Slash and Burn

One of the good things about the big fire of 2010, is that it burned up all the undergrowth that was clogging up the backyard.
So, we spent the weekend trying to spruce it up. We cleared out, as best we could, some of the evil, thorny, crawling vine-weed that is woven everywhere.
I bought and planted two ligustrum lucidum bushes. I hope to plant a whole bunch more of them, but I'm trying to do it a couple of plants at a time. I'm trying to make a natural barrier between our yard and that ugly burned down shed behind us. Uh! Why don't they clean that up?

They tell me they are going to look like this:

We're All Fascists Now

I'm reprinting this post from zombietime because it perfectly illustrates why universal healthcare is such a bad idea...

Because there’s a much deeper philosophical objection to “socialized medicine” that is so un-PC that it is rarely if ever voiced in public. And for that reason, the opponents of socialized medicine never even mention the real flaw in the concept that nags the unconscious of most Americans:

Not all ailments are equal.

• Blame: the final taboo

A built-in false assumption with the health-care debate is that sickness is always no-fault sickness. It’s never socially acceptable to assign blame for people’s medical problems — especially blame on the patient.

But I’m not afraid to confess that I’m a judgmental person. And I’m pretty confident that most Americans who oppose socialized medicine share this same judgment: that some people are partly or entirely to blame for their unwellness.

I’m perfectly willing to provide subsidized health care to people who are suffering due to no fault of their own. But in those cases — which, unfortunately, constitute perhaps a majority of all cases — where the unwellness is a consequence of the patient’s own misdeeds, bad habits, or stupid choices, I feel a deep-seated resentment that the rest of us should pick up the tab to fix medical problems that never should have happened in the first place.

I’m speaking specifically of medical problems caused by:

• Obesity
• Cigarette smoking
• Alcohol abuse
• Reckless behavior
• Criminal activity
• Unprotected promiscuous sex
• Use of illicit drugs
• Cultural traditions
• Bad diets

Now, I really don’t care if you overeat, smoke like a chimney, hump like a bunny or forget to lock the safety mechanism on your pistol as you jam it in your waistband. Fine by me. And as a laissez-faire social-libertarian live-and-let-live kind of person, I would never under normal circumstances condemn anyone for any of the behaviors listed above. That is: Until the bill for your stupidity shows up in my mailbox. Then suddenly, I’m forced to care about what you do, because I’m being forced to pay for the consequences.

• Reluctant busybodies

What I don’t like about the very concept of universal health care is that it compels me to become my brother’s keeper and insert myself into the moral decisions of his life. I’d rather grant each person maximum freedom. I’d prefer to let people make whatever choices they want, however stupid or dangerous I may deem those choices to be. Just so long as you take responsibility for your actions, and you reap the consequences and pay for them yourself — hey, be as foolish or hedonistic or selfish or thoughtless as you like. Not my business.

But if the bill for your foolishness shows up in the form of higher taxes on me, then I unwillingly start to care what you do. And, trust me on this, you don’t want me turning my heartless judgmental eye on your foolish lifestyle. Because I’d have no qualms criticizing half the stuff you do.

Do you want that? No. Do I want that? No. And that’s the point. Instituting a single-payer universal health-care system, or even a watered-down version as the government is now proposing, compels me to become a meddlesome busybody in your personal choices. And it will compel you to become a meddlesome busybody in everyone else’s personal choices. It forever douses the beautiful flame of individualism — freedom to act without interference, just so long as you are ready to accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

• The sickening truth

My list of unhealthy activities above requires a bit of explanation. Let’s briefly look at each “health sin” in turn:

Obesity
Yes, I know that in some cases obesity can have a genetic component — that some people simply have a tendency to get fat. But the majority of obese people are overweight merely because they eat too much and exercise too little. Simple as that. And as a result, they are mostly or entirely to blame to for their own obesity. Now, there are all sorts of excuses offered up in defense of the overweight: They never learned proper nutritional guidelines; their eating is a symptom of underlying psychological problems; they were raised by parents who fed them unhealthy foods; and so on. To which I reply: I don’t care! Grow up already. Get over your immature problems and cut back on the potato chips. Is that so hard? It actually costs less to eat more healthily. And since being overweight is the #1 medical problem in this country, with countless ailments caused or exacerbated by obesity, making people become personally responsible for their physical conditions is the quickest route to solving the issue. If we made all medical treatment completely free, then people would continue to ruin their bodies with food and just let the free doctors deal with the resulting mess. Hey doc — fix me!

