someone with a permanent menstrual cycle, and a community-college degree;

Nothing against the frustrations that family caretakers experience on a daily basis-- I am 24 and have not yet experienced it, but as a child, I watched my parents deal with my grandparents' declining health--and yes, I understand that it is immensely difficult. But I have a pretty serious issue with this piece, and it is this: Why is a respectable publication like this one giving any sort of publicity AT ALL to an angry, small-spirited man whose writings you openly admit "include offensive references to an array of groups and institutions, including various immigrant groups, unions, the giant bank that was his former employer and the entire third world?" Especially one whose name we are not given? What ever happened to credible references and sources?Roman Polanski, Mel Gibson, and "Matt N.," ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing displeasure-- who cares what they do, as long as they keep entertaining us?

Well, as it was explained to me, the reason why the Times "gave" me publicity was because I had given voice to an opinion and viewpoint that the Times would normally not present. Now, if you accept the validity of anything the Times has to say on any subject, then you have to accept that it has an obligation, the right, and even a responsibility, to make public opinions which you might find angry, small-spirited and offensive. That's what newspapers DO, after all, or are supposed to. If you want to be protected from the opinions and thought processes of other people, I suggest you find a nice tent in the Mojave, lose the cellphone, television, and laptop, and assiduously avoid all human contact.

As for "credibility", just because the Times didn't use my last name (something I specifically asked them not to do), it doesn't make me any less credible, nor does it make my opinions/views any less valid. News organizations routinely make use of "unnamed sources" or "sources speaking on condition of anonymity", and I wonder if you call the validity of their views and facts into question? Or is it simply views and facts that you disagree with or find distasteful that aren't "valid"?

I think I already know the answer to that question; it was contained in the first sentence of your reply, when you said "I am 24".

I'm thinking that's pretty close to your I.Q., as well, Sweetcheeks. Hopefully you have big breasts and know what to do with your tongue, so that some man will come along and relieve you of the responsibility of having to take care of yourself.

Otherwise, the responses were mostly supportive, sympathetic, or along the lines of "Goddamn, I wish I had the balls to say that!"

I've said it before, and I shall reiterate for those who may have missed it: I really don't give a Tinker's Turd for what anyone thinks of me. I know who and what I am, and I'm pretty happy with it, and don't feel the need to show my soft-squishy-feminine side to every asshole who demnds or expects to see it. If I were a heartless bastard incapable of empathy, I wouldn't have been at my mother's bedside. That, somehow, always goes unnoticed and unremarked, because people who want to give an opinion without thinking it through are legion. The point was to screech something that makes them feel as if they are superior human beings, possessed of more 'empathy' and 'caring' then everyone else.

They are the Saints, you see, The Special Ones, the Light-Bringers, Our Moral Superiors, and the rest of us are shit on their shoes. I have taken the time, and wasted the bandwidth, to point out the glaring idiocy and logical inconsistencies in these replies, not because I had to, but because there is some slim hope that having had your stupidity identified for you, you might be able to the necessary take steps to correct your issues and, therefore, lead a productive and happier life. You don't have to thank me for it, either, and just in case you haven't learned your lesson and will persist in your fatuity, then you can go expletive-deleted yourself.

(because a couple of people were upset with the language,too)

Soon, They'll Be Considered Obese in the Womb, Too...

...and anew rationale for unfettered abortion will have been found; we're simply killing off the extraneous lumps of cells that would only jack up health care costs in the future, and deny Grandpa his free Viagra and force government to pull the plug on your Grandmother.

Really, it's for your own good, and you'll thank us for it later. The Self-Appointed Hall Monitors of Society simply must be hunted down and buried alive before they make any semblance of what used to be called Normal Life here in America a distant memory.

One Third of All Infants are Obese, Study Says.

At what point does this stupidity stop?

Looking at my pack of cigarettes, one of the warnings states: Cigarette smoking by pregnant women may result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, and Low Birth Weight.

How is any rational human being supposed to reconcile these two contradictory ideas, that on the one hand, your child is at risk if born underweight, but on the other, might become a weapon of mass destruction if you should feed it a bit too much?

