Tag Archives: Rush Limbaugh

Five Makes You an Ace

Posted on by ninjanurse

That’s what my husband said when I told him that Rush Limbaugh is getting married for the fourth time. It’s not to Ann Coulter, though you’d think they would have been made for each other. Maybe next time around.

Mr. Limbaugh somehow finds time to smirk at Al and Tipper Gore, who announced their separation this week. Obviously the Gores don’t respect marriage. They only managed to get married once in forty years. It’s like they’re not even trying.

Elizabeth Taylor, of course, is in a class by herself, with eight marriages to seven men. She’s very experienced, but still hopeful.

Love is a mysterious thing. If you get marriage right the first time, it’s as much due to luck as to virtue. It’s not really safe to brag about your marriage or snip at others because the gods will hear you and soon you’ll be fighting about cat hair on the couch or who forgot to change the oil in the car. So to Rush Limbaugh I will only wish felicitations. To the Gores, I wish a good life and no regrets.

Blacklash

Posted on by David Jaffe

In a stunning exclusive, the New York Times reports that “it is official: Barack Obama is the nation’s first black president. A White House spokesman confirmed that Mr. Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, checked African-American on the 2010 census questionnaire.” The Times noted that “Mr. Obama could have checked white, checked both black and white, or checked the last category on the form, ‘some other race,’ which he would then have been asked to identify in writing.”

Conservative pundits immediately criticized the President’s actions. Radio host Rush Limbaugh grumbled that “it is clear that Obama has disowned his white half. He’s decided he’s got to go all in on the black side.” Glenn Beck asserted that “this president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” The Fox News host then concluded, “This guy is, I believe, a racist.” His comments were echoed by Mark Williams, a radio host and prominent leader of the Tea Party movement, who described Mr. Obama as “our half white, racist president.”

Philip J. Berg, an attorney who brought suit against the President challenging his citizenship, declared that “this proves that Obama is a fraud, a phony and…has put forth the biggest ‘HOAX’ in the history of our great nation. He’s made it plain that he identifies most with his African heritage. Why would he do that unless he were, first and foremost, an African?”

More moderate conservatives accused the President of political gamesmanship. “He’s wooing black and minority voters in an election year,” complained an unnamed G.O.P. spokesperson. “He’s trying to show up the Republicans just because they haven’t had an African-American in Congress since 2002. How is that fair?”

Wall Street reacted with massive selloffs, although shares of gunmakers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. rose sharply. Sporadic rioting was reported in rural Idaho and Texas.

Sarah Palin’s Genius

Posted on by ninjanurse

An interesting take on why her statements don’t come back on her. Most recently, she told a Canadian audience that her family used to cross the border for some of that government-run health care the Canadians somehow survive.

She is a genius of the incomplete sentence, the vague suggestion, the wink and the nod. She reminds me of Pentecostal preachers I heard as a teenager. Some of them could shout at the top of their lungs for an hour without actually saying anything. Glory! [followed by ten seconds of speaking in tongues] Let’s hear it louder people! Glory!!!

You can bang your head against the wall trying to argue with this kind of thing, but you’ll never win. They’re saved, you’re damned.

A witch, Margo Adler, once said that the challenge of our age is balancing the rational and the mystical. Sarah Palin is a powerful and effective communicator on the non-rational level. That’s her genius. She can say and do anything she wants. It will all roll off like teflon, just as it did for the brilliant and talented actor, Ronald Reagan.

ANOTHER REFUGEE FROM AMERICA: Rush Limbaugh has promised to move to Costa Rica if the health reform bill passes because Costa Rica has socialized medicine. Like many of us, he considers the present bill to be a disappointing compromise. Unlike those of us who love and will not leave America, he’s going to a place where he will not be rejected for his many pre-existing conditions.

Perhaps it’s just a rumor that he plans to use his fortune to establish a research center in Costa Rica dedicated to finding a cure for the scourge called ‘pilonidal cyst’. This dread condition prevented a young Limbaugh from serving his country in Vietnam, and may account for his many complaints related to the lower spinal area. Remember also, that sitting in a chair all day takes its toll. No sacrifice too great.

Protecting Our Women

Posted on by ninjanurse

Just a question for you real American men. Not men like ‘Joe’ the ‘Plumber’ or ‘Jeff Gannon’. I’m thinking more like Scott Brown, the senator with ‘available’ daughters. Would you want some guy with a drug history and possibly an odorous leaking sore in his personal area to be staring at and judging your daughter as she parades around undressed?

