Letterman had this guy on the other night who is a marine biologist. Or maybe not. Maybe just a marine researcher. I dunno, but he was on the show. Check out the clip  here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO9Lxvy3o9o

I really wish it would show his entire appearance on the show because there was some more interesting things on there such as the garbage that some of the marine life http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″> name=”ProgId” content=”Word.Document”> name=”Generator” content=”Microsoft Word 10″> name=”Originator” content=”Microsoft Word 10″>

accidentally eats. I guess if you really wanted to, you could go onto the Letterman website to watch the rest of it. Then again, you very well might not have even watched the above clip. In case you didn’t, let me summarize it for you.

Now I heard about this previously, but learned a lot about it from the guy on Letterman, Charles Moore. It turns out there is a floating island of garbage twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. Personally I think they should auction off the name to the highest bidder and then send all of society’s whack jobs to live there, like Rod Blagojevich and Glenn Beck. Shit, could you imagine those two fuckers secluded on an island of trash? I mean just imagine the animals that would live in Blago’s hair or the damage Beck’s tears might do to the ocean.

But, I digress. The mere fact that this island exists conjures up that rare combination of feelings of sadness, fear, anger, and despair all rolled into one. Just how exactly does something like this happen? What he was saying is that most of it is plastic that has been littered away into rivers or other bodies of water. Eventually, like many things in rivers, it makes its way to the ocean. The bigger question is how do we clean it up and prevent it from continuing to happen? Of course, if I had the answer to that question, I probably would be doing something greater than writing this post right now.

Still, it is a pretty damn big eye opener as to what we are doing to the Earth and how we need to take better care of it.

After more than a year of heated debate and vicious rhetoric, it appears that barring something drastic, the health care reform debate, one way or another, will be put to rest this week. I read an article about it on Yahoo last night and then also did something I don’t normally do, which is read many of the comments people posted on the article. Of course, everybody has an opinion on this but as I like to say, opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink. Just like everybody and just like every other topic, I have my own thoughts and stink ass opinions. The only difference is that this is coming from somebody who is in the industry in question.

The Republicans are pretty much 100% united against health care reform. I think a good potion of them are against it only because they want to stop President Obama from achieving his goals and they will stop at nothing to prevent this bill from passing. Its not that they are racist (I’m sure some of them are) but it just that he is a Democrat and him doing good is bad for the Republicans. There are a percentage of Republicans who are extremely concerned about the cost of this bill and the toll it may (or may not according to the independent Congressional Budget Office) take on our national deficit. That is a real and legitimate concern; hell even I’ve got my reservations because of the deficit which is way higher than we can sustain. So my criticism is not with those Republicans and others who find fault with the spending, it is with all of the others for the reasons listed below.

What I find to be bullshit is how they are saying its socialism and how its going to single handily not only ruin health care but also destroy the country. Those Republicans in Congress are saying things like that only to scare people; its nothing more than fear mongering scare tactics. Those people who believe it and who post comments along the same lines are either tools for the Republican party or just too damn stupid to read and follow the bill and debate itself. This bill, as it is currently written is far from socialism. The bottom line is all it does is provide more coverage to more people. Its not government controlled or run care; it just prevents companies from denying somebody for coverage or rescinding their coverage once they get sick. Oh sure, there is the talk of a public option or a government run insurance exchange, but for this bill to pass, those things can not be in the bill. And for the record, universal coverage is not anymore socialism than national defense, schools or the post office.

They want to say this bill will destroy the country and that it will do more harm than good. Its not that they even want to say that; they flat out say that they know this is what will happen. Unless they have some sort of hot tub time machine (by the way, ain’t that a dumb idea for a movie) they don’t know if it will be a success or a failure. I too am not convinced it will work and also keep costs down. But you know what, its worth a shot. Something has to be done. Doing nothing and keeping things as they are is not an option. If costs go skyrocketing out of control because of this bill than guess what? We get what we already have, skyrocketing health care costs.

