It is for that reason that today I’ll part ways from politics and popular culture to talk about lucid dreaming … and the floating purple orb.

The following is a dream I woke up from at 6:47 a.m. EST.

I’m at an old high school cross-country meet, but I’m on a pair of swings talking to my old friend Larry about the upcoming season and he says he’s in better shape going into senior year than he was in the past. Then I think that I am in really good shape too and I say, “One more year! Gotta make it a good one!”

Then I pause and think: “Didn’t we already graduate? I’m actually not in cross country shape anymore because I’ve been lifting weights and I like where my physique is at. Wait a second … I’m lucid dreaming!” I jump off the swings and start running around in circles like an excited little kid, saying, “I’m lucid dreaming! I can ask anyone anything I want! I can do anything! I need to talk to someone before I wake up.”

I see my old coach, Coach Devine, and he looks confused for a moment and says, “Doug, is it really you?” I say yes and he says: “Do you still think about me? Do you still love me?” (There wasn’t any sexual connotation to it.) I say, “Yes. I do. I really do think of you,” and he smiles and I smile and we both come close to having these tears of joy and then I give him a really big hug.

As I hug him everything begins turning white and then I start flying towards this book that opens with pictures of an older woman hugging a child drawn in purple ink. It’s not my deceased grandmother and me, but it reminds me of the two of us. I try to read the lettering that is on the bottom as I then start to enter the book, but can only make out ‘Ha Ha Ho xx Ho xx’.

I then started to really wake up and my whole body was tingling, particularly my arms and hands. As I opened my eyes I saw a purple orb floating directly above my head that scared me, so I closed them again, and then there was a little “whooop” feeling (Perhaps like I was disconnected from my body?) and then I woke up.

Question: Was I lucid dreaming? Was I having an out of body experience? Was the purple orb real, or was it just my eyes playing tricks on me? My wife thinks I was dreaming I was lucid dreaming and she thinks my eyes were just playing tricks on me.

I’m sharing this story, again, because on a long enough time line I figure someone out there will have had a similar experience that they could share, or perhaps they just think it’s all a bunch of “hooey” and they can let that be known as well.

The only thing I will add is that this dream felt real. Very, very real. It was extremely vivid and clear, perhaps an “HD” version of my other dreams.

So there you have it. Thoughts on lucid dreaming and floating orbs? I’d like to hear them.

Here is me accepting an award at the Crystal Lake South cross country meet as a junior in high school. I believe I came in 17th place out of perhaps 120 runners. I was always a “mudder” and a hill runner. On a rainy day I always performed a lot better, and for whatever reason I could grind out hilly courses and beat guys who would fly by me on flat terrain. Larry is dressed in the maroon running pants.

Sometimes the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person is for them to get what they wish for. Every time I start seeing news stories about “Powerball fever” or a run on gas stations when lottery jackpots explode, I can’t help but think of Tim Burton’s Batman. In it, Gotham’s population lunges for cash as The Joker throws out bills to them from on high, stuffing the paper in their pockets and crawling on all fores to claw in as much as possible. Then, the poison gas hits.

There is a big difference between a “what the heck, why not” lottery ticket purchase and one bought where the person essentially fantasizes about how “all my problems would be solved” with a winning draw. Whether it is the at a federal, state, community or individual level, all too often people look at dollar signs as the ticket to happiness or fulfillment, when it is not.

“Who do you trust? Hubba Hubba Hubba! Money! Money! Money! Who do you trust? Me, I’m giving away free money! And where … is this Batman? He’s at home, washing his tights! … And now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But, as my plastic surgeon always said: ‘If you got to go, go with a smile!’” 

More often than not, the lust for money only serves to mask or exacerbate existing problems. And when anyone dares to point out that it is our emotional weaknesses and spiritual bankruptcy that is more likely the root of our financial ills and cultural unhappiness, the citizens of Gotham get defensive.

Barring some sort of medical problem or environmental disaster, the vast majority of people who are so hopeless that they see a lotto ticket as “a way out” of their financial predicament need emotional and spiritual currency — not money.

Let me put it this way:

When I was in high school I was a cross country runner. Sometimes, on an eight mile run I’d pass a casino and I’d see extremely poor people walking inside, in all likelihood to spend what little cash they had, hoping they’d hit a big jackpot. Today I live in Maryland, where politicians — both Republican and Democrat — have pushed casinos as a form of economic stimulus.

Question: Does Maryland want an economy built around Blackjack dealers and zombies who pull on slot machines, or does it want an economy built around science and art and engineering? That question has already been answered, and sadly the zombie-backers have won out.

