PCIntern
PCIntern's JournalMSNBC just used this photo onscreen
Sorry about the quality. It should be their stock photo for him instead of that 2016 flattering picture.
Ok, this is how far we have deteriorated...
In 1988, for you younger folk, the Democrats had a candidate by the name of Gary Hart. He was experienced, verbal, handsome, on point politically almost always, and was one of those guys who often appears as the almost-nameless generic President in movies and tv. Objectively, he seemed perfect….
But..UH-OH…it turned out that he’d…gasp….changed his name from Hartpence AND you’re almost not going to believe this, he actually CHANGED HIS SIGNATURE three WHOLE times. So he was on shaky ground but then the roof fell in.
He was “known” as a womanizer and “dared” the media to follow him. Well…that wasn’t the greatest idea…a photo appeared with a beautiful woman sitting on his lap on a boat, the name of which was, if I recall correctly, Monkey Business.
That was IT. DONE. GONE.
Of course she and he denied any sexual activity but even so…Didn’t matter.
Of course, Orangina was screwing and paying off AN ADULT FILM STAR, while he was married (to a former nude “model”)and (I will say parenthetically that I actually admire his taste in women’s looks for what that’s worth), and his popularity went up. Then he was “elected”. Jesus H.
We are clearly deteriorating as a political civilization.
Finally, as a note of exasperation, how many frigging years do we have to listen to the media idjits question as to what Orangina is capable of or going to do next. It’s like guessing what a rabid raccoon is going to “do”. He’s going to bite you. It’s what they do.
Hey folks! Anyone else being spontaneously "subscribed" to RW newsletters?
During the past three months, I have been inundated with “subscriptions“ to newsletters of the financial, economic, political, social, and religious right wingers. Now I’m not talking about idiocy like the commentators on CNBC or FOX Business. I’m talking about slanderous, malevolent, grotesquely false statements about Democratic politicians, particularly the president, who are “grossly undermining” the fiscal stability of the United States, and how you were going to be driven into financial ruin if Democrats are allowed to be elected to office… any office, high and low.
I spend at least a minute a day unsubscribing from new lists upon which I’ve been placed, and it’s beyond annoying. In addition to that, the headlines are enough to cause my blood pressure to spike a little bit. I won’t repeat any of them here, but I know you all get the Idea.
Obviously, I’m not alone, but thought I would share this with my good friends here at “the” (sic) DU.
As they ask at the end of a long or seemingly endless moderator’s diatribe on MSNBC, “”Your thoughts?”
Anyone else watch these two young goofballs on MSNBC?
“Hee hee hee…I don’t know…President Trump went to the March for life so…hee hee hee”.
Wotta maroon!
I want to say something about dementia in public officials:
I have posted this story here over the years but I believe at this time it bears repeating.
In 1980, I was a brand new clinician right out of school and thrust into performing very sophisticated dentistry for some very significant people in the Philadelphia area. I was honored to have many of these individuals in my practice at the time, since I had perhaps two years experience total at the time and was dentally reconstructing these individuals extensively.
One of my patients was a very famous older psychologist, who had taught generations of practitioners, many of whom became significant individuals within the profession themselves, and he was a very bright and engaging man and we used to talk… a lot. you have to understand that in those days doing crowns and bridgework for patients was extremely laborious and technique sensitive and we didn’t have the materials that we have today and so everything took 10 times the amount of time at least. One day during the 1980 presidential campaign. He asked me what I thought of Ronald Reagan, and I replied. “Aside from his politics which are horrendous, I’ll tell you what bothers me. The reporters keep talking about the fact that wherever he goes, he has to have a clear glass bottle of jellybeans within his eyesight. I think that’s a clear clinical sign that he’s no longer well-grounded, and needs familiar objects to fasten upon. We had a senile neighbor when I was a kid who had brightly colored objects in his house in all the rooms , and would stare at them, so that he felt that he was in familiar surroundings and so he would stay calm.”
The psychologist said to me in that psychologist way of speaking, “So what is it that you’re telling me?” And I replied, “I think he has early Alzheimer’s disease.” The psychologist nodded his head and said that he believed that that was the case as well.
