Am I Too Old for This??

12:04:38 AM EDT
Feeling Frustrated

Being a teacher of college-aged young men and women, it has become quite "a puzzlement" (to quote Oscar and Dick) to me that there are people in the world today for whom the word "no" has absolutely no meaning.  I'm not sure what they register in their heads when they hear it:  "this applies to everyone but you"?  "maybe with a side of quite possibly"?

A case in point (well, several cases, to be honest):  in a recent writing assignment, I took great pains to explain to my classes that they were to use NO websites as sources in their arguments.  I did this for several reason, which need not be explained here.  Just know that I had my reasons.  And yet I was besieged by students -- long after the assignment had been discussed in class -- who wanted to know if they could use this website or that one.  But I held my ground.  Finally, to one young woman who seemed determined to disregard everything I'd said to her, I looked up in amazement and asked, "What part of 'No' don't you understand?"  This resulted in a rather puzzled look on her face, as though she'd never heard the word before.  A young woman of 18, perhaps 19, who had never been told "no" before?  Was such a thing possible?

Then I started looking around me, and I realized that the problem was much more wide-spread than I originally thought.  This malady strikes more than just freshmen.  I began to see evidence of it in other areas of life.

For example, I recently was given a handicapped permit, the kind you hang from your rear-view mirror in your car.  (I lose 160+ pounds, and all of a sudden I need a total knee replacement -- go figure.)  As I was reading the regulations clearly printed on the back of it, I came across a rather interesting one:  it was NOT to be in place (that is, hanging from one's rear-view mirror) while driving.  And yet I cannot begin to count the number of cars I have seen, especially since I got one, with these blue pieces of plastic dangling for dear life, obstructing the driver's view.  I recently found out just how much of an obstruction this permit can be if still in place while driving -- and I was just moving from one parking spot to another, a matter of all of five feet.  And yet people drive around town as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

I happened to mention this to a former student who also has one, and who proudly asserts that hers is always hanging from her mirror, and she said, "Where else am I going to put it?"  Well, there's always the glove compartment, or she could do what I do:  stick it behind the sun visor.  But these novel ideas seemed implausible for this woman.  "Well, they haven't stopped me yet, and I don't think they will."

The "it applies to everyone but me" argument, I guess.

I am not bold enough to try driving with it blocking my view, because I know that, if I tried, I'd have an accident and would be reminded that regulations state that the decal is not to be in place while the car is in motion.  This subtle reminder would probably come in the form of a hefty ticket.

And I don't think the "it applies to everyone but me" argument would hold up in a court of law.

I haven't graded the aforementioned essays yet, but I know as sure as I'm sitting here that there will be several with websites used predominantly as sources.  And I'm sure I'll sit there and shake my head at the absurdity of it all.  What part of "no" don't they understand?

Obviously, all of it.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

11:24:37 PM EDT
Feeling Surprised

I'm learning quite a bit lately, most especially about myself and the passage of time.  I can recall quite clearly (and I've recently corroborated this with my older sister) a time in my life when I thought people of 50 or older were ancient; and I can also recall, with alarming clarity, rolling my eyes whenever one of my elders would make a statement like, "It seems like just yesterday that...." -- fill in the end of that sentence however you choose.

But in the past few weeks, I've gotten quite a wake-up call, of sorts, about how quickly time is actually passing and my seeming obliviousness about it all.

In my defense, I have been preoccupied of late with getting my doctoral dissertation completed and defended, which I am proud to announce I have done and am now anticipating graduating with my PhD in just a couple of weeks.  But now that that milestone is achieved, I'm realizing how much I've missed while otherwise occupied.

The first shocker came a couple of weeks ago when my friend Michael called and, in the course of our conversation, he told me that a young girl I knew back in Magnolia (Arkansas) was going to be competing in the Miss Arkansas pageant.  My initial reaction was "When did they start accepting children?"  But then it hit me:  the last time I saw this "child," she was going on six years old.  Approximately twelve years -- TWELVE years -- have passed since then, and this now young lady is all grown up.  When did THAT happen??  Like the old saying says, "blink and you miss it"?  I guess I did.

