We clocked off five miles more, and I said, “But suppose there isn’t anything to find?”

And the Boss said, “There is always something.”

And I said, “Maybe not on the Judge.”

And he said, “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”

- ”All The King’s Men”, Robert Penn Warren

Most of us recall earlier this year, when the White House boresighted Limbaugh. The “Big Guy” stared ‘em down, then came right back swingin’. In the end, the Administration lost a fair amount of political capital in the attack. Now it’s Glenn Beck’s turn.

The Daily Kos contains a message from Keith Olbermann, in which he invites the members of the Left to dish him the dirt on Beck. Newsbusters also has a commentary on the gathering storm.

On Beck’s part, this is a move that cannot be unexpected. If nothing else, Beck is a survivor and his excellently honed sense of paranoia has no doubt prepared him for what is to come. It’s Glenn’s turn in the barrel, and though it will be unpleasant, I’m sure he’s spent no small amount of time in preparing.

Beck has lost a great deal in his life. He’s banged off both ends of the scale. However, when you’ve literally hit the skids, you put things into perspective. It becomes more difficult to be intimidated. What is the Left going to do, call him an alcoholic (he is)? He also suffers from ADD (self-admitted). In my opinion, he’s  bi-polar as the dickens (but a highly functional BP).

The point is that Beck has done plenty to publicly address his demons. One of his comments, which I wish he’d expand on is, “alcoholics and drug addicts are going to save this country”. I’d like to hear his explanation on that one!

Beck knows what he is, and was. Getting the dirt on him may mean nothing at all as he’s owned up to to a lot in his life. And, though he’s slightly tortured in his own skin, he seems to know himself better than most. This makes him a formidable opponent, as I don’t think he cares as much about himself as he does for the welfare of the Nation. They’ll have to do more than merely “dig the dirt” on him to take him out.

This is going to be hugely entertaining as it’s played out in the media. The White House isn’t going to be in  the lead on this one (they’re not commenting on Beck’s critiques). The Administration is recruiting their minions to shoulder the attack. No doubt this is due to Obama’s flagging popularity. He cannot afford to lose much more, but he can certainly try to get the public’s eye off of the ball. This is really all the maneuver is about.

It continues to get more interesting, as the chocks are thrown under the Obamites. As a student of political history, it is a good era to be alive.

Personally, I think this business of parents keeping their kids home from school is a fine bit of grassroots activism. The town hall Marine that told the politician to “stay away from my kids” spoke for the multitudes. Aside from being a massive vote of no confidence, it is a demonstration that the public is on to the pinko tactics of the administration. They’ve been too highhanded for too long and they are being brought up short, finally.

The whole spectacle, every bit of it, is a wonderful education for our children in what not to do. In this world of whitewashed evil, our offspring seldom get to witness true malevolence. Well, this is their chance. I know my grade school children are acutely aware of the smarminess oozing from the administration. Don’t think that the rest of their generation isn’t aware of it.

One of this parent’s proudest moments, was learning that my daughter’s fifth grade class literally booed their teacher when they learned she was going to vote for Obama. It made all of those diaper changes worth it. <— Beaming Parent

I’ve been absent from the blog for a bit. A rather unexpected stroke slowed me down for a couple of months. No kidding, a stroke! Who would have thought? As strokes go it was a rather light one. Just enough to remind me of my mortality. Had the emboli turned left instead of right on the way to the brain, I would probably be looking up at the grass rather than down at it. It was that close.

Though my blood chemistry was pretty good, I’m still relatively young, my weight “optimal”, no drugs, no alcohol (lifelong teatotaler, but I may have to start after this “incident”), it only made those worthy medical detectives dig in a little more to try to figure out the source of this rather unexpected event.

The incident happened subtly. I was on my hands and knees in the yard working on a recalcitrant irrigation valve, and had my head cranked way over to the side (and upside down) to try to read the manual shutoff marking on the side of the valve body. When I stood up I noticed that my left peripheral field had folded in by about five degrees.

“Hmph! What’d I do now?”. At first i thought I’d damaged the retina in my left eye. Closing my right eye, and waving my fingers around in the left field, I almost had myself convinced that it was my left eye that was the problem…..almost. I then closed my left eye and tested the left field of the right eye. Same problem.

“Oh, s$!^! …… BRAIN“. Time to head to the emergency room, and quickly. My “gentle bride” squired me down the 12 mile grade that lead to Memorial North, where I was involved in a rather unpleasant confrontation with the emergency room security guard. He couldn’t figure out why he was detecting metal as he waved his wand over the spinal cord stimulator implanted in my right flank. I pointed out that he was going to detect metal there all day long, and unless he let me into the emergency room, there was a statistical probability that I was going to expire right in front of him. He was bound and determined to find out why I was beeping his equipment though, and I imagine I might still be there (or dead), had an alert ER nurse not ended the foolishness by physically dragging me into the facility and slapping me on a gurney.

Three days later I was out the door of the hospital with a whole new set of pills, and some really neat syringes loaded up with fractionated heparin. You don’t want to know where those went (subcutaneous car wreck is rather apt).  Oh yes, and a diagnosis of Patent Foramen Ovale with some associated emboli in the aorta. Yes, the latter problem is pretty scary. Fortunately, the next two weeks were spent keeping my blood as absolutely thin as possible without bleeding out. Discussing the fate of the clots in my aorta with my GP, he told me not to worry.

“It’s been four days since you started on the anti-coagulants. No problem.”

“No problem?! Why is there no problem? Are those things still in my aortic arch?”, I squeeked.

“I doubt you’ll form any more clots with the anticoagulants you’re on. No doubt the emboli that were in there went into your brain days ago.”

I was comforted, ……. sort of. Tough truth from my doctor, which is all too rare from the medical establishment. I may keep him.

Well, how does this fit in with the healthcare debate? From my standpoint, here’s how it comes down. The way the bill(s) are currently configured, a lot of the money for the program is going to come out of Medicare. Though I’m blessed with two great insurance programs (Medicare and a crackerjack PPO), I never asked for the Medicare. It was effectively forced on me in a convoluted arrangement with my disability insurance company. Having said that, Medicare has been pretty good to me over the years. It certainly works as well, or better in some cases, than the PPO.

Contrast this with the effect of a 40% reduction in Medicare payments, if the proposed healthcare bill is enacted. The money has to come from somewhere, and the biggest “pile” is directed at geezers such as myself (though I’m comfortably ensconced over on the left slope of that bell curve, thank you very much).

Am I looking forward to nationalized healthcare? Not on your life, or mine. When I seem to attract every odd and unlikely disease in existence, trusting a new government program is not the first thing that comes to mind (or what remains of it). Let us hope that the rumored failure of the bill is accurate.