Yes, I know you’re not allowed to diagnose over television, but this no question that this guy has lost several steps since he was first inaugurated in 2017 and is plummeting into the depths of Behaviors consistent with dementia . It will not be long in my opinion before something absolutely insane happens.
“It will be wild”. Believe me.
Bucks County, PA Emergency services down due to cyberattack
This is actually frightening on many levels.
https://nbcphiladelphia.app.link/RVN8jI2dBGb
Law enforcement officials in Bucks County are working to restore services to its computer-aided dispatch system, or CAD system, after a cyberattack on Sunday crippled the service.
However, county officials said 9-1-1 services remain operational and first responders are relying on phone and radio communication as the county investigates the incident.
In an alert sent out by the Bucks County Department of Emergency Communications on Monday night, officials said the CAD system has been down since Sunday afternoon and it currently remains out of service.
In fact, as of Tuesday, there is no projected timeframe for when these services might resume.
They had an ad for Trump on the Ravens/Texans telecast:
The lady in the ad said, “I had no idea that such a tiny little prick could be so powerful.”
Oh…sorry…it was for a weight loss medication. Now weirdly…they had an ad for a medication for dementia.
Hmmmm.
As an aside: so who's he screwing?
This guy is a lot of things but celibate is not one of them. Yeah I know: Eww.
That aside, what’s he up to? Come on….somebody has to know something. All suppositions will be considered.
In return for gossip, I’ll tell an old joke from my youth:
On his wedding night, the groom starts to get ready for his moment with the bride in bed, and before they get in, she asks him to give her $20. He thinks that’s kind of funny, and so he does, and for every ensuing “event“ she asks him for $20 and he gives it to her because he’s assuming that she’s using it for incidentals like make up or the hair salon or things for the house.
One day 35 years later, his wife comes home and finds her husband in the living room, holding a drink in his hand and crying in the middle of the afternoon. She asked him what’s the matter, what’s up? He replies that the company has undergone restructuring, and that he has lost his job , and that at his age it will be impossible to obtain a job paying a similar salary and so now they are in real financial trouble.
She goes to the bedroom and comes out with two items. The first item is a bank book which shows deposits and a balance of over $1 million and the other item is a statement from an investment portfolio company showing that she has over $3 million in stock and bonds. She tells him obviously we have nothing to worry about, we are going to be fine.
He burst into tears and she asked him why he’s crying. His response to her is “if I’ve known you were this good with money, I would’ve given you all my business.”
We are living in an episode of The Twilight Zone...
One particular episode: It’s a Good Life
I am going to post the entire plot summary from wiki here for those who are not familiar with the episode:
Six-year-old Anthony Fremont has godlike mental powers, including mind-reading. He has isolated his town of Peaksville, Ohio, from the rest of the universe. The people must grow their own food, and supplies of common household items, such as bar soap, have been dwindling. He has blocked television signals and caused cars not to work. He creates grotesque creatures, such as three-headed gophers, which he then kills. Everybody is under his rule, even his parents.
The people live in fear of Anthony, constantly telling him how everything he does is "good", since he banishes anyone thinking unhappy thoughts forever to a place that he calls "the cornfield." Having never experienced any form of discipline, he does not understand that his actions are harmful. He is confused when his father tells him that the neighbors are reluctant to let their children play with him after he sent several of his playmates to the cornfield.
One night each week, Anthony gives the townsfolk one hour of television, which he creates and projects onto the family TV set. The adults gather around in the Fremonts' living room, squirming uncomfortably as Anthony shows them a vision of battling dinosaurs with ample gore. Unable to voice their real feelings, they tell Anthony that it was far better than what used to be on TV.
Afterwards, the adults celebrate their friend Dan Hollis's birthday. He gets two presents from his wife: a bottle of brandy (one of only five bottles of liquor left in the village) and a Perry Como record. Dan is eager to listen to the record, but he's reminded by everyone that Anthony does not like singing. Getting drunk from the brandy, he starts complaining about the miserable state of the town, not being able to listen to the record, and no one singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Dan snaps and confronts the child, calling him a monster and a murderer. While Anthony's anger grows, Dan yells for someone to attack Anthony from behind and end his reign of terror. Aunt Amy (who isn't able to sing anymore because of Anthony) tentatively reaches for a fireplace poker, but no one has the courage to act. Anthony transforms Dan into a jack-in-the-box, causing his wife to break down. The adults are horrified at what Anthony has done, and his father asks him to wish Dan into the cornfield, which Anthony does.
