As a Pittsburgher, I don't have much occasion to worry about natural enemies. Unlike our friends in the South, we don't have to fret overmuch about poisonous snakes because you'd be lucky to find a timber rattler around here if you wanted to see one. Go west & you'll find folks who pack heat on their morning jog lest they run into a grizzly or mountain lion. The southwest has scorpions & other painful, bitey arachnids to keep you on your toes.
Around here, the only thing there is to really scare ya is the black widow but in 32 years of total arachnophobia, I've yet to encounter one. Besides, they're venom is only deadly to the infirm & small children.
On Wednesday evening, my fiancee came home from work complaining that something had bitten him & he was itching it like crazy. By 8:30 AM, he was having trouble breathing & had hives on his entire body, even on his eyelids, so he went to the ER.
They think he was bitten by a black widow spider!
Some of his symptoms were the same as a heart attack: chest pain, trouble breathing, cold sweat & dizziness. But some of them were also similar to appendicitis: vomiting, severe abdominal cramps, elevated white blood count. They told him that the hives were the only clue that it was something else.
It's kind of scary because you just don't worry about black widows, but they are here. He wasn't in an outhouse or woodpile lately or any other place where you might worry about encountering one. And if the ER staff figured it out so fast, that must mean that it's fairly common in this area because doctors aren't going to go after the most improbable cause when treating a patient.
I've always believed that one should know the enemy, so I thought I knew a lot about spiders but I was totally wrong. I'd like to think that it happened to him at work but just to be safe, I am bug-bombing the entire house tonight!
Disillusioned idealist needs a place to rant. Complaints welcome but only if accompanied by intelligent suggestions for potential solutions.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Food for Thought
It's totally wrong of me to go for so long without posting, I'll admit it. And I'm going to make an effort to do better, I swear. That said, I'm just not in the mood to get up on to my usual soapbox today. Frankly, I'm tired of whining about politics & the government. Yes, our elected officials suck, for the most part, especially in PA. But it's not as though I'm brimming over with suggestions about how to fix that. Until I have some suggestions, I'm going to put a temporary moratorium on my criticisms because they've become tedious.
However, there are tons of other things to be criticized, so here goes:
1. The Mike Vick Thing
What makes a good apology? Off the top of my head I'd say remorse, an air of genuine contrition & an actual statement of the words "I'm sorry" at some point in the spech. You know?
Vick seems really sorry -- that he got caught. Nowhere in any of the blather did I hear word one about how it's wrong to torture living creatures or that it's not ok to cause suffering as a hobby.
And I'm not sure which is more despicable, Vick's actions or his supporters. It's one thing to commit an awful act. But it's something else entirely to defend a person's right to commit horrible crimes. For starters, can you people say "sociopath"?
Let's all be thankful that he got caught before he got bored with dogs & decided that prostitutes aren't much higher on the food chain. You can't explain away his actions with words like "immature" or phrases like "bad choices".
Immature is not cleaning up poop during your walk or letting Fido scare the mailman. Owning a kennel, torturing animals for money & brutally killing them in awkward, painful ways do NOT fall into this category.
Sidebar: How many of the idiots championing Vick are ardently campaigning the MLB to give Pete Rose a second chance? Seems to me that Vick committed the same crimes Rose did, plus some. Or is a lifetime ban a completely acceptable punishment for a white athlete?
2. The "Leave Britney Alone" Guy
Could anything be more stupid? Why would anyone even consider giving this loser a TV show? What is the world coming to? Incidentally the "Leave Belichick Alone" spoof is funny for about 30 seconds but then goes on for far too long.
3. Feeding your kids from the convenience store
I'm not talking about a decent convenience store either, like a big Sheetz or GetGO (not that that would make it ok, necessarily). I'm talking about the cruddy corner mini-mart. Most mornings, I pop into a small A-Plus near my office for some form of caffeine or a pack of death sticks. The same woman is in there every morning with 2 small children under the age of 8.
The kids walk around the place grabbing Hostess products, various forms of processed meat sticks & bags of snack chips or cookies. Mom grabs a couple of Mountain Dews for her tykes & they all go happily on their way.
My first thought is that these kids probably won't get a lot more vertical growth. My second is, who can afford this? Instead of spending $20+ per day kind of poisoning your kids, why not spend $5 on a box of frosted cereal & a dozen eggs that would last a few days at least? The kids would probably happily munch the dry cereal if mom put it in little bags since they don't seem very discriminating. Make them sausage for heaven's sake & cut it up like Slim Jims. Do something because this is just sickening.