Another big argument that they like to use is that they do not want to wind up paying for other people’s coverage. They don’t want to pay for coverage of somebody who is too lazy to get coverage on their own. They don’t want to pay for coverage for somebody who doesn’t take care of themselves. They don’t want to pay for coverage for illegal immigrants. Well, I’ve got news for these people: they already are. When somebody without coverage goes to the ER, and can’t pay the bill, who do you think foots that bill? Everybody else. When insurance companies raise the rates of somebody who never uses the policy, why do you think that is? The insurance companies use the justification that the overall cost of the plan is costing more due to other people’s usage and therefore everybody’s rates go up. So why not just automatically have reasonably priced coverage for everybody and cut out the middle man: the insurance companies.

What it comes down to is greed. These people who make all of the above arguments are greedy and self centered. They really only care about themselves. I’m not just saying that. In some of the comments from the Yahoo article, people actually wrote that; they don’t give a shit about people who don’t have coverage, saying it was their own damn fault. I’ve always been a firm believer that health care is a right, not a privilege. How can poor people not have a right to health care? We can’t live in a society that says “fuck you, you are poor so you don’t deserve to live a healthy life.” Sometimes we all have to make sacrifices to help everybody. Its what anybody with any sense of human decency and compassion does.

Except with this bill, those against it don’t have to sacrifice nothing but higher premiums and the right to be denied coverage. In fact, they stand to gain from this bill; at its best, the bill reduces cost for everybody and provides coverage for millions more. And while I don’t think this is the best bill we could have and I still feel it lacks a lot of what we need, at least it is a start. And best case scenario, it is a step in the right direction towards more, effective health care reform, such as universal coverage.

This post is about a very controversial topic and debate. Its something that has been debated for decades. Depending on what part of the country you are from, you could have a total different opinion than if you are from another part of the country. I watched a documentary about it on HBO last night. Of course, I speak of only one topic, which I’m sure you figured out by now:

Magic VS Bird.

What else did you think I could possibly be talking about?

The documentary, Magic And Bird: A Courtship Of Rivals was pretty good, I learned a lot about the players and their amazing relationship. First of all, I found out that my brother was born the same day as Bird. Also, I never knew that in college they played together on the U.S. national team before they played against each other.

I remember my first introduction to each player. I didn’t become a basketball fan until the late 1980s, but I remember even before I was a fan, my middle school gym teacher telling us how important the fundamentals of the game were, among them free throws. He mentioned how great Larry Bird was from the free throw line. For some reason, this made me like him. With Magic it was different. When I first started following basketball, I didn’t like Magic. He seemed to be everywhere and got tons of attention. Being a Bulls fan and a Michael Jordan fan, this kinda made me jealous. I remember thinking that Magic was overrated and not as good as Michael. I didn’t fully appreciate Magic’s talent.

Then came November 7, 1991 when he disclosed that he had HIV. Being a gay teen, it really scared the shit out of me. I also had a new found likeness for Magic. I wasn’t completely convinced that he had gotten HIV from having sex with a female; I thought that perhaps he was gay. Honestly, to this day I don’t know what to think. He claims to be free of the virus now, but I don’t believe him. Either he never had it to begin with or he is just saying he no longer has it.

But back to the documentary. It was endlessly fascinating. Part of what made it so interesting was the focus of race. Let’s face it, whenever you get too prominent people of different races who become so dominate and arch rivals, people tend to focus on race. A lot of the media, fans and players brought race into the equation. Not Magic and Bird though. To them, it wasn’t about race; it was about wanting to win and beat the shit out of the other guy’s team.

Also, it made me really appreciate their games and talents. Holy shit, these guys were good. Not just good, but fucking great. And as I look at their stats right now, it really reflects how they were complete, overall players; they really could do anything on the court. Some players were extraordinary in one area. For example, Jordan could score like no tomorrow,  John Stockton was great at getting assists and steals, Bill Russell could rebound better than anybody. But Bird and Magic, well, they did it all and more importantly, helped their teams win.

