Health, Parties

Protected: Update on my friend Michael’s condition

3 Comments

I will be updating this posting when I hear more.

9-1-10: I’m happy to report that Michael came home last week and he’s almost back normal, although they STILL do not know why he blacked out precisely. He said it’s called “spinal” something. He didn’t remember falling, just being on his back and not feeling anything (he fell on his front side). Some neurological appointments are pending to review some tests, but basically he does not need physical therapy and he is only experiencing some light tingling in his fingers for which he is doing some exercises, as well as some exercises for his balance. He is able to walk fine. He has not returned to work yet.

8-18-10:  Tomorrow he will be moved to a rehabilitation center in San Francisco (not sure of the name yet).  He doesn’t have full use of his hands yet, but his voice sounded great and fully animated and I heard some optimism in him.  He said he will update me with more information when he gets it.

16-Aug-2010:  Many of you are concerned and have inquired about my friend Michael, who is a principal at a school in San Francisco, where he also lives.  Yesterday his boyfriend, George, called me from the hospital, and then he put Michael on the phone.  The plethora of tests are ongoing, but Michael sounded as sweet as ever and thanked me for inviting them to the party.  I was just glad he was okay and feeling better, getting more feeling in all of his extremities, and sounding like he was going to be fine and out of the hospital before too long.  It sounded like George was with him the whole time, which I was also glad to hear.

Some of you were there when he was standing right next to me, apparently having told George that he was not feeling well a few minutes earlier, and about to say good night to me.  I had just noticed George preparing their things to part.  Some of us were telling jokes in the kitchen so I thought that, on cue, Michael was bending over to belly laugh in response, but he just kept on going forward, and then, to our horror, we heard a big thud and realized it was him fainting as dead weight right onto his front side.  I even thought for a minute that he had indeed laughed, but that he had lost his balance and would be getting right back up, but that did not happen, as many of us witnessed.  I called 911 and we tried to make him as comfortable as possible, particularly with the help of Byron, who is a nurse, and suggested we elevate his feet.  The ambulance got there just a few minutes later and took him to Eden Hospital in Castro Valley (which, from what I understand is a lot better than Saint Rose in Hayward).  Eden is just a few blocks from where I used to live.

Michael is not diabetic, as some pondered, but he is epileptic.  He had not had a seizure in many years and he had taken his medication on time Saturday.  He was wearing a nicotine patch.  The medical professionals still don’t know if he had a stroke or what exactly happened.  They seemed skeptical that it was a seizure, because none of us saw him shake.  So for now it remains a mystery as to what exactly caused the incident and his subsequent temporary loss of feeling in his limbs.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the fall itself caused a concussion.  There was absolutely nothing to break his fall to the hard kitchen floor, but surprisingly it looked like there was relatively little injury to his face.  His glasses did not break, but he was bleeding in the mouth, as he may have cracked one or more teeth.  His blood pressure when he left on the stretcher was only 73/40, I overheard.  They were giving him fluids through an IV.

Michael Eddings is a very thoughtful person who touched me when he overheard how I had been mourning the loss of Michael Jackson.  Eddings has been an online friends for many years (since before I returned to California), but when he heard that I had taken myself by surprise with being so overwhelmed by Jackson’s death and noted that I barely had any MJ music in my possession because it had been the soundtrack to my life and had always seemed to be there whether or not I played it myself, Eddings made me several CD’s with dozens of Jackson songs, which I eagerly and immediately added to my music rotation.  We’ve chatted regularly ever since and hung out several times.  He had also been to my birthday celebration at my place in Castro Valley.  I just thought it was such a thoughtful gesture to someone who, at the time, he barely knew, and when I hear a Jackson song come from music library I often remember that Eddings was the source.

Parenting, Politics

Freaky Laura Schlessinger still has a show?

What kind of morons would want her advice?  Doesn’t anybody remember the outrageous and ridiculously out of date opinions this woman has?  She’s worse than Rush Limbaugh in many respects because she’s actually formally educated (he is not) and she uses religion to tout her hatred.  This scandal has gotten her name back in the news, so she got her way again.

Reportedly, after discussing and using the word “nigger” numerous times with a black woman who called her show distraught over racism in her own home, Laura told the woman that she should not be married to a white man inter-racially if she “didn’t have a sense of humor about race”!  As a white man who was married to a black woman who I was with for 11 years, I don’t think flippantly using highly offensive words as jokes makes it easier.  Would it be okay if Laura’s gentile friends and loved ones go around saying “kike this” or “Heeb that” to her or used “jew” as a verb?  Words like “nigger” were not acceptable during the course of my relationship or at any time in my life, thankfully.  I never even considered using it in any context.  I don’t accept anyone else in my family using it, even if they are black or mixed-race like my daughter.

The only laughter that I ever had about race that I can recall was when I would ask my ex-wife to do something for me and she would look at me and say, “Do I look like a slave?” or when I was dating a black guy and I went to a 50’s diner with my daughter and him and joked that we shouldn’t be sitting in the same area (as per the MadTV skit).

http://abolishthenword.com/

Politics

Looks like a second generation of Quayles is ripe for mockery

Like a sad potatoe, Ben Quayle was raised “right” and thinks he’s speaking for the majority when he says that “Barack Obama is the worst president in history.”  Did he not witness what happen with his father’s running mate’s son (not that his father’s running mate was anything to write home about)?

So Ben is going to Washington to kick some ass (my word, but he used the word “hell”).  Is Arizona the new bastion of right wing nuttery that used to be Florida until all the liberals moved down there?  This guy is a joke who had to distinguish himself among the many people vying for the same seat, and already scandal  in the form of some kind of link to a hetero porn site, is biting as his heels.  Nevertheless, Fox “News” (“news” being said with a grain of salt since they underwrite some of these lame, poorly-attended tea party events, rather than even attempting to be impartial) is “right” there promoting him, already.

