The doctor who tried to kill my mother

A couple of years ago my mother felt not-quite-right enough that she called an ambulance. They took her to the hospital in Small Town, twenty miles from where she lives. She was admitted under the care of Dr. Moron-With-A-God-Complex. After three days and a series a mistakes by Dr. Moron, which included totally ignoring the partial bowel obstruction shown on the CT scan and the fact that she was in A-fib and the fact that she was getting sicker by the hour, my mother nearly died.

She's only alive today because my brother is an R.N. who used to be a paramedic and worked in ERs for a few years. He went to visit her and as soon as he walked in her room, he could see she was in big trouble. He went out to the desk and demanded that they call Dr. Moron and transfer her to Big Town. Dr. Moron refused. My brother summoned the staff paramedics who agreed with his assessment and loaded mom into the ambulance. Dr. Moron tried to block the ambulance from leaving. One of the paramedics told him, "Get out of my fucking way or I'll run you over."

Mom stopped breathing in the ambulance on the way to Big Town and they resuscitated her. After they got her to the E.R. in Big Town, her heart stopped. They resuscitated her again.

It took a week in ICU and a of months of ups and downs before Mom finally recovered. When she got back home, she started hearing stories about other people who had near death experiences as the result of mistakes made by Dr. Moron. He's the head of the hospital in Small Town and there's a lot of speculation that he's the reason every new doctor they recruit leaves within two years.

This morning, Mom came to Big Town (where I live) for a checkup with her cardiologist. I went with her and while we were being shuffled from check-in, to lab, to radiology, pulmonology and cardiology, she filled me in on Dr. Moron's latest exploits.

There's a woman in Tiny Town (where mom lives) named "Anna." Anna is completely blind in one eye and can only make out blurry shapes and shadows with the other. Recently, she was having problems with her good eye. It was red and sore and she thought she might have pink eye. Anna went to Tiny Town Clinic but the nurse practitioner who usually works there was on vacation. Dr. Moron was covering for her.

Dr. Moron told Anna to stand on a line in the exam room and read the letters on the eye chart. She said, "Where's the eye chart?"

He said, "Don't kid around."

She said, "I can't see anything. I'm legally blind."

He told her to step forward to the next line and read the letters. She stepped forward but she still couldn't see. He got angry and said he knew she could see the chart and told her to quit wasting his time. They went back and forth and he said he knew she was lying.

She said, "Why don't you read my fucking chart? It'll tell you I'm legally blind!"

Dr. Moron stomped out of the room and shouted "She's not cooperating! I can't help her!"

The moral of this story, from my mother's perspective, is - Stay the fuck away from Dr. Moron.

While I was sleeping ...

Lizzie knocked over two plants and played in the dirt and shredded several kleenexes. When I got up, she started attacking Percival and wouldn't let up even though he fought back. She was just playing but she's got claws and he doesn't so it's not a fair fight. She's now locked in the bathroom in time out.

If I knew then what I know now, would I still have adopted her? Ask me next year. I hope I'll get her trained and/or she'll grow out of it.

Quote of the day

Meat Loaf, do you think I should run for president?

- Donald Trump on Sunday's episode of The Apprentice

The reincarnation of Casey

About 32 years ago, I was an English major at a small liberal arts college. My best friend was "Cherry" and she was a wacko. I've always been attracted to wackos, being one myself.

Freshman year, Cherry developed a crush on one of the profs and set about seducing him. Two years later, she had changed majors because he didn't want her in any of his classes. But they were living together on the down low. Our college frowned on student-teacher entanglements but they weren't forbidden.

The first year she was with The Prof, I came to know him well, along with his two closest friends, who were also profs. One drunken party almost led to an entanglement of my own.

I guess it would be more accurate to say I knew a lot about The Prof. Primarily the bad stuff. Like the fact that he was a verbally abusive alcoholic whose favorite nickname for Cherry was cunt. He would pass out from drinking and smoking weed and not remember a thing when he woke up. She called me crying several times a week

Leaving him wasn't an option in her love-fevered brain. Her plan was to have a baby because The Prof said he'd stop drinking if he had a son. I knew it wouldn't do much good to ask her what would happen if they had a daughter. I focused my attentions on trying to persuade her make him get sober and stay sober for a year before they had a baby. I recognized one important element of their relationship. Neither one of them would have any interest in the other if he was sober.

