Guffaw of the Day OR Hypocritic Oaf

I laughed out loud when I saw this AP headline:

Gingrich: Love of country contributed to affair

LOVE the lede:

Newt Gingrich says his passion for his country contributed to his marital infidelity.

(Yes, and my passion for dessert contributed to my thighs.)

What follows is a motherlode of self-serving hypocrisy. Consider this gem:

The twice-divorced former U.S. House speaker has admitted he had an affair with Callista, a former congressional aide, while married to his second wife. It happened at the same time he was attacking President Bill Clinton for his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Takeaway (via Jon Stewart): There are 3 women who'd have sex with Newt Gingrich!

The piece ends with this emetic tidbit:

He also said former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, a Democrat who has backed many Republicans in recent years, will serve as a co-chairman of his national campaign effort.

The New View from Here: Same as the Old View

Out my front door, 2:47 pm. Can't wait till the temperature goes down (!) to 90°, as forecast for tomorrow.

The View from Here

As seen from my front door. FEH.

Gobsmacked

This NYT article, With No Jobs, Time for Tea Party, left me sputtering in disbelief & horror. Excerpt (emphasis mine):

When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he
called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.
Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist....

He blames the government for his unemployment. “Government is absolutely responsible, not because of what they did recently with the car companies, but what they’ve done since the 1980s,” he said. “The government has allowed free trade and never set up any rules.”

He and others do not see any contradictions in their arguments for smaller
government even as they argue that it should do more to prevent job loss or cuts
to Medicare. After a year of angry debate, emotion outweighs fact....

Mr. Grimes, for his part, is thinking of getting a part-time job with the Census Bureau.

Better than Ipecac

I challenge you to read this and not retch at the last line. The highlowlights, from The Salt Lake Tribune:

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn resigns amid hot tub scandal

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn announced Saturday he was resigning from the Utah Legislature, two days after revelations of a nude hot-tubbing incident with a minor 25 years ago and a payment to keep it quiet....

Garn, of Layton, admitted the two had sat nude in a Salt Lake City hot tub. He insisted there was no sexual contact, but admitted that it was wrong. [Cheryl] Maher insists there was touching and physical contact, but declined to elaborate.

In 2002, when Garn, a Republican, was running for Congress, she began contacting reporters and Garn arranged to pay her $150,000, provided she sign an agreement not to go public with the incident. She signed a nondisclosure agreement and Garn paid her the money in 2003, well after he had lost the Republican congressional primary....

With the news about to break, Garn made an emotional statement from the House floor Thursday night, with his wife by his side, apologizing to his colleagues and constituents....

His statement drew a standing ovation from his House colleagues, many of whom lined up to console Garn and his wife.

Full article in Salt Lake Tribune

Quote of the Day

“I ache for the return of dysfunction. Dysfunction had its problems, but at least dysfunction has function in its title. We are not functioning at all.”

--NY Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Donnell, quoted in NYT

The Scourge of Anti-Semantics

From a Secret Correspondent:

One of the guests at a recent dinner used to coordinate the University of Virginia's Semester at Sea--a cruise with a teeny bit of schoolwork thrown in. The standard for admission was ability to pay, so the level of intellect wasn't what this prof was used to.

One of the assignments was to write about 20th century German history. It turns out that prior to World War II there was a huge wave of anti-semantics in that country! Several students wrote this; evidently they couldn't manage to copy the Wikipedia page correctly.

The Horrors Begin: Stupid Author Trick

From Anytown, USA:

Anonymized to protect the clueless.

An author is invited to present a workshop about creative writing at a writing center with more than 100 members. Said author accepts, then later backs out for reasons that are not the fault of the writing center.

Author, whose book is about...CREATIVE WRITING, then emails writing center and asks that the review copy of his book be returned to him, rather than left in the library of writing center with more than 100 members.

Spit Take/Quote of the Day

An AP story on developments in Iran had me guffawing. Good thing I read it before I had my morning beverage, else I would have sprayed tea all over my computer.

[The Guardian Council] said Monday it found irregularities in 50 voting districts, but that this has no effect on election outcome. Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei was quoted on the state TV Web site as saying that its probe showed more votes were cast in these constituencies than there were registered voters.

But this "has no effect on the result of the elections," he said.

As the Brits say: Pull the other leg--it's got bells on it.

I'm Psychologically Distoibed!

Glenda Jackson in Marat/Sade.