Cigarette smoking
Smoking kills you. Slowly. Expensively. Everybody knows that by now. Want to pay for your own medical bills as you lie in the hospital dying of emphysema or lung cancer? Fine. If you’re willing to pony up the cash, then smoke all you want. But if you want me to shell out millions of dollars to pay for the treatments and care you’ll require, then I’m going to come over there and yank that cig out of your mouth right now.

Alcohol abuse
Destroyed livers, car accidents, pancreatic failure, brain problems — the medical effects of alcohol abuse are well-known. The question is: Can we assign “blame” on the long-term alcoholic for his or her behavior? Contemporary psychology tends to give alcoholics and other addicts a free pass on responsibility, but I am less charitable. Every time you pick up that bottle, it is a conscious decision. And once again, under normal circumstances I just wouldn’t care, but if I’m compelled to pay for the expensive reconstructive surgery of a drunk who smashes his car into a tree, then yes, I care, and I blame the drunk.

Reckless behavior
Stupid people do risky things. Teens who imitate pro wrestling or the Jackass movies in backyard stunts. “Extreme sports” fanatics who jump off cliffs wearing flimsy parachutes. Leaning over the rail and taunting the tigers at the zoo. Eating mysterious mushrooms you found while out hiking. Playing “chicken” in drag races. Car surfing. Auto-erotic asphyxiation. Playing Russian Roulette. Using a hairdryer while in the bathtub. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Me? I don’t do stupid things. I spend my whole life trying to minimize risk. But those who consciously take risks often end up with injuries. Hospital emergency rooms are constantly filled with such people. Now, why should people like me who rarely if ever experience preventable “accidents” have to fund the foolishness of those who throw caution to the wind?

Criminal activity
Crime is dangerous. Not just for the victim, but for the criminal too. Gang members are constantly fighting with each other. Criminals often get injured during the commission of a crime, either while fleeing the scene or during apprehension by the police. Every minute of every day somewhere in this country, drug dealers are shooting at each other and stabbing each other in turf wars or deals gone bad. Doctors and hospitals in poor urban areas spend much of their resources treating gunshot wounds on victims who refuse to reveal how they got injured. And once again, the taxpayer is expected to pick up the tab. When was the last time you heard of a drug dealer diligently paying off the $100,000 hospital bill for the reconstructive surgery he received after being injured in a gun battle?

Unprotected promiscuous sex
AIDS. Chlamydia. Syphilis. Gonorrhea. Human papillomavirus. Herpes. Preventable. Preventable. Preventable. Preventable. Preventable. Preventable. Cover your peckers, people! The problem with discussing STDs is that the discussion always gets muddied with moral issues. But let’s try to set that aside for the moment. On a purely cost-analysis level, STDs are a significant unnecessary society-wide medical expense. Luckily, most STDs are now treatable or at least don’t require costly long-term care. With one noteworthy exception: AIDS. I realize full well that it’s totally un-PC to say this, but why should those of us who go to great lengths to ensure that we never get AIDS have to subsidize the astronomically expensive long-term care of those who through their own cavalier voluntary actions contracted AIDS? Once again, the responsible are expected to pay for the costs incurred by the irresponsible. If I stuck my hand in a blender, should I present my hospital bill to a guy with AIDS and expect him to pay it? And this gets to down to the core of why I oppose the notion of socialized medicine: If left to my own devices, I really don’t care about people’s private sexual practices, risky or not; but if compelled to pay for the treatment of people’s STDs, then suddenly I must become a nanny-state moralist, monitoring and criticizing any activities which might lead to an HIV infection. I don’t want to be in that role.

