It seems like there always someone trying to put a damper on my enjoyment of super-size soft drinks . . .
“Soda is bad for your brain,” my son says. “The brain is mostly water and soda dehydrates it.”
“How does soda dehydrate my brain,” I ask, “considering that soda is mostly water?”
“I don’t have all the facts on that,” he says. So at least he’s honest.
“If you don’t mind,” I say, “I’m going to keep drinking the sodas until you have them.”
There’s a sign in the Taco Bell/KFC drive-thru advertising a “Value Drink” for 99 cents. It looks like a pretty sweet deal because the cup is at least three feet tall.
“How big is the Value Drink?” I ask the drive-thru voice.
“16 ounces,” she says.
“Really? It looks a lot bigger than that on the sign.”
“It’s a trick,” she says. “That’s not the actual size.”
“In that case,” I say, “just give me a large Diet Pepsi.”
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
My fellow Americans —
Perhaps it was unfair of me to be critical of President Obama’s healthcare speech without having heard it. There’s not much to do on a Saturday night when you’re dead, so I read the transcript:
We’ve estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. . . . The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies . . . Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.
And how much money are we talking about, sir?
Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.
WTF?!
I will not accept the status quo as a solution.
OK — cut the bullshit, my friend. Your “plan” vs. “the status quo” is a false choice. You’ve just said so yourself. If you’ve figured out how to eliminate $900 billion in waste and inefficiency from the current system, GO AHEAD AND DO IT! Why are you tying that to 1,000 pages of unrelated “reforms” that no one has even bothered to read?
If you can eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency — I don’t believe that for a second, but let’s say you can — you will have no greater supporter than old Tom Jefferson. AND — you will have acquired so much credibility that you’ll be able to pass any reforms you like.
Don’t present false choices to us like we’re a nation of fools. Cut the bullshit and DO something.
— Tom
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
My fellow Americans —
Did you watch President Obama’s healthcare speech tonight? Neither did I. But I did learn from msnbc.com’s First Read that he hoped in his speech to explain to ordinary American voters — “call them Joe and Jane from Kansas City” — that his health-care reform will 1) cover nearly everyone and 2) cut costs in the long run.
So let me get this straight — we’re going to spend money to save money!
Does he think everyone in Kansas City is that stupid or just Joe and Jane?
What — you don’t believe we can insure 50 million more people and cut costs at the same time? Well then, you’re an uninformed kook!
You’re scared that those cost savings will come from drastically rationing access to care, particularly for people who are chronically ill and/or near the end of their lives? You’re un-American! Probably a Nazi!
I’m going to tell you something about myself that you probably didn’t learn in school: When I died, I was deeply in debt. Do you know why? Because everyone, including successful politicians like yours truly, struggles to keep up with the demands of organizing and managing the daily realities of their own lives, let alone trying to micromanage the entire goddamn United States healthcare system.
Let me leave you with this final thought. Don’t believe everything your leaders tell you. Use some common sense, as my old friend Tom Paine used to say. Think for yourself.
— Tom
Ladies and gentlemen, your University of South Carolina Gamecocks:
My son and I are watching a TV commercial for Love Happens, which seems to be about a man forced to choose between financial gain and the love of a woman.
This is one of those “teachable moments,” because the boy, who’s 15 now, may someday find himself facing the same choice as the guy in the movie, so I look at him with love and hard-earned wisdom and with a voice of great sincerity, I say:
“Take the money.”
I like to wrap up my visits to Souplantation with a serving of frozen yogurt but I can’t today because the yogurt machine is out of service.
My son is unsympathetic. “If you want yogurt,” he says, “you go to Yogurtland. If you want soup and plants, you come to Souplantation.”
I had a 40-percent-off coupon for Borders that expired today so we stopped by to see if they had any good computer books in stock, which they did.
At the checkout, the woman asked me if I’d like to get a recommendation for a novel.
“Yeah sure,” I said. I was pretty excited about the idea because I thought they’d look at my purchase history and figure out something I might enjoy.
Instead she recommended Home by Marilynne Robinson, which was displayed on the counter right in front of me.
“Are you recommending that just for me,” I asked, “or you recommend it to everyone?”
“We recommend it to everyone,” she said.
What a sham! “I’m going to pass on that,” I said. “There really hasn’t been a good female novelist since Jane Austen.”
My son, who was standing next to me, added, “And even she was kind of boring.”
My son and I went to Barnes and Noble in Irvine this weekend to buy the books on his 11th grade Euro Lit reading list: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, Candide by Voltaire, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and The Stranger by Albert Camus.
“Have you read any of these books?” I asked the checkout girl.
“I’ve read Candide and Pride and Prejudice,” she said.
“Candide is fun. Virginia Woolf is kind of a downer though, isn’t she? Didn’t she kill herself?
“She did,” the girl admitted.
“Doesn’t that set a bad example for the kids?”
The Irvine store didn’t have the edition of Ivan Denisovich that the boy needed but the guy at customer service was able to call around and find a copy at the Aliso Viejo store.
The boy was beside himself: “We’re going to drive all the way to Aliso Viejo?!” (Aliso Viejo is a 9-mile drive from Irvine.)
“This will help you when you read the book,” I said. “You’ll have an appreciation for what suffering is all about.”
It was HOT today at the Coliseum — not quite as hot as it’s been all week, and there was a bit of a breeze — but it was HOT.
During the game, there was a roar behind us that sounded like a jet flying past outside the stadium. The second time it happened, my son figured out what it was.
When the Goodyear blimp flew over the west end of the stadium, it cast a moving shadow over the stands (see photo). The roar was a rolling cheer from sweltering people who all of a sudden found themselves in the shade for a couple of seconds . . .
There were some San Jose State fans at the game . . . as we were walking in, we saw a guy wearing a blue and gold T-shirt that said “The Only Trojan I Need Is On My D*ck”
(The asterisk was actually on the shirt. Wouldn’t want to offend anyone.)
“Enjoy the game,” I said to him.
Final score: USC 56, SJS 3.
We had good seats at the USC game today — Section 13, Row 1, right next to the field.
Now you might say, like my son did, that they would have been better on the 50-yard-line, but there are a couple of good things about those seats.
One is that they’re right next to the tunnel where the players come on and off the field, as do the song girls, the band and Traveler, so you get to interact with people — talk to the girls, high-five the guy on the horse, etc.
The other good thing is that the Trojans scored 6 out of 8 touchdowns in the west end zone right in front of us.
That’s my wife, me and a kid who looks a lot like my son except that he’s smiling. If you’re wondering about all the empty seats, the photo was taken near the end of the fourth quarter of a 56-3 game when a lot of people had already left.
We saw Matt Barkley play his first college football game today, a 56-3 win over San Jose State. If he turns out to be as good as a lot of people think he is, that will be a cool thing to remember . . .
Special prix fixe menus from participating restaurants:
You can’t go wrong with Orange Hill or Anaheim White House, in this reviewer’s opinion . . .