The day she called to tell me she was pregnant, I said, "I'm sorry. I can't be happy about that." She hung up on me. Our friendship effectively ended.

Cherry lived through a pregnancy and a marriage to an abusive drunk with no support from family or friends. I regret that. She finally left The Prof the day she came home from grad school to find the kitchen on fire. Her two year old son had turned the stove on and The Prof was passed out on the floor in the living room, blissfully unaware the house was burning down around him while their son wandered around in a stinky diaper.

None of that has anything to do with the story I started out to tell. Funny how one memory leads to another.

The summer that Cherry had been trying to convince herself to get pregnant and I was trying to convince her not to, she invited me on a road trip. We drove from Iowa to North Carolina, where we spent a few days with her grandparents, then to Maryland to attend her sister's college graduation, then New Jersey to spend a few days with her parents.

Along the way, we picked up three passengers. Six week old kittens that we rescued them from her grandfather, who was planning to put them in a pillow case and toss them in the river.

I kept two of them, Carolina and Smokey. A few weeks later, my roommate let Smokey slip out the door and we never found her.

Back then, I believed the myth that a female cat would be healthier if she had a litter of kittens before you spayed her. Carolina came in heat, I let her out, and we had kittens. One of them started meowing loudly as soon as his head emerged, before he was completely born. I decided to keep him. I named him Clancy.

Clancy matured faster than I expected and Carolina had a second litter. The babies got new homes, Clancy got neutered. The vet didn't warn me that he could still be fertile for a few weeks. I didn't know Carolina was pregnant until one night I heard a kitten mewing and found Carolina nursing a new baby. Casey was only kitten in the litter.

I tried to find Casey a new home but no one wanted her, including me. I was already struggling to come up with the money to spay Carolina and I was overwhelmed with a rotten job that didn't pay enough and an undiagnosed mental illness. I was bipolar but didn't know it. My moods rollercoastered from extreme crying jags to terrifying rage to giddy euphoria.

Carolina and Clancy were experienced enough to get out of the way during my rages. They'd retreat to their hiding places. Casey was too young to recognize the danger. Like any normal kitten, she'd shred things and steal things and attack my legs. I'd scream at her and kick her away. They weren't full-out kicks that could seriously injure her but they weren't the gentle scoldings and distractions my other cats got when they were babies.

One day I came home from work to find Casey climbing the curtains. I flew into a rage and grabbed her and spanked her and threw her down. I hit her so hard I could have killed her. It was the worst thing I ever did in my life.

For the next couple years, I worked two or three jobs at a time so I was never home. Casey became a feral kitty. She wouldn't let me touch her - she'd run away and hide. I felt guilty every time I saw that streak of gray dashing out of the room. I didn't try to tame her - I didn't deserve her affection. She had Carolina and Clancy for love and cuddles.

Casey was the reason I never had children. After what I did to her, I couldn't trust myself with a baby.

By the time she was 10 or 11, my bipolar roller coaster had slowed down. I had spent a couple of years in and out of the hospital and ended up on disability as a result. Clancy had gone to live with someone else. Carolina and Casey were my only friends.

It took a couple of years, but with gentleness and patience, I slowly earned Casey's trust. She still wouldn't let me touch her but she'd stay in the same room with me. She'd sit on the hutch above my desk and watch me work.

When she was about 14 she got sick. By then, she trusted me enough that she'd let me stroke her back every once in awhile. I knew that even if I could catch her to take her to the vet, she'd go wild and never trust anyone again. She slept a lot and hardly ate but didn't seem to be in pain.

The day she died, she was dazed and wandering around bumping into things. She let me pick her up. I put her on a soft towel in a box and she curled up and closed her eyes. I sat down beside her on the floor and petted her. She purred. She kept purring for the next hour as her breathing slowed. I sat there telling her how sorry I was and petted her until she died.