The second shocker came when I realized that it has been over TWENTY years since I left St. Louis.  That's TWO FREAKIN' DECADES!  And yet the memories of my friends and the places I frequented there are as fresh in my memory as if it all happened yesterday.  I've been promising my friends there that I'll come up for a visit one of these days; now I'm afraid to.  I'm afraid that nothing will be as I remember it.  I'm afraid that my "hometown" will seem as foreign as if I were walking the streets of Moscow. 

But the biggest shocker came today.  I got a call from my doctor's office to let me in on the test results that they'd run.  At my last office visit, I asked my doctor why, with all the weight I've lost (now going on 160+ pounds since last May), my cycle has not started back up.  She promised she'd look into it. Well, today I got my answer.  According to the latest blood work, I'm POST MENOPAUSAL!!  When did THAT happen??  I've had no hot flashes, at least not that I can recall.  And while I've been a little bitchy lately, I'd chalked it up to stress from trying to get my dissertation done while maintaining a four-course workload.  It's quite a shock to find out that this particular milestone in a woman's life passed me by and I never knew it.

I guess it's true:  if you don't use it, you lose it.  And I'm learning that if you're not paying attention, or if you're too busy to notice, life has a way of marching on without you.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

4:05:04 PM EST
Feeling Frustrated

As the title of this entry suggests (in its homage to one of my favorite movies), this is going to be a virtual cornucopea of rantings and ravings on things that have been happening lately, so hang on:

HOODIA AND THE BLOW-HARDS:  Well, gentle reader, it would seem that there's a new kid on the block, so to speak, when it comes to take-it-off-quick diet schemes (read "scams"):  hoodia, a South African herb that, supposedly, when ingested, will make the pounds just fly right off.  Surely you've seen the ads for these new wonder drugs, proclaiming the virtues of this new panacea for all our eating woes.  The bad thing is this:  despite their stellar claims, science has proven that only changing one's eating habits and a regimen of exercise will take pounds off and KEEP them off.  I know a lot of people who have tried this and several other schemes to lose weight, and inevitably all of them say the same thing:  the minute you stop taking the drug or go off the diet, the pounds come back with a vengance -- and more besides.  When are we going to get it through our artery-hardened brains that we're eating too much, and eating too much of the wrong things to boot?  No drug, herb, or diet plan known to man, alone, is going to help until we make the conscious decision to put down the triple whoppers and pick up a carrot or celery stick??

"IT WAS THE HUMANE THING TO DO" -- I read with some interest this morning that Barbaro, last year's Kentucky Derby winner, has finally been euthanized.  Doctors tending the thoroughbred were quoted as proclaiming, "It was the humane thing to do."  Right -- it was the humane thing to do SIX MONTHS AGO!  We will never know or be able to imagine the depths of pain and suffering that poor horse went through just because his owners were too stubborn or too greedy to do the right thing when the horse broke its leg so catastrophically.  I'm sure that if Barbaro could have communicated with his medical team, he probably would have said, "What took you fools so long?"  I believe that surgical and medical means should be taken to save an animal's life, but within reason, folks.  That horse's leg was so shattered, it was going to take a miracle for it to ever be able to function again.  A good friend and colleague of mine just went through a similar situation with one of her dogs.  The dog was diagnosed with cancer in one of its legs, and rather than figure that the dog had lived a full life (almost 12 years now) and that further treatment would only cause the dog undue pain, she and her husband decided to take the dog to the Texas A&M Veterenary School and have the dog's leg amputated, which they were told could only assure the dog of only six months, tops.  Now they've learned that the cancer has metasticized to the dog's lungs, and rather than put the dog through chemotherapy that only has a 10 percent change of working, they're letting the dog "enjoy herself" until the end.  Something's wrong with that kind of thinking.  I am a dog lover of the first order, but one thing I learned (the hard way) early in life is that a dog in pain IS NOT enjoying herself.  At some point, animal owners must admit that, as much as we'd like to keep them around, we're doing more harm than good by putting animals through horrific medical treatments and surgeries, especially if we're doing it only because we can't bear to part with them yet.  So, so long, Barbaro -- on behalf of all of us, I apologize for your num-nut owners and trainers; you deserved a much better year than the one you've just had.

