MAD MEL

Some days I sit around thinking, “Ooh, I’d like to be a movie star. Let’s see, who would I like to be? How about Mel Gibson?” Whoops! Not today.

Tell you the truth, I find it difficult to hate Mel. Hyperbolic, vitriolic, anti-semitic bullshit aside, he seems like a nice guy. He has that manly persona, that great movie-star essence, that thing you can’t put your finger on but you know it when you see it. Hell, if he had called my name from the screen during Braveheart, I would have followed him into battle. He’s a hell of an actor, though apparently not a very good drinker.

But hey, give the devil his due, whatever it takes to call a female sheriff “sugar-tits,” drunk or sober, I don’t have it, though I’m not sure how you call anyone sugar-tits who is encased in a bullet-proof vest.

There are a couple of things about his anti-semitic remarks that I find puzzling. First of all, if you’re going to hate Jews, pick another business. Just about everything in the film industry is owned by Jews, always has been. An actor hating Jews would be like a hit-man hating Italians. The difference, of course, is that the Italians I’m thinking of would cut you off at the knees send you to sleep with the fishes, and put your kids in public school. Jews would just make you feel guilty.

The other thing is his comment about Jews causing all the wars in the world. He must think we’re some tough-ass buckaroos. Jews are a fraction of 1% of the world’s population. Though Israel has been known to get tough from time to time – this being one of them – their military actions have always been restricted to their immediate Arab neighbors, and usually after being attacked first. That hardly makes Jews world wide warriors.

Melvin may have put the b in bigot, but he does get points for apologizing, which is more than I can say for the Sheriff’s Department that allegedly “sanitized” the arrest record (see TMZ.com).

So, here’s what I think should happen: Revoke his license permanently. Assign a Hassidic Rabbi to be his driver. That seems fair.

A foot on either side.

1 XCZR

MILLER IN THE MIDDLE.

Though it is not generally known by the public at large, the family of popular comedian Dennis Miller was in fact kidnapped almost two years ago by radical right wing conservatives, and is currently being held hostage at a religious theme park in North Carolina. The media has kept quite during sensitive negotiations.

I don’t have any factual evidence of this kidnapping, but it’s just about the only reason I can think of why a reasonably intelligent, fairly funny guy would leave the comfort and sanity of liberal humor to venture into the dark corridors and narrow thought patters of conservative dogma. Apparently, though, he did leave something behind for the rest of us. The piece below has been circulating on the web and I am only too happy to use my little blog to give it more exposure.

A foot on either side.

1XCZR

Dennis Miller on The Middle East

"A brief overview is always helpful before analysis, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Here we go.

The Palestinians want their own country. Here's the thing about that - there are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is actually a modern invention - unless you count the two thousand years during which the tribes of Israel were generally known as Palestine.

Before Israel won the land in the Six Day War of 1967, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and, as I said, there were no "Palestinians." As soon as the Israelis took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, suddenly there were "Palestinians" all over the place, weeping over their deep bond with their lost land and "nation." So for the sake of honesty, let's not call these delightful people who dance for joy at American deaths “Palestinians.” Instead, let's call them what they are, "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death." That might be a bit unwieldy for CNN newsmen, so how about this: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Here’s the thing about that: they actually don't. You see, they could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course --that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.

Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it - for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of Arabs away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon, most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something. I roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Middle East. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five Million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. They swear that if Israel would just give them half of that pack of matches, everyone would be pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding. My friend, Kevin Rooney, made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. Now, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations in Iraq it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies. No easy task. However, in any big-picture strategy there's always a danger of losing moral weight, and we've already lost some. After September 11th our president told us he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City bombing every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing, and we tell them to show restraint. If America were being attacked every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan.

Please feel free to pass this along to your friends. Walk in peace! Be Happy! Have a wonderful life!