Use of illicit drugs
The social and medical costs of drug abuse are ruinous. Meth, heroin, crack and other drugs cause a plethora of serious medical problems, both short-term (overdoses, risky behavior) and long-term (rotting teeth, heart failure, malnutrition, immune system collapse, etc.). Drug-users fill our emergency rooms and treatment centers, incurring incalculable expenses. Because even under the current system some of these costs are already borne by the taxpayer, I already feel resentful of having to subsidize drug abusers. But under universal health care, my (and most other taxpayers’) resentment would go through the roof. Because I choose to not abuse my body and brain, I incur no costs for others to bear. But addicts give absolutely no thought to the social effects of their actions, and their thoughtlessness has become one of the main reasons to oppose socialized medicine.

Cultural traditions
All sorts of American subcultures have standard behaviors which increase the risk of medical complications. And I’m not talking about primitive tribespeople walking on hot coals. Instead, I’m talking about upper-class socialites who lie on tanning beds and give themselves skin cancer; street kids who engage in late-night “sideshows” of cars spinning and flipping in crowds of drunken teenagers; immigrants who fish in polluted harbors and feed their kids mercury-laden flounder; congregationalists who try to cure a disease by means of an exorcism; and all sorts of unwise activities specific to different cultural enclaves. Normally, including right now, I tend to think of such things as merely part of the rich tapestry of American society; but if compelled by the realities of socialized medicine to consider the long-term medical ramifications of such traditions, suddenly I become judgmental, condemning these practices and their practitioners solely because I have become partly responsible for paying the bill after the party’s over.

Bad diets
Who among us hasn’t looked on in horror at the grotesque dietary intake of the average American? Donuts, white bread, lard, Coca-Cola, pork rinds, preservatives, sugar, grease and artificial coloring. Little toddlers drinking sweet sodas instead of milk. Teenagers eating junk food instead of brain-building food. Nary a fresh vegetable in sight. Health nuts like me spend our lives trying to treat our bodies like temples, and provide good examples for everyone else; but it’s hard to compete with intense cultural pressure to eat the worst imaginable foods. As above, under normal circumstances I would sigh in mystification and let other people go their merry way, killing themselves with bad food. Yet once I start to ponder the overwhelming society-wide medical costs of keeping millions of unhealthy people alive for decades and decades, my anger grows. I want to ban advertisements for unhealthy foods on TV. I want to outlaw donuts. I want to tax McDonald’s to cover the full environmental cost of their products. I want to do all sorts of quasi-fascistic things that normally I would never advocate.

Because that’s what socialized medicine does: it turns each of us into a little fascist. A nagging nanny who tells other people what to do and how to live.

Do we want that kind of society? I don’t. If you look at other countries with socialized medicine, Great Britain being the most glaring example, these invasive and oppressive government dictates have already started to circumscribe people’s freedom, with every kind of potentially dangerous activity or unhealthy comestible being declared forbidden — for the good of society as a whole.

We call it “socialized medicine,” but in the end it pushes us toward fascism.

• Freedom vs. empathy: the final dilemma

Which brings us back to Dr. Sunderhaus. On one hand, we’re headed toward a totalitarian nanny state whereby your freedoms are constrained for the good of others. But at the exact same time we’ve entered the Era of Hurt Feelings where it’s taboo to tell anyone they’re doing something wrong. The solution proferred by the universal health-care advocates is to expand the circle of responsibility to include all of us. So, rather than insult an individual by telling him or her to get healthy, we all have to pretend we’re all equally in need of self-improvement, and we all endure the restrictions and hardships and costs which by all rights should be reserved exclusively for those who earned them.

