A SLAB AND A PACK

As confessions go this one is weird. But it's mine.

I have a Jones for Graham Crackers and Cream Cheese. I capitalize the title because they are just that good.

I realized I had a problem years ago, but I've been rationalizing for a long time. One of the big problems with this particular addiction is that the name is long and combines two mundane things. To get any respect, an addiction has to be short and punchy. Booze. Crack. Sex. Boggle.

Because the name is so long, people ignore it. By the time you were done reading "Cream" you were thinking about something else.

But not me. I'm concentrating on every loving word.

And thinking of when I'm getting my next fix.

Last two nights I've been on a bender. Right now I'm feeling good off the high. I ate about a quarter slab of cream cheese with a pack of graham crackers. By lunch the high will wear off. And I'll be irritated. And sad. And wondering why life is so crummy.

And thinking about how I can slip out and buy another slab, so Mrs. EO doesn't notice the last one is gone.

A "slab"

"Slab" is junkie talk for the 8 ounces of white heaven in a tin foil wrapper that talks to me every time I open that refrigerator. It's sitting right on top, in the door, looking innocent. But I know better.

I woke up bolt upright at 4:30 this morning. I knew I had to stop. The rationalizations, the benders, the calling out from work because I'm sick from eating cream cheese.

Late at night, wiping the crumbs off my T-shirt. Wondering if that pain in my left arm is the big one, where my heart just gives out under the strain.




Volunteering to go shopping so I can buy extra cream cheese and hide it.

All the signs are there. I know who I am. And still I don't stop.

Like any addict, I can't imagine life without a slab and a pack.

A "pack"

It's easy for you. But for me, that slab and pack are jammed like an ice-pick into my brain and my heart and my life. The lie is so deep inside me that I can't even guess who I'd be without a slab of cream cheese on an endless series of grahams. The triptophan, the sugar, the fat content, the sense of dreamy peace.

You tell me "just quit." I say quitting is easy. I've quit a hundred times. Anyone can quit. But try staying quit.

That's the tricky part.

So today I'll get up. I'll drink a lot of water, some green tea, eat a salad, get on the bike for 45 minutes. Take my Omega-3 supplements. I'll dress nice, go to work, look just like you.

But deep inside I know who I am.

Thank God for Lent.

PET INSURANCE

First let me say that I think dogs are wonderful. Cats too. Birds, rabbits, hamsters and lizards, all have been pets over the years. Once long ago EO shed tears watching "My Dog Skip" with his middle daughter (MD). MD did much better, happily munching on her popcorn while EO leaked and got snotty watching Skip die.

I will blubber buckets when Cookie's gone.

Now to the subject at hand. This weekend I read that pet insurance has become quite the vogue here in Hotville. A quote from an article caught EO's eye:

"No one would want to be in the horrible position
of not having the money to save their beloved animal."

Au contraire, EO is deliberately positioning himself to be in that position. So the quote is palpably false, since it says "no one."

Here's another quote from the article:

"I love my dogs" she said. "They are my family,
and I want to know they will be taken care of."

Help me, please, I think I am going to puke.

They're like my babies.
Photo credit.

Sorry, but my family consists of human beings. Dogs are genetically excluded. Wasn't my call.

EO tries hard not to be cranky, but merciful heavens, what is wrong with this country?

EO being cranky.

photo credit

As you may be aware by now, EO is not a fan of mandatory health insurance for America. Read about his cranky views here. Having worked closely with the federal government for 20 years, he is nervous about the government's unbridled growth and inefficiency, and our concomitant loss of freedom.

But PEOPLE. Get real. We have tens of millions of human beings that don't have health insurance. People eating cat food and taking pet antibiotics. Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare are going broke.

Could we maybe use the bucks we are paying for Tricky Woo's oral surgery to pay for people insurance?

Tricky Woo, classic symbol of pet pampering from

"All Creatures Great And Small."

(photo credit)

While we are on the subject, we kill off 1 million American humans each year through abortion. But we are buying pet insurance so we can pay for surgery for our "beloved animal[s]" when they run in front of a car?