The article then goes on, after scaring the shit out of any parent without the brains to avoid sticking hatpins into their own eyeballs, to get to the real point of this stupidity:

Researchers say the study is a good reminder to parents to start healthy eating habits early on, including breast feeding and making sure a baby gets regular meals and snacks along with a good night's sleep.

No one, it seems, can mind their own fucking business, anymore.

Of course, we live in a society where this kind of crap actually works on weak-minded parents, the products of a bad educational system that didn't teach them how to think independently, and a media which taught them how to consider their children as little more than a fashion accessory. Heaven forbid little Johnny should show up with unseemly baby fat on his first day of preschool. Heaven forbid that little Suzie should go for the Twinkie when there's perfectly good broccolini and kale available.

Really, it's getting out of hand: children don't play outside anymore for fear of dirt, germs, flesh-eating viruses, pedophiles, cracked sidewalks, raindrops, Global Warming, Amber Alerts, and Bird Flus. Why not just shrink-and-bubble-wrap 'em before you send them anywhere? It's almost as if sending the little ones to school is less about an education than it is Mommy getting a state-funded babysitter and indoctrinator to spell her for a few hours a day. She needs the"Me" time to recover from her day of imagining the worst.

The average kid probably spends 25 hours a week in front of a TV or a computer, and if they get any physical education at all in school, I'd be shocked. Organized athletic activity after school usually consists of sports leagues where competition is a no-no, everyone gets a trophy, and there's no such thing as winning and losing.

Kids today are insulated and protected, but from what, exactly, I'm not sure. Fort Knox has less security than that provided by the typical doting-and-brain-dead parent, these days. Now they have to be protected from food?

And when, exactly, did it become axiomatic that parents were too dumb to make decisions of what and how their children eat, and in what proportions?

Probably at the exact same moment when it became obvious that anyone who would vote for a Clinton or an Obama would probably also be amenable to having some self-appointed busybody with too much free time on her hands (it's usually a "her"), and no respect for personal liberties and boundaries tell them how to live their lives and raise their offspring.

Helping Mom "Feel Human" Again...

We're into our third week of recovery. The physical therapist says that Mom should get up and exercise some more, and that short walks would be a nice idea -- so long as we don't over-do it. This dovetails nicely with Mom's re-discovered ability to shower on her own (she still needs a little help into and out of the tub, though), which she says gives her a feeling of being a"decent human being, again". She is regaining mobility at a rate which is greater than expected, which means she gets to do things that she hasn't been able to do for the last few weeks: like look in the bathroom mirror, and notice that them stubborn grey roots have returned.

With the pain and anxiety gone, for now, she can turn her attention from harassing me to an inhuman extent to paying attention to her personal appearance.

So, a trip to the Beauty Parlor is in order. The one she normally uses is within walking distance, so why not kill two birds with one stone and get her a little exercise while she engages in the futile battle to hold the ravages of Old Age at bay? I'll accompany her (despite her protests) because I don't want her falling over in the street, and because there are two public high schools in this neighborhood full of bussed-in Urban Aborigines who's only apparent contribution to campus life seems to be to make the white kids look physically un-coordinated by their superhuman ability to break tackles, or dunk a basketball.

When some of these...ahem...students...aren't under the direct supervision of their zookeepers, they're notorious troublemakers and petty criminals. A fat white lady on a cane who moves at a snail's pace with a nice, plump pocketbook is simply too tempting a target. Low-hanging fruit. So, I decide the best thing to do is to ride shotgun, just in case.

The first indication that this is an exercise in futility is that you realize that there is very little correlation between the name of the place (i.e. Beauty Parlor) and the activities going on within; You know you're in trouble when the "beauticians" are all misshapen lumps who seem to have put their make-up on with a spray gun and spackle trowel, and none has a coiffure that can be considered "attractive" if it wasn't on a Shetland Pony. It seems the only purpose of a Beauty Parlor is to give the high-school dropouts within the opportunity to gossip all day and experiment upon each other's hair and faces, mostly unsuccessfully. I could see before we even entered the establishment that this was going to be an interesting ordeal.