The attitude of people like Dr. Sunderhaus perhaps offers a way out of this dilemma. Drop the pretense of decorum. If someone has grown obese eating chocolate, the do-gooders would respond by banning chocolate entirely for all of us — to avoid offending the sensibilities of the individual who abused it. Dr. Sunderhaus would just tell the abuser, “Lady, put down that Hershey bar — you’re too fat!” Horrors, horrors!

But if we had a nation of Dr. Sunderhauses, we wouldn’t need socialized medicine. Because each person, at last, would assume complete individual responsibility. And I’d rather that the doctors do the bullying in private to the people who deserve bullying than me being forced to intervene in other people’s private business myself.

Since it’s nearly impossible to sort out who is personally responsible for which ailments, the only logical solution is to let each person pay for their own care, because that way there’s nothing left to argue about. But if we share costs, we share blame, and that’s the origin of resentment and anger that the average American feels about socialized medicine.

Instead of bankrupting the country to pay for foolish people’s foolish decisions, I want to take a giant Sunderhaus finger and poke each American in the thigh and shout: “Shape up!”

The Purge may become permanent

I've been pretty happy with the way I've been feeling since I quit drinking. Frank Sinatra once said that he feels sorry for non-drinkers because when they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. There's a lot of truth to that.
So last night, I met up with a friend that I hadn't seen in a while; a drinking buddy. So I decided to hop off the wagon for a night and have a couple of pitchers of light beer with him. Normally, this is something that I wouldn't think twice about.

I got hammered. And today, I feel like crap. On Bud Light.

So,...that pretty much drove the point home that my life is a lot better without the drinking.

An Anxious Mind

One of the things that I've come to realize since I quit drinking is this:

Drinking, even when not drinking a lot, numbs the brain enough to where watching tv and laying around isn't boring.

Now that I'm not drinking, I can't stand to watch tv, unless I'm surfing the web at the same time. And watching something that I've already seen? Forget about it. I can't take it. I've got to be DOING something.

The greatest (cost) generation

According to the CBO:

In 2007, a little less than one-half of the federal government’s spending went toward programs and purposes other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and net interest on the public debt.

Logical Bats

NPR did a story this morning on the benefits of aerobic exercise.
Most of it was pretty standard, except for the part where they found, once again, that even very moderate exercise reaps huge benefits:

A new study of 13,535 women finds that women who regularly walked for exercise in their 50s were much healthier in their 70s and beyond.

What they found might be surprising, given the level of exercise involved. The brisk walkers — who moved at a clip of about 3 mph — were 90 percent more likely to be free of all these conditions (diabetes, kidney disease, Parkinson's disease and pulmonary disease, cognitive function) when compared with women who weren't in the habit of walking beyond a leisurely pace.

What I found most interesting was the part about aerobic exercise's effects on the brain:

One school started measuring target heart rate zones as part of an in-school exercise program. And they found it helped more than just the students' physical health.

At Woodland Elementary School in Kansas, Mo.,...The big surprise for administrators at Woodland Elementary: They've noted a significant decrease in aggressive behavior. In-school suspensions have gone down about 60 percent since the program began.

Changes in the brain during exercise could help explain the students' improved behavior. There's increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex during and just after exercise.

"They're activating this prefrontal area," says John Ratey, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "One of the jobs [of this part of the brain] is to inhibit the impulsivity coming up from the emotional part of the brain."

This means kids may be more likely to think before they act.

Which brings be back to the logical bats. I've found that inversion therapy (hanging upside down) has been shown to increase blood flow to the brain.

Annual Purge

In the past, I have done the annual purge from St Patrick's Day to Cynco deMayo. This made sense at the time because there was so much over-embibing on St Pat's that a respite was a welcome change.
The biggest problem with that plan is that the weather gets REALLY REALLY nice over that time period, and by mid-April, I really want to go someplace nice for a cool drink.
So this year, I've decided to make the purge from New Year's until St Pats, or at least until March.
The other reason is that I embibed quite a bit over the holidays, and really need to get things going on reversing the impending diabetes and heart disease.