Well, heck yes! It’s the Miss America pageant.

Rush Limbaugh, the man credited with popularizing the term “feminazi,” says he’s a fan of the women’s movement — “especially when walking behind it.”

Hey, only one lucky girl will be Miss America, but who knows how many will get to be Mrs. Limbaugh. It’s three and counting so far.

At the risk of being called a ‘feminazi’, this writer calls the whole thing ‘An Obscene Spectacle’.

Job’s Friends and Pat Robertson

Posted on by ninjanurse

Every so often I visit a house or apartment and forget to ask the patient to turn off their TV. The 24-hour news is so ubiquitous it becomes a kind of white noise. There’s a lot of Fox out there, and I usually don’t pay it any attention. But once in a while something slips through so biased and outrageous that I turn around–it’s CBN.

Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network has simulated news programs that look like the real thing. Being accountable only to God, as Pat channels Him, they have no journalistic standards to worry about. Like our former president, they are fond of uniforms they never earned, and use the format of network news to pass themselves off as having a connection with reality.

Pat Robertson would be a harmless crank except for his media empire, vast fortune and political connections with former presidents and anyone who wants the hearts and votes of the religious right. Everything he publishes on his network is ‘religiously correct’ and filtered through his own self-serving take on the Bible. When he uncorks something really nasty the internet loves it and it travels at the speed of snark.

So I won’t quote him here, just to say that in the Book of Job, the lowest moment of Job’s suffering came when his friends visited him and told him that he must have done something really awful to be smited by God that way. ‘Repent’ they smugly exhorted.

In more recent times, the Americans caught in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina waited long, longer than they should have, while the TV networks painted them as vandals and insurgents. Will the Red Cross enter Haiti to give aid sooner than they did New Orleans? Possibly. False rumors cost lives.

Rush Limbaugh is trying to find a reason to blame President Obama for the earthquake and stake out a patch of ground where his fans can feel superior for not caring. Haiti has suffered much and the faint of heart need to assure themselves that it couldn’t happen here. There are tremors in California, but they are all libertines out there anyway, and God probably plans to off them soon.

The great advantage of being ‘faith-based’ is that you can invoke the supernatural to explain natural events. If the God of Earthquakes is out there crushing schools and homes and hospitals it’s so reassuring to know that he thinks you’re special. Like Job’s friends, take someone’s misfortune as proof they deserved it. Very Old Testament, and even in Old Testament times they saw through it. Jesus didn’t care for that kind of thing either. Pat Robertson, if you find you are afflicted with hemmorhoids don’t say the Bible didn’t warn you.

OKAY: If you have to see it, Nomi will link you to Pharyngula, with the Robertson quotes and many passionate comments.

I ALWAYS UNDERESTIMATE THEM: Washington Monthly says that Robertson tells his story about the Haitians being cursed as a lead-in to solicitations for his own charity. Would you trust ‘Job’s friends’ in a disaster?

BUT BLOGGING AIN’T ENOUGH: Feministe has a list of links to aid organizations and charities with good reputations and solid track records of using the money to help those who need it. I just used it myself for Doctors Without Borders and it didn’t hurt a bit.

UPDATE: According to Daily Kos, God and Jesus are boycotting the 700 Club. God is denying Robertson’s claims that they are in constant contact. So who are you gonna believe?

Rationing in the ER

Posted on by ninjanurse

Interesting post at Democratic Underground. A man brought his mother to the ER with chest pain, and pitched a fit when they tried to send her home. More tests showed she had an aneurism.

What really gets hot is the comments section, with other people telling horror stories of their own, including a doctor who says that women do not get taken seriously.

My mother-in-law brought her son to the ER with abdominal pain and was told to take him home and give him some aspirin. She refused to leave, and it turned out he had appendicitis. She saved his life in the 1960′s by standing up to white doctors in a Southern hospital and telling them that she was his mother and she knew her son was having an emergency.

Every so often some appalling story of callous indifference in the ER hits the press. Though you find bad people in every profession and workplace, I don’t think it’s just individuals. Economic rationing depends on volume, and you have to move the patients through the same as customers in a fast-food restaurant. No matter how many non-discrimination notices they put up– everyone knows who has what insurance. Too much time spent on the care of the underinsured will not get you promoted.

