Ooops...I should say "The Big Game", since I do not have clearance to use the real name...

I will begin this post with the statement:

THIS IS NOT A BAD THING.

I'll say it again:

THIS IS NOT A BAD THING.

Got it? I say this for those posters who will "decide" that I'm complaining about being forced to go to this Continuing Education Seminar: and you know who you are....

OK...

Last night 400 dentists, hygienists, and office staff gathered for a MANDATORY two hour lecture on the NEW MANDATORY REPORTAGE LAWS in the Commonwealth concerning Child Abuse. The gist of it was that all members of any team which are licensed by the State to perform services, doctors, dentists, hair dressers, chiropractors, funeral directors, and so on, are by law, REQUIRED to report DIRECTLY TO ENFORCEMENT if child abuse is suspected. It is now INAPPROPRIATE for the staff member to simply report it to the supervisory individual - he or she MUST report it to the State authorities.

What is fascinating is that many individuals who are abusers are "smart" enough to avoid doctors and emergency rooms, but often don't realize that the dentists and other professionals are trained and required to report. Failure to report may become problematic if a pattern develops, although I would posit that criminal conviction of the professional or staff member might be extremely difficult, however, given the courts these days, not impossible by a long shot.

The requisite horrendous photographs they showed are haunting...

for the Democratic Meeting...I'm sure it's to attend "Wing Bowl" down at the Wells Fargo Center tomorrow morning. He can meet chicks and stuff!!!

If you don't know what Wing Bowl is, put on a rain slicker so you don't get too gross and google it...it is the Mecca for the lowest of the low in Philly. Try not to vomit onto your keyboard while you get the gist of it. It is the NADIR of life in America. Let's put it this way: it makes hog calling contests look like debutante balls.

Getting "exciting" here in Center City Philly. Lululemon store roof collapsed: dozens of firemen and rescue vehicles.

I haven't seen preparations like this for a while…we of course here in Philly are used to the breathless panic of the forecasters: Acme Markets, Giant, Shop 'n Bag, Pathmark, and others have made it a regular habit to get their shelves cleared a few times each winter but they are looking particularly concerned around here. We took a room in Center City for Monday night so maybe I can see my patients on Tuesday since most of them live downtown - it just seems to have happened that way. We also see extra emergencies during snow storms for reasons which even I cannot fathom. the French Toast Brigade - Eggs, bread, and milk - have bought out the stores. And it's only Sunday. We shall see….

As a matter of history, it all started here in 1978 when we were supposed to have a 2-4 inch event and it intensified overnight right over the Delaware Valley and finished at 22-26 inches. It was a genuine nightmare - we had never seen one come out of nowhere quite like this one did. Since then, there's been a version of Weather PTSD here…you say "snow" and people start running for cover as though it's the Apocalypse. Funny in a way…pretty exciting here.

Good luck to all in its path!

Oh...isn't it JUST SO FUNNY!!! They actually said the word "Balls!" on TeeVee!!! Oh my goodness...so FUNNY!!!!!!!!

When the Hell did the entire country revert to grade school humor of the most moronic kind? Well, that is an easy answer, but it is downright embarrassing to see all these 'comedic' sketches and reports with the "winks and smiles...it's just that word...it just is so...'amusing'".

So as tired as I am of it, I had a patient this morning who came in all humorrhoid and everything about the "Ballgate" and "Deflated-ballgate" and all that stupid shit "punniness". So I said to him, it reminds me of the old punchline: "Liquor and rubber balls". So he starts laughing and absolutely deadpan I said to him somewhat conspiratorially: "You know, I heard that women don't even HAVE balls." Absolutely no response....he just sat there thinking.

I just nodded and started in with the procedure...

Listening to her incredibly insipid defense of Joni Ernst's presentation brought forth memories of her defenses of Christie, W., Christine Todd Whitman after 9/11, and every other miscreant who has sullied our airwaves with horrifying bullshit coupled with incompetent delivery and lies.

She is a disgrace to liberated women, to educated women, to successful women inasmuch as her ascent to the co-anchor of a minimally-watched but very influential in its own right program is infected wtih that pseudo-wide-eyed wonderment and outright infatuation with anything, frankly, right-wing and Truman-show-fake. It is utterly repulsive. I give Scarborough credit to the extent that he is simply a RW whore whose attempts to be bipartisan are so transparently false that you just laugh at him but at least his forthright presentation is marginally palatable. She is utterly without depth despite her posturing. Her father must shake his head daily, but be impressed at the size of the check which she cashes each week.

and he sees a fellow staffer who rides up to him on a beautiful, very expensive, imported bicycle. The first staffer asks, "Where did you get that bike?" The second one replies, "Well, it was really strange. I was walking along yesterday and this gorgeous woman rides up to me on this bike, hops off, throws it down on the ground, tears off all of her clothes and says to me, 'Take what you want!' So I took the bike.

The other replies, "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit you."


***********************************

It's never too early to start.

a 20 year-old woman plunged to her death from an eighth floor window, striking a passerby and injuring her badly. At first, we thought it was a suicide, but later reports are that she may have been cleaning her window. This was one of the most horrifying moments of my life, and in addition to the blanket horror and terrible irony, it shows how quickly everything in your life can change, even fade to black. Imagine the sudden realization that one has lost ones balance and falling inexorably and inevitably to the ground below in just a couple of seconds, knowing that you are going to die, having no thought of that just prior.

I have to have a drink and take it easy…this is going to give me nightmares for a long, long time.

I cannot recall a death toll as low as 4 when the cafe and pizza shop and bus bombings were occurring in Israel on a regular basis. As these people in France seem to have arisen this week, we of the Diaspora have been enduring the tragedies in Israel since 1948, and of course long before that with respect to other horrors perpetrated upon us for the reason "simply" that we are Jews.