THE TOILET BOWL

I was just thinking about sports. The college bowl games used to be big sports events with a little advertising. Now they're more like big ad campaigns with a little sports. The Tostidos Fiesta Bowl and the Nokia Sugar Bowl shamelessly displayed corporate names and logos on fields and uniforms.

Advertisers have traditionally gone after that golden 18 to 34 demographic, but the advertising community, being as smart as it is, will eventually recognize the enormous buying power of the Baby Boomer generation. Then we’ll see some advertising: The Depens Fiesta Bowl – “Watch the game with confidence” – and The Viagra Sugar Bowl – “If your erection goes into overtime, call your physician.” The logo possibilities are endless.

One foot on either side.

1 XCZR

Closin' the Windows and Bolton the Door

Last year President Bush nominated John Bolton to the ambassadorship of the United Nations. Congress refused to approve the nomination so the president "temporarily" appointed him to the post. Bolton's nomimnation is coming up again, so I thought it appropriate to look back at a series of letters I wrote to the L. A. Times during July and August of last year.

Letter #1
Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t you think, especially a patriot like John Bolton. His last position, Under Secretary of State in charge of international non-proliferation of nuclear arms, was a tough one, complicated and complex. Admittedly, that didn't go too well - nuclear arms proliferated like rabbits - but he worked real hard and the president seems to likes him a lot.

I think this Ambassadorship is an ideal, second-chance position. How much damage could he do anyway? I know some people say he's a loose canon, but Condoleeza Rice says she can control him, and after all, isn’t that what you want in an ambassador to the United Nations, someone who needs to be controlled by the Secretary of State.

I think we should get behind the president on this one.

Letter #2
John Bolton’s pledge to honor the institution of the United Nations and work closely with its ambassadors is about as credible as movie ads. You know the ones I mean: “Best action film of the year,” or, “Best comedy since ‘Tootsie’.” That’s pretty much how I see John Bolton – Best diplomat Bush could find!

Letter #3
The shameful appointment of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador is an arrogant act of dictatorship. Using classic political bullying tactics, the president made his announcement at a press conference, labeled all opposition to the appointment as “a handful of partisan senators,” and left the room without taking a single question.

Clearly the law that allows a president to appoint a diplomat without congressional approval was designed as an emergency, stop-gap tool for use when Congress was out of session. Bush, however, has used this loophole as a political convenience, as a clever tool to side-step Congres and the democratic process.

Do you think dictatorship is impossible in America? Many of the world’s worst dictators came to power without firing a shot. They were legally elected by an unsuspecting public after playing on national pride and promising peace and prosperity.

Great political change is rarely perceived as an earthquake – everyday calm followed by sudden chaos – it is more like an unhappy marriage, one that begins in love and trust and dissolves slowly, almost unnoticeably, one step at a time. The appointment of John Bolton is a big step.


A foot on either side.

1 XCZR

The Best Laid Plans

Ignoring the impassioned pleas of local residents, the L. A. Planning Commission recently gave the go-ahead to a development deal on La Cienega and 3rd, across the street from the Beverly Center. They didn't think it was a very hard case. They saw the issue as financial, I saw it as quality of life, and the quality of life is rarely determined by the number on the bottom line.

The Fairfax district where I grew up in the 1950s was a family neighborhood. Gilmore Stadium featured football games and midget auto racing (little cars, not little people); down the street, Gillmore Field was the home of the Hollywood Stars, a minor league baseball team; the Pan Pacific Auditorium hosted the Ice Capades and the circus every year; Gilmore drive-in was our local movie theater; and there were pony rides at the amusement park. Not multi-million dollar businesses, perhaps, but profitable, and all oriented to family activities.

Gilmore Stadium, Gilmore Field and the Pan Pacific are all gone now. The drive-in has been replaced by The Grove, Rick Caruso’s outdoor mall that packs in tens of thousands of shoppers every week, and where the pony rides used to be, the Beverly Center now has four acres of shopping and five floors of parking. On the outside of the building, for the benefit of any families that do drive by, forty foot high billboard ads feature half-dressed models, and that half barely dressed at all.