4. Sushi from the convenience store
Not matter how upscale Giant eagle wants to make their GetGos, it's still a gas station.
5. Cheating in sports
Why don't RICO statutes apply? When you think about the amount of money that changes hands legally in the world of sports, it dwarfs the finances of many organized crime organizations that have been prosecuted under RICO.
And money is basically all it comes down to because when was the last time an athlete donated their signing bonus to charity or took a pay cut or refused a raise so the money could be put back into the team/stadiums/reduction of ticket prices?
The Patriots are pretty slimy, always have been. The media's love affair with Tom Brady has always outshined the truth but they are one of the dirtiest teams in the NFL.
Steroids in baseball have ruined America's pastime for me personally. And the #48 team has tainted Nascar forever.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree & I'd love to hear from them. When presented with a sensible viewpoint from the other side of the argument, I'm more than willing to reconsider my stance. That's how we learn, right?
However, there are tons of other things to be criticized, so here goes:
1. The Mike Vick Thing
What makes a good apology? Off the top of my head I'd say remorse, an air of genuine contrition & an actual statement of the words "I'm sorry" at some point in the spech. You know?
Vick seems really sorry -- that he got caught. Nowhere in any of the blather did I hear word one about how it's wrong to torture living creatures or that it's not ok to cause suffering as a hobby.
And I'm not sure which is more despicable, Vick's actions or his supporters. It's one thing to commit an awful act. But it's something else entirely to defend a person's right to commit horrible crimes. For starters, can you people say "sociopath"?
Let's all be thankful that he got caught before he got bored with dogs & decided that prostitutes aren't much higher on the food chain. You can't explain away his actions with words like "immature" or phrases like "bad choices".
Immature is not cleaning up poop during your walk or letting Fido scare the mailman. Owning a kennel, torturing animals for money & brutally killing them in awkward, painful ways do NOT fall into this category.
Sidebar: How many of the idiots championing Vick are ardently campaigning the MLB to give Pete Rose a second chance? Seems to me that Vick committed the same crimes Rose did, plus some. Or is a lifetime ban a completely acceptable punishment for a white athlete?
2. The "Leave Britney Alone" Guy
Could anything be more stupid? Why would anyone even consider giving this loser a TV show? What is the world coming to? Incidentally the "Leave Belichick Alone" spoof is funny for about 30 seconds but then goes on for far too long.
3. Feeding your kids from the convenience store
I'm not talking about a decent convenience store either, like a big Sheetz or GetGO (not that that would make it ok, necessarily). I'm talking about the cruddy corner mini-mart. Most mornings, I pop into a small A-Plus near my office for some form of caffeine or a pack of death sticks. The same woman is in there every morning with 2 small children under the age of 8.
The kids walk around the place grabbing Hostess products, various forms of processed meat sticks & bags of snack chips or cookies. Mom grabs a couple of Mountain Dews for her tykes & they all go happily on their way.
My first thought is that these kids probably won't get a lot more vertical growth. My second is, who can afford this? Instead of spending $20+ per day kind of poisoning your kids, why not spend $5 on a box of frosted cereal & a dozen eggs that would last a few days at least? The kids would probably happily munch the dry cereal if mom put it in little bags since they don't seem very discriminating. Make them sausage for heaven's sake & cut it up like Slim Jims. Do something because this is just sickening.
4. Sushi from the convenience store
Not matter how upscale Giant eagle wants to make their GetGos, it's still a gas station.
5. Cheating in sports
Why don't RICO statutes apply? When you think about the amount of money that changes hands legally in the world of sports, it dwarfs the finances of many organized crime organizations that have been prosecuted under RICO.
And money is basically all it comes down to because when was the last time an athlete donated their signing bonus to charity or took a pay cut or refused a raise so the money could be put back into the team/stadiums/reduction of ticket prices?
The Patriots are pretty slimy, always have been. The media's love affair with Tom Brady has always outshined the truth but they are one of the dirtiest teams in the NFL.
Steroids in baseball have ruined America's pastime for me personally. And the #48 team has tainted Nascar forever.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree & I'd love to hear from them. When presented with a sensible viewpoint from the other side of the argument, I'm more than willing to reconsider my stance. That's how we learn, right?
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