Politics

Arizona Govern-ess in bed with Private Prison industry

1 Comment

So Arizona’s appointed governor is flanked very closely by people who are currently married to or formerly themselves lobbying for the private prison industry in that state, which would benefit greatly from the incarceration of people who cross the border from Mexico.  Coincidence!?!?  Now we know the impetus for the racist immigration law!

Bear with me a minute here.  I’m getting flashbacks of Cheney and Haliburton.

These same private prisons in Arizona routinely and recently have had escapees, at least one of whom is still at large as of this writing!

I understand that the people who proposed this bill would say it applies to all foreigners, but what does a Canadian border crosser look like?  How many Irishmen jump the border into Arizona?  Do they really maintain that there is a perfect balance of ethnicities among the illegal immigrants in a border states? It’s racist and violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, as a federal judge recently found.I have never heard of a Canadian coming to this country illegally (let alone to a southwestern state bordering Mexico) to subject himself to pay for the medical care he would get for free in his own country, and which is actually higher quality in many instances than our own (lower child mortality rate to start with).  The racial profile issue was controversial because Latino people would be targeted and more suspect, even if they were tenth generation Arizonan and even if their families were there before we stole the southwest from Mexico.

The governess specifically speaks about the border with another country and the supposed crime that it facilitates, when there has been nothing but a steady decrease in crime over the past several years in AZ and a decrease in border crossings because the demand has dissipated due to the crappy economy that the party of this governor has burdened us with.  She is trying to claim that the feds are doing a worse job at their responsibility with border patrolling.  There is no logical association between the urgency that she has to scare white people with this supposed invasion except to make her private prison-representing friends who detain (not repatriate) borders crossers richer.  Just the fact that the ran from the reporter when confronted about this blatant conflict of interest that she failed to disclose speaks volumes.

Gay, Politics

Ding Dong, Prop 8 is Dead!

4 Comments

Which old witch?  The bigot’s wish!  Sorry Judy, but the Mormon church and every other bigot (especially those adorning their hatred on front lawns and bumper stickers) can suck my Lolipop Guild.  Oh happy day!  The haters out of state and around the world have been put in their place by glorious jurisprudence.

I don’t even believe in hetero marriage, as I’ve said pretty much all along, but I’ll be damned if some people should be able to suffer while others cannot, and there truly are innumerable legal advantages to what marriage can bring (immigration alone).  My daughter’s classmate keeps pointing out that gay people have the right to marry (people of the opposite sex) but I can’t believe that rhetoric would even be taken seriously by those who spent money and time trying to limit the rights of a vibrant part of the population.

So congratulations to my home state, my father’s home state and the home of my grandparents and great-grandparents (to which I returned to live for the fifth time in 2007), for agreeing with almost half the voters (not that decisions of this magnitude should be made by propositions in the first place).  California realizes that we cannot remain in Draconian times by making endemic minorities systematically inferior.  I’m already embarrassed enough by our European neighbors who don’t have to think twice about these things.

My hope is that the case is indeed appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which generally does not put its fingers on domestic relations cases of any kind (although one could argue this is a civil rights case). Most cases that are brought to the US Supreme Court are not heard, and so the ruling of the federal Judges, such as this one, remain as law in good standing.  There is only a need to hear it if the Court feels like there was an error in interpreting the law, which in the federal arena, includes most importantly, the US Constitution.  On that basis, this decision is sound, and agreeing to hear the case could easily create a mandate that all states allow gay marriage, which is why the supporters of Proposition 8 had better be damn careful they don’t open up that Pandora’s box.  Still, I think it’s ridiculous to have a hodge-podge of gay marriage rights in one country.  Canada had that for a little while and it was seen as ridiculous, so they made gay marriage completely legal in every province.  Let’s have some common sense like they did.  Our grandchildren will be wondering what all the damn fuss was about.

I am also confident that no legislature in California would ever get the support it needed to overturn such a ruling and because of the Supremecy Clause of the US Constitution, it would be moot.  The haters should look at the bright side — the financial windfall that legalizing gay marriage necessarily brings to a jurisdiction should be welcome, especially by the party that touts fiscal responsbility and libertarian ideals of keeping the government out of our lives and by extension bedrooms.  Besides, California’s budget can use all the help it can these days, which is why even Republican Schwarzenegger wouldn’t have thwarted the gay marriage rights if it had crossed his desk and he had little to say in opposition to it.  Indeed, if it wasn’t for gay men, he may never have achieved the status that he had in his Hollywood career, which we all know was based almost exclusively on his physique and not his “talent” for acting.

The important line of the decision today was that there was “no rational basis” why one group would need to subject the other group to a position of inferiority.  Brace yourself for the backlash, my friends.  Gay Judge or not, the fight for righteous equality is not over.

Politics

Criminal case against BART Officer who killed Oscar Grant

There was no commotion on the BART on the way home the day of the verdict for my daughter and me, despite the marginally disappointing verdict.  I still think it was historic that a white “officer” (I don’t understand why BART police need guns in the first place) was charged with at least involuntary manslaughter for killing a black (unarmed, no less) man who had never been in any serious trouble with the law.  I still think the idea of him thinking he was reaching for a taser, which does not have a holster lock nor a safety log or a finger trigger, have nothing to do with what prompted him to shoot the obviously struggling young man who was on the ground with another cop’s knee into him.  It was something that I do believe his lawyer had suggested several days later that they issue to the press to excuse the homicide.  I think it was tantamount to gay panic by this rookie white security guard having “black panic” when there really was no reasonable cause for belief that Oscar Grant was armed.

Hello from Vallejo, California!