The people who promote lotteries as a way to fund education are like plumbers who fix your leaky faucet by diverting water to flood your basement. The people who promote casinos as a the ticket to long-term economic growth are like high school guidance counselors who would tell a student to consider dropping out and getting a GED sometime down the road. We constantly mislead people, and then when they go down dangerous paths that with disastrous results, we blame this guy or that guy or anyone else within our line of sight.

Instead of running out to the grocery store to buy a lotto ticket when the payday hits 700 million dollars, I suggest using that 30 minutes to sit down in solitude and work towards figuring out what will make you happy at the deepest of levels. When you figure it out you’ll realize that such knowledge is worth more than any joker could ever put in your bank account.

Best,

Doug

Chris Matthews is a sick man. He is ill, and it is for that reason I do not like to talk about him. Discussing Chris Matthews and his obsession with race at this point makes me feel like a jerk. It is not nice to pick on people with mental problems, but his commentary in the wake of the Obama administration’s IRS, Associated Press and Benghazi scandals illustrates the dangerous racial game he and his ideological allies are playing.

First, Matthews:

“The problem is there are people in this country, maybe ten percent, I don’t know what the number, maybe twenty percent on a bad day, who want this president to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books, that he really wasn’t president. … They can’t stand the idea that he’s president, and a piece of it is racism. … It’s the sense that the white race must rule, that’s what racism is, and they can’t stand the idea that a man who’s not white is president. That is real, that sense of racial superiority and rule is in the hearts of some people in this country. Not all conservatives, not even all right-wingers, but it always comes through with this birther crap and these other references and somehow trying to erase ObamaCare, erase his record in history, and a big part of it is bought into by people like John Boehner, who’s not a bad guy, but he knows the only way he can talk to the hard right is talk their language, (Chris Matthews, MSNBC. May 15).

Where does Matthews get this 20% number? Since when is it okay to just pull numbers out of your butt and label 20% of the population a bunch of racists? And he’s not talking about “all conservatives” — just everyone who John Boehner talks to on “the hard right”? Translation: “My producers told me I shouldn’t flat-out call conservatives racists, so this is my half-hearted attempt to placate him.”

Now, the NAACP’s Julian Bond:

“I mean, here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who tried as best they can to harm President [Barack] Obama in every way they can … They are the Taliban wing of American politics and we all ought to be a little worried about them,” (Julian Bond, MSNBC. May 14, 2013).

Since when has the tea party “admitted” it was racist? It hasn’t. Ever. Because it’s not. Perhaps I should go on the radio tomorrow and talk about the time Julian Bond “admitted” to being a child molester — or not, because I don’t just make up things to hurt people out of thin air.

Do you remember the time Chris Matthews was called out by a Winston Churchill scholar for misquoting the famous Prime Minister, and Matthews’ response was to say: “How can you prove someone never said something?” I do. So I will now take this time to ask the following question: How can Chris Matthews call conservatives racists when it is a well known fact that he once said he only voted for President Obama’s white half? How can Chris Matthews call conservatives racists when he once told a reporter at a Center for American Progress event that 15% of all Democrats are still proud of LBJ’s segregationist past?

See how that works, Chris? See how despicable it is to make up racial lies and slime individuals or whole groups?

I am generally a patient man and I am slow to anger. I do not hate anyone because life is short and I have no desire to fill my heart with such a toxic emotion. With that said, when Chris Matthews, Julian Bond and others like them go on television and say that I oppose President Obama because of some weird desire for “racial superiority,” it tests my patience and it tests my ability to filter my untreated emotions into something pure.

By putting out such hateful ideas into the world, Chris Matthews creates the very animosity he claims to abhor. How does the man with little patience who is quick to anger respond to Chris Matthews? My guess is that when Matthews and Julian Bond liken white people to the Taliban, they actually end up creating a few racists in the process. If you beat someone over the head with accusations of racism — no matter how long and how hard they protest the lies — at some point they will unconsciously say: “You want a racist? I’ll give you a racist,” and the hate will begin flowing through their veins. And when that happens, a chain of events will occur that will only end badly for all parties involved.

I hope Chris Matthews gets the help he needs. I truly do. But at the same time, the world should know that in the mean time he is poisoning the intellectual well for his community of viewers. Ideas are not always the sole propriety of the individual. They can be shared. And so, the first question Mr. Matthews should ask himself when he finally gets better should be: “How many people did I contaminate and how can I make it right?” He has a lot of work to do and not much time to finish it in.

Quite a charge, is it not? Such an assertion would require evidence. Let us revisit the “Ends of the Earth” storyline, shall we?