Today I went for a 10th(!) opinion on my right arm, to Dr M. As a welcome change, she was polite, kind & respectful. Unfortunately, she didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, nor give me any great hope for the future. She wanted me to see the partner of Dr Schmuck, who's in the same building, for "pain treatment" (e.g., physical therapy and drugs, which haven't been effective this go-round). I told her I wouldn't set foot in that office, nor have one dime of my money go into his pocket. So she referred me to someone else, whose name I've filed away.

Dr M looked at the results of Dr C's EMG nerve tests (i.e., "torture") and, just as he did, told me that the median nerve was doing better. I told her my response to him: "Sez you. If the nerve is 'better' why does my arm hurt more, and why are my fingers more numb?"

"These things take time," said Dr M, echoing Dr C & several others. She repeated that nerve tissue heals @ 1mm/day. My arm is a good 24" (610mm) from shoulder to middle fingertip. I finally did the math: I have to wait 610 days after last June's surgery, i.e., till February 1, 2010, to see whether the median nerve has regenerated. But if it hasn't healed by then, it'll be too dead to repair. So I'll be stuck with a sore arm and perpetually numb fingers.

My quandary: Should I have surgery that might fail & leave me worse off, or wait another painful year & maybe miss the chance to fix the nerve?

Last week I left a message for Dr C, asking for a referral to a neurosurgeon "who isn't arrogant & condescending" like Dr B. His office manager called back with contact info for Dr X. After I got home from seeing Dr M, I Googled Dr X. And--what's this?--he's not a neurosurgeon, he's a neurologist and...PSYCHIATRIST.

Official diagnosis: I'm psychologically distoibed!

Official reaction: Nothing makes me crazier than being told--always by a MALE doctor--that I should see a shrink.

Darling Husband agrees that if he were the one seeking help, he'd have been treated with a lot less condescension, and offered surgery rather than palliatives and psychotherapy. I feel a Third Wave of feminism raging within me.

The Never-Ending Story 2: Arm-ageddon

So yesterday I went to see neurosurgeon "Dr B" (actually Dr L, but he was B in The Circle Game and so he shall remain), for the first time since November.

Within 30 seconds, the truth was revealed to me in a blinding flash: Most surgeons are arrogant boors.

I told Dr B that I'd been passed along from one crony to another in his medical center, with no resolution.

"Why do you think that is?" he shot back.

"Because they don't have any answers, so they send me along to the next guy?"

"Why do you think that is?" he said again.

"Um...because they can't figure it out?"

"Did you ever think that maybe it's because your case is very complicated, and there are no easy answers?"

He had the same patronizing tone as Dr Schmuck. What the hell is it with these guys?

"So you're saying that nothing can be done?"

"No, I'm not saying that. Surgery can be done, but I'm not waving any magic lollipops. So if you're in horrible pain afterwards, don't say I made you any promises. And don't call me begging for more pain medicine, because I won't prescribe any."

(Note: Back in November, Dr B insisted that I take Elavil, "whether you want to or not!" I lasted all of a day on it.)

Let us draw a discreet veil over the rest of Dr B's speechifying, which brought me to tears yet again.

In summary:

1. My fingers are unlikely to regain feeling without surgery.
2. The pain in my arm is unlikely to go away without surgery.
3. Odds are 50-50: surgery may make my arm feel a lot better, or a lot worse.
   
4. I don't want to give my money to doctors who are mean to me.
5. I don't want mean doctors poking around inside my body.
   
6. I shouldn't have to see my shrink after every doctor appointment.
7. I hope that Dr M (I see her next week) is nicer and has some bright ideas.
   

Meanwhile, Darling Husband and I are running away from home for the day. The aptly named Fairplay is on our itinerary.

Still Shattered, or The Never-Ending Story

The glasses I was wearing on May 1, 2006.

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the day Gomez the thoroughbred failed to kill me. We had only been in the ring for 10 minutes when I nudged him to go from a walk to a trot. Instead he went ballistic, and the next thing I knew I was in a helicopter in excruciating pain, with my eyes bloodied shut. Later I was told that he'd thrown me into the steel-pipe perimeter fence.

My injuries:

1. Broken right humerus and split humeral head
2. 2 broken left floater ribs
3. Broken nose
4. Broken palate
5. Broken right palatinate bone
6. Broken right maxillary sinus
7. Broken right brow bone
8. Smashed-up front teeth, 3 top & 1 bottom
9. Nerve trauma to head
   
10. Severe concussion

In the ER at Swedish Hospital I got stitches in my forehead and upper lip (my teeth had gone through it), then spent a week in the multi-trauma unit. (Best memory: a card on my meal tray with "Happy Cinco de Mayo from your Swedish volunteers!") While there, I was given the choice of having a titanium plate put in my arm, or wearing a brace for 6-8 weeks. I chose the brace. Why have needless surgery?