Anthony then causes snow to begin falling outside. The snow will kill off at least half the crops and the town will face starvation. Anthony's father starts to rebuke Anthony about this, but his wife and the other adults look on with worried smiles on their faces. The intimidated father then smiles and tells Anthony "...But it's good that you're making it snow, Anthony, it's real good. And tomorrow... tomorrow's gonna be a real good day!"
*******************************
We have a terrifying situation in which a childlike individual who has never been disciplined, or reprimanded has the potential to take the reins of a nation, which, by its sheer magnitude and military power controls the destiny of mankind. Nearly everyone within the ruling sphere of influence is scared to death of this individual, and is terrified of being turned into the equivalent of the Jack-in-the-Box. In addition to the obvious, there are most certainly forces at work of which we are entirely unaware, which include but are not limited to the influences of despotic rulers of other countries, enormous financial remuneration, and the trading of our most precious resource, that being our national security, for without the near-certainty of our safety on a daily basis, we are thrown into an abyss of worry, fear, and constant near-panic.
Up until recently, one of the great advantages of being an American, was that when one went to sleep at night, one was certain to awaken into the same country in which one had experienced the day before. This is no longer true: we have a situation which on an hourly basis is very fluid, and the underpinnings of our democracy, of our leadership, and of common sense and decency have been eroded by the metaphorical termites of fascism. There are no longer any predictors of success or even stability, which are accepted as the norm. Anything may happen at any given moment, no statement is considered to outrageous for tolerance, and any lie may be conjured up out of the blue, and taken as fact by a large percentage of the population.
One of the axioms of existence, taught in basic logic, and/or mathematics classes, is that if one accepts a false statement, then any supposition may follow as “truth”. We have been deluged by a fire hose of lies and scenarios, such that any proposition presented is acceptable, assuming that one is willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the false statement which preceded it. For example, if one is willing to believe that two election workers brought hundreds of thousands of votes into a tallying location on thumb drives, then one may conclude that President Biden is not legitimately the President.
Logically and mathematically one would be correct in one’s thought process if this is the case. One may promulgate a vast array of similar lies, and there will be no doubt in one’s mind that the whole process is corrupt. This was utilized with great success by Hitler and Mussolini and history isn’t just rhyming, but it looks like it may be repeating itself.
In fiction, the good guys finally win: books by Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum for the most part demonstrate that patriotic morality and the American experiment will continue with some requirements for evolving and more specific oversight, but that is fiction and quite frankly I am less optimistic today than I was 10 years ago that America will be able to continue as it was conceived.
I will leave you with a story, as usual. I was acquainted with a very powerful individual professionally, and this individual was treated with kid gloves by literally everyone in my area. People were scared to death of this man, and all he had to do was pick up a phone and make an angry call and mountains would move and people would literally shake with fear. When he finally died hundreds and hundreds of people showed up for his funeral, including dozens of politicians, and I remember sitting there listening to the eulogies with everybody’s singing the dead man’s praises i’m thinking to myself that the vast number of people were here just to make sure that he was really dead, and that they could breathe again.
This is what is going to happen eventually on a national basis, but the question is, will we survive as the nation we know to that point, or will be wished into the cornfield?
Some experiential considerations of dementia in the elderly:
For approximately 50 years, I have worked with middle-age transitioning into elderly patients. Generally, I observe them at 3 to 6 month intervals, very routinely and interact with them on a somewhat personal basis which is my technique for making people feel at ease in the dental chair.
In most cases, I enter the room with a rather breezy “good morning“ or “good afternoon“ and I ask them “what’s up?“ Thus, the door is open and they are free to discuss whatever they feel like discussing, whether it be what’s wrong with their tooth or teeth, their bridgework, their denture, or, of course, their personal lives and family. I would say that roughly half of my returning patients will comment upon their well-being in the general fashion first, perhaps add something about a family member, some of whom I know, and then get onto the business at hand.
Now I have a very profound aural memory, which is triggered by the sound of the patient’s voice and their intonation, diction, and their typical facial and emotional response to seeing me. The vast number of cases when I walk into the room, I wind up talking to the same person whom I saw six months ago. However, in many instances over the years, when the individual begins speaking, the hairs on the back of my neck go up, because there is a variation, often slight, and I am aware that something may be happening.
Now of course, let’s say for instance, Mrs. Jones, who is normally a very friendly and affable lady has had a severe problem at home, or with her health, or whatever, and is upset or angry, or both. When I find myself talking to this particular, Mrs. Jones, it is my usual Mrs. Jones, except that she is trying to deal with the problem and has manifest an atypical emotion in my office. It is however, the same person in terms of her personality. It’s just that she’s upset. What gets my attention is when there are unusual hesitations before certain statements, for example, the name of their spouse or their child, or where they were before the appointment. It is hard to quantify and explain, but as that Supreme Court Justice stated about pornography, you know it when you see it.
I will tell you quite frankly that, I have noticed early changes in some individuals in their late 40s who eventually evolve into significant dementia. I do not mention it to anyone when I observe it for a variety of reasons, including that I may be entirely wrong but unfortunately, the opposite is usually the case. I have one story which I often relate in conference or when instructing students.
One of my original patients from the very early 1980s was a significant gentleman who owned a title insurance company in Philadelphia. He was a very successful, well-polished executive who had a terrific sense of humor and terrible politics. However, we got along famously, and I did a great deal of work for him and his wife. One day, he came to see me for some routine matter, and one of my questions to him always was what did he think of what was going on in Philadelphia City Council. I would ask this because it was harmless and whatever his response would be didn’t offend me at all whatsoever. Typically, he would come right back with some kind of story and humorous rejoinder, but he just stared at me and said quietly “City council…“ as though he were processing those two words.
His response immediately registered in my mind and set off alarm bells. He had to come back a few weeks later for me to do a filling or crown on him and his first question to me was “How do you manage your trash?“ I told him that we had these holes in the top of our counter that we would just drop our waste through into a trashcan underneath, and he replied “Oh. I like to keep an eye on my trash.“
I saw his wife shortly thereafter and asked her if he was doing OK and she replied breezily yes, why? And I dismissed the conversation by saying “No particular reason, just checking.“ And then I added, “He seemed to take a particular interest in my trash.“ She replied that he was always that way.
About three months later, my receptionist came back to me and said that the gentleman‘s wife stopped by the office and would like to see me for just a moment. I excused myself from the patient, I was seeing, and went up front and she told me a story. Apparently they had tickets for the Kimmel Center Concert hall one night and called a cab. Her husband got the cab, she came down. They got in the cab went to the concert hall, and he paid the fare, and the driver said “just a moment”.
The driver went to the trunk, opened it, and all the trash from the family was loaded in the back in green plastic bags. The wife asked him what these were doing here, and the driver replied “Your husband told me to load these up to bring with you.” At that moment, she immediately thought of my discussion with her and came to tell me what had happened.
He went into a rather rapid decline and passed away within a year. This was the most glaring example I have to relate, but I literally have hundreds of incidents which were not quite this dramatic, but we’re indicative of decline . For most people, it is very slow and steady. It involves subtle changes of language usage, behavior, reactions to incidents, voicing of certain opinions, and more.
I believe we are seeing that from the former president. It would not surprise me in the least that he had a triggering episode back when he had Covid, and it may have accelerated the process somewhat. That is pure supposition, but I noticed a slight change in his affect after that occurred, and I’m not referring to his sociopathy or his megalomania. His speech and motor coordination changed dramatically following that episode.
We will all be watching him very carefully during the next 10 months. We know that these Republicans project their ills upon their enemies and I believe that their denigration of President Biden is exactly that and always has been. They know what’s going on with “The Boss”. And I’m not referring to Bruce. 😁
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Member since: Sun Feb 22, 2004, 09:01 AM
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