We have to some day have some tough, reality-based discussions about finite resources and make decisions on how much of our national wealth to spend on health care. There are many other urgent needs.

But don’t think that there’s not rationing going on now. Don’t think that showing up with chest pain and a famous name is the same as showing up with only your pain and your need. Democratic Underground has opened up a forum for stories about the gaps in our emergency system.

Hypothetically

Posted on by ninjanurse

The HIPPA regulations mandate tearing out the fingernails of any health care worker who breaks confidentiality. So let me not be guilty of that crime.

Purely as a hypothetical situation, a nurse might have encountered a patient whose bad choices and bad luck had put him flat on his back in a nursing home. Whose large checkbook ensured the bed would be comfortable.

A very heavy man who talked his way out of the physical therapy sessions intended to give him back some mobility. A man who was dependent in every way, to turn in bed, to relieve himself, to stay clean, to be fed.

Hypothetically, a nurse observing a patient who demanded to be spoon-fed but who was able to hold a newspaper might suspect something other than physical inability. A nurse observing that other patients on the floor were trying with all their strength to keep their independence might be tempted to pass judgment, but that’s not what she’s paid for. She’s basically paid to keep her shift disaster-free, and she does her best.

What threw the hypothetical nurse off her game was the way the patient used his remaining power. He dished out verbal abuse to the nurses aides, with a precision and cruelty that made the nurse think he must have been very experienced at this sort of thing. If the nurse was confronted by a nurses aide– a black women, visibly angry, closed down, not going to talk about it– the nurse would change the assignment so this aide would not take care of that patient again.

It was all the nurse could do. She had eight chaotic hours and putting out fires took all of the shift. The hypothetical patient must have had some clout, because the toll he took on the staff was tolerated by management. Health care workers have a high turnover. We’re a dime a dozen, you know.

Hypothetically, the patient had a setback, and went to the hospital, and had a close encounter with the Reaper. He was really nice when he got back. He apologized for his verbal abuse of the women who were keeping him clean and fed. He was acting pretty normal for a couple of weeks before he lapsed back into his old ways. He may be still tormenting staff somewhere, for all the hypothetical nurse knows, or he may be sipping tea with Tammy Faye in a condo in the Four Gated City.

‘The Elderly’ are not like you and me, they’re older.

Actually, most people who survive a long time wear off their rough edges and acquire some wisdom, or at least get cute and harmless. But some just get meaner than skunks, with experience in techniques of acting out. It’s not the norm, but you encounter them sooner or later.

I don’t wish physical illness and disability on anyone. For the nice people it’s awful and tragic. For the mean people– they just become an awful mess to clean up. So basically, I want everyone to stay as well as they can.

Get well soon, Rush Limbaugh.

MORE: Joan Walsh at Salon is way more graceful and charitable than me and also wishes Rush a quick recovery in the New Year. And when he’s back let’s have at him.

His Sister Was a Thespian

Posted on by ninjanurse

Some people don’t get satire, and some people don’t look things up. Here’s a good example of a political triple-cross–

Part of American political lore is the Smathers “redneck speech,” which Smathers reportedly delivered to a poorly educated audience. The “speech” was never given; it was a hoax dreamed up by one reporter. Smathers did not say, as was reported in Time Magazine during the campaign:

Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy.[7]

The Smathers campaign denied his having made the speech, as did the reporters who covered his campaign, but the hoax followed Smathers to his death.[8]

You’d think it would be easier to avoid falling for this kind of thing now, with the internet and all, but some right-wing pundits got all excited about a Barack Obama college thesis that he never wrote. They failed to notice the word, ‘satire’ on the post.

Yes, Leeden and Limbaugh got all worked up, trashing the president for a paper he didn’t write in college 25 years ago, relying on a satirical blog post. And for real entertainment value, notice what Leeden and Limbaugh did when they realized they’d fallen for a dumb joke — they blamed Obama anyway.

Leeden conceded he was wrong and apologized, but added, “It worked because it’s plausible.” Limbaugh said the text he touted was fake, but it didn’t matter because, “I know Obama thinks it.” Yep, even when they’re wrong, it’s only because the president makes it easy for them to be confused.