REALITY, BY AND LARGE, SUCKS -- Now that American Idol and The Apprentice are back in full swing, I think it's time to revisit the whole reality TV idea.  Yes, we moan and groan over how "cruel" Simon is, how ditzy Paula acts, how the Donald's comb-over is perhaps the most unnatural thing existing on planet Earth ... and the list goes on.  But this list of gripes is not new; like spring, they renew themselves every year about this time, and we seem honestly SURPRISED by it all.  Hello?  What is it about ANY of this that strikes anyone with a brain as "new"?  The shows are the same; only the names and faces change. Same scenarios, different year.  Same bad talent, different season.  Did we honestly expect Simon Cowell to have a sincere change of heart and attitude in the off-season?  NO!  His current one gets him too much press; why change?  In fact, there's something about his attitude that we don't want to see changed.  Same thing goes for the Donald and the rest of the reality TV ilk:  if they did change, we wouldn't know how to act, wouldn't have anything to talk about.  Isn't it about time that this reality TV schtick goes the way of all flesh?  I know it was fresh and new at one time, but that time has come and has DEFINITELY gone. The latest abomination is on Lifetime:  "Gay, Straight, or Taken?"  In this monstrosity, a single girl is faced with three guys, and, you guessed it, one of them is gay, one of them is straight, and one is taken.  I prefer to call this show "WELCOME TO MY LIFE!" -- with the exception that I'm usually the one choosing the gay one.  Why do I want to see my life played out two or three times a day??  Talk about pouring salt into an open wound!  Yes, reality sucks, and I don't need more of it forced on me by the major networks.  Let it go already!

Well, I guess that's all the spleen-venting I'm up for right now, but I'm sure there'll be more later.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

10:41:23 PM EST
Feeling Loopy

When I was younger, snow days were gifts literally from heaven -- a brief reprieve from the drudgery of school, a chance to play in the snow/ice/wintry mix that had blanketed our yard and street and had caused this mini-vacation.  Sages tell us that, as we grow older, many of the trappings of youth fall away, never to be recaptured.  I guess snow days are just one of those trappings.

Today, thanks to an overnight dousing of freezing rain and sleet, classes at the university where I teach -- and at schools across most of northern Texas -- were cancelled.  This just one day after classes for the spring semester had officially begun.  It was like having a taste of freedom only to have it snatched away from you.  I was so happy to be back on campus yesterday; yes, it was cold and windy, but you could tell that just about everyone was happy to be back.

Today, however, I was trapped in my apartment, forced to watch, once more, the never-ending vista of daytime television.  I don't think I've channeled surfed as much in the past year as I have today.  NOTHING was on, at least nothing of any value.  At one point I even chanced slick walkways and the parking lot to move my car closer to my apartment's front door.  Anything to break the monotony.  Anything to get a little fresh air.

Every news broadcast had footage of downed power lines, broken tree limbs disecting car hoods and roofs, cars slipping and sliding on icy roadways, dump trucks parcelling out sand, salt, and cinders to help the fool-hardy make it across treacherous overpasses and bridges.  And while I was grateful for a moment that I was in a profession that occasionally got the day off when the weather gets bad, I couldn't help but feel envious at some level; while I wouldn't want to chance navigating icy-covered roads and streets, just the idea of being "anywhere but here" was so tempting.

Tomorrow's forecast looks promising.  Cold temperatures but no further precipitation.  And I'm sure my students will have lots of stories of adventures trying to get from point A to point B.  But it'll be nice just to be back in contact with other human beings.

Gone are the days of exuberant ecstasy upon hearing your school's name in an endless list of school closings.  Gone is the exuberant ecstasy over getting a snow day.  I'd much rather be out in the world than snow dazed.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

4:38:30 PM EST
Feeling Frustrated

This time of year always gives most people pause -- a time to stop and reflect on the past 364 days before turning over that next momentous page on the calendar.  Self-reflection is almost always a good thing ... except for today.

I guess you could call the mood I've been in lately "Geritol engendered" because, for some reason, I've been feeling rather old.  The passage of Gerald Ford and James Brown within 24 hours of each other didn't help matters.  James Brown was always, in my mind, one of those timeless entertainers; he never seemed to age (either that or he had one heck of a makeup entourage) and never seemed to tire at what he did.  Gerald Ford, although he was of my father's generation, was the first president I ever voted for.  That was a great day for me -- even though he didn't win -- because I felt for the first time that I was finally a part of the process, an ADULT.