I have to say though, its tough not to like Magic. I mean, the guy has a smile that could light up a room. Although Bird still seems like somewhat of a dick, he his story is quite amazing and because of that, the type of guy you root for. Anywho, if you have HBO, check it out, it was very compelling.

I have mentioned this several times, but I started my own pizza club called the Chicago Pizza Club and declared myself president in a bloodless coup. Each month we pick a different pizza place to eat at. Anywho, this month we decided to have it delivered to my house. I was expecting about 18 people at my house on Friday night. Well Friday morning my brother sent a text saying that he was sick so he and his clan wouldn’t be there. A short while later a friend of mine said his son had a fever so they wouldn’t be there either. Ok, that sucked but I still had a good amount of people who would be going. Then right as I got off work another friend sent a text stating that their daughter was sick so they couldn’t make it! We wound up having only 6 people for pizza night. I know winter is a time when people get sick a lot but this was ri-goddamn-diculous!

Last night was my friend Christie’s annual St Patrick’s Day party in the city. I drove my brother and my friend Dave who decided that he wanted to bring kugelis which is actually a Lithuanian potato dish, which although very good, didn’t really fit in with the Irish meal Christie had made. We had to stop off and pick it up on the way from a restaurant in the south burbs. He also wanted to stop off to have a new Lithuanian beer that they had. As soon as you walk in, you could see that there was a definite Eastern European feel to this place. We actually had to pick up the kugelis in their deli right next to the restaurant. We walked in and it stunk like fish and they had dry fish samples. I thought about trying some but didn’t want to stink like fish the rest of the night. As for the kugelis, Dave wound up getting this huge pan of it that would feed up to 30 people. There were not 30 people at the party and now I’ve got over half a pan of this kugelis sitting in my fridge.

As for the party itself, it was a good time and the food was amazing. Unfortunately, last night was daylight savings time which really cut into our partyin’ time.

That’s all you get for now.

Here in Illinois, it is illegal to smoke in any public building. I think I’m going to have a doctor write me a note stating that I have to smoke indoors. Just imagine how cool I would be, what with being the only person that could smoke indoors. And I would really make it noticeable too. I would blow the smoke in everybody’s face, especially the non smokers. And I would totally just stand in front of all the smokers puffing away and getting them good and pissed and jealous that I could smoke indoors and they can’t. I would totally rub it in. And then I would rub the cigarette out on their desk or table they were at. And I don’t even smoke. But I would start if it meant that I could piss tons of people off. I’m sure I could get any number of doctors to write me a note; hell, once a doctor writes a note for it, its no longer unhealthy.

Oh, golly gee gosh………………….I am such a fucking asshole!

So Corey Haim died. Hmmmmm……………..that makes sense, after all his career has been dead for years. Seriously, how can anybody be shocked by this? The guy had such a bad drug problem that even his drug problem had a drug problem. I guess this means that we can finally tell the difference between Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.

Good news everybody, there is still time for you to give to my sister in law’s American Cancer Society Relay For Life campaign by clicking on this link:

Click here to visit my personal page

If that doesn’t work, than you can always copy and paste this.

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY10IL?px=14392706&pg=personal&fr_id=22227&fl=en_US&et=NuWqebpnmGe-toEd8smJgQ..&s_tafId=431083

By the way, the title of this post is intentionally spelled Colonial as opposed to Colonel. See recently I wore a shirt that was a gaudy burnt mustard and I call myself Colonel Mustard when I wear it. Well, a friend of mine decided to make a drawing of me wearing the shirt and wrote on there Colonial Mustard. I looked at it and laughed. The next day I looked at it again and realized that she spelled Colonial instead of Colonel. As for the Random Johnson, I’ve got a friend who’s last name is Johnson and who is in the military. He has three daughters but always said that if he had a son, he would name him Random. So there now you know. Now go donate!