“But the human race is resilient and the first thousand or so who climb out of the wreckage … they’ll rebuild. Life will go on, and they’ll remember me. For that new society I shall live on in infamy — a mass murderer worse than Pol Pot, Hitler, and Genghis Khan combined!” (Doctor Octopus, aka: the Superior Spider-Man, aka the Superior anti-Semite).

Interesting stuff, eh? Here’s a little history lesson from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting. In its entirety, the “Final Solution” called for the murder of all European Jews by gassing, shooting, and other means. Approximately six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust — two-thirds of the Jews living in Europe before World War II.

Human remains found in the Dachau concentration camp crematorium after liberation. Germany, April 1945. (Image: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Got that? Doc Ock had a “Final Solution,” but it involved being a “superior” version of Hitler; he would implement a plan that would in effect kill all of the Jews instead of just those residing in Europe. And now he’s Spider-Man. In Peter Parker’s body. In fact, he’s Dan Slott’s Spider-Übermensch.

Kind of sick, isn’t it? And the only retort Dan Slott and his fans could possibly have is that Otto didn’t want to kill millions of Jews — he “merely” wanted to kill six billion people, which would just so happen to include all the Jews.

Silly me. The guy who “just” came within inches of an extinction level event because he hated all of humanity is now housed in Peter Parker’s body. And fans “love” the story. It’s what brought them back to the book. Congrats Mr. Slott, those are the kinds of winners I want giving me high fives and pats on the back at comic conventions…

With that said, it is also important to once again revisit how on earth Marvel fans could get a Superior anti-Semite (or was it just your run-of-the mill genocidal maniac?) swinging around New York City in Peter’s body. Mr. Slott’s recent Newsarama interview gives the answer.

Nrama: With Superior Spider-Man, you’re writing Doc Ock as a lead character for really the first time, and a more long-term Doc Ock story than has really been seen before. We’re seeing the character put in very different situations, interacting with totally different characters. What kind of task has that been — approaching his mindset and his attitude in the position of a lead character?

Slott: He’s trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?

Hmm. Good question. Is Hawkeye “more annoying” than Otto, or has Mr. Slott’s moral relativism produced Marvel’s first anti-Semitic superhero? Let me revisit the Holocaust Memorial Museum one more time:

The Nazis frequently used euphemistic language to disguise the true nature of their crimes. They used the term “Final Solution” to refer to their plan to annihilate the Jewish people. It is not known when the leaders of Nazi Germany definitively decided to implement the “Final Solution.” The genocide, or mass destruction, of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of increasingly severe discriminatory measures. …

After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, SS and police units (acting as mobile killing units) began massive killing operations aimed at entire Jewish communities. By autumn 1941, the SS and police introduced mobile gas vans. These paneled trucks had exhaust pipes reconfigured to pump poisonous carbon monoxide gas into sealed spaces, killing those locked within. They were designed to complement ongoing shooting operations.

Question for Dan Slott: What issue did Hawkeye triumphantly declare that he would be remembered as a worse murderer than the guy who deployed gas vans to exterminate Jews? Just asking. Was that an annual, or a Comic Con exclusive?

Does a character go from wanting to transcend Hitler in terms of perpetuating pure evil upon the world to a “hero” just because a really good guy beamed his life story and “with great power comes great responsibility” into his head? Probably not. And since we’re talking about the Superior Spider-Man — the guy who blew a defenseless criminal’s face off — Magic 8 Ball says “Why would you ask me such a dumb question?”

Superior Spider-Man is an abomination. It’s an insult to Stan Lee, long-time Peter Parker fans and anyone with a shred of respect for the character. Sales may be fine for Superior Spider-Man, but history will not treat the book kindly. One day a group of editors with a working moral compass will be at the helm of the Spider-Man books and they will look back at this era and ask, “What were they thinking?”

The end of the book can not come soon enough, and the ‘Ends of the Earth’ arc tells us why.

At one time Marvel had heroes who punched out Hitler on the cover. Now, with Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man, fans have a “hero” who wanted to transcend Hitler in terms of successfully bringing forth murder and mayhem. Congratulations, Marvel. I’m glad “sales” are doing so well for you. It’s just fascinating that you can still look at yourself in the mirror. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Just because you can write a particular story, it doesn’t mean you should. Maybe Dan Slott missed that lesson when he was reading Spider-Man as a kid.

Jon Stewart’s reaction to the IRS and Associated Press scandals is classic. He devotes years of his life to mocking men and women who are concerned about the dangers of big government, and then gets rewarded with a great big scary slap in the face by the federal government. All one can do is throw their arms in the air and scream expletives. Sorry, Jon. I get it, but you can’t say you weren’t warned.