For the last few days, Elizabeth's been driving me nuts as usual. Shredding kleenexes, harassing the birds, chewing the wires on the stereo, spilling my beverages. And I keep calling her Casey. Not on purpose. Casey wasn't on my mind at all until her name started slipping out.

I believe that Lizzie is the reincarnation of Casey. She's giving me a second chance.

This story pisses me off so much ...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

... I can't even write about it. Just watch.

Gross but strangely fascinating

I can't help myself sometimes. I like seeing zits popped.

Syriana

Syrian security forces have murdered at least 120 protesters in the last 2 days. They're even firing on funeral processions. I was asking myself why the U.S. would bomb Libya's forces to protect civilians but they wouldn't do the same in Syria. Not that I think we should be bombing anybody. Then I read this:

Serious, prolonged unrest in Syria would almost inevitably hurt Hezbollah and weaken Iran's influence in the region.

Our big mucky-mucks must have decided it's in our best interest to let Syria's internal conflict go on, no matter how many people die. Then I started wondering if the CIA is stirring things up in Syria. Which led me to wondering if the CIA is stirring up all the unrest in the middle east. When they're all busy fighting their own countrymen, no one has time to terrorize us.

Hmm. Save American lives covertly. But how many brown people have to die?

I'd never let a good conspiracy theory end there. Maybe it's not the CIA after all - maybe Falwell and Robertson et al. have sent some of their evangelical warriors over there to cause trouble and make everyone believe the end times are here. That oughta fill up the pews and the coffers.

Heck, maybe the CIA is being run by evangelicals.

Maybe I've been spending too much time on the internet.

I have a strange desire to dye some eggs

And I'm craving jelly beans and Cadbury Cream Eggs. Maybe I'll go to Walmart.

Happy Easter.

Some marines made a music video

This is the only thing in the world that would ever make a Britney Spears song worth listening too. I love these guys - they're putting their lives on the line because of decisions made by some assholes in Washington made. But they haven't lost their sense of humor.

Weird boobs

A little eye candy for the weekend. I found these at So I Googled Weird Boobs.

You might be addicted if ...

... your favorite game site is down with tech problems and every two minutes, you check to see if it's up again.

The last couple of weeks, I've been spending way too much time on Sporcle. They have trivia games where you have to list things within a certain time limit. I've memorized every country in the world as well as the capital of every country, all the U.S. presidents in order, AFI's list of 100 best movies of all time, and Social Security's list of the 200 most popular baby names in the last hundred years. I've been working on memorizing lists of movies with one-word titles and movie titles that start with "The," and also on a list of every recording artist who's ever had a platinum album.

Not the most productive use of my time but it relieves anxiety better than Ativan, plus it's healthier than eating ice cream and cheaper than online shopping.

I am not a tree

But that hasn't stopped Lizzie from trying to climb me all morning. She was trying to get a better view of the birds. Baby #2 is out of the nest. I think there's one female and one male but I don't think I'll know for sure until they molt and their adult feathers come in.

All four finches were going crazy when I was cleaning the cage and feeding them this morning. Baby #2 hasn't quite got the flying thing mastered, so she retreated to a corner. Mom and dad came down to guard her, then they both showed her how she could get up to the perch with everyone else - hop on food dish, then up to water dish, then up to lower perch, then over to other food dish, then up to highest perch. Mama bird kept going back to baby and repeating the lesson but this baby likes being in the corner.

A few political quickies:

• Anything Republicans don't agree with is propaganda. That applies whether it's pretend historian David Barton revealing how public schools are "indoctrinating" children by teaching them not to bully someone for being gay or Trump declaring that George Stephanopoulos he's been "co-opted" by Obama. These people don't know how to debate the issues. They just stick out their tongues and run away.

• I found this link posted in the comments at TPM as an explanation for the birther nonsense.

• Meanwhile, Joe Biden thinks it's great that so many Republicans finally came out of the closet.