Wow, that’s a way different approach to the facts. For instance, it’s plausible to me that Rush Limbaugh is a secret cross-dresser. If you can picture J.Edgar Hoover in a dress, Rush could be his sister. And I know he thinks about cross-dressing. I know what lots of people are thinking. It’s a superpower I have. So that is the same as knowing what he does. Right? But maybe he’s a thespian and he’s auditioning for a revival of ‘Some Like it Hot’. Or maybe it’s his sister who’s a thespian. If he has a sister. But don’t quote me on any of this. IT’S SATIRE.

Rush Limbaugh– An Obscene Spectacle

Posted on by ninjanurse

When he was a football commentator on ESPN he ran off his mouth and got bounced. He got in trouble running around the Dominican Republic with a suitcase full of Viagra.
His language is becoming increasingly crude– he really seems to have issues.

And now he’s a judge of poise and beauty…

LAS VEGAS—The Miss America Organization says Rush Limbaugh will be a judge for the 2010 pageant in Las Vegas.

It will be held at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on Jan. 30, broadcast live on TLC.

Limbaugh will be on the panel of seven judges that will help decide who will be crowned Miss America 2010.

Oh God, it’s the stuff of nightmares.

Painkiller Panic

Posted on by ninjanurse

This most recent scare about acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and scores of other meds, is not so recent.

I recall lawsuits in the 1990′s from people suffering liver damage associated with Acetaminophen.

It’s a disaster for the people involved, but I think we as a nation are experiencing freakout fatigue. You can cry wolf, and of the 300,000,000 of us there are truly wolf fatalities, but what’s the chance of the wolf getting you?

In the case of Tylenol, or any other nice over-the-counter meds, there is a simple way to keep the wolf from your medicine cabinet. READ THE LABELS.

If you are internet-savvy enough to be reading Kmareka–the intellectual vanguard of the globe–Google Goodsearch the name of your drug and find out what’s in it.

Buyer beware! On NPR I heard that the big box stores were selling bottles of 1,000 extra-strength (that’s 500mg) Acetaminophen–real cheap! Is this a good deal? Who the hell needs this many pills?! Were these generic pills made in some obscure corner of the globe, or Utah, where the FDA seldom visits? Wouldn’t any normal person have to toss a lot of them because they expired? Or is it a good deal for a hangover clinic?

As far as hangovers–if you wake up with a headache you need to drink less. Deal with it. Eat some eggs.

Seriously, chemicals have no conscience, they just do what they do. Take care what you put in your body. Alcohol and acetaminophen both tax the liver. Ibuprofen, which I got to like when I was physically active, is tough on the stomach and kidneys. Every drug is a risk/benefit calculation.

And every drug interacts with every thing else you take. Someone said this about herbs–If it’s strong enough to have an effect, it’s strong enough to have an effect you don’t want. I cannot refute the logic of this. Take care, and consider the effect of herbs, and even foods, on whatever else you are doing. If you’re lucky enough to have an expert consultant–doctor or nurse practitioner–let them know what you’re doing. Pharmacists go to school for a long time. Ask them about your drugs.

Acetaminophen is a pretty safe drug for most people if they don’t overdo it. One consequence of our profit-driven health care ‘system’ is that there’s more money to be made from ignorance than education. With this latest drug panic it looks like there will be some reform of the confusing packaging of NEW AND IMPROVED acetaminophen in larger doses. According to a commenter on NPR, they don’t even have any evidence that ‘extra strength’ works better than ‘regular’.

Hey, recently I had some back pain and tossed down a couple of ‘Aleve’ thinking it was Ibuprofen 200mg. Actually it was Naproxen Sodium 220mg. The recommended dose is one pill, no more than 3 times a day. I found that out after I found my glasses. No big deal, but I wouldn’t want to be doing that every day. We get so used to ‘take 2 pills and call me in the morning’ that we think there’s some kind of standardization. There isn’t.

There’s no bad drugs, only misunderstood ones. READ THE LABELS. Acetaminophen is an ingredient in many over-the-counter and prescription meds. Our esteemed colleague, Rush Limbaugh, may want to donate his liver to medical science for vacuuming up prodigious amounts of acetaminophen with his hydrocodone. A large body mass index might have protected him. But don’t try this at home. READ THE LABELS–KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TAKING–ASK QUESTIONS. And then don’t panic. You’ll be fine.