The second indication that something is cosmically wrong is that smell. If I had to describe it, it's somewhere between dead skunk and burning muskrat, with just a hint of decomposing possum. This is the odor given off by the myriad of toxic chemicals that will be combined to give my mother that Cesar-Romero-Redhead color that is so popular with the over-60 set in these parts. You can't spit without hitting one of these bottle-redhead seniors, these days.

So, there I was, sitting silently and impatiently in this heady atmosphere: my mother is getting a hairstyle that I would describe as "butch", and having it tinted with some godawful mess of chemistry that will probably ensure that the patch of ground this place sits on will be declared a Superfund site by the EPA any day now. There isn't a thing to read...well, there is, but you'd have to be Gay to find it of much interest, and since I could give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about "Jennifer Anniston and Chelsea Handler: Budding Romance?", or the problems of getting your sexless marriage restarted with 101 new applications for chocolate syrup and Vick's Vapo- Rub, or whatever they're selling this month, I'm bored out of my skull. (It is somewhat funny to note from the covers of the magazines just what the current mental state of the American Housefrau is these days; if the magazine isn't all about selling fantasy to them, it's all about the sexual desires of the Average Man, As Told by Another Chick. Strange).

I go outside to smoke. I go out for coffee. I amuse myself by looking at the puppies in the pet store two doors down (I'm asked to leave, as this store has experienced a rash of attempted puppy-nappings in recent months). Finally, Mom has had her head re-enamelled and her female crewcut trimmed, and it's time to go home.

Except that it ain't. One cannot get a hairdo, and leave things at that. Only a barbarian would do something like that.

Part of this "feeling human again" ritual involves a second stop at the manicurist's. Point out that this place that just wrecked your hair also gives manicures, and you get a look that could curdle maple syrup; One comes here for a really bad, overpriced hairstyle, but for a really good manicure, you need to go some place else. Some place where there's Koreans, you fool. Some place a further two blocks away.

And so we shuffle off at approximately 0.001 miles per hour because now her knee is stiff, to the manicurist. If I was bored to tears before, I'm about to be bored to death. The only consolation was that at least the Korean chicks look better than the ones in the hairstylists. Except that that there's not that many Korean chicks to look at.

Because while the proprietors of the manicurist's shop may be Korean, the workers within are Hispanic. The American Dream in microcosm; the former labor class, Korean immigrants, are now the Industrial Overlords, and the new generation of immigrants, the illegal ones, have taken their place. If you thought the process of a woman getting a hairdo was an ordeal by fire, try sitting around waiting for one to get a mani-and-a-pedi! The truly disgusting part of this hell is that the air is full of fine dust, and it's the particulate matter that has has been scraped, sanded, rubbed, cut, and otherwise stripped from a multitude of feet and fingernails. Every woman in that place wore a surgical mask, and I can see why: I had to wash my coat just as soon as I could, for it was covered in a fine layer of unsanitary dust from some oversized bag of skin's hooves.

Needless to say, I spent the majority of this time outside, in the freezing cold, just to avoid picking up whatever pathogens are in the air in that place.

Eventually, the whole thing is over and we go home. I've had three hours of my day completely wasted. I'm covered in the dead-skin-dust of perhaps 12 strange women's feet. My nosehairs have been burned down to the follicles by the noxious aroma of hair dye. I want to shower and scrub myself thoroughly with a Brillo Pad just to get all that crap off of me. Oh, and it all cost me $75. Don't ask me how.

But Mom feels "human", so I guess that's something.

The Insanity Begins Anew!

Yesterday, it was being "ready" for when the physical therapist arrived. Three hours in advance, armed with socks and shoes. The last two hours prior to the therapist's actual arrival went something like this:

"Where is this girl, already?"

"She's coming at 9:30, Mom. It's barely after 8:00. Relax, she'll be here."

"What's taking her so long?"

"She's usually on time. I have no doubt she'll be here when she said she would."

"But I'm ready NOW! I have things to do!"

"Like what?"

"Oh...shut up! Call her, and see where she is!"

(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I decide that I've had enough and go and blog some stuff).

This morning it is the anticipation of having the staples removed from her leg. The suspense is killing her; she foresees a painful and bloody nightmare of torture ahead of her. The whining has started. The whimpering soon follows, and ultimately, tears. She's frightened. As if having the surgical staples removed is something on the order of an amputation, or worse, a death sentence.