One of my babies left the nest

Sophie, the mama finch, is on the left. The baby is chubbier than she is and almost as tall. I think it's a boy - you can see the circle starting to form on his cheek. His beak will probably turn orange later. He's flapping his wings a lot but I don't think he can fly yet.

The other baby is hanging out at the nest's opening so s/he'll be out soon.

Lizzie killed a cat

This morning, Lizzie tried to climb my bookshelf. I'm not sure what she expected to find when she got to the top, but she managed to break one of my ceramic cats on the way. It was one of my favorites, an abstract that I thought was pretty cool.

Fooled ya

I lay in bed this morning for an hour mentally preparing myself to find Percival dead.

He's usually curled up on top of me purring when I wake up. And he usually follows me into the bathroom during at least one of the many trips I make every night. But I'd had no sight of him since I went to bed around 2 a.m.

The closet door was open a few inches. He usually sleeps inside there. I dreaded opening that door so I stalled - getting dressed, going to the bathroom, getting a drink. I just knew I was going to find him there, stiff and cold but looking peaceful.

Yeah. Not so much.

When I came back from the kitchen, he was sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor with an eyebrow raised, like he was thinking, "I'm not dying till I'm damn good and ready. Now feed me, slave."

Quote of the day

When I heard that Donald Trump was considering a presidential bid, my first thought was "Sarah Palin with pants."

- Jerry Jurgensmeier, mini editorial in Sioux City Journal

Don't tell Bob Vander Plaats

Rick Santorum (the senator not the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter), who doesn't want men to have sex with dogs because then men might want to have sex with other men (or something like that), has been using a campaign slogan written by a gay man. Santorum's website proclaimed that he's "Fighting to make America America again." And his official press release announcing his exploratory committee said, "It's time for America to be America again."

The trouble is, "Let America Be America again" is a line from a famous pro-union poem about poverty and racial discrimination. It was written by Langston Hughes, who just happened to be gay.

Santorum, like most aspiring Republican presidential nominees, has been courting Bob Vander Plaats, a Tea Party nutjob who aspired to be governor of Iowa but couldn't get past the primary. Vander Plaats took it out on two Iowa Supreme Court justices by leading the campaign to have them ousted. Their only sin was that they, along with every other member of the state Supreme Court, had ruled that gay marriage is legal in Iowa. Vander Plaats' only claim to fame is that he hates gay people. But he loves a fetus. Until it's born, because if it happens to be born gay or female, he won't recognize it as a full citizen who deserves the same rights to free choice and self-determination that anyone who happens to be born a straight male.

With the Iowa caucuses nine months away, Bob Vander Plaats sees himself as a king maker. (Not to be confused with Iowa's Rep. Steve King, who sees himself as a pug-faced buffoon. Or he would, if he ever looked in a mirror.) I'm not sure how BVP will feel when he finds out one of his favorite kiss-asses has been going around quoting a gay black poet.

When confronted about the source of his new campaign slogan, Santorum said, "Well, I'm not too sure that's my campaign slogan."

Which prompted a TPM reader to comment:

"This could be a new definition of santorum: the frothy, kind of gross but schadenfreudy, mixture of denial and backpedaling that results when a GOP candidate discovers his campaign slogan come from a pro-union poem written by a gay poet."

Just for fun, I googled Santorum. Rick the dick's official website came in as result #10. Eight of the first 10 results were about what is delicately referred to as his "google problem.

Google's not his only problem.

I wish I didn't have cats

Here's another long rambling post about my babies.

I already mentioned that Lizzie has fleas. Now, she's learned how to jump onto the dresser and the kitchen counter.

Very early Friday morning, I woke to the sound of my finches going nuts - wings flapping, banging against the side of the cage, screeching. Finch screeches aren't that loud but they get your attention.

Lizzie was sitting on top the cage.

"No, Lizzie," I said in my strongest bad-kitty voice as I grabbed her and plopped her on the floor. She jumped right back on the dresser. Grabbed her, No Lizzie'd right in her face. After I took her down the third time, I went looking for my spray bottle.