To see those moments flash before me in retrospect AND realize that they were thirty years ago can make one take a pause long enough to classify as a partial if not full stop.  Then today I got another wake-up call.

I was going through the drive-thru at a local Jack in the Box for a glass of tea (my new drink of choice now that Cokes are forever on the no-no list).  I had placed my order and had driven up to the window when the young woman opened the window and told me an amount that was far less than what I had originally been told back at the order menu.  When I asked her why the difference, she told me "I gave you the senior citizen discount."

Someone hold my sword whilst I run upon it.

I'm not one to capriciously lie about my age; I've come to grips, sort of, with the fact that I'm now on the distaff side of 50.  But to be verbally reminded by a stranger -- I just sat there for a moment, then pulled down the vanity mirror on the driver's side sun visor to take a look.  I don't think I looked any differently than I do most days (especially days when I don't have to be on campus), so why did she automatically assume that I needed the senior citizen discount?

I thought for a moment about putting up a protest, but just graciously accepted my change and pulled away.

On today of all days, when the old year rings out and the new year rings in, perhaps I needed to be reminded that time does indeed march on --

And as Clairee says in Steel Magnolias, most of the time it's marching across your face.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

5:18:28 PM EST
Feeling Frustrated

I teach at a local university -- as those of you who regularly read this already know -- so I deal daily with students who range in age from right out of high school to the older, more mature students who are giving college a shot later in life.  This latter group I rarely have a problem with; it's the former that make me, often, sit in my office and openly weep.

Out of sheer, utter frustration.

This frustration was heightened this week when I began to pore over the portfolios that my composition students had turned in as part (a very LARGE part, I should say) of their final course grade.  Some of them were nicely done, well organized, and well written.  Others, sadly, showed less the writer's command of the language than the student's sheer and utter inability to follow directions.

Every semester, I give these students a detailed handout on what I'm expecting in their portfolios -- down to how I want them organized and what each writing assignment should include (and in what order).  I'm beginning to wonder if my time wouldn't be better spent slamming my head against the nearest brick wall, because that's what I end up doing, anyway.  What is even more frustrating is that I devote one whole class period, before the portfolios are due, to any last-minute questions students might have -- about anything. 

And still they come -- portfolios that are shoddy (to put it mildly) and writing assignments that stray so far from the original assignment that I have to look around my desk for tell-tale bread crumb trails, hoping students had at least given themselves a way to find their way back.  But no.  And these same students will sit there in disbelief next week when I hand them back, wondering why their grades are as low as they are.

What do I tell them?  How, without resulting to profanity, can I express my disappointment and regret?  I don't like giving students Ds and Fs, but I've learned lately that some students must learn that grades are EARNED, not given, per se, and that what they do directly impacts those grades.  I used to be rather soft-hearted.  Not any more.  When a student comes to me complaining about his or her grade, I look that student square in the eye and say, "Did you do what I asked you to do?"  If the student falters, I usually produce the handout on which I outlined the instructions.  "Did you follow these directions, or did you just decide on your own to put it together this way?"

That usually gets the point across.

This semester, though, I'd be better off preparing cue cards that I can just hold up or putting it on tape; I have a feeling that point's going to be pressed quite a bit in the next few days.

But does this utter lack of regard for directions point to a bigger, deeper problem?  I don't know.  I don't want to resort to naysaying and gloom-and-doom-saying and hang my head in resignation; I'd like to think that there are members of the next (or next-next) generation who can handle directions.  But I'm seeing this disregard so frequently these days that I'm beginning to wonder.  I know that my generation rebeled against "authority" in our day, but some of us grew up and took a good, hard look around and found that, voila, we had BECOME the authority we had once eschewed.  And we woke up.  We realized that directions are there for a reason -- and that, perhaps, we could learn something by following them.

I'm hoping that my students will follow suit. It may take a while -- some may never make it -- but perhaps one day they'll look back, as I do now, and wonder aloud, "was I ever really THAT naive?"