This has been a great couple of weeks for any conservatives who have kept tabs on Bill Maher and Jon Stewart for years. Bill Maher broke down on air and admitted that there’s a funky scent in the air that reminds him a lot of freshly baked police state cookie dough. Now, Jon Stewart looks around at the the Obama administration’s IRS and Associated Press scandals and a great big “F**K!” bubbles up and bursts forth for his viewing audience.

Here is the condensed commentary:

Jon Stewart: [W]hile the tax exempt status that all political groups get is all kind of bulls**t, it’s bulls**t that should at least be granted fairly and equitably — spread around evenly if you will. So unlike much of whole Benghazi inquiry, this seems like a genuine scandal.  So explanation please let’s say from the person who oversees tax exempt organizations for the IRS.

Lois Lerner, IRS Director of  exempt organizations (video): [IRS specialists] used names like ‘Tea Party’ and ‘Patriots’ and they selected cases simply because those applications had the names in the title. That was wrong. The IRS would like to apologize for that. …

Stewart: Don’t worry, it gets funnier.

Lois Lerner (video): I said about a quarter of the cases that were selected had either ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their name.

NBC News, Tom Costello (video): Thank you for the clarification, but that would be a quarter of the 300, so then are we talking about 75 or so?

Lois Lerner (video): That’s correct. Is that a quarter? Thank you. I”m not good at math.

Jon Stewart: That’s a good one! … lady who works at the place that calculates people’s taxes.

That is not all, but first we must return to just last week, when President Obama addressed a graduating class of college students in Columbus, Ohio:

“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” (President Obama, May 5, 2013, Columbus, Ohio).

Yes. Yes… “Reject” those voices. It becomes increasingly difficult when Bill Maher and Jon Stewart are getting the thousand-yard stare and telling their audiences that the guys they mocked as “tinfoil hat” wearing fools might not be as crazy as the “Real Time” and “Jon Stewart Show” audiences were led to believe.

Stewart continues in a voice that President Obama would tell young students to “reject”:

Well congratulations President Barack Obama. Conspiracy theorists that can generally survive in anaerobic environments have just had an algae bloom dropped on their fucking heads. … This has in one seismic moment shifted the burden of proof from the tin-foiled behatted to the government. The VA claims backlog and the bounced checks foreclosure clusterf**k had already given government-competence fetishists fits, and now this. In a few short weeks you’ve shown that when the government wants to do good things your managerial competence falls somewhere between David Brent and a cat chasing a laser pointer, but when the government wants to flex it’s more malevolent muscles you’re f***king Iron Man!

Boom. There’s really nothing more to be said. I highly suggest watching the video. By the end, Stewart looks like a man who would make his own “seismic shift” publicly known had he not invested so much of his life into making conservatives the butt of his jokes. He looks like a man whose worldview has been shaken to its core.

The IRS targeting conservatives? Perhaps he could have gotten over that one. The Justice Department targeting the press? “Et tu, Obama?” Yes, Jon … President Obama, too.

Jon Stewart jokes, but those are the eyes of a man who really and truly does not know what to make of what’s happening around him. It’s hard to be an advocate for big government when the guy who sold you “hope and change” presides over an IRS that targets political enemies and a Justice Department that snoops on the press.

]]> http://douglasernstblog.com/2013/05/14/jon-stewart-conservatives-were-right-i-just-needed-the-irs-and-ap-scandals-to-see-it/feed/ 2 dougernst Jon Stewart's reaction to the IRS scandal is classic. He devotes years of his life mocking men and women who warn of the dangers of big government, and then gets rewarded with a great big scary slap in the face by the IRS. All one can do is throw their arms in the air and scream expletives. Sorry, Jon. Jon Stewart IRS scandal Jon Stewart AP scandal http://douglasernstblog.com/2013/05/13/business-insider-looks-at-most-notorious-prison-gitmo-decides-eh-bush-isnt-in-office-whatever/ http://douglasernstblog.com/2013/05/13/business-insider-looks-at-most-notorious-prison-gitmo-decides-eh-bush-isnt-in-office-whatever/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 14:28:40 +0000 Douglas Ernst http://douglasernstblog.com/?p=5922 ]]> Business Insider recently put together an exclusive on “the most notorious prison on earth.” One might want to ask if it’s “notorious” because it actually is one of the worst prisons on earth, or if it’s “notorious” because no one demands to get exclusives on other detention facilities around the world. North Korean gulags? Not interested. Iran? Egypt? Eh. A tour of the prison system of any number of South American countries? Yawn. China? That’s where they filmed Iron Man 3, man. Leave the Chinese alone!

Here is what Business Insider reported on the facility that has brand new $750,000 ‘Super Rec’ yard, a full Arabic library, DVDs, video games and quiet time after prayer calls five times a day:

After more than a decade of operations [...] many say that conditions have improved [at Guantanamo Bay].

We had that impression after visiting the camp for five days in March. Although our tour of the facility was controlled by the military, we came away with the feeling that compliant detainees receive better treatment than most prisoners in the United States. For non-compliant detainees, like the 92 going on hunger strike right now, conditions remain highly restrictive.

As for torture, the Obama administration has ordered that it stop — believe what you will.

Indefinite detention? America is no longer adding detainees but has not figured out what to do with the ones that are already there.

The last time I checked, the debate over water boarding was far from over. Given that it’s done to our Navy SEALs and the guys who go through SERE school — and given that you have to be a really bad man to go through the vetting process and end up in Gitmo — it seems a bit premature for Business Insider to label it as such.

Regardless, here is the key sentence:

“America is no longer adding detainees but has not figured out what to do with the ones that are already there.”

No. Idea. What. To. Do.

We’re not talking about the evil “BushHitler” (one word). We’re talking about President Obama, the guy who was pretty darn cocksure that Gitmo would be closed within one year of taking office. Maybe he meant one year after he left office … eight years later? We’ll see.

What do you do with men who were captured on the battlefield who have vowed to return — to kill Americans — the moment they’re released? And then what do you do if “Plan A” was to just hand them over to their country of origin, but nobody will take them? For the time being, the U.S. stuck with the world’s most hard-core jihadis as they “fling styrofoam cups filled with feces, semen, and urine” at the guards who bring them Shariah-compliant meals.

President Obama has found out that he can close Gitmo, but the function it performs (i.e., keeping incredibly evil men from terrorizing the civilized world) will remain. His solution up until now seems to be to just kill them with drone strikes. Apparently, it’s more humane to drop a bomb on a guy’s head (sorry if we killed your extended family) than to haul a guy off to a detention facility, glean intelligence from him and then try him before a military court. Got it.

For most of George W. Bush’s presidency the anti-war left came out in droves to protest Gitmo. Today, there are random groups of five or ten people who stand outside the White House. Should a Republican be elected in 2016 and the detention facility still be open for business, I have no doubt that it will once again capture the attention of people everywhere looking for a cause. By then the damage will have been done; selective outrage robs the people who practice it of credibility.

Here is me photo bombing a small protest outside the White House last Friday. My expression says: “Huh? What happened to all the people? When Bush was in office this group would have been 50, 60 or 70 people strong.” There may have been 10 people in jumpsuits and a guy with a microphone total for this demonstration.

3D printing is here. Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed wanted to make the first weapon that was fully printed (except for the firing pin) and he has succeed. The blueprints were released online and the result has been amazing: 100,000 downloads before the feds stepped in to put a stop to it.

Forbes reports:

If gun control advocates hoped to prevent blueprints for the world’s first fully 3D-printable gun from spreading online, that horse has now left the barn about a hundred thousand times.

That’s the number of downloads of the 3D-printable file for the so-called “Liberator” gun that the high-tech gunsmithing group Defense Distributed has seen in just the last two days, a member of the group tells me. The gun’s CAD files have been ten times more popular than any component the group has previously made available, parts that have included the body of an AR-15 and the magazine for an AK-47.

As I said, Uncle Sam is not happy. Since the State Department couldn’t protect Ambassador Stevens from real guns, it is now going after Americans:

On Thursday, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance demanding that he take down the online blueprints for the 3D-printable “Liberator” handgun that his group released Monday, along with nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on the group’s website Defcad.org. The government says it wants to review the files for compliance with arms export control laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. By uploading the weapons files to the Internet and allowing them to be downloaded abroad, the letter implies Wilson’s high-tech gun group may have violated those export controls.

Here’s the deal: technology keeps breaking down barriers faster and faster and faster, and a big bloated federal government simply can not keep up with the speed. The statists are confused because suddenly we’re on the brink of the stuff technological revolutions are made out of and they don’t like it because it will free millions from their regulatory vice grip.

If Williams-Sonoma gets so freaked out by pressure cookers in the wake of the Boston bombing that it pulls them from the shelves, what are the Jr. Sonomas in Congress going to do when faced with a population armed with 3D printers? Time to ban plastic, people!

In all seriousness though, one possible outcome is that faced with a world that is running faster than it can write regulations, the “soft tyranny” Americans have seen in recent decades will be replaced with good old fashioned, boot-on-your-throat tyranny.

Don’t think it could happen? I give you New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change,” (Michael Bloomberg, April 23, 2013).

He has money. He has power. And he has a mindset that is extremely, extremely dangerous. So much for unalienable rights, eh? That is exactly why I have always said that once you take out rights endowed to us “by the Creator,” you are left with rights “endowed by dangerous megalomaniacs like Michael Bloomberg.”

Still don’t believe me? Take a look at the Boston manhunt.

Nothing like putting an entire city on lock down for one guy, and then dragging women and children from their homes at gunpoint. (Image: Associated Press)

Or better yet, I’ll let Bill Maher talk about the whole ordeal. It’s funny how he’s come around on taxes (i.e., “Liberals, you can actually lose me. It’s ridiculous.”), entitlements and now the dangers of a bloated federal government in such a short amount of time.

“This country is becoming a police state and it is very troubling to me,” (Bill Maher).

Get used to it Bill, because it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. It’s just very interesting to have watched you for all these years with your smug delivery suddenly looking a little shaken and unsure of yourself. We tried to tell you that a government that was big enough to give you whatever you wanted was big enough to take it all away, and you called us ‘teabaggers.’ We tried to tell you that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and you called us dumb hicks. And now that your taxes are through the roof and S.W.A.T. guys are only a single terrorist away from landing on your roof you’ve got a quizzical look on your face. Hear that? That’s the sound of your quixotic worldview crashing down around you.

There is hope for Bill yet, and I think the response by power hungry bureaucrats to future advances in technology can make him come around.

How about you?

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie goes on Dave Letterman and eats doughnuts, but then has the nerve to tell accomplished doctors to “shut up” when they discuss his weight. No, Gov. Christie — you shut up.

It was only three months ago that N.J. Governor Chris Christie responded to Dr. Connie Mariano’s concerns about his weight by saying she was “just another hack who wants to be on TV.”

At the time, here is what I said regarding the guy who is so smart that he diffuses the “war on women” mantra by telling a successful female doctor to “shut up.”:

Gov. Christie has no self-control when it comes to calories. He has shown no self-discipline when it comes to exercise. Those faults also rear their ugly head every time he channels MSNBC’s resident blowhard Chris Matthews during a testy press conference or town hall meeting. He is not presidential material, he cannot at the present moment inspire the nation, and he would be crushed by Hillary Clinton in a landslide if the stars ever aligned in such a way as to pit the two of them against each other for the highest office in the land. Conservatives need to start working now to take him out of the running.

It turns out that just around the time Dr. Mariano was voicing her concerns about Mr. Christie’s weight, he was scheduled for “lap band” surgery.

The New York Times reports:

[L]ike some overweight politicians before him, Mr. Christie has embarked on a major effort to shed pounds at a time when his eyes are on the presidency. Saying that “a whole bunch of other things” had not worked, he revealed on Tuesday that he had undergone weight loss surgery three months ago. He is now 40 pounds lighter.

Mr. Christie, a Republican, said concerns about his family, not politics, drove him to undergo the “Lap-Band” procedure, in which a silicone band is placed around the stomach to discourage overeating.

Interesting. So the doctor to President George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush looked at a guy who was laying the groundwork for a presidential run and commented on his health, and she’s told to “shut up.” And yet, that very same guy was scheduled for lap-band surgery. It seems as though if Christie was desperate enough to get such a procedure done, the smart thing to do in that situation would have been for him to shut up.

Regardless, I am not a fan of this procedure and would like to know what the “whole bunch of things” Christie tried were. Since exercise has always been a large part of my life (I was even lucky enough to manage a gym for a period of time), I’ve met plenty of people who claim to have “tried everything” when the reality is quite the opposite.

In 1991, the NIH gave a consensus statement on who should get the surgery. I asked a physician for a summary of their findings. Gov. Christie had to meet criteria along the following guidelines:

1) BMI >40

or

2) BMI of 35-40 plus an obesity associated comorbidity: severe diabetes, Pickwickian syndrome, cardiomyopathy, severe sleep apnea, or osteoarthritis that interferes with activities of daily living.

and

3) Are motivated and well informed, have failed attempts at diet and exercise, and are free from psychological disease. They should also be compliant with post-op diet and exercise routines.

Pre-operative workup requires a psychological evaluation, nutritional counseling, and a medical evaluation.

Complications include the following: infection, bleeding, band slippage, band erosion into the gastric lining, dilated esophagus, vomiting, heart burn, stomach perforation, injury to the spleen, and mechanical device failure.

Patients cannot tolerate solid foods in the initial periods after surgery and even though they are eventually transitioned to solids, they still may have regurgitation and dysphagia to whole meats and heavy breads.

Effectiveness: the adjustable lap band is extremely effective at producing weight loss, however, as many as a quarter of patients fail to shed 50% of their excess weight by 5 years. 

Sources

*Guidelines for Practical Application of Laparoscipic Bariatric Surgery from the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). http://www.sages.org/publications/guidelines/guidelines-for-clinical-application-of-laparoscopic-bariatric-surgery/

*NIH Consensus on Bariatric Surgery. http://consensus.nih.gov/1991/1991gisurgeryobesity084html.htm

Are there people out there who have genetic disorders that cause them to struggle with their weight? Sure. But the vast majority of Americans do not fall into that category.

When most people say they’ve “tried exercising” they say it like a teenager who says he “studied” when really he just went through the motions long enough to convince himself the lie was the truth. (How can anyone study when it’s time to call the girlfriend?)

When people say they’ve tried “diets” what they are usually doing is admitting that deep down they aren’t prepared to change their lifestyle to achieve a set of desired results. Diets are temporary; your lifestyle is forever.

Over and over and over again I hear people talk about the “Western” diet. It’s bull. I’m sorry to be blunt, but that’s a crutch. Anyone with half a brain and a real desire to figure out what’s going on with their body will be able to do the research and make the changes necessary to get where they want to be.

When I turned 30 years old I started gaining weight. I had no idea why, considering I was still working out as I always had and my diet had not changed. Obviously, my metabolism slowed down slightly, but after going over my diet with a good friend it turned out that I was consuming massive amounts of sugar through fruit juices. I cut off the juices, and over the course of eight months I lost 20 lbs. The guy who never paid attention to food labels because he could burn off whatever he ate (the joy of being a long distance runner!) suddenly had to think a little about the things he was shoving down his throat. I modified my diet to deal with the new reality, and I’m in arguably better shape at 34 than I was at 30.

Who is that skinny cross country kid who could eat 3,000 calories in a sitting an laugh it off because an 8-mile run was coming later in the day? Oh, wait, that’s me. Metabolism doesn’t quite work that way at 34.

I truly hope that Gov. Christie’s surgery is successful. I wish he would have gone a different route, but now that it’s done and over with I hope that he leads a long and healthy life with his family and friends by his side.

With that said, I still can’t help but believe that his weight problems have more to do with a lack of self-discipline than with malfunctioning biological processes — and while he might tell me to “shut up” because I’m not a medical doctor, I would counter that it is his own press conferences and bizarre outbursts aimed at constituents that have led me to such a conclusion.

Is it cathartic to see union thugs get an earful from Christie on occasion? Sure, but that doesn’t make his politics or his approach right. And it’s really not kosher when a governor goes around trying to discredit medical doctors for making astute observations about his weight, only to then take drastic measures behind the scenes trying to rectify what he wanted everyone to “shut up” over.

Gov. Chris Christie owes Dr. Connie Mariano an apology. It’s really that simple. And if he does so, I’ll give him a cookie. Or a piece of broccoli. Or some black beans. Whatever goes easiest post lap-band surgery.

Every moment of every day you are either moving closer or farther away from fully realizing who you were meant to be. How you spend your time when you aren’t working is just as integral to living up to your potential as what you do at your place of employment. Your friends and your associations matter. Do you exercise to relax, or do you drink? Do you make time to read a good book once in awhile, or do you play video games? Do you get adequate rest on Saturday and Sunday, or are you out all night trying to fit as much fun as possible into the weekend? All of these things matter. I am not passing judgement on one activity or another. I am merely stating that everything requires self examination.

You could die ten minutes after you read this blog of a heart attack. You could die a few days from now in a car accident. Or, you could die many years from now in your sleep simply due to old age. That is why every second counts.

What kind of person wants to spend their life chasing after spare change like they were Mario or Luigi from Super Mario Bros.? No one should ever have to do that unless, for whatever reason, that is what their spirit truly desires to experience during its time on earth.

The person who goes around thinking of “spare change” in their “spare time” will generally just lead a life where they’re only just getting by because all of their energy is focused on just getting by. On top of that, people who are always looking for spare cash usually tend to do so because they want to buy “things”; it’s a good indicator they are way to concerned with filling up their life with gizmos and gadgets and clothes, and when you lead a life chasing after earthly pleasures you will never be satisfied.