There is no amount of hand-holding, no level of cheerleading, no amount of positive reinforcement that I can offer that can overcome this level of acute anxiety. You can remind her that this is a very simple procedure, something the nurse probably does 50 times a week, a mere routine, and the words and logic go unheeded. You can dispense a Percocet to calm her nerves, and it doesn't work; my mother must the only person in the Solar System immune to Percocet.

But really, it's the anxiety that causes the Percocet to not work. It's the anxiety over something that's pretty trivial that causes this extreme emotional turmoil. Twenty years of being best friends with a psychological counsellor, and my mother somehow STILL has an anxiety problem that can blunt the effects of an opiate. Some friend. So, the conversation begins anew.

"Where is this girl, already?"

"She's coming at 10:00, Mom. It's only 9;00. Relax, she'll be here."

"What's taking her so long?"

"You're not the only patient on her list today. She'll be here on time, and then this will all be over."

"But...I have things to do!"

"Like what?"

"Oh...leave me alone! This isn't easy for me! I know this is going to hurt. I hurt already. My back! My leg! My head! I'm so cold: turn the heat up again! Oooooh, I won't be able to watch this, Dear God -- take meeeeeee!"

(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I've decided that I've had enough, and go and blog some stuff).

Welcome to my HELL. This is almost every hour of every day for the last week. If it isn't the Visiting nurse or physical therapist, it's "where's your brother? He said he was coming last week". If it isn't my brother, it's "Where's the mailman? Dammit, he never comes at the same time two days in a row!". If there's a bright spot in today's insanity -- thus far -- it's this: she at least doesn't have a To-Do List for me this morning. Yet. I fully expect, however, that once the anticipated auto-de-fay-like "ordeal" of surgical staple removal is over, and she finds that her leg is still attached, she'll act as if nothing has happened, as if she were the bravest soldier on the battlefield ever... and decide that I need to call Newark Airport to complain about the aircraft flying over the neighborhood on final approach...and "as long as you're up", do you think you might ___________?"

Stay tuned.

Update: I've just gotten a good glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I look like I have malaria. I have more bags than Kenneth Cole under my eyes. I'm tired, cranky, irritiable, and think I might be developing a menstrual cycle. Still no visiting nurse, and I have been asked to call her twice in the last half hour, because it's 9-fucking-58 and she's still not here. More to follow.

Postscript: The trials and tribulations are now over. I don't have any children of my own (well, none that I know of...wink-wink) but if ever I shall have them, I am now prepared for the excruciating crucible of the Delivery Room. When my Good Lady Wife (as if!) gives birth to quintuplets, I will have been prepared for the blood-curdling screams, the appalling language, the absolute howling of bitter agony.

The service sent a Russian nurse, which in and of itself is no big novelty, but it always makes me laugh. I keep thinking "I have been sent by Comrade Moose and Squirrel to remove staples. You vill comply!" But she's a lovely lady, nonetheless. The process of removing the staples took all of 10 minutes, at most. It was the preparation that was the killer; Mom would not hold still, behaving like a skittish toddler confronted by a pediatrician weilding a foot-long hyperdermic needle. With flames coming out of it.

Once it started, visions of Charlton Heston popped into my head. I see the angry man in snow-white beard and flowing robes, lifting his staff high into the air and calling down the wrath of God upon the wayward Isrealites, the skies darkening, the holy fire of the Almighty called from the Heavens to smite the Golden Calf. The earth shakes. The very air seems to burn. Thunder reverberates in the distance.

She called upon the ancestors;

I want my father!

I want my mother!

Dear God, why do they do these things to people?

Daddy, come and help meeeeeee!

And when it was all over -- just as I had predicted -- you would have thought that absolutely nothing had happened, but she did apologize to the nurse because she was embarrassed by all the carrying on. Big baby! Of course, I get no apology for the ten trenches she's dug into my arm with her fingernails, my Mother suddenly having developed a G.I. Joe Kung-fu grip while she was thrashing about like Linda Blair bathed in Holy Water.

And then she sent me out for a sandwich. She's suddenly ravenous, you see.