The next time, she got spritzed with water in her face. That kept her down. Until I left the room. When I came back, she jumped down as soon as I picked up the bottle. I save the spray bottle for really big transgressions. Once she learns all the rules, it'll be retired.

I piled a bunch of stuff on the dresser so she doesn't have a flat surface to jump onto. That's kept her away from the birds.

Next problem.

She's had diarrhea ever since I brought her home from the shelter. Big, stinky pudding-like dumps 3-4 times a day. If I gave my cats traditional pet names, I would've named her Puddin'.

At first I blamed it on the worming they gave her and the stress of being in a new environment. Her belly's really bloated and she acts like she's starving all the time. It might be worms. We're going to the vet on Monday. She's due for a shot anyway.

But I have a stronger suspicion that her diarrhea is from overeating. I'm used to caring for elderly cats with poor appetites so I left food out all the time. Lizzie took full advantage of that. Plus, I was letting her eat Percival's canned food with gravy and his crunchy snacks. Probably too rich for her.

Yesterday, I started severely restricting what and how much she ate. She only had one big dump and one smaller one. And she didn't have her usual massive dump this morning. I think I'm on the right track.

Now I have to keep her distracted when Percy's eating. I have to feed him several times a day since he'll only eat a little bit at a time and he can't graze whenever he wants like he's used to. He's doing great now but he's way too skinny. I'm stressed out from knowing he's going to die.

But none of that is why I'm currently wishing I didn't have cats. This is:

Six a.m. I wake up to Percy's foul-smelling hisses right above my face. He's sitting on one side of my head and Lizzie's on the other. He wants her to leave. She won't. I pet them both at the same time. (That's why I have two hands.) The hissing stops. I try to go back to sleep.

You know the feeling you get when you're being watched. Both cats are sitting right next to my face. Staring at me. Intensely.

So I get up to feed them. Stay up long enough to make sure Lizzie only eats her own food. Go back to bed. Lizzie runs in, jumps up on the bed and pounces on my feet. I play with her a bit then curl up so she can't find them. She keeps batting at the comforter for awhile then leaves. I stretch my legs out. Um, why are the sheets wet?

That. Little. Bitch. She peed on my bed. On me!

Did you ever think 'pissed off' is a strange way of saying 'angry'? You know the origins of that? It's because people used to literally piss on the people they were mad at. Cats do it too.

Lizzie doesn't want to share me or the bed with Percy so she marked her territory. And she punished me for not letting her eat whatever she wants and for spritzing her with water when all she wanted to do was attack those cute little birds.

It's possible she's got a bladder infection or something - yay, one more expensive test at the vet's. But I don't think it's a coincidence that she peed on the bed of all places.

The first day she was here, she peed on the couch and then the bed. I caught her in the act the second time, took her to her litter box and she hasn't peed anywhere else since.

Until this morning. Now I've got a pile of urine-soaked bedding in my bathtub. The comforter is too big for the washing machine downstairs, and I don't have enough quarters anyway. The laundromat I sometimes use is crowded on weekends. I'd have to wait in line for one of the big machines.

I will put up with a lot of things from cats but I will not put up with someone peeing on my bed. If she's sick, I'll excuse it. If it's a one-time event, I'll let her stay. If it keeps happening ...

I don't want to take her back to the shelter. If I told them why I didn't want her, it could be a death sentence for her. Nobody else wants to adopt a pissy puss.

She's made so many messes - knocked over plants, shredded kleenexes, spilled the garbage, and stolen socks, pencils, q-tips, dixie cups and anything else she can carry and scattered them all over the apartment. I'm constantly picking things up, cleaning the litter box, fussing over mealtimes. Now she won't even let me sleep in a clean, dry bed.

But she's so damn cute. And it's so nice to have a warm little critter curl up on your chest and purr.

Dear George Bush

Are you paying attention to stories like this?