Look at some of the most successful Hollywood stars out there, sports figures and politicians who have enough money to buy anything they want. They have closets and mansions and garages filled with “stuff.” They don’t need “spare” change, and yet, if you follow that person in the news it’s not long before the writing is on the wall that many of these people are absolutely miserable.

But I digress. That’s another issue for another blog post.

The point is, one of the keys to finding happiness is asking the right question. Instead of saying “how can I make some spare cash” one might ask: “How can I be financially independent by age 50?” Or they could ask: “How can I make $100,000 a year and enjoy what I’m doing?” The brain is a supercomputer, and if you ask it the right questions it will come up with answers for you. However, if you put garbage in, you will get garbage out.

There is a reason why people say they need to “focus like a laser.” That’s because the human body is pure energy. Your thoughts and your feelings and everything that makes you “you” — when you dig deep enough down — is pure energy. So it stands to reason that if you focus your mind and your body and your spirit in one direction, that energy will begin to carve out the reality you desire.

You might think the Catholic guy is getting all New Age at this point, but he’s not. Regardless, I hope this post will do its little part to help get you focused on what you need to do to attain true happiness.

Best,

Doug

The good news about Iron Man 3 is that it’s a sharply written, well-directed movie. The bad news is that while some of the messages it conveys to the audience hold incredible truth (e.g., “we create our own demons”), it might just be the conspiracy-theorist must-see blockbuster of the summer.

Do you have any friends who think 9/11 was “an inside job”? Iron Man 3 is the movie for them. (You might want to consider getting new friends if that’s the case, but in the mean time you could still enjoy a solid movie.) Do you have any friends who refer to the “military industrial complex” at parties so they sound smarter than they really are? Iron Man 3 is the movie for them. Do you have friends who hate “Big Oil” and “fat cats”? Iron Man 3 is the movie for them. Director Shane Black ingeniously — or perhaps devilishly? — devised a film that is drenched in anti-Americanism in a way that will leave many Americans exiting the theater not even knowing they’re all wet. At the showing I went to in Tyson’s Corner, Va., many people even burst out clapping twice during the film. On many levels, Mr. Black deserves kudos. That’s not easy to do.

Because so much of the movie focuses on Robert Downey Jr. and the “demons” his actions have brought into his life (his enemies literally breathe fire), and because he owns the role, one could forgive friends and relatives if they don’t leave the theater angry. The “truth” about the Mandarin alone, which I will refrain from disclosing here, is one that will play very well in Muslim nations that actually allow Western movies to be screened — for reasons that have nothing to do with their religion and everything to do with conspiracy theories that run rampant in those parts of the world. Given the fact that the writers and producers created entirely new scenes for the Chinese release, it’s not hard to believe that the endeavor was specifically crafted to maximize both foreign and domestic sales. Again, it is rather awe-inspiring what Mr. Black has pulled off.

Strangely enough, perhaps the group of moviegoers who will be most disappointed in Iron Man 3 will be long time fans of the Iron Man comic book. As already mentioned, the “truth” about the Madarin is something that will drive fans of the character up a wall. They will be livid, and rightly so. However, the average person who knows nothing about the character’s history will not care because within the context of the film, the changes work and that’s all that really matters to people who count box office receipts. It’s sad, but that’s the truth.

Moving forward, it will be hard for figure out how an Iron Man 4 would take shape. Robert Downey Jr’s shtick is enjoyable, but even the great and powerful RDJ gets annoying. It was a wise move to knock the chip off his shoulder in the third installment by stripping everything away from him. He needed to be taken down a notch. He needed the smile wiped off his face. He needed to look lost and confused and panicked because sometimes the rich billionaire guy who mocks everyone and everything just comes across as a jerk. Downey had an incredible balancing act to play between being that witty sarcastic smartass with a smile, and being the vulnerable guy who just recently learned their are forces in the universe that are beyond human comprehension — and he did it almost perfectly.

Perhaps my feelings on Iron Man 3 can be best summed up in response to something the Madarin says midway through the movie. The character, played by Ben Kingsley, says that America is “like a fortune cookie — hollow, and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”

Iron Man 3 is definitely not hollow. There are many, many layers to it. The acting, writing, directing and special effects are all top-notch. Iron Man 3 does, however, leave a bitter aftertaste. Shane Black could have written a movie that did not blatantly appeal to large swathes of moviegoers who love nothing more than to blame America for the world’s ills, but he did not. Marvel signed off on it. Disney signed off on it, and so did Robert Downey Jr. And for that, while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it is not one that I will ever purchase for myself.

Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing Iron Man fly again when The Avengers 2 hits theaters. See you there.