Angioplasty and Stents.
Bill Clinton suffers chronic heart disease. His condition was treated in 2004 with a quadruple bypass operation using arteries from his legs. The incident this news cycle in which the patient experienced chest pain and was treated with angioplasty and stents is not unusual. What is unusual is the reminder of mortality so close to Valentine's Day. The heart is a lonely patient. The new book, Ken Gormley's "Death of Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr," in re the Whitewater/Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky scandals of the Clinton administrations, is a certain reminder of the troubles of the 1990s that started American government down the path of what is called hyperpartisanship. Seeing the young and ill former president today rushed to Columbia Presbyterian in Upper Manhattan is a strange reminder of the troubles of his lonely heart once upon a time. POTUS Obama is reported to have telephoned POTUS Clinton after the procedure. These two Democratic heroes are odd-fellows and clearly antipathetic. It is not good to think of the fact that POTUS Obama is a heavy cigarette smoker whose mom and dad died died young of ill-health and accident. For this moment, the vigorous and troubled POTUS Obama can comfort the cautious and troubled POTUS Clinton. The Starr prosecution days are coming again soon in book form, after a decent interval and a certainty that Mr. Clinton has returned to full energy. For now, this day is a marker in the long argument that one reason the Democrats veered away from HRC in 2008 and found a way -- contrived and fragile -- to choose Candidate Obama over Candidate Clinton was because of the collective worry about POTUS Clinton's lonely heart.
Angel lust. Cletus the fetus. Dirtbag ratio. Status Hispaicus.
As much as I detest modern medicine as it is usually practiced, I do so love the dark poetry of hospital slang. Adore it, in fact.
Coffin dodger. Gork. Horrendoplasty. Road chili.
As for Bill Clinton, one bit of medical slang definitely describes him since his bypass: pumphead.
That should be "Status Hispanicus."
People having so much faith
Die too soon while all the rest come late
We write a song that no one sings
On a cold black stone
Where a lasting peace will finally bring
The sunlight plays upon my windowpane
I wake up to a world that's still the same
My father said to be strong
And that a good man could never do wrong
In a dream I had last night in America
(Los Lobos)
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls -
It tolls for thee.
We tend to define trends and/or movements by the prominent personalities that happen to be around at the time. No doubt, if today we had HRC instead of BHO the issues would be the same. Ideologically these two are not all that different. Similarly, WJC was also defined by an era. The trend toward full-blown socialism was already well underway and gathering steam. It was only Bill Clinton’s personal problems that caused him to adopt a more careful approach.
Hillary would have had no such constraints. She would have pursued Obama’s agenda with ribald enthusiasm - except, she might have been more politically savvy. Perhaps, if she would have won the election, we would now still be unaware of the total make-over of ourselves that is envisioned by our elites behind the scenes.
In some ways, we lucked out. Obama has torn down the curtain and allowed to us see what’s happening with our government. And increasingly we don’t like what we see. He’s provided us with a rallying point against it. Even during Bush’s terms we were far too distracted by childish Democrat talking points to recognize the persistent trend toward over-size government. Now, at last, we no longer have an excuse not to mobilize against the wolf that threatens to devour us.
As with Islamo-fascism, we have previously only been dimly aware of the threat. Some of us who might have had some inkling still thought that the beast could be appeased in some way. Its arguments, bit by bit, seemed compelling. It was only when the grand strategy came into sharp focus; we got unnerved and up on our hind legs to counter it.
Our battle is not between Democrat and Republican. It is not between Right and Left; rich and poor; young and old; etc. Our battle is between us and our government. Our government has steadily grown. It has become adult with wants and ambitions of its own. These do not necessarily have our best interests at heart. The tipping point came when government came to consume more than the private sector could possibly provide. Boldly, our out-of-control government is now shamelessly demanding even the bones.
There is really only one rule: not to kill oneself. All other rules derive from this one. It applies equally to all life, plant and animal alike. Ironically, all life is at some point driven to the abyss where the sin is eagerly embraced and spirit’s spark is surrendered. It is at that point where death is shown to be illusory, just as life ever was.
The jihadis, or the followers of any fanatical movement, have discovered this secret – the secret of immortality. This secret, if revealed too soon, would create a havoc of inaction. It is the perceived scarcity of time, for those who are conscious of it, that makes every moment precious and irretrievable, lending a certain urgency to what they do.
Break the rule, and you hold the temporal world in the palm of your hand. You become all-powerful over those whose natural bias tends toward life. Nothing so shocks the faithful as to see a Buddhist monk setting himself ablaze or a suicide bomber brazenly detonating his blast in a Tel Aviv pizza parlor. To cushion the impact, we have invented such notions as sacrifice and jihad. We have invented reasons for something that is not reasonable. And as such, we are able to continue to observe the stricture that says we will only consent to be killed by something noble outside ourselves.
We are now faced with having to account for an enemy who does not accept our rules. Know that he is already dead; that he has never lived; even if ultimately victorious, that he will not live in the future. In this way we can assign his motive to an act of God: not for us to be understood. We must preserve our faith that we will not be there where the earth begins to tremble, where armies invade, where the tsunami strikes; the volcano blows.
As for changing God’s mind? Little chance of that. Still we must fight the good fight against any evil – be it Islamo-fascism or over-sized government - to its predetermined end and take comfort in the fact that we have served impeccably. Only thus will the celebration of life be consummated, but only for those who have dared to live – however briefly – and, for their sake, victory over the eternal void will have advanced.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Too much Starch, too much sugar, too much fat, the American diet is awful.