"It's just a dog" says Cesar Milan.

(photo credit)

There is something bad sick about a society that pushes pet health insurance, yet has 40 million uninsured human beings and 1 million abortions a year.

Look, it's not my money. People want to buy health insurance for their dogs, that is their business.

But for the love of God please don't write happy-slappy articles gushing about how we treat our dogs better than our poor people and our babies.

WOBAL GLARMING

This quote, from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies website:

In total, average global temperatures have increased
by about 0.8°C (1.5°F) since 1880.

You could look it up. That is the number. Mind boggling, eh?

Chart of 2000 years of temperature estimates.

(chart credit)

EO prefers to use the 1.5 degree figure that we can actually document. There has been a lot of ferment lately about the famous "hockey stick" chart, which became an iconic symbol of global warming during the late 1990s, but which has been taking some scientific head shots recently. Apparently the "hockey stick" smoothed over or ignored significant evidence of previous temperature spikes and dips. Compare the two charts, above and below.

The iconic "hockey stick." Turns out not to be so accurate.

(chart credit)

So we will just use 1880 as a base line, because that is when we started keeping serious records of temperatures throughout the world. From 1880 to the year 4 billion B.C. we are not so sure about how cold or hot it was around here, except for hints like tree rings, which don't tell us much about where the tree was not. Average global temperature doesn't translate well into tree-ring thickness. That's why no one uses tree rings anymore, and everyone's been using thermometers lately.

Before you get angry with our forefathers for screwing up something this important, just know that prior to 1880 people were distracted by their death rates from cholera and bubonic plague, so they failed to organize reliable global temperature measurement societies. It's no excuse, I understand.

Now let's do some math. From 1880 to 2010 is 130 years. For discussion purposes I am rounding that to 125 years, which will slightly overstate the speed of global warming.

If we continue at this rate, by the year 2130 - about 250 years from 1880 - the average global temperatures will have increased by a total of 3.0° F. Just to understand the scope of this disaster, say an average May day in 1880 in Hotville, where I live, was 80 degrees. Right now that day is 81.5 degrees. By the year 2130 it will be 83 degrees.

83 degrees. In May. In Hotville.

By the year 2400, about 500 years from 1880, that comfortable 80 degree day in May will have jumped to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

How we will look in 2400 A.D.
(photo credit)

Now you can see why global warming has kicked up such a fuss.

Parenthetically, as I understand the Book of Revelation, the whole earth winds up even hotter than 86 degrees by the end of time. Which is sobering.

As a result of global warming, our best estimate is there will be a significant net increase in the land available for crops and for human habitation, as much of Siberia and Canada become more "user friendly."

Since cold weather kills many times more people than hot weather, a lot more people will be living longer in the 6 degree hotter weather in the year 2400. So societies will have to adjust to more people, more food and more land.

No way can we adapt in just 500 years. Think of how little our technology has advanced since the year 1500, for instance, and you see my point.

Right now even the most expensive fixes can only avoid a fraction of that 3 degree climb by 2130. So the bottom line is we need to spend tens of trillions of dollars to set up international global warming bureaucracies to make sure that the average global temperature only goes up 2 degrees in 250 years, instead of 3 degrees.

Already we can see the impact of global warming in this winter's monster blizzards on the East Coast. With every year that global warming goes unattended, the world as a whole gets a little bit colder and grayer. Like Cleveland.

Southern dogs trying to figure it all out.
Hotville had about 6 inches of global warming recently.

I know it's all upside down and crazy. That's why it is so darn hard to figure out.

I say we call it "Wobal Glarming," so people don't get confused by the cold weather. With a name like "Wobal Glarming," we know it is a crisis that's here to stay, whether we wind up in a New Ice Age or the Worldwide Saharan Scenario.

And how about an anthem for Wobal Glarming? Maybe Pete Seeger and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

"when will they ever learn?"

Probably too old. Besides, didn't Seeger get all pissy with Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Jazz Festival? I've never understood that.