Last month, Clay Hunt, a 28 year old former Marine corporal and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, locked himself in his apartment and shot himself in the head. He had been a volunteer who helped other soldiers who were considering suicide and appeared in a commercial encouraging vets to get help. A year ago, he lobbied Congress for improvements in the disability claims process. Among the stresses that may have contributed to his depression and anxiety was his frustration with the VA's handling of his disability claim and delays in receiving the GI bill funding he needed to pay his college expenses.

Hunt suffered from PTSD and was haunted by memories of combat and feelings of guilt because he survived while so many of his friends had been killed.

One of his friends says:

"He really was looking for someone to tell him what it was he went over to do and why those sacrifices were made."

Six months post chemo

This is my hair six months after I finished chemo. It's really curly, but it was always this curly when I had it cut short. It's grayer than it used to be and the texture is coarser.

Not that innocent

Lizzie crawls under my desk and sneaks up from underneath the sliding keyboard shelf. Then she attacks. Here you can see the patch of orange tiger stripes on her neck and the diamond on her forehead.

This afternoon I found a flea on her belly. I should have trusted my instincts and given her a flea bath the day I brought her home from the shelter. The flea shampoo said not to use it on kittens under 3 months old. The shelter had estimated that she was 10-12 weeks. I couldn't find any fleas or flea dirt on her at the time so I held off.

Now I'll have to treat her and Percy and the whole apartment. Taking care to keep the spray away from the baby birds. When they're old enough, I'll probably have to treat the birds - and the cats and the apartment all over again. Yay.

Pretty lively for a goner

This is Percival a week after the vet tried to convince me to put him to sleep. In the top picture, he's resting after chasing a strip of fabric around the room. You'll note the empty plant stand beside him. (I relocated the plant after Lizzie knocked it over for the third time.)

In the middle picture, he's sitting in the window watching Lizzie attack the pencils on my desk. He's thinking, "What the hell is she doing now? And can I get in on the fun?"

The bottom picture is Percy not sharing his treats with Lizzie. He's teaching her that he's the boss.

Harold and Sophie's offspring

This is the best picture I've been able to get of my baby birds. You can see the little black beak of the one on the right. The one on the left has his head tucked down. You can't see it in the picture but their wing feathers are coming in.

What's spilling out of Donald Trump's mouth ...

... is more toxic than what BP dumped in the Gulf.

I hate giving this attention whore any more attention, but the other bullshit Donald Trump is spewing is truly disturbing - and not getting enough media scrutiny. All the media's talking about is Trump's late-to-the-party bluster about Obama's birth certificate. But he's spouting off about other stuff that's even crazier and far more important to note.

• Trump believes the war in Iraq was really what the critics always said - blood for oil. But unlike the vast majority of Americans, he thinks that's a good thing. He says we should stay so we can take their oil:

We have thousands of people that died, our great soldiers ... We have thousands of people all over this country that are wounded, horribly wounded, with legs and arms ... And I would not want to be the one that would tell their parents that your son, your daughter, has died in vain, been wounded in vain ... So I would absolutely keep the oil.

He has similar opinions about Libya. He says we're getting nothing there but dead soldiers and it's costing us billions of dollars. So we should take their oil too. I'm not sure whether he's misinformed or lying, but no American soldiers have died in Libya and we've spent less than one billion. As a columnist for New York Magazine explains:

So, to sum up Trump's foreign policy: Stay in Iraq forever. Take the oil. Make stuff up about Libya. Take more oil.

• Trump also told the Wall Street Journal that if he doesn't win the Republican nomination, he'll run as an independent. Just like every other multi-millionaire nutjob who's ever funded his own independent candidacy, he thinks he can win:

“I’m not doing it for any other reason. I like winning.”

That's right. Trump admitted, on the videotaped record, that the only reason he's running for president is to stroke his own ego. To quote another pampered prick with delusions of grandeur, #winning.

• By the way, if Obama's presidency really was a Kenyan-socialist-communist-Nazi terrorist plot, those conspirators were really clever. Not only did they fake a birth certificate and plant birth announcements in one Honolulu newspaper way back in 1961 - they also planted the birth announcement in the other Honolulu paper. And they placed fake listings for Obama's mother, father and grandparents in the Honolulu city directories from 1960-62.

Adventures in kitty sitting

Lizzie has learned how to get up on the kitchen counter. She jumps on top the garbage bin and then onto the counter. So much for Percival's private, uninterrupted dining.

But she may decide she doesn't want to do that again. I took the garbage out and left the bin standing open. She jumped up there and ended up inside the bin. I heard it happen and heard her meowing to get out. Decided I'd leave her there to teach her a lesson, knowing she should be able to jump out. I forgot about her. Ten to 15 minutes later, I heard a muffled mewing. Went to find her still in the garbage bin with the lid closed.

She was very grateful when I retrieved her. But there was an air freshener thingie in the bottom of the bin - now she smells like perfume and it's so heavy it's gagging me. Guess who's about to get her first bath.

Update: She's soaking wet but perfume free and I don't have a single claw mark on me.

Here's some real leadership

More info.

More on that leadership thing

It's kind of a pitiful commentary on our state of fiscal malgovernance when you consider the two leaders that we have that are trying to face down this issue .. One of them is so ready to compromise that he folds faster than a lawn chair ... And the other is ready to sob at the drop of a hat.

- David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's director of OMB

It's that whole leadership thing

From NYT columnist Paul Krugman:

Despite the ferocious opposition he has faced since the day he took office, Mr. Obama is clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend America’s partisan differences. And his political strategists seem to believe that he can win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.

But if you ask me, I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing. 

Scott Pelley wants Katie's job

TMZ and other journalists* have been reporting that Katie Couric is out at the CBS Evening News. They're just holding off the announcement until she lines up another gig. Corporate assholes are like that - they don't want to risk any bad publicity for themselves.

Scott Pelley is CBS's number one choice to replace her. Some people think that might be a demotion - the evening anchor job isn't as respectable as his current gig. Brian Stelter notes that he's one of the youngest correspondents on 60 Minutes. One of the youngest. And Scott Pelley is 53.

That's not only a problem for 60 Minutes and the evening news. It's the whole network's problem. Their audience is old and dying off or moving to Belize or Costa Rica. (Just watch HGTV's "House Hunters International.")

In fact, that's the problem for network TV in general. Most people don't have the patience to plop down on the couch all night and sit through whatever the network number crunchers want to show them. Young people watch online or on their Blackberries, on their own schedules with fewer commercials. Middle-aged people use DVR. Only old people watch the old-fashioned way.

Pelley isn't commenting directly on his future job prospects but he is quietly campaigning for it. When he filled in for Katie last year, he sucked up to everybody. And he told The Observer:

“I think the audience can tell the difference between someone who is a brilliant reader of the Teleprompter, and someone who has the experience and who has been in the field, who has covered the stories and knows what they’re doing.”

Oh, snap! If Katie was anything like Sarah Palin, she'd be furiously tweeting in her own defense. But she's smarter than that. She'll serve her full term (her contract's up in June) before she moves on to greener pastures. She's poised to be the next Oprah.

*Yes, I just said the people at TMZ are journalists. Their stories are sourced better than most of the crap you see on any of the cable news networks. And TMZ is often the first to get a lot of stories, including Michael Jackson's death, Mel Gibson's anti-semitic rants and the fact Lindsay Lohan ate bagels with her father.

Twitter doesn't allow RSS feeds anymore

I used to link to be able to have my tweets automatically show up on my side bar. What's the next great new social network? I'm ready to move on.

Anyway, here are my latest tweets:

@joshtpm: If you use racism to advance yourself politically or economically you are a racist.

@joshtpm: Use conspiracy theories to advance yourself & you're an idiot. Short term gain in tv ratings, long term damage to public image.

Both are in response to this from Josh Marshall:

Donald Trump, more stupid than racist or more racist than stupid? ... What makes this all comical and egregious is that I don't get the impression that Trump is any sort of conspiracy theorist or racist.

Quote of the day

Trump is only the latest turd to float to the top of the GOP toilet bowl.

- a commenