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HUMOR & STUFF FROM BUDDIES
By fred | October 27, 2009
October 27th, 2009
HUMOR & STUFF FROM BUDDIES!
Time for another ‘Humor & Stuff from Buddies’ – This is a long one – so save it for when you have a bit of time to read and hopefully enjoy.
Sometimes I think I am getting to be nothing but a sentimental old fool. The other day I received an e-mail from Kim, now Kim has been on my e-mail list forever a super friend and super Mom. Kim is the daughter of Bob & June Stevenson, Bob is gone now but June is very much alive and enjoying the grandkids Kim brought into this world. June is the same as Jack, my dearly beloved brother in law, or how he was when he was still with us – totally out of it when it comes to computers and this modern world of electronic gadgets.
All Kim said was that she relates all of my stuff to June, for some reason that made me feel so good, a week later I still feel good about it. For years we were so close, year after year the Stevenson’s and Kim and brother Mark with Jack & Janet and their children my nieces Kathy & Julie, plus Sally & I and our two sons Rick and Scott spent a week together at lake Arrowhead. We would rent a boat, a ski boat and the kids would have a ball – did I say kids? We all had a blast. Damn it how did we get so old? We had so much fun back then. I just want to thank Kim for letting June join us, even if it is second hand – June was and is a love a super Mom, super friend and super wife to Bob all the years he was with us.
Our former ‘fearless’ leader here at Corona Court Homeowners Assoc. Roy Reilly sent the first “Stuff from Buddies” – related to Cinnamon and Honey being a miracle cure for just about anything. Mentioned in the article is a whole bunch of stuff that ails me, so since both honey and cinnamon were and are in ample supply in the Nielsen house – I decided – why not?
I have been on it four days so I cannot comment on any miracle cure that has me bouncing around like a yo yo. I think – I THINK – I feel a bit better, but all of you buddies, many of over a half century, KNOW that your old classmate and teammate has a very active imagination so we shall leave that part for now and wait another few weeks for any evaluation that has some substance to it.
What I know is THAT you gotta know how to take it. I decided on the dose of a quarter tablespoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of honey, decided that the best time was in the morning AND that I take it before my normal fist full of pills, vitamin pills and God knows what else Sally has in those little paper cups beside my morning juice. She could with ease kill me, as I have no idea what is what, she has been sorting this stuff out for a half century so my thinking is – I am still alive, take the stuff Fred and shut up!
Back to cinnamon, the first day I measured out my quarter tablespoon of cinnamon, even used one of Sally’s baking measuring spoons to be right. Stuck the spoon in my mouth. Mistake number one! Fine ground cinnamon is worse than glue, stuck to my throat, my upper mouth, teeth, and worst of all to my entire throat – must have swallowed a gallon of water to stop coughing and gagging. The honey – hey, that is no problem, smooth as can be.
Next morning I warmed some water and tried to dissolve the cinnamon, this was not a super solution. The next day mixed it with my Metamucil orange drink – that was not a favorite solution either.
Yesterday, I put the quarter teaspoon of cinnamon in a large tablespoon, poured the honey over that, then took a small teaspoon and mixed the two together. Worked like a charm, the honey is heavy enough and thick enough to absorb the ground cinnamon, after it was mixed well I stuck the spoon in my mouth and it was super, tasted fine, no coughing jags – just be sure to lick all the honey / cinnamon combination off the spoon as it wants to stick to the spoon.
I told Sally I should patent the procedure. Sally is a lady and never voices offensive remarks – however just looking at her – I can tell her thoughts and in this case they were not kind! She thinks I am nuts and the cinnamon and honey cure is about as stupid as it gets. When I told her how energetic I would be if it works she brightened up some, Sally seemed to think me getting energetic was a super cooool idea – immediately suggesting that some of that new found energy, IF it ever arrives – could be put into weeding our front flower and bush areas. Ha, ladies are like that always shooting down a guy, coming up with practical stuff like that, just when I was thinking if I do feel better maybe I should get out my fishing gear and tune it up for next spring.
I told Sally that the one thing that really made me take this cure seriously was someplace in the article it said tests were made in Denmark. Since my parents were Danish and I am a Danish American how can it not work?
I tried to impress on my beloved bride of 60 years that any nation that has the years of science and medical knowledge Denmark has exhibited to the world must be taken seriously. After all, what other nation on the face of the earth was the first to convert a man to a women? Actually change the sex of a person, -little old Denmark, proudly, was the first in the world to do that! So in my way of thinking Denmark and any study related to medicine and health – has to be taken seriously. I see no flaw in this argument!
Didn’t seem to impress Sally none, lady I married is a bitch to convince sometimes!
I guess I better shut up – Humor & Stuff from Buddies is long enough this time round so better let you have at it!
One of these days I will relate a tale of how my life was touched by Danish royalty about a super guy that gave up his royal titles and inheritance – just to be an ordinary American citizen; I know you will love the guy as I did.
Funny, I got to thinking the other day (don’t be a smart ass – I do that once in awhile! Thinking I mean!) – Why I keep thinking of the past, writing about the past about those I knew – situations that happened. I guess it is that when you get old you tend to look in the past, maybe because there was more time then.
The future has less time for us elders, less to look forward to; the past has 80 years in it. Still, it would be a blast to live another fifty years – ha well, I have had a super life, did a ton of stuff, had a wife that backed me all the way, in any half baked deal I dreamed up, she was there for me. Friends and family, a wild wonderful mix of really neat friends, didn’t just lead a boring life, didn’t just stay in one place, so there is no bitch from me. If you get this message you touched my life in some way and I consider you as a friend – just want you to know.
Love and stuff, Uncle Fred
START OF HUMOR & STUFF FROM BUDDIES ——-
Roy Reilly sent this one from Arizona ——–
Cinnamon and Honey
Bet the drug companies won’t like this getting around.
Facts on Honey and Cinnamon: It is found that a mixture of honey and Cinnamon cures most diseases.
Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a ‘Ram Ban’ (very effective) medicine or all kinds of diseases.
Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases.
Today’s science says that even though honey is sweet, if taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm diabetic patients. Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada, in its issue dated 17 January,1995 has given the following list of diseases that can be cured by honey and cinnamon as researched by western scientists:
HEART DISEASES:
Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply on bread, instead of jelly and jam, and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also those who have already had an attack, if they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat.
In America and Canada , various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins.
ARTHRITIS:
Arthritis patients may take daily, morning, and night, one cup of hot water With two spoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. If taken regularly even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon honey and half teaspoon cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week, Out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain, and within a month, mostly all the patients who could not Walk or move around because of arthritis started walking without pain.
BLADDER INFECTIONS:
Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder.
CHOLESTEROL:
Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of cinnamon powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a cholesterol patient, was found to reduce The level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours; As mentioned for arthritic patients, if taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured.
According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.
COLDs
Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and clear the sinuses .
UPSET STOMACH:
Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also clears stomach ulcers from the root.
GAS:
According to the studies done in India and Japan , it is revealed
that if honey is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas.
IMMUNE SYSTEM:
Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and protects the body from bacteria and viral attacks. Scientists have found That honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of Honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles to fight bacteria and viral Diseases.
INDIGESTION:
Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of meals.
INFLUENZA:
A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural ‘ Ingredient’ Which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu.
LONGEVITY:
Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Take four spoons of honey, one spoon of cinnamon powder and three cups of water and boil to make like tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans also increases and even a 100 year old, starts performing the chores of a 20-year-old.
PIMPLES:
Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it next morning with warm water.. If done daily for two weeks, it removes pimples from the root.
SKIN INFECTIONS:
Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin infections.
WEIGHT LOSS:
Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast on an empty stomach and at night before sleeping, drink
honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. If taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.
CANCER:
Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder for one month three times a day.
FATIGUE:
Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength of the body Senior citizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are more alert and flexible.
Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M When the vitality of the body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the body within a week.
BAD BREATH:
People of South America , first thing in the morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.
HEARING LOSS:
Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restore hearing. Remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it!
You might want to share this information with a friend, kinfolks and love ones; everyone needs healthy help information~ what they do with it is up to them~ share with your email buddies!!!!!
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A farmer named Clyde had a car accident. In court, the trucking company’s fancy lawyer was questioning Clyde .
“Didn’t you say, at the scene of the accident, ‘I’m fine,’?” asked the lawyer.
Clyde responded, “Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule, Bessie…”
“I didn’t ask for any details”, the lawyer interrupted. “Just answer
the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, ‘I’m fine!’?”
Clyde said, “Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road…..”
The lawyer interrupted again and said, “Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question.”
By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Clyde ’s answer and said to the lawyer, “I’d like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule, Bessie”.
Clyde thanked the Judge and proceeded. “Well as I was saying, I had
just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting, real bad and didn’t want to move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her, and saw her fatal condition, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes.
Then the Patrolman came across the road, gun still in hand, looked at me and said, “How are you feeling?”
“Now what would you say?”
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A 10 Year Old’s Love Story
Little Bruce and Susan are only 10 years old, but they know they are in love.
One day they decide they want to get married, so Bruce goes to Susan’s father to ask him for her hand.
Bruce bravely walks up to him and says, “Mr. Smith, me and Susan are in love and I want to ask you for her hand in marriage.”
Thinking that this was just the cutest thing, Mr. Smith replies, “Well Bruce, you are only 10. Where will you two live?”
Without even taking a moment to think about it, Bruce replies, “In Susan’s room. It’s bigger than mine and we can both fit there nicely.”
Still thinking this is just adorable; Mr. Smith says with a huge grin, “Okay then how will you live? You’re not old enough to get a job. You’ll need to support Susan.”
Again, Bruce instantly replies, “Our allowance, Susan makes five bucks a week and I make 10 bucks a week. That’s about 60 bucks a month and that should do us just fine.”
Mr. Smith is impressed Bruce has put so much thought into this. ‘Well Bruce, it seems like you have everything figured out. I just have one more question. What will you do if the two of you should have little children of your own?”
Bruce just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Well, we’ve been lucky so far.”
Mr. Smith no longer thinks the little shit is adorable.
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ANOHER ONE FROM ROY – HECK OF A GOOD READ!
| This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
It is well worth reading and a few good chuckles are guaranteed and a great perspective on Life . ‘In those days,’ he told me when he was in his 90s, ‘to drive a car you had to do At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: ‘Well,’ my father said, ‘there was that, too.’ So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother, brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together. But, sometimes, my father would say, ‘But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we’ll get one.’ It was as if he wasn’t sure which one of us would turn 16 first. But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts,loaded with everything, and since my parents didn’t drive, it more or less became my brother’s car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn’t bother my father, but it didn’t make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father’s idea. ‘Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?’ I remember him saying more than once. For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn’t seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he If it was the assistant pastor, he’d take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests “Father Fast” and “Father Slow.” After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he’d sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I’d stop by, he’d explain: ‘The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.’ If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, ‘Do you want to know the secret of a long life?’ ‘I guess so,’ I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. ‘No left turns,’ he said. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘No left turns,’ he repeated. ‘Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.’ ‘What?’ I said again. ‘No left turns,’ he said. ‘Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that’s a lot safer. So we always make three rights.’ ‘You’re kidding!’ I said, and I turned to my mother for support ‘No,’ she said, ‘your father is right. We make three rights. It works.’ But then she added: ‘Except when your father loses count.’ I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. ‘Loses count?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ my father admitted, ‘that sometimes happens. But it’s not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you’re okay again.’ I couldn’t resist. ‘Do you ever go for 11?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said ‘ If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can’t be put off another day or another week.’ My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he’d fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died. One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, ‘You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.’ At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, ‘You know, I’m probably not going to live much longer.’ ‘You’re probably right,’ I said. ‘Why would you say that?’ He countered, somewhat irritated. ‘Because you’re 102 years old,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you’re right.’ He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: ‘I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.’ An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: ‘I want you to know,’ he said, clearly and lucidly, ‘that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.’ A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I’ve wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can’t figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit making left turns. Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about those who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.’ |
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THE JOB – URINE TEST (Whoever wrote this one deserves a HUGE pat on the back!) Like most folks in this country, I have a job.. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck in my case, I am required to pass a random urine test (with which I have no problem). What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don’t have to pass a urine test. So, here is my Question: Shouldn’t one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their ass – doing drugs, while I work. . . . Can you imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? I guess we could title that program, ‘Urine or You’re Out’. Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don’t. Hope you all will pass it along, though. Some thing has to change in this country — and soon!!!!!!!
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Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student’s Association.
The e-mail was in response to the students’ protest of the Danish cartoons
That portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.
The group had complained the cartoons were ‘hate speech’
============
Enter Professor Wichman.
==========================================
In his e-mail, he said the following:
===============================
Dear Moslem Association,
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest.
I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians,
Cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests(the latest in Turkey), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women(called ‘whores’ in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland ,and the rioting and looting in Paris France ..
This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile ‘protests.’
If you do not like the values of the West-
see the 1st Amendment-you are free to leave. I hope for God’s
sake that most of you choose that option.
Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.
Cordially,
I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
=============================
As you can imagine,
The Muslim group at the university didn’t like this too well.
They’re demanding that Wichman be reprimanded and the university impose mandatory diversity training for faculty
And mandate a seminar on hate and discrimination for all freshmen.
Now the local chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray.
CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, apparently doesn’t believe that the good professor
Had the right to express his opinion.
==========
For its part, the university is standing its ground in support of Professor Wichman,
Saying the e-mail was private, and they don’t intend to publicly condemn his remarks.
============================================================
Send this to your friends, and ask them to do the same.
Tell them to keep passing it around until the whole country gets it.
We are in a war.
This political correctness crap is getting old and killing us.
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Grandparents
1 She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under
the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she’d
done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and
started to leave, the little one said, “But Gramma, you
forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!” I will probably never
put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye…
2 My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy
Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62.
My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked,
“Did you start at 1?”
3 After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother
changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to
wash her hair.. As she heard the children getting more and
more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she
threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room,
putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the
room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, “Who was THAT?”
4 A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what
her own childhood was like: “We used to skate outside
on a pond I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a
tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild
raspberries in the woods.” The little girl was wide-eyed,
taking this all in. At last she said, “I sure wish I’d gotten to
know you sooner!”
5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked,
“Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?” I
mentally polished my halo and I said, “No, how are we
alike?” “You’re both old,” he replied.
6 A little girl was diligently pounding away on her
grandfather’s word processor. She told him she was
writing a story. “What’s it about?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied.. “I can’t read.”
7 I didn’t know if my granddaughter had learned her
colors yet, so I decided to test her.. I would point out
something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and
was always correct.. It was fun for me, so I continued. At
last, she headed for the door, saying, “Grandma, I think
you should try to figure out some of these, yourself!”
8 When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin,
we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from
attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in.
Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, “It’s no use Grandpa.
Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights.”
9 When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly
replied, “I’m not sure.”
“Look in your underwear, Grandpa,” he advised, “mine says
I’m 4 to 6.”
10. A second grader came home from school and said to her
grandmother, “Grandma, guess what? We learned how to
make babies today.” The grandmother, more than a little
surprised, tried to keep her cool. “That’s interesting,” she said,
“how do you make babies?”
“It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add
‘es’.”
11. Children’s Logic: “Give me a sentence about a
public servant,” said a teacher. The small boy wrote:
“The fireman came down the ladder pregnant.” The
teacher took the lad aside to correct him. “Don’t
you know what pregnant means?” she asked.
“Sure,” said the young boy confidently. ‘It means
carrying a child.”
12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to
their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past.
Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog.
The children started discussing the dog’s duties.
“They use him to keep crowds back,” said one child.
“No,” said another. “He’s just for good luck.”
A third child brought the argument to a close. “They use
the dogs,” she said firmly, “to find the fire hydrants.”
13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived.
“Oh,” he said, “she lives at the airport, and when we want
her, we just go get her. Then, when we’re done having her
visit, we take her back to the airport.”
14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me
good things, but I don’t get to see him enough to get as smart
as him!
15. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over; you
hear gas leaks, and they blame their dog.
SEND THIS TO OTHER GRANDPARENTS, ALMOST
GRANDPARENTS, OR HECK, SEND IT TO EVERYONE.
IT WILL MAKE THEIR DAY!
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Subject: Comments made in the the year 1955
‘I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s
going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $20.00.’
‘Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long
before $2,000.00 will only buy a used one.’
‘If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. A quarter a
pack is ridiculous.’
‘Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to
mail a letter?’
‘If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire
outside help at the store.’
‘When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday
cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the
garage.’
‘Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible
to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as
long as the girls.’
’I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let
Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems
every new movie has either HELL of DAMN in it.’
‘I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a
man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows
they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas …’
‘Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for
$75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday
they’ll be making more than the President.’
‘I never thought I’d see the day all our kitchen appliances would be
electric. They are even making electric typewriters now.’
‘It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married
women are having to work to make ends meet.’
‘It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone
to watch their kids so they can both work.’
‘Marriage doesn’t mean a thing any more, those Hollywood stars seem to
be getting divorced at the drop of a hat.’
‘I’m afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot
of foreign business.’
‘Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes
half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best
people to congress.’
‘The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously
doubt they will ever catch on.’
‘There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend, it
costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel.’
‘No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $35.00 a day in the hospital
it’s too rich for my blood.’
‘If they think I’ll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it.’
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THIS ONE IS FROM MY BUDDY MARGARET – way down under in Australia – I assume the A.T.O. is like our Internal Revenue Tax department here in the U. S. Fred
The A.T.O. decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the A.T.O. office.
The A.T.O. auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney.
The auditor said, ‘Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, Which you explain by saying that you win money gambling.
I’m not sure the A.T.O. finds that believable.’
I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,’ says Grandpa. ‘How about a demonstration?’
The auditor thinks for a moment and said, ‘Okay. Go ahead.’
Grandpa says, ‘I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.’
The auditor thinks a moment and says, ‘It’s a bet.’
Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor’s jaw drops.
Grandpa says, ‘Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye..’
Now the auditor can tell Grandpa isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.
Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye. The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
‘Want to go double or nothing?’ Grandpa asks ‘I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.’
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.
Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor’s desk.
The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.
But Grandpa’s own attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.
‘Are you okay?’ the auditor asks.
‘Not really,’ says the attorney. ‘This morning, when Grandpa told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and that you’d be happy about it!’
Don’t Mess with Old People!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain !!!!!!!!!
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None of that ‘Sis’-sy Stuff
Are you tired of those
sissy ’friendship’ poems
that always sound good,
but never actually come close
to reality?
Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of
True Friendship.
You WON’T see
cutesy little smiley faces
on this card-
Just the stone cold truth
of our great friendship.
1. When you are sad,
I will jump on the person
who made you sad
like a spider monkey
jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!
2. When you are blue,
I will try to dislodge
whatever is choking you.
3. When you smile,
I will know you are
plotting something
that I must be involved in.
4. When you’re scared,
we will high tail it out of here.
5. When you are worried,
I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse
it could be until you
quit whining, ya big baby!!!!
6. When you are confused,
I will use little words.
7. When you are sick,
Stay away from me
until you are well again.
I don’t want whatever you have…….
8. When you fall,
I’ll pick you up
and dust you off–
After I laugh my rear off!!
9. This is my oath…
I pledge it to the end.
‘Why?’ you may ask;
– because you are my FRIEND!
***********************
Friendship is like peeing your pants,
everyone can see it,
b ut only YOU
can feel the
true warmth.
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Where old sayings came from —
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor”
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell . . . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice cleanwater, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, ”Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence: a threshhold.
(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.
And that’s the truth….Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !
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The value of a
Catholic education and a #2 pencil
Little Susie was not the best student
in Catholic School . Usually she slept through the class.
One day
her teacher, a Nun, called on her while she was sleeping.
‘Tell me Susie, who created the universe?’
When Susie didn’t stir, little Johnny who was her friend sitting behind her,
took his pencil and jabbed her in the rear.
‘God Almighty!’ shouted Susie.
?The Nun said, ‘Very good’ and continued teaching her class.
A little later the Nun asked Susie, ‘Who is our Lord and Savior?’
But Susie didn’t stir from her slumber. Once again, Johnny came to her
rescue and stuck her in the butt.
‘Jesus Christ!!!’ shouted Susie.
And the Nun once again said, ‘Very good,’ and Susie fell back asleep.
The Nun asked her a third question…’What did Eve say to Adam after she had
her twenty-third child?’
Again, Johnny came to the rescue. This time Susie jumped up and shouted,
‘If you stick that damn thing in me one more time, I’ll break it in half!’
The nun fainted
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Subject: Excerpts from a DC Airline Ticket Agent
Is it any wonder? Why our country is in trouble.
And these people are in charge?????
A DC airport ticket agent offers some examples of ‘why’ our country is in trouble!
1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)
2. I got a call from a Kansas Congressman’s (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ”I’m not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts ..”
Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, ”Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa ”
His response: click.
3. A senior Vermont Congressman (Bernie Sanders) called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando . He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that’s not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.
He replied,”Don’t lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!” (OMG)
4. I got a call from a lawmaker’s wife (Landra Reid) who asked, ”Is it possible to see England from Canada ?’
I said, ”No.”
She said, ”But they look so close on the map.” (OMG, again!)
5. An aide for a cabinet member (Janet Napolitano) once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas . When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ”I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.” (Aghhhh!)
6. An Illinois Congresswoman (Jan Schakowsky) called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.
I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn’t understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.
7. A New York lawmaker (Jerrold Nadler) called and asked, ”Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?” I said, ‘No, why do you ask?’
He replied, ”Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I’m overweight. I think that’s very rude!”
After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it (I was dying laughing), I came back and explained the city code for Fresno , Ca. is (FAT – Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage..
8. A Senator John Kerry aide (Lindsay Ross) called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, ”Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii ?”
9. I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman, Bobby Bright from Alabama who asked, ”How do I know which plane to get on?”
I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ”I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.”
10. Senator Dianne Feinstein called and said, ”I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , Florida. Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?”
I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola , FL on a commuter plane.
She said, ”Yeah, whatever, smarty!”
11. Mary Landrieu La. Senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China . After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. “Oh, no I don’t. I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.”
I double-checked and sure enough, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, ”Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!”
12. A New Jersey Congressman (John Adler) called to make reservations. ”I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York .”
I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, ”Are you sure that’s the name of the town?”
‘Yes, what flights do you have?” replied the man.
After some searching, I came back with, ”I’m sorry, sir, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country and can’t find a rhino anywhere.”
”The man retorted, ”Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!”
So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ”You don’t mean Buffalo , do you?”
The reply? ”Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.”
Now you know why the Government is in the shape that it’s in!
Could anyone be this DUMB?
YES, THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED.
I don’t write it, I just offer it for your consideration. Like manure, you just gotta spread it around.
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Subject: FW: H1N1 Information
Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS,DRM,DNB (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist),
having clinical experience of over 20 years.
The following message given by him; I feel it makes a lot of sense and is
important for all to know
The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a
global epidemic of this nature, it’s almost impossible not coming into
contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions. Contact with H1N1 is not so
much of a problem as proliferation is.
While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1
infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and
development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully
highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of
focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu):
1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official
communications).
2. ”Hands-off-the-face” approach. Resist all temptations to touch any
part of face (unless you want to eat, bathe or slap).
3. *Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you
don’t trust salt). *H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the
throat/nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple
gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the
same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one.
Don’t under estimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative
method.
4. Similar to 3 above, *clean your nostrils at least once every day
with warm salt water. *Not everybody may be good at using a Neti pot, but
*blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton
swabs dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral
population.*
5. *Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C.
*If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also
has Zinc to boost absorption.
6. *Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can.
*Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse
direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the
stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.
I suggest you pass this on to your entire e-list; you never know who
might pay attention to it – and STAY ALIVE because of it –
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Time for the media to fess up
Journalists like Evan Thomas now admit the Clinton scandals were bogus. When will they admit they played along? By Joe Conason
Oct. 09, 2009 |
“Better late than never” isn’t always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing — and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events — including publication of “The Clinton Tapes,” historian Taylor Branch’s fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire — certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other “scandals” deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even “bogus.” And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey’s “No Exit,” was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter — if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment.
Let us start with Friedman, who wrote a column on Sept. 30 bemoaning the diseased condition of political discourse in America and tracing the dangerous pathology back to its origin. “The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater ’scandal,’” he wrote. Presumably he used those scare quotes to suggest just how fraudulent the whole business was, as if “bogus” didn’t quite do it — and true enough, as far as it goes.
But it doesn’t go far enough, because as Friedman knows very well, the right was not alone in hounding the Clintons — and wouldn’t have achieved traction without the journalistic assistance and moral support provided by the Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, the New Republic and the rest of Washington’s press establishment, followed slavishly by their intellectual imitators on network and cable television.
Back then Friedman’s own Times Op-Ed column rarely mentioned Whitewater or the Clinton scandals, but he remained agreeably silent while the most avid perpetrators of scandal nonsense, such as the late Safire and Maureen Dowd, transformed the paper of record into a megaphone for the president’s adversaries. Unlike Anthony Lewis, who bravely argued with the harshly negative Times party line on Clinton and the scandals, the Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent never wrote a word that could be construed as dissent. (Bob Somerby performed the Nexis search and offers much more on this subject in his trenchant Daily Howler commentaries.) Coming from him, “bogus” should be taken as a verdict not only on the scandals but on the scandal-mongering in the news, opinion and editorial columns of his newspaper — and on his own failure to speak up when that might have made a difference.
Still, it is bracing to see that pithy epithet applied to the works of Kenneth Starr and the journalists who served as his lackeys in the Times’ own pages. By comparison, Evan Thomas sounded squishy in his own recent belittling of the scandals, when he reviewed “The Clinton Tapes” for the Washington Post — but then he has considerably more to answer for than Friedman.