How about Martha and the Vandellas and "Heat Wave?"

My head's in a haze

It's like a heatwave
burning in my heart

It's hard to hate the Vandellas. On second thought, "Heat Wave" could be confusing, if the blizzards keep coming.

I know the perfect song, by REM:

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it
and I feel fine.

Okay now, EO's done the hard part, making up a new name and finding an appropriate anthem. You go ahead and shovel that Wobal Glarming off your sidewalk. Take some aspirin before you go outside.

HOUSE PARTY

My daughter, known as Prose to her sisters, decided to become a marvelous chef after watching the movie "Julie Julia," a delightful little slip of a movie starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.

Movies About Food: Next Best Thing to Eating.

(Photo credit)

Prose has succeeded in becoming a wonderful cook in 4 or 5 months. So last week we decided to have a house party for some old friends visiting from out of town. It turned into a 4 course meal. Let me list the courses, because I am still savoring the meal and the evening in my mind.

Appetizer: Puffed Pastry with tomatoes and seasoned ricotta cheese - delicious!

First Course: French Onion Soup, with Dry White Vermouth and Jarlsberg - luscious!

Second Course: Classic Greek Salad - ah the colors, the warmth, the variety!

Third Course: Salmon with a spicey marinade and a variety of sauces - succulent!

Oh King Salmon! Oh giver of Omega-3 Fatty Acids!

(Photo credit)

Fourth Course: Spaghetti with pesto sauce and an idiosyncratic romanoff sauce - exquisite!

You Haven't Had Pesto?? Get Off My Blog!!

(Photo credit)

Dessert: Fruit sorbet - bananas, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries - with homemade almond biscotti and shortbread -- hypnotic!

We had a delightful Sauvignon with the Salmon and a warm and wonderful Chianti with the spaghetti. We talked, laughed, ate and drank for about 2 hours at the table with our 4 long time friends, all of whom have known Prose and her younger brother Hawk since they were toddlers.

After dinner, as Hawk cleaned ALL the dishes (God bless your soul), the EOs repaired to the living room with the Four Friends, where we talked for another hour or so.

When you mix old friends with wonderful food and wine, a good life becomes enchanted.

Old Friends Right Before Dessert.

(Photo credit).

Thank you, Prose, and thank you, Hawk. Thank you, Mrs. EO, for these wonderful children you've raised.

Thank you, Good Friends, for enjoying our company and sharing our lives.

And thank you, God Above, who made friends and food, wine and laughter.

SEARCH FOR THE WRONG-EYED TERRORIST

EO just read a piece about GITMO prisoners being transferred to a state prison in northwest Illinois that is almost vacant. Apparently there is anxiety about housing Islamic terrorist in the continental U.S. No one likes the idea, but the Administration seems to like keeping prisoners at Gitmo even less.

The plan is to buy this vacant state prison, convert it to a federal super-max, and then transfer Gitmo prisoners there for military tribunals.

Thomson Correctional Facility.

Of course, we already own Gitmo and upgraded it a few years back to hold military tribunals. So we are doing this twice, so that we don't have to keep the prisoners in Gitmo, where the Administration says they are an Al Qaeda recruiting tool. I don't know how they measure that; maybe with telephone polls of impoverished Islamic youth.

Anyway, the plan is to keep them northwest of Chicago, which will not be an Al Qaeda recruiting tool. So much.

I know, it's very confusing when you try to get it in your head. You can read more about it here.

Al Qaeda must be really torqued that we took this fantastic recruiting tool out of their hands. Because who wants to go to northwest Illinois? Especially in the winter. Used to be you either died and went to heaven, with all the virgins, or got captured and went to Gitmo, in Cuba. Which had fantastic weather, especially compared to Afghanistan.

But no more. Now you go to Thomson Correctional Facility, which looks like this in the winter:

Illinois blizzard. Ugh.

Anyway, people are in an uproar. Let me propose a very simple, inexpensive, and elegant solution.