The next month I had 3 root canals on my top front teeth, 2 of which died and turned a lovely shade of gray.

By August my arm hadn't healed, and my thumb and first two fingers were floppy. So I had a 6" steel plate installed, inspiring the late, lamented Miss Snark to run a Get Humerus Poetry Contest (see Well and Truly Screwed). My hand still didn't work after that, so in November my arm was sliced open again to release the median nerve.

When I went to see "Casino Royale" that Thanksgiving weekend, I discovered that violence made me nauseous and panicked. So did sirens, helicopters, ambulances, squealing tires, TV sports, news reports, combat photos...

I started getting therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In August 2007 I had to have more surgery on one of the top teeth, plus root canal on the bottom front tooth, which also turned gray. In October I had surgery to fix the dent in the side of my nose and remove bone spurs from my sinus. (The dent caved back in.)

In January 2, 2008, I had a bonus lipoma (fatty tumor) the size of a half-baseball, which had been discovered in the ER, removed from deep under my right shoulder blade. My middle finger and inner sides of the index and ring fingers had gone numb and the base of my thumb had atrophied, then the steel plate in my arm started giving me trouble. So on Friday, June 13, my arm was sliced open yet again to remove the steel plate, plus carpal tunnel release was done in hopes of returning feeling to my digits.

My fingers stayed numb as ever, but my arm started feeling better immediately. Then in late September it suddenly got much worse. The doctor who did the 2nd & 3rd arm surgeries gave up on me. Thus began The Circle Game of trying to find someone who could actually fix the arm, instead of just giving me drugs to mask the pain.

In March, while in Charlottesville for the VaBook Festival, I went to see my former osteopath, the wonderful Mark Dean of Osteopathic Pain Management. He suggested that I might have a traumatic neuroma (why didn't the neurologist and neurosurgeon I'd been seeing in Denver think of that?). When I returned home, my D.O. here sent me to another D.O., "Dr Schmuck," for diagnostic ultrasound.

No neuroma, announced Dr Schmuck, but the lipoma is growing back in the same place, under the scapula by the infraspinatus muscle. No need to have it removed, though, nor for any surgery on the arm.

Oh joy! But...now what?

I soon found out. Last week my fingers abruptly got more numb after I'd been swimming for just 5 minutes. The area around the original break in my arm also turned dark, like a bruise--a symptom that no doctor had been able to figure out. I made an appointment to see Dr Schmuck the next day.

I felt like crap when I showed up: I hadn't slept well because of my hurting arm, my dog had awakened me twice in the night and I was spaced out from a new pain med I'd taken (never again!). Schmuck questioned the necessity of having the first lipoma out, even though my surgeon called it a "big-ass tumor" and you could see the lump through my shirt from across the street. Then without even touching my arm (an osteopath is supposed to do physical examination & manipulation), Schmuck crisply told me that my problem is "brachial plexopathy" and that the only solution is to see his buddy Dr T, 45 minutes from my home, for an injection of corticosteroid and anesthetic.

"What's that going to do to me?" I asked.

Whereupon Schmuck berated me for "choosing to see the glass half-empty instead of half-full," and for having a bad attitude, and for being a "cantankerous New Yorker."

"You fell off a horse," he scoffed. "I have patients with head injuries who can't add two and two, or who are missing limbs."

Which made me feel SO much better. Who am I to complain about pain and dysfunction after 3 years, 8 surgeries, PTSD and depression? I shouldn't have been wasting Schmuck's precious time with my little problems.

Just kidding! Actually, my tart reply was, "I didn't fall off a horse, I was thrown with great force. And I know what it's like to have a head injury."

Whereupon he berated me some more, and as he walked me out said that I had to have hope.

In tears, I snapped, "If I didn't have hope all this time I would've just taken a bottle of Percocet and killed myself!"

That elicited shocked expressions from some of the patients in the waiting room, but nothing from the charming and empathic Dr Schmuck. I vowed never to darken his door again.

But...now what?

Time to make another appointment with "Dr B" the neurosurgeon. And for backup, one with Dr M, arm specialist to Denver's sports stars.

Quote of the Year...and It's Only March

"The one regret I have is we ended up losing money."

--Ronald G. Insana, back at CNBC as an "analyst" after failing as a hedge fund manager. Quoted in the NYT: Back on TV, and Back in the Black.

There Will Be Blood

Call me gullible or impressionable, but I'm actually feeling kind of hopeful this week. It's not just the new year or the inauguration (which I loved most for its goofs and gaffes) or even that—please, please—publishing business firings are coming to an end, at least for a while.