This ill-considered rash of development means that every day from 2:30 in the afternoon till eight o’clock at night every major street in every direction is frozen solid in a bumper-to-bumper gridlock from which there is simply no escape. It means that developers who are not part our community are making a lot of money at the expense of the people who are.
It means that with the help of the L. A. Planning Commission, a family neighborhood surrounded by urban opportunity has been transformed into a crowded shopping center surrounded by a traffic jam.

When I was young, Ozzie and Harriet weren’t allowed to sleep in the same bed. Now, on Desperate Housewives, they hardly sleep in the same bed twice. Well, times change, but the question I would ask the Planning Commission is, how much are they willing to diminish the quality of our lives in order to create profits for someone else?

WEIGHT, WEIGHT, DON'T TELL ME

It seems to be a universal truth that supermarkets baggers always put all the heaviest items in the same bag. Maybe they’re trained that way. Maybe it’s a bagger joke. I’m not sure. They usually double bag it so it doesn’t fall apart, but it weighs a ton. Is there a pattern here? Other considerations aside – fragility, freezer items – common sense dictates that the heavy stuff should be spread out, so as to even up the weight of the bags. Am I over thinking this.

No, but seriously, in February I wrote the following:

Not hard to see why George W. Bush likes Alberto Gonzales so much. I got two things from watching the attorney general give un-sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee: it is time for the Bush administration to start telling the truth, and it is seriously time for term limits.

It’s nice to trust our leaders, but we are a nation of laws. The best form of government, of course, would be a benevolent dictatorship; it’s great for cutting through red tape, getting things done to help people. You know, benevolent stuff. The problem is, those who make the best dictators are usually wanting in the benevolence department, and even if you could find a dictator who truly was benevolent, you could never be sure about the next one. That’s why laws are so important. I don’t think Mr. Gonzales got that memo.

If this spying operation is as small and narrow as Mr. Gonzales says it is – they’re calling it a terrorist surveillance program because their real gift isn’t for spying, it’s for labeling – why not go through the FISA courts? Gosh, I can’t think of a good reason. I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree with Sen. Feinstein on this one. She said the program is probably much bigger than they want us to know. Gees, Dianne, ya think? Well, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . you know?

Mr. Gonzales says they only listen in on terrorist suspects, but he refuses to elaborate on how people get to be suspects. Could it be as simple as an angry neighbor passing an anonymous tip to Homeland Security, or would just having the name Mohamed be enough? If it would, what happens if we find ourselves in a conflict with Israel one day (this was in February, remember)? Would everyone named Goldstein be on the list? Would that future administration feel justified in rounding up all the Jews in the country, including those serving in the Senate? Impossible, you say? Ask a Japanese friend.

And why aren’t these “suspects” just arrested and charged? Is the NSA playing a high-stakes game of chicken, hoping to get more terrorists or more information before they strike again? That’s a pretty dangerous game, and not one that our intelligence community has proven itself very good at.

National security is important, of course, but our law requires judicial oversight, and being at war doesn’t change that. We are often at war. In fact, we are usually at war. The United States spent half the 20th century either actively at war or under threat of nuclear attack. I remember the “drop drills” in grade school. Besides, there can be no guarantee of security in a free country. Unfortunately, people are free to do evil things. Not very nice, I suppose, but you have to decide whether you want to live in a free country with a certain element of danger, or in a police state that is ever so much safer. Let’s see - I choose the free country.

Finally, the members of the Judiciary Committee look like a poster for term limits. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some of their signatures on the Declaration of Independence. One, six-year term is plenty for anyone. Public office should be a public service, not a lifetime guarantee.

So, that was in February, but it still seems right.

One foot on either side.

1 XCZR

CRASH II

You know how they say the truth is often spoken in jest? Well, a certain car company – it doesn’t matter which one, but it’s Toyota – has been running a humorous but violent ad for pick-up trucks. They tried it out in theaters first, then started running it on TV.