There is a high security United States Penitentiary in Lee County, Virginia, not too far from the Cumberland Gap, where Daniel Boone first passed from Virginia into Kentucky. Lee County is the tip of the spear point of Virginia, deep in the heart of the country explored in "Search For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus," a great film about religion in the rural South that you should rent from Netflix soon.

Lee County(in orange): The Heart of Appalachia.

EO is familiar with Lee County, having spent a short and happy part of his life acquainting himself with some of the County's more sordid citizens. Interesting Lee County facts: it is west of Detroit. It is closer to 7 other state capitals than it is to Richmond, the capital of Virginia. You are talking splendid Appalachian isolation here.

Instead of taking these terrorist mopes - I'll call them the "Gitmoese" from now on - and putting them up in Illinois, where we have to pay for heat and air-conditioning and weight rooms and law libraries, EO says put them at USP Lee.

Under EO's plan, the Gitmoese would be shown every courtesy, and would be allowed (and even encouraged) to wear their native garb. Shortly after arrival, the Gitmoese would be summoned to the front gate and permitted to leave USP Lee, with an official apology from the Bureau of Prisons for wrongfully detaining them.

Right away, we get congratulated by France for surrendering. Maybe we even get some love from the UN. You never know.

Some good lovin' from France.

The warden of USP Lee would announce over the local radio that the Gitmoese had departed USP Lee on foot and may be looking for accommodations.

The Lee County Daniel Boone Society's Ladies Auxiliary Committee would make sure the Gitmoese were welcomed.

Womenfolk in Lee County: hunters AND gatherers.

It's 25 miles to a movie theatre from USP Lee; not a lot of entertainment at hand. The strange Gitmoese accents and exotic garb would attract a lot of attention. Folks would welcome a visit from the Gitmoese, although it wouldn't last long.

Did I smell a terrorist?

These brave freedom fighters would survive for about 18 minutes before being flayed, cubed and added to a stew. Or possibly put into a pie.

Daniel Boone Society president greets Gitmoese.

Before the flaying and cubing (customarily done by the womenfolk), a local would ask, with a slightly cocked head and ambivalent grin, “Ya'll 'er not from around here, are ye?” So right there is your due process.

It's just a suggestion. Maybe there are some legal problems, but we have tons of unemployed lawyers right now, and they can work on it.

Now be honest, the plan does have a certain appeal, am I right?

HEALTH CARE, OH MY HEALTH CARE

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!	5
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman, foreseeing the health-care debacle of 2010.

So Massachusetts just said "No We Can't" to health care reform.

Teddy Kennedy's seat just went Republican.

Democrats got a deserved kick in the rear-end for taking "Ted Kennedy's seat" for granted.

Senator-elect Scott Brown smiling at his Earthquake.

The impact this made can be measured by the ruckus coming from the Democratic Party. So far my favorite quote from the Massachusetts earthquake is the following, quoted at CNN:

[Rep. Anthony] Weiner ridiculed House Democratic leaders for holding a meeting to brief House Democrats on negotiations with the White House on a health care bill, telling reporters, "They're talking as if, 'What our deal is, what our negotiators are at the White House' -- yeah, and then the last line is, 'Pigs fly out of my ass' ... it's just, we've got to recognize we are in an entirely different scenario."

And this unexpected tribute to George Bush from Howard Dean (remember the "Scream?"):

I also think that we're going to have to not have a circular firing squad. The message that I think, the anecdote I give is that we have to be tougher. The Democrats haven't been tough enough. George Bush would have had the health care bill done a long time ago. It would have gone through reconciliation and been what we wanted.

Howard Dean, wishing Obama was tough, like George Bush.

There seems to be a consensus among those on the left-wing that Obama was not tough enough. For a sample of left-wing anger with Obama and Martha Coakley (the Democratic candidate who lost "Ted Kennedy's seat"), read columnists at the Huffington Post, like Drew Westen and Peter Daou.

The problem is, apparently, that the Obama administration was not savagely left-wing enough. Had they been more partisan, this wouldn't have happened.

Bloggers wish Obama were more like his buddy William Ayers.

Interesting perspective. The argument is hard to reconcile with the terms of the election: Obama ran as the "anti-Bush," the erudite, polished reconciler. What, did people think he could suddenly turn into James Carville?

The argument is also hard to reconcile with the purely party-line vote on health-care in both the House and Senate. The argument seems to be that it is not enough to leave all the Republicans behind, Obama should have pushed a bill that would have choked even moderate Democrats. That would have won over America and avoided Scott Brown.

This all sounded eerily like the advice Rehoboam took after King Solomon died. When Israel gathered at Shechem to complain about the taxes and forced labor Solomon had imposed, Rehoboam's response was "my father ruled you with whips, I will rule you with scorpions." That didn't go over so well: civil war ensued, and Rehoboam wound up ruling over 2 tribes, while 10 tribes left him.

You could look it up (1 Kings 12).

Rehoboam, trying to puzzle out what to do after Scott Brown.

These are interesting times. It fascinates me that a party with a 59-41 majority in the Senate is on the defensive. It fascinates me that left-wing Democrats are wishing Obama were more like George Bush. But there you have it.

Maybe Obama needs a cowboy hat.

BACKLASH

Ben Nelson in new role as "The Really Unpopular Guy."
(Picture link)

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson's approval rating has fallen to 42%. He was the most popular Senator in the Senate in 2006, with an approval rating of around 73%. Meanwhile, his Republican Senator buddy from Nebraska, Republican Mike Johanns, has a 63% approval rating. Nelson voted for RPCare (Reid/Pelosi health care reform), Johanns against.

Republican Senatorial candidate Scott Brown came from double digits behind to a statistical dead heat in two weeks. But not in the heartland. No indeed.

Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. Making history tomorrow.

(Picture link)

He is running in a special election for Ted Kennedy's Senatorial seat in Massachusetts, which is as close to a sure thing as Democrats have in Congress. Democratic fear is so significant that Obama went to Massachusetts to campaign over the weekend. The New York Times ran a front page article on the race.

Whatever happens in Massachusetts on 1/19, Democrats are having serious problems with the American voter over health care.

In another NYTimes article, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California reported that constituents calling her office are running 4-1 against RPCare. That's FOUR to ONE against, in California, which is a heavily Democratic state.

Senator Feinstein trying to find her "happy place."

(Picture link)

RPCare is in conference now, with very big differences between the House and Senate versions. Changes on either side are fraught with peril, because the margins of approval were very slim and the opposition in both chambers is highly motivated and was frozen out of the bill drafting process. Obama has jumped into the negotiations with a heretofore unseen vigor. He and other Democrats are becoming nervous as they absorb what the polls are telling them.

I don't really pity the Democratic party. They were the beneficiaries of American anger over a government being run down the side of a mountain with no brakes. In President Bush's case, it was the Iraq war and the expansion of the housing industry. Both were funded with huge debt and piled high with policy errors big and small. When the economy went smash-up Democrats won big.

Republicans: 2008.

Democrats: 2010.

(Picture link)

Democrats got control of the federal government and immediately stepped on the gas and went off-road "baja." Not only are we going to run the war in Iraq and Afghanistan on debt, we are going to bail out banks and auto makers, and fund a trillion more dollars of federal health care. Never mind unemployment is over 10%, we've got a crisis to exploit.

Baja is hard. Especially with unemployment so high.

(Picture link)

Except that wasn't exactly what the American people had in mind.

So now comes the backlash. It appears the Democrats have hit some land mines and damaged the Humvee, so to speak.

Democrats needn't worry too much, long term. Republicans will find a way to blow things up. They'll just come into Congress and promptly go off on their own big government borrowing bender, have their own smash up, and cede power back to the Democrats.

So cheer up, Democrats. It's just the circle of life.

Hakuna matada.

Democrats looking forward to the mid-terms of 2014.

(Picture link)

Over the next 2 years we may get a more fiscally prudent government, like Clinton after the mid-term watershed in 1994. And that would be a good thing right now.