As I have mentioned numerous times here over the course of the past couple of months, I recently read a book about American history called “Don’t Know Much About History” by Kenneth C Davis. Just one last post about the book. I would recommend it to anybody who is a history buff or who just wants to learn more about American history. I did not find it as funny and as amusing as the book jacket would lead you to believe. Its not that I don’t have a sense of humor about American history, its just that there was not a lot of humor in the book. It is very informative though and for that, it is well worth the read.

I guess I always knew this, but one of the things I learned was just how much of a violent past America has. From its founding and even before winning our independence from England, America seems to have gone from one war to the next often times without asking questions. And in a lot of cases, the wars overlap. America is a war loving country, always has been, which is tragic because war is the worst thing in the world. Even after reading the book, I still don’t have a clear understanding why we were even some of these wars. My feeling about war is that because of how horrible it is and the toll it takes on, oh, damn near everything and everybody, we should try to avoid it as much as humanly possible. Obviously that is not always the case; I mean there was no avoiding the Civil War or World War II, among a few others. I’ve never fought in a war and never been in the military, but I think the people who are in charge of making the decisions that send countries to war need to think more about the consequences of war.

And its not only war that contributed to America’s bloody past. We have a history of bloodshed and atrocities the likes of which would make one sad and embarrassed to be an American. Many people know the shameful past America has with not only blacks but also American Indians. But there were also many race riots and for lack of a better term, race wars that have resulted in far too many deaths and towns being destroyed. Unless you are from the area, you probably don’t know much about the race wars in Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL in the 1920s (the book was the first place I learned about the Tulsa incident, as for Rosewood, there was a very good movie from about 1997 that I saw about Rosewood). Much is made about American political conflict, both verbal and physical, but there are really no excuses for these race wars.

Its not to say that America has nothing but a horrible past. I do believe America always has been a great country. There are a lot of great things that have come out of America or because of Americans. We have done a lot of great things, like landing on the moon, finding cures for various diseases and many of the other technological breakthroughs we have seen. And there is a reason so many people want to come to our fine country and why pretty much all of us owe a debt of gratitude to our ancestors that did make the brave trek to the U.S. There are far more great things about America than bad things.

Its just that America is and always has been flawed. I know that’s not exactly breaking news; after all, every country in the world is flawed and not perfect. Much like there will never be a perfect person, there will also never be a perfect country. I’d like to think that America has learned lessons from it’s past history and past wrongs, but the reality is that America often makes the same mistakes over and over. All that being said, I don’t think there would be another place I would choose to live.

I know this goes against all gay stereotypes, but I have little to no interest in the Oscars. I am always mildly interested in who wins Best Picture, but that is mainly because I’m a movie lover. I usually watch about a grand total of 0 minutes of the Oscars, I generally find awards shows boring and self serving. A few years ago, when The Departed won, while everybody else in America was watching the Oscars I was actually watching The Departed. Seriously, do we need to see a bunch of rich and famous self involved people patting themselves on the back for essentially doing nothing besides their jobs, which are for the most part, are not essential to society. Of course, I’m a big sports fan and I realize that people put way to much emphasis and importance on sports, but at least with sports the winner is not determined by a popularity contest.

I do love movies though. Friday night my plans fell through so I decided to rent a couple of movies for the weekend. One of them was 500 Days Of Summer with the hot Joseph Gordon-Levitt along with the latest from the amazing Coen brothers, A Serious Man. Here is how much I pay attention to the Oscars, I didn’t even realize that it was nominated for Best Picture until I read the sports section this morning and there was an article comparing various sports stories to the nominees for Best Picture. Both movies were very good though, I really liked them.

Getting back to the Oscars though. One of the things that amazes me is that presenters at the Oscars are given gifts that are worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars. And what’s worse is that they actually take the gifts! Most of these presenters are rich already anyways and can afford everything they are getting for free. All I’m saying is that the money spent on the gifts could be better spent elsewhere, like given to a charity. Which brings me to this.

My sister in law works with a lady who was diagnosed with brain cancer in October 2009. In May of 2009, she lost the ability to move most of her left side. It took doctors 4 months and 11 MRIs to find the tumor behind her eye. This tumor is inoperable. She turned just 30 years old in December. She is not married and does not have any children. She used to play softball on several teams and was always very active. Today, she walks with a cane and can barely work 3 hours a day without getting exhausted. She has had 3 rounds of chemo and 30 radiation treatments. In January, there was no evidence that the tumor had shrunk. Please help raise money to find a cure for this horrible disease. Every $ counts.

I should clarify, its not my personal page, but her’s, I just copy and pasted the message. I’m not asking for much, just whatever you can give. I find this whole situation very tragic for somebody in the prime of her life to be stricken with this disease. My mother died of cancer some 10 years ago. Two of my mother’s brother’s died of cancer. Within the past year, two of my cousins died of cancer. I’m resigned to the fact that someday I too will probably die of cancer. I went to my sister in law’s personal page and donated money in the name of my mother and I hope that you will do the same in the name of somebody you know who has  been affected by cancer. Hell I think we all know somebody who has had cancer at some point in their lives. Thank you for taking the time to check out the page and the story.

Well I read the Constitution the other night. Its at the end of the book I was reading, “Don’t Know Much About History“. Have you ever seen this thing? Its actually quite amazing and yet utterly frustrating at the same time. And by IT I do mean the Constitution. It really is kind of open to interpretation, which is part of the beauty of it and the madness of it. Its why we have so many debates in our country about many different topics, like abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, the right to die, freedom of religion and speech, flag burning and on and on with many different issues. Depending on your views, you interpret it one way. I’m a flaming liberal, so therefore it means something totally different to me than what it means to the double bat shit crazy Glenn Beck. 

Take the issue of gay marriage. By every indication (and my own liberal interpretation) it is virtually unconstitutional to to  not allow gays to marry. I can make this argument on several levels. For starters, there is the whole right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, to which everybody in America is entitled to. Now some people would say that married people are not happy, but for the sake of the debate, in this case, it falls under happiness. Also, in Amendment Fourteen, section 4, it states: “no state should deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law“. If you ask me, in addition to making discrimination against gays illegal, it also covers gay marriage as well.

Then there is the far trickier right to bear arms. Everybody knows this is in the Second Amendment. Here is the exact wording: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Just what the hell does that mean exactly? Gun nuts believe that it means they can own and carry any piece of firearm any place, any time. Those against guns say it means you have the right to have guns, but within reason. Now I should clarify, I’m against guns, I’ve always been for stronger and tougher gun laws. But when I read this, it leads me to believe that there should not be any laws that infringe upon one’s rights to own a firearm. On the other hand, it mentions that a militia has a right to bear arms. Of course, this is why guns is such a huge issue in America that will never go away.

As for abortion, that is a whole different issue that I can’t even begin to use the Constitution to interpret, so I will just move onto another topic.

 All I know is that my belief has always been consistent and remains the same even after I read the book. My core belief is that anything that doesn’t affect other people should be legal. You start with that core belief and go from there. Gay marriage, pot, prostitution and the right to die are all things that don’t affect other people and therefore should all be legal. Abortion and guns…………..well, its not so simple. In theory, a woman’s body is her own and nobody can tell her what she can or can’t do with it, which although a pretty simple argument for prostitution, is not as easy for abortion because in addition to the unborn child, you also have an expectant father who is affected by the situation as well.

All of those topics and many others can be argued from both sides using the Constitution. Oh sure, my belief is that its pretty clear that the Constitution falls on the side of my  beliefs with all of the above topics, but some raging Republican would say if falls on his side. There are anti gay marriage activists who actually argue that banning gay marriage falls under their right to freedom of religion. And while I strongly disagree with them, who’s to say that the Supreme Court wouldn’t some day agree with them. But that is again, the beauty and frustration of our Constitution.

Who feels like being depressed? All those in favor of being depressed, say “I”. All those who aren’t in the mood for a real downer, you might want to move on and skip this post. Then again, that just might be enough to entice you to read this post!! Ohhh, the conundrum you are in now. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I swear, I don’t know why I do this to myself. I watched this thing on PBS’s Frontline tonight about this guy who was dying of ALS (also know as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) which is an absolute horrible disease. Because he was rapidly deteriorating, he decided that he would commit assisted suicide. While the program was poignant and moving, as one might expect, it was also REALLY REALLY REALLY sad. At the same time though, I couldn’t stop watching, knowing very well that it was going to depress me.

Ever since I was a young boy, I have always had a strange, almost obsession with death. One of the things that makes it so strange is that I’m more terrified of death than anything else. And not just terrified, but scared shitless. I think I’m so obsessed with it because it has been a part of my life ever since I was very young. When I was just a couple months short of my second birthday, my oldest sibling died. When I was four my dad died. And on it went. I learned at a young age exactly what death was and you know, I’ve got to say, not a fan. Nope. Never been a fan of death. In fact, I’m quite certain that death totally fucking sucks. And what’s worse is that there is no way to avoid it.

Sometimes when I lay awake in bed at night, I think of death. While I’m quite certain this is odd and most definitely morbid, I don’t know how to overcome such thoughts. Oh sure, sometimes I think of baseball, but hell about the only thing more depressing than death is the fucking Cubs. And sometimes I think of other things. But, death is a common topic. Its actually not as bad as it used to be, I used to think about it more, but over the course of the past couple of years its died down a little. Hey, look at me, I made a pun.

Still, the one thing every single person or living organism has in common is the inevitable end that is death. I thought about turning this post into a conversation about assisted suicide, but then decided to just leave it be. Hell, a topic like death is kind of its own conversation, ain’t it? Part of what scares me so much about it, is that not only is it so final and permanent, but none of us truly knows what happens.  As an Atheist, I’d like to think that I’m right, that once the party is over, its over. Of course other people believe other things, and that is ok too and I’m not debating the issue, just only saying that nobody knows. And that, to me, is very scary. I’ve always been a very curious person. Some people would say I’m nosy, and I would punch some of those people in the face. Or maybe not punch them, that’s too violent. But maybe just tell them where they can shove it. Nevertheless. I need to know answers to things. I tend to ask a lot of questions. Well, with death, there are no answers, only questions that have opinions as answers. And another thing is nobody knows when the end will come. That too is extremely scary. Great. Now I’m depressed.

By the way, if anybody who is reading this is currently dead and can communicate, feel free to leave a comment telling me what happens after you die.

Who am I kidding, this blog is so bad that even the dead wouldn’t read it.

I’m sure you remember from my December 14th, January 4th, January 19th, February 3rd and February 16th posts, I’m reading a book about American history called “Don’t Know Much About History“. I’m on the door step of finally being done with the book. I should get technical though, I still have to read a couple of sections about the U.S. Constitution and the presidents and then I will be done. But the shit about the history of the country, well, that is all done. Since I’m pretty much all done, I don’t have to bore you with details of how many pages I’ve read since I last posted or how many pages I’m averaging a day. We last left off in the early 1980s up until about page 524. Now I’m on page 597. So what have I learned in the past 75 pages or so?

• Bill Clinton was so horny that he routinely fucked a jar of Welch’s Grape Jelly while Monica Lewinsky was away.
• Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote “We Are The World” while completely wasted on paint thinner.
• America’s first war with Iraq was fought in part because Saddam Hussein was trying to get Kuwait to create a Happy Days musical with Dana Plato as the Fonz.
• For the first 73 days he was in office, George W Bush thought that it was his dad who was president.
• For some reason, American history ended after 2002.

So that is American history people, be sure to go back and read all the other posts in case you missed any that way you can learn all you need to know about American history. Don’t worry though, I will be summarizing it in a post hopefully tomorrow. Actually, you know what, fuck that, go back and read the other posts you bastards!