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

5:35:17 PM EST
Feeling Quiet

Every so often, people stir up the debate regarding "quality of life" -- most notably, during the Terry Schiavo case -- and inevitably the question arises, "what constitutes quality of life?"  While definitions may vary (according to who you talk to), recent developments have caused me to stop and reconsider my own definition.

What constitutes quality of life?  I think my definition now revolves around one particular person.

She lived her entire life in a two-county radius in southern Arkansas.  She was married to the same man for almost fifty years, and when he died in 1967, she never remarried.  She raised two sons and gloried not only in their achievements but also the achievements of her five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren -- all of whom she met and all of whom she loved dearly.

She never owned a car and never had a driver's license; for most of her life, if she needed to go somewhere, she walked -- to the grocery store, to get her hair done, to work (when she had to work), or to church.  She was faithful to that church, having joined it in 1952 and remained a member there.

She never had a cross word to say about anyone.  She may have thought it, but she never said it.

Her cooking would put most of the chefs on Food Network to shame.  She cooked from scratch, probably just as her mother and grandmother had, and you couldn't find a recipe in her kitchen -- it was all in her memory.  She canned her own fig preserves from figs she grew in her backyard, along with creamed corn and "chili sauce" made from ingredients in her own garden. 

For the past ten years, though, she lived in a nursing home after a broken hip in 1996 precluded her living alone.  Even then, she made a point of getting to know every worker's name, and she made a point of asking about their families every time they walked in.  Even in recent years, when her memory startedfailing, she greeted every visitor (whether she recognized them or not) with a sweet smile and a gracious "well hello there!"

She called each of her grandchildren "sugar" -- and there were no favorites.  Each one was equally precious to her.  And her great- and great-great-grandchildren were her delight, even though she didn't get to see them often.

It was a life that spanned a century and more.  She grew up riding a horse and wagon, and she lived to see men land on the moon and explore outer space.

She was 103 and 10 months when she passed away last Monday evening.  Most people would say she died, but I don't think her influence will ever really die.

THAT'S what I call quality of life.

I'll miss you, Mam-ma.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

7:59:25 PM EST
Feeling Surprised

Being a former journalist, I am well acquainted with the name Rupert Murdoch.  Usually, in the ranks of true journalists, Murdoch's name is equated with the "anything for a buck" mentality that seems to permeate much of the news media today.

So today's announcement that Murdoch is pulling not only the O. J. Simpson interview next Monday but also his book deal came as a shock -- a pleasant one but a shock nonetheless.  Rupert, I didn't think you had it in you ... ethics, that is.

And as pleased as I am that Simpson won't get to flaunt his smugness to a national audience, I am at the same time a bit skeptical.  This skepticism is born out of my cynicism concerning Murdoch's true motives.  While the public statement was all about wanting to spare the feelings of the Goldman and Brown families, I think there was another motive at work in Murdoch's scheming little brain.

That motive -- quel surprise -- is money.

Yesterday, the Fox affiliate out of Dallas reported that many Fox affiliates (Dallas NOT included) had decided not to run the interview show.  I'm not sure, and I'll probably never know for sure, but I think this defection probably snow-balled until there were probably more affiliates opting not to show it than those who were going ahead with it.  And with that, Murdoch saw the proverbial handwriting on the wall--this was going to cost him mega advertising bucks.

Hence the grand announcement this morning.

In a way, I'm glad that I won't have to see proven yet again how much of a scandal monger the American viewing public really is.  As Bill Maher pointed out rather well on his "Real Time" show last Friday night, a lot of people were probably going to tune in just to see if OJ was going to, in some way, confess to the double homicide, just as millions would probably have bought the book when it came out.  And that would have made me both sad and very, very angry.

Why should this smirking delinquent -- Simpson, that is -- make money off of a crime that, in the minds of many Americans, he committed?  Isn't there a law against that??  Perhaps this latest set-back will send Simpson packing to the far outskirts of oblivion, where he can live out the rest of his miserable life away from the public eye.  Get off the golf greens, OJ; no one believes the line about you still looking for Nichole's killer any more (not that some of us ever believed it in the first place).  Pack up what few belongings haven't been confiscated by the courts and go away.

And thank you, Rupert, for not putting the American public through a disgusting display of fake emotion and all-too-real conceit. 