So wrote Publishers Weekly editor-in-chef Sara Nelson in her column last week, entitled "Change I Believe In." Now call her "fired," as she and other PW staffers were let go today when corporate owner Reed Business Information laid off 7 percent of its workforce. (See story in Portfolio.com). Executive editor Daisy Maryles, who'd been with PW--her sole employer--for 40 years, was laid off as well.

RBI also owns Variety. Bloodbath At Variety: Hammond, Thompson Let Go is one of the lead stories on the opening day of website TheWrap, founded by former NYT & Washington Post entertainment reporter Sharon Waxman.

I won't comment on the irony of niche websites reporting on the demise of the very publications they're supplanting. (Disclosure: I was a PW contributing editor for 14 years and stopped reading it in favor of the more timely and interesting GalleyCat and Publishers Marketplace.)

How NOT to Seek Fame

Think before you pitch! From the NY Observer:

Fashion Photographer Senses Opportunity
in US Airways Plane Crash

Larry Flynt Gives Good Headline

From the CNN Political Ticker:
Porn industry seeks federal bailout

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry....

"People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the statement. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."

"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly."

Here's my slogan for these troubled times:
Porn is Patriotic!

Wouldn't it be funny if it caught on? Though honestly, there's nothing sexier than having enough to eat and a roof over one's head.

Quote of the Year...or,Mr. Galbraith Gets the Last Laugh

Over lunch, I read the Quote of the Day to the Boy Wonder. He said, "I have something better. You gotta hear this one!"

He whipped out THE GREAT CRASH: 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith, which the Ex sent him for Christmas. (BW is starting college on Jan. 20 as an economics major.)

From Galbraith's new introduction, written in 1997:

Always when markets are in trouble, the phrases are the same: "The economic situation is fundamentally sound" or simply "The fundamentals are good." All who hear these words should know that something is wrong.

Last night, BW, Darling Husband and I had dinner with Chris Matthews. (OK, we ate off trays while watching "Hardball," on DVR.) Yesterday's show listed the best and worst political moments of 2008. Guess what was #1 in "Biggest general election moments"?

Give up?

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
--John McCain

BONUS QUOTES:

"We all didn’t quite see what was happening.”
--Margaret Hedberg, director of the International Debutante Ball, per the NY Times.

She brushed off the $14,000 cost of a table — “Watches cost more.”
--Marie Antoinette. Oops! I mean Margaret Hedberg.

Angry Thursday

I so did not have a fun day today. At 10:00 a.m., I showed up at the dentist's office to get knocked out for a crown and a couple of replacement fillings. (My theme song: "I Wanna Be Sedated.")

I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since midnight and for the first time ever, the dentist was running late. So I sat in the waiting room for 20 minutes with a parched mouth and rumbling stomach. Grr.

However, I read a very interesting article in Vogue magazine, after leafing through scores of advertisements for expensive ugly stuff. (A cobalt blue fur hat? What is Ralph Lauren thinking?)

Once I was finally ushered inside, the dentist informed me that today's procedure would have to be done in two sessions. He'd finish up in mid-January, when I'd be knocked out again--for an additional non-reimbursable $500 because my dental insurer considers IV anesthesia "optional." Grrr.

The session went well enough; then with the left side of my mouth numb and rubbery, I slid into a taxi and went to Presbyterian-St. Luke's medical center, for yet another MRI of my right arm and shoulder (still giving me trouble after 2-1/2 years and 3 surgeries). They had me fill out the exact same 3-page form as I did yesterday, when I had an MRI of the right brachial plexus (upper chest by armpit) at P-SL hospital directly across the driveway. Why couldn't they just have that form faxed over? "Oh, we can't. It's been sent to Records." Grrrr.

After spending 2+ hours in a narrow, banging tube (thankfully, still drowsy from the morning's anesthesia), I took another taxi home. There I found that the Boy Wonder hadn't:

1. brought my bag of holiday gifts to the post office;
2. walked Jenny;
3. left to take care of business at Metro State Denver (he's starting there next month) until 3:30, rather than in the morning as I'd requested. So I was left alone--hurting and nauseous--to contend with the guys who were installing additional cabinets in the kitchen.
   
4. checked to see whether the microwave was empty when he moved it to make way for the cabinets Wednesday afternoon. I'd forgotten a large open jar of honey in it, and BW didn't bother to look inside when he heard it fall over. "It's just the tray banging around." You would not believe the sticky mess all over. (You would believe how I blasted him when he got home.) ARGH!!!

In a futile effort to get my mind off my woes, I checked my email. There was a message from a writer with whom I've been (very) slightly acquainted over the past few years. Though her current editor--at a major house--is interested in her new manuscript, "Jane" is considering self-publishing because she thinks she'd make more money reaching her audience on her own. [HAHAHAHA!!!!]

Jane wanted to know:

1. whether I'd be giving a Book Promotion 101 workshop any time in her area, as she is "also working with a few writers who are thinking along these lines (self publishing) and I think they would be interested";
2. "I'm especially interested in creating and developing a website (related to my book and my consulting work) that is itself a revenue stream. Is that something you cover in your workshops -- or can cover?"
3. "I am on a brutal budget, so if there's an opportunity to help you publicize it and/or help you with it logistically in exchange for a discount, that would be great."

ARRRRRRRRGH!!!!!

After turning the air blue, I wrote Jane that she's crazy to ditch her editor for self-publishing in the current economic climate. More to the point, if her "brutal budget" won't cover my workshop, how can she afford a book designer, editor, website designer, publicity materials, postage, etc? And that it's critical to have not only a marketing plan, but a distribution system to get her book into people's hands [which is where most self-published authors fall face flat]. And that unless the workshop is sponsored by an organization, I take care of all the logistics myself. Finally, as prominently stated on my website: I only work with authors of commercially published trade books.

The crux of the matter, which I didn't put in my response, is this:
Why should I give away my hard-earned expertise (not to mention my time) to help someone, whom I barely know, to make more money?

I'm not the only one who was pissed off today. See:

• Absolute, unquantifiable heartbreak
• The Poster Child For Everything Wrong With PR

Swallow Before Reading!

If not, don't blame me if you spray your drink all over your keyboard. From a piece in today's NYT: Trump Sees Act of God in Recession:

By Mr. Trump’s account, sales [of condos in the Trump International Hotel and Tower] were going great until “the real estate market in Chicago suffered a severe downturn” and the bankers made it worse by “creating the current financial crisis.”

Those assertions are made in what The New York Times’s Floyd Norris calls a fascinating lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump, the real estate developer, television personality and best-selling author, in an effort to avoid paying $40 million that he personally guaranteed on a construction loan that Deutsche Bank says is due and payable.

Rather than have to pay the $40 million, Mr. Trump thinks the bank should pay him $3 billion for undermining the project and damaging his reputation....

Mr. Trump is vigilant in protecting his reputation... after Mr. Norris interviewed him and two associates, his general counsel sent Mr. Norris a note saying “it was a pleasure” talking to him, and adding: “Please be assured that if your article is not factually correct, we will have no choice but to sue you and The New York Times.”

Read the whole thing; it only gets better. The penultimate graf--and Deutsche Bank's legal filing--has a quote from Trump's 2007 bestseller, Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life:

“I figured it was the bank’s problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, ‘I told you you shouldn’t have loaned me that money. I told you the goddamn deal was no good.’ ”

Which Quote Is More Nauseating?

Sometimes I regret reading the paper over breakfast, when I come across stories such as To Buy Children’s Gifts, Mothers Do Without. Cue the icky-sticky strings:

Come Christmas, McKenna Hunt, a gregarious little girl from Safety Harbor, Fla., will receive the play kitchen and the Elmo doll she wants. But her mother, Kristen Hunt, will go without the designer jeans she covets this season....

“I want her to be able to look back,” Ms. Hunt declared, “and say, ‘Even though they were tough times, my mom was still able to give me stuff.’ ”

Martyr mom Kristen Hunt with the all-important stuff she bought her daughter for Xmas. (Instead of buying a play kitchen, why not save the money and just--gasp!--spend time with the kid in the real kitchen and--double gasp!--teach her to cook?) Photo for NYT by Charity Beck.

On the other hand, there's On the Block: Anarchy and Nostalgia, about Christie's recent auction of punk memorabilia. Cue The Ramones!

“I lived through it, and now I can afford it,” said [Scott Wittman, Tony- and Grammy-winning composer and lyricist for “Hairspray”], who like many of the buyers viewed the sale as not just music history but also New York City history.

“I look at it as revisiting my youth,” he added. “I ran into John Varvatos,” the designer whose pricey boutique now occupies the former CBGB space on the Bowery, “and I said, ‘I used to throw up in that corner.’ It brings a tear to my eye.”

The infamous men's john at CBGB, courtesy of urinal.net. (The women's was just as terrifying. I made it a point to go at home, a few blocks away, before I went to the club. And to drink as little as possible once there.)