Although he was trying no doubt to sound magisterial rather than mealy-mouthed, Thomas was unable to discuss past disgraces in any but the most indirect and evasive terms. Consider this passage, which follows a flip reference to Clinton’s moaning and ranting in self-pity as he coped with the hostile press corps:
“Today, when the mainstream media seems so weakened, we forget how powerful — and arrogant — the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines, seemed to be in the early and mid-1990s. They were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War. The endless string of special prosecutors and the media’s obsession with Whitewater seem excessive in retrospect.”
To some of us the obsession seemed excessive at the time, of course, which only enraged the likes of Thomas whenever we said so. (And isn’t an obsession excessive by definition?) The true obsession among reporters was not the boring Whitewater land deal, as Thomas notes, but the “rumors of ‘bimbo eruptions’ floated by political enemies and less-than-reliable state troopers.” Is he confessing his own fixation on Clinton’s private life or merely recalling the unwholesome preoccupations of his colleagues?
Like all of them, Thomas certainly pretended to care about Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate and all those other forgettable tall tales. What is remarkable now, however, is how smoothly he attempts to dissociate himself from the relentless scandal machine that he actually helped to operate. (Among his signed pieces, Thomas himself once wrote a fawning apology to Paula Jones that looks even sillier today than at the time he published it.) To put it bluntly, he served as a top editor at Newsweek when that periodical was Kenneth Starr’s most favored outlet.
A low point was the magazine’s December 1996 cover story, which dramatically featured the prosecutor’s promise to “deliver” justice in five scandals supposedly percolating in the Clinton White House. With the “extraordinary access” provided by Starr, Newsweek declared breathlessly that within the coming months he would “decide whether to bring indictments that could very possibly alter the course of Bill Clinton’s second term.” A helpful sidebar on potential criminal acts attributed to the Clintons and their aides accompanied the exclusive Starr interview.
What Starr actually delivered, only eight weeks later, was his own resignation as special prosecutor — to take a deanship at Pepperdine University (financed by Clinton nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife) in a deal that he had been negotiating for months. He had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys. (Under intense pressure from the right, notably the late William Safire writing in the New York Times, Starr quickly withdrew his resignation and continued as independent counsel until 1999.)
Finally there is Andrew Sullivan, whose disservices to journalism as editor of the New Republic were many and varied in the Clinton years, vicious in personal tone and ersatz in journalistic content. In April 1994, for instance, he published a highbrow version of “The Clinton Chronicles” titled “The Name of Rose,” which portrayed Arkansas government as a third-world-style criminal enterprise directed by the Clintons with the connivance of the Rose Law Firm, Stephens Inc. and a supporting cast of shadowy, sinister Pakistanis and Indonesians. It was all nonsense but it played well in Washington’s scandal culture — and it gave respectable license to the Republican right’s crusade to vilify the Clintons.
For Sullivan the high point of Clinton-bashing came with the publication of “No Exit,” McCaughey’s takedown of the new administration’s healthcare reform proposals. Lately McCaughey has popped up again as the source of the fraudulent “death panel” allegations against President Obama’s healthcare reform plan — and that in turn has revived scrutiny of the myriad inaccuracies and blatant falsehoods in her 1994 New Republic article (which the magazine’s editors have disowned).
Having boasted proudly that by publishing McCaughey he helped to destroy the Clinton plan, and having accepted a National Magazine Award for doing so, Sullivan now says he is sorry about all that. He professes to take “full responsibility” for publishing an article that he knew to be false in its particulars and its broader argument — but, in fact, smarmily seeks to blame someone higher up (in addition to McCaughey herself) who supposedly forced him to run the piece. That would have to be Martin Peretz, who then owned the New Republic and advertised himself as “editor in chief.”
If what Sullivan says is true, then the least he and Peretz should do is return the National Magazine Award, for the sake of the journalists and editors who have honestly earned that prize. That gesture might restore a semblance of sanity to the debate over healthcare.
As for the responsible parties at the Times, the Post, Newsweek and all the others, like Friedman and Thomas, who feel residual guilt over the Clinton scandals, there is still time to confront the past honestly. Fessing up is hard to do. But at a moment when the New York Times and the Washington Post again seem eager to grovel to the far right, it is worth recalling where that same impulse led during the Clinton years.
n By Joe Conason
THE END
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