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

11:08:34 PM EST
Feeling Embarrassed

One thing my mother always told me -- and believe me, she told me a LOT -- is that lies, inevitably, will be uncovered.  It took me probably a little longer than most for this to sink in, but it did.  And now I have a rather finely tuned BS detector, honed by years of teaching and years of telling a few whoppers of my own.  A little red flag goes up in my head any time I even THINK that someone might be lying -- my personal life to the contrary.

So Ted Haggard's 11th hour "confession" to his former congregation today didn't come as any big surprise for me.  I could tell by the look on his face, when pressed for his side of the story, that he was shoveling as fast as he could, but to no avail.  And that leaves me wondering how the "Christian right" is going to respond to this latest blow to their "we have the moral high ground" argument.  After all, Haggard was one of Bush's "advisors" on such weighty issues as abortion and same-sex marriage (Haggard professed to be against both).

What sickens me is that Haggard's dirty doings is going to make other honest and earnest "evangelicals" look like even bigger scumbags than some of them are.  What sickens me is that Haggard's wife and children had to be dragged through this.  What sickens me is that some right-wingers are convinced that all of this is some left-wing pre-election plot.

I remember when Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker took their respective falls from grace.  I can clearly recall the pictures of Bakker being led, sobbing and in a straight jacket, out of the office building where his lawyer's office was; I can clearly recall seeing Swaggart's sobbing face plastered all over the television screen as he wailed "Ah...have....sinned!"  And the only thing I could feel at the time was revulsion; these two men -- much like Haggard -- made their "holier than thou" pronouncements all the time knowing that their hands were "dirtier than most."

At the time, there were no rumblings by the "Christian right" that the fall of these two scammers were part of a Democratic plot; they were too busy distancing themselves from Swaggart and his ilk.  But with the advent of politics-cum-piety, GOP spin doctors are quick to attribute the downfalls of their number to sly, sinister plots by those, they claim, would like to see nothing more than the desecration of every single American value.

Mark Foley, Rep. Ney, and now Haggard.  In past years, Democrats would have been sitting back and counting the number of formerly tight elections they would be winning; not now.  Now Democrats are stepping back and not pressing the issue because they don't want to be seen as gloating.

If this Tuesday's election doesn't change the political landscape on Capital Hill, the Dems have no one to blame but themselves.  Republican right-wingers are falling right and left (no pun intended); if this Tuesday's election leaves us with the status even "quo-er" than before, then the Democrats deserve what they get.

The truth will out, my mom used to say.  Sometimes that truth hurts; sometimes that truth can wake us up to reality.  It's up to us what we do with that reality.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

6:30:38 PM EDT
Feeling Frustrated

I am beginning to get a little tired of these "holier than most" arch-conservatives who deign to come down from their self-imposed pedestals every now and then and give us their latest decree.  The latest has been on my "hate-hate-hate-him" list for some time now:  Rush Limbaugh.  But his latest diatribe perhaps takes that proverbial cake and then some.

Where does Limbaugh get off calling ANYONE "exploitative"?  Huh?  Everything the man does or has done since he hit the public arena has been exploitative.  Remember the old "Rush Limbaugh Show" on TV?  That was nothing more than a 30-minute paid commercial for his latest tome.  If you recall, the set for the show was nothing more than bookshelves filled to the brim with -- yes, you guessed it -- HIS BOOK!  If that's his idea of a personal library, then I really need to rethink my position on book burning.

All Michael J. Fox is trying to do is save his life.  He's got a degenerative disease that, if Congress would get off its moralizing high horses for a moment, could possibly be alleviated if not cured altogether with a little research -- which could be accomplished with some funding that other diseases get. 

But no!  Rush, possibly in the grips of yet another Oxycontin binge, has decreed that Fox is exploiting his disease to stump for Democratic candidates.  This wouldn't be so ironically sad if Rush, at every possible opportunity, hasn't done his own stumping for his fellow arch-conservatives, exploiting HIS position to do so.

So Rush, before you start tossing any future stones, make sure your glass house is rock-proof, okay?  Put down the pain killers and THINK for a moment before you regale us with another dose of verbal diarrhea.  Do us all that one favor, please.

Written by brentub Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 2 comments: Show Recent | Add your own