So Wish me Luck!

Peace On Earth

This will be the first year in quite a while where Mrs Schwartz and I do not go to Binghamton for Christmas.
Last year was a debockle.

1) The Beagles and Ma Schwartz' cats just aren't a good mix.
2) The weather sucks.
3) It costs a bunch of money and time.

Since I haven't been getting much in the way of quarterly bonuses, and Mrs Schwartz can't buy a job, we figured it made better financial sense to stay at home and just enjoy each other's company.

I have the week off of work, so today we went to the Mall of Georgia for some shopping. Malls in general provide a fantastic opportunity to show that stupidy accumulates not linearly, but exponentially. Combine a few hundred people together, and the stupidity factor goes through the roof.

09/09/09

And because it's my BIRTHDAY!!!

That's right. I turn the big four-oh today. Send presents.

Gran Torino

Best Movie Ever.

Look for the Future Vandalism

I was about to change the oil on Mrs Schwartz' jeep when three teenage boys climbed over my chainlink fence and cut through my front yard. When the first two saw me, they did what any reasonable kid would do; they had an "oh shit" expression, and quickly walked away. The third, older and bigger kid saw me and gave more of a "what are you gonna do" look. So I said to none of them in particular, "Hey, how about not jumping my damn fence?"

They made it across the street from my yard, and the one kid loudly started in.
"Fuck that punk. I'll jump whatever fuckin fence I want. He can fuck himself."

The fence, I don't really care about, but I'm not going to have some punk talk like that to me in my own yard. So I went over and explained it to him. I was loud. I was mad. One of the smaller kids apologized and I thanked him. It shut the bigger one up long enough to get some distance away, before they all started talking smack. "Fuck you, nigger!" Coming from three young black kids, to the whitest guy in the neighborhood. Explain that one to me.

So I did what I've been planning to do for some time: Added a couple of extra motion sensors with a wireless receiver to the front yard. Just for fun, I also ordered a fake security camera.

Sure, it would have been cheaper and less trouble to just take it, but fuck that.

I agree with Paglia?

"Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?"

"But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills."

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism.

Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

Read the whole thing.

Explaining Myself

I was thinking last night, people will ask me if we have kids, which is understandable, but then when I tell them we don't have any, they will often ask why.
Usually, they will ask in a way like they're leading. "You just neverrrrr......"

Fortunately, it's our choice, but suppose we have some medical reason that prevented us from having kids? How incredibly rude is that?

Mind your own business, people!

From Helen to Bataan

We spent the weekend hiking. While all the hiking was strenous, the worst part was the constant battle with the ticks. The good news is that none of the little bastards ever got dug in. We just found them on us, which is skeevy enough.

I think the total for me was four. Two off of Janet and three off of Susan. Mrs Schwartz had none. Since I always have to walk first, in order to clear the way of potential spider attacks, I get all the little hitchhikers.

We hiked into Anna Ruby Falls, then took the Smith Creek Trail down to Unicoi State Park. Then we went around the lake and hiked up the road to bring us back to our car at the falls Welcome Center.

The Smith Creek Trail is 5 miles. We started at 10:15 and got back to the car at about 2:15. We were all beat.

Old Photos

It's been a while since "I went through the camera and looked at the pictures, so here goes:

We had a tornado scare come through the area. That was when Murfreesboro got hit.

We weren't taking any chances around chez Exador:




I left the watering can in the pen. Of course, any change is a scary thing:


I got the girls stuffed bunnies as a post-easter gift (because they were on sale for 70% off). In case there was any doubt as to the ferocity of these hunting dogs, let's put that controversy to rest:

Current Events

The only surviving Somali pirate is now in New York for his trial. Why the hell are we doing this? Why didn't they just kill this idiot at sea?

Diane Feinstein is in another kickback scandal. Is this even news anymore? She's a crooked scumbag. Hey California! Nice job there, dumb asses!