The ad opens with a narrator saying, “I think I’ll get my tools back.” He then uses his Toyota pick-up to rip the garage door off his neighbor’s house, retrieve his tools and drive away laughing. I tell ya, if it gets any funnier than that, I just don’t know what.

The point of the ad, of course, is to show how powerful the truck is, how powerful you would be if you owned the truck. But the clear message is that if you are powerful you needn’t worry about courtesy, common sense, or the law. You can just take what you want.

It’s all done in a humorous vein, as I said, but the deadly serious intent of this ad, as it is with all ads, is to convince consumers that buying this product or that one will magically grant any wish, in this case the wish to be a tough guy. Would that life were that simple.

I’m not saying I’d like to here a big, “Ohmmmm,” at the end of every ad, but actions do have consequences, and some of them contribute to harmony while others contribute to stress, chaos, and violence. Programming is required to reflect the mores of the society. Isn’t advertising?

I come from television, so I understand the need to advertise, but trying to sell products by implying that violence could somehow be justified, be cool, even be funny, sullys the reputation of the advertiser, demeans the consumer, and harms the community.

One foot on either side.

1 XCZR

CRASH

Television doesn’t hold too many surprises for viewers. You can be pretty sure that any sit-com you watch will at least try to be funny, a horror movie is likely to be scary, and a thriller will probably be thrilling. You get just about what you pay for, and that’s as it should be. On television, as in life, there are boundaries, within which we must all play. I believe VolksWagon has crossed the line with its shock ads.

Using the motto, “Safe Happens,” a not-so-subtle parody of that other popular motto, “Shit Happens”, these ads lull viewers into a false sense of security with a scene of casual conversation in a moving car. Then, without warning, another car comes out of nowhere and BAM - big crash! The driver and passenger are shocked but safe. The idea is that you can trust VWs in an emergency. The result, however, is a betrayal of trust.

There are templates for every format on TV, including commercials, and none of them embraces completely unexpected violence. VolksWagon might want to remember that minors also happen, they happen to be watching when you least expect it, and may not want to get into the family VW and go to play dates after graphically learning the random nature of violence in daily car travel.

Hey, I know the envelope is constantly being pushed – Harriet couldn’t sleep in Ozzie’s bed, Desperate Housewives seem to sleep in everyone’s bed – but put a warning at the top of the commercial, for God’s sake. It may reduce the shock value of the ad, but it will raise the integrity of the advertiser.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Let’s recap the last three days. Reducing corruption and special interest influence in our state and federal governments is a three-step process:

Step 1. Publicly funded elections.
Step 2. A ban on lobbying.
Step 3. Strict term limits. And . . .

Finally, where is the money going to come from for this public funding? Fortunately, the federal government has $69 billion to spare, which should be more than enough to fund elections, especially since not everyone will run at the same time. Plus, it is a renewable source of income.

The time has come for America to grow up. Every year, for the past forty years or so, your government has spent an average of $69 billion in a desperate attempt to prevent drug use. It has been an utter failure and a total waste of public funds. Clearly, you can’t stop people from doing what they want to do. However, if we choose to face reality and legalize drugs, the following are stone cold guaranteed to happen:

1. An immediate and annual budget savings of $69 billion, plus, hundreds of millions more saved by not having to maintain non-violent drug offenders in prison.
2. An immediate loss to international drug cartels of hundreds of billions of dollars – that billions with a B.
3. An immediate gain of hundreds of millions in tax revenue from legally marketed drugs. I’m sure MERCK would take the contract.
4. An immediate gain to the nation’s police departments of hundreds of thousands of man-hours for use in fighting crimes with actual victims.
5. An eventual boost in confidence for government in general and law enforcement in particular. When the police are incapable of enforcing a law, they are seen as weak and ineffective. Plus, the open use of drugs, in spite of their illegality, undermines public confidence in the whole structure of governmental.
6. A possible reduction in actual drug use by young people. This one’s a little iffy, I admit, but it strikes me that part of the attraction of drugs is its very illegality. Using them makes you part of a special club: you carry them in your pocket, you’re fooling the police (the grown-ups), you wink at others whose pockets are also filled. You know, it’s a secret society – it’s fun. Without that illegality, drugs would just be what they are, a risky, expensive, and poor choice.

In truth, drug use isn’t really a problem. Mind and mood altering substances have been in use since the very beginning of civilization. The problem is drug abuse, and that isn’t really a crime, it’s an affliction. So why don’t we act like grown-ups and treat drug use as a medical phenomenon, not a criminal problem. As for the drug users themselves, as far as I’m concerned, help the ones you can, love the ones you can’t. That’s about all we can do.

Please feel free to copy this three-step program and send it to your congressman. If the people won’t do it, it won’t get done.

One foot on either side.

1 XCZR

Step III - Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry.

It’s hard to say exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. Actually, I don’t think it matters. Better we should just be grateful for the phenomenal work they did and move on. But for those interested in history, it does seem fairly clear that whatever they had in mind it did not include perpetual incumbency. We need some serious term limits.

Over the years, certain lawmakers have suggested that one or two terms is simply not enough for politicians to learn their jobs and be effective. Let me make this suggestion: get a copy of “Legislating For Dummies,” bone up on the particulars and get to work. If you still feel you can’t be effective, give up your seat to someone who can.

Political power today is often measured not by a body of work accomplished, but by length of time in office. Watch a televised session of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It looks like an ad for power wheel chairs. Between Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Arlen Spectre, Orin Hatch, and the rest, they have logged hundreds of years in their respective senate seats.

Once elected, a legislator’s main focus is the next election. It colors every decision. His or her vested interest is not to stay in touch but to stay in office. And once in office, they are virtually impossible to get out. It takes a scandal, a serious political misstep, or a felony conviction to unseat them. And even that doesn’t always do it. Former congressman, Newt Gingrich, drummed out of the House after lying to the Ethic Committee, is now an elder statesman of the Republican Party and a well-paid political analyst and consultant for the media. Go figure.

Staying power leads to political power, which leads to graft (and arrogance – I’m not a big fan of arrogance). Political office should be a public service, not a career. Let each elected official be limited to one, six-year term.

One foot on either side.

1 XCZR

Step II - Meet Me In The Lobby

Step Two – Meet Me In The Lobby

With relatives in town from Chicago my wife and I trooped up to Universal Studio’s amusement park for the full court press. We were in for a long day and an interesting surprise.

Despite being a native Angelino, or maybe because of it, I had never actually been to the park. The first thing to catch my eye was a sign at the window: tickets, $49. Right next to it was another sign: “Frontline” tickets, $99. It turns out that for double the price of a regular ticket you could get yourself a VIP tickets, which is worn around the neck like a pass, allowing you to go to the front of the line on any ride and get front row seats at any show. I thought that was a bit queer.

Don’t get me wrong, I know we live in the land of Nod where more money buys bigger steaks, finer clothes, faster cars, and fancier homes, but there is something fundamentally un-American about butting in line, especially at an amusement park, even if you have paid for the privilege.

Which brings me to the lobby industry. It isn’t so much reformation that is needed as collection; it should be picked up and thrown out with the rest of the trash.

There is absolutely nothing in the notion of free speech that implies the right of greater access to legislators for those who can afford a VIP ticket, which is exactly what lobbyists provide. With seemingly unlimited funds, lobbyists successfully persuade legislators to favor their clients, clients that can be as diverse as the military/industrial complex, the teachers union, the NRA, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an Indian nation, the tobacco industry, agriculture, teamsters, or fire fighters – anyone who wants to influence legislators and can afford the lobbyist’s fee. Those who haven’t the price of that VIP ticket are forced to wait patiently at the end of the line. By the time they get to the front the congressional ride is often closed.

To make matters even stickier, it has become common practice for men and women to dance back and forth between elected office, top-level government jobs, corporate chairmanships, and lobby posts, holding sway over the nation’s law-makers. Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, then CEO of Haliburton, now Vice President under George W. Bush. How surprising is it that Haliburton was given a multi-billion dollar, no-bid contracts for work in Iraq – no questions asked. It is a small, exclusive club.

Like hungry termites, they eat away the foundation of democracy, placing the entire structure in danger of crumbling. Lobbyists are little more than opportunistic carpetbaggers, bribing lawmakers with promises of campaign contributions, golf trips, and trinkets of even lesser value. If Congress wishes to create even the illusion of fair play, the whole lobby industry must be rethought. A real K Street Project would ban lobbying altogether.

One foot on either side.

1 XCZR

Cheaters, Thieves, and Scalawags

The basic idea of government isn’t very complicated: organize and operate local and national communities, dispenser justice where it is required and support where it is needed. Try to be fair, effective, and compassionate. How tough is that?

But corruption and waste infect our government from top to bottom. The tone was set by the Bush administration’s open partnership with and unwillingness to regulate big business, and while they are only the latest in a centuries-old line of cheaters, know-it-alls, and scalawags, corruption is still a drain on our economy and has a deep, negative impact on our national character. It may be true that it has always been thus, but it needn’t always be thus.

Accepting corruption as the natural state of affairs, average people have adopted a philosophy of greed and selfishness, embracing personal corruptions, large and small. Business is conducted like a poker game, the basic rule of play being deception rather than reliability. Legislators routinely favor their campaign contributors, on top of which, they have been allowed to regulate their own salaries. How weird is that?

We have become, with notable exceptions, a pampered nation of conspicuous consumers, anesthetized to the suffering of others, concerned only with personal luxury and security. We were a great nation but we have lost our way, wandering aimlessly in search of the original intent of our founders and the next Veterans Day sale at Home Depot.

We are, however, a creative, determined people and may yet be able to reinvent ourselves. A simple, three-step program would dramatically reduce corruption in government and increase our chances of survival. This is easier than conquering alcoholism, which, as you know, requires twelve steps. The first step is publicly funded elections (PFEs).

The single most identifiable source of governmental corruption isn’t flat-out bribery, it is the crippling influence of campaign contributors over elected officials. Why else would corporations give hundreds of millions of dollars, to both sides, but to gain unfair advantage for themselves? It would be naïve to think otherwise – it would be denial.

In a PFE, each qualified candidate would be allotted an equal sum of money, plus media time, for a one-month campaign. No other funding at all - corporate, private, or personal. Let’s give legislators more time to legislate and fewer reasons to be dishonest.

It isn’t likely that political parties will cheerfully give up their position as primary fundraisers - that will probably require ballot initiatives. But PFEs would create a level playing field for all candidates, and give legislators, unfettered by financial obligations, the opportunity to legislate in the interest of the majority. This first important step will heal a major sore on the political body.

Steps two and three, along with the secret formula for painlessly raising PFEs funds, will follow in the next few days.

Remember, one foot on either side.

1 XCZR

From CZR to XCZR.

The title tells it all. For three decades I was forced to define myself as someone who had seizures (CZR) - had them often, indiscriminently, uncontrolably. But not any more. Operated on two years ago, haven't had a seizure since (XCZR). My vision has widened - my focus has changed.
What concerns me now is consistancy. It wouldn't be my preferance to live in Hell, but I could do it, as long as the signs didn't say, "Welcome to Heaven." Don't you just hate that? And that seems to be exactly what our government is doing. The snow is melting (literally) and they're telling us how great the skiing is, how cheap the skis are, how fabulous the weather is, and how the only people not on the slopes are the ones too lazy to climb the mountain. I just skied over a rock and I'm highly suspicious.
I will be posting my observations of the inconsistency between what "they" say and what I see. Remember, one foot on either side.

XCZR