The news reports that some kid got is ear and scalp ripped off by a pitbull. Only after you get into the story, do you see the dog and realize it's as much pitbull as I am. Also, you find out that the hayseeds have had the dog tied up in the backyard for a month. When will these dopes learn that this is the best way to turn a dog into a killer. The parents were responsible for the dog being tied up. Their kid gets mangled. Sorry for the kid, but Darwin 1, dumbass parents 0.

PETA is protesting the chicken dance at a NASCAR event. If they were protesting it because of the sight of thousands of NASCAR fans doing the chicken dance, I'd be with them.

What the hell is a 52 year old doing stripping?

Janeane Garafalo is simply a nutjob. No link. I'm not driving this dope's name any more than that. I know it's misspelled, for the same reason.

Facebook is bad enough for mental diarrhea. Twitter is worse. Avoid it.

Perfect, right up until...

We had an absolutely great weekend. We drove to Birmingham to see Wicked again. The drive was great, the show was great. Just perfect.
Sunday, we had plenty of beer stocked, submitted the taxes, and I mowed the lawn with the freshly tuned-up lawnmower. The tuneup was easier than I thought and it runs like a dream now.
I had to practice aikido for an upcoming belt test. I've asked Mrs Schwartz to be my attacker, promising not to follow through on any of the techniques. To put it mildly, she has been hesitant. Yesterday, she came out to offer her help.
We made it through the first few techniques, then something happened.
All I did was pat down her hand and hold her hand and shoulder. Somehow, this pinched a nerve in her neck. She got a flash of pain through her eye socket (I know!), her hand went numb, and she couldn't move her neck.
Fortunately, most of that went away pretty quickly, but the poor thing is still suffering. She insists I hit her multiple times. At last check, she is still having trouble moving her neck.

The Prison Workout

I have a gym membership at the local college, which is about 4 miles from my work. In the past (I've gotten pretty lazy lately) I'd run over at lunch, changing clothes as I drive, do a quick 20 minute workout, then drive back to work, changing clothes on the way, and throw down whatever food I had for lunch.
I'd have to rush the whole time. It wasn't very much fun, but I got my workout in.

I recently picked up a yoga mat at walmart. I've been doing some stretching and yoga over lunch.

Now, I'm expanding it to a yoga/stretch/workout.

If you google prison workout, you'll see there are tons of exercises you can do within the confines of your office.

I just got a pretty good overall workout, along with some stretching.

Pushups
Pullups (Lie under your desk and pull yourself up, keeping your torso straight.)
Squat thrusts
Lunges
Situps

Plus there are a ton of toning yoga poses.

The New Diet Isn't Going Well

Ugh. Yesterday, Mrs Schwartz made the spiedies, which have been marinating for four days. She added a little garlic to the marinade this time. It was Deeeelicious. I ate Way more than I should have, with beer, lots and lots of beer. We both laid (lied?) on the couch like ticks last night.
I vowed this morning to go on a pseudo fast to help make up for it.
Then, I discover that we are having a cookout barbeque here at work, just cause it's nice out. (I love working here)
I ate two burgers and a hotdog. I need to take a nap.

Back outa whack

I must have slept wrong on Saturday night, because I woke up on Sunday with my lower spine feeling like a disk was slipping out.
We went to Piedmont park on Sunday, so I thought, "Either walking around all day is going to fix my back or break it." Well, it broke it.
Monday and Tuesday, I was having a tough time doing anything. I obviously skipped aikido and layed on the couch on a heating pad.
I used my inversion table, which seemed to help a little.
By Wednesday, I was fed up with it, so I kept a hot pack on it all day at work and periodically did stretching exercises.
Wednesday night, I got on the inversion table again and kind of wiggled around while I was upside down.
That seems to have done it. I felt much better afterwards and still feel good this morning. I used it again before work while we watched the end of Mighty Joe Young (the original).

That inversion table is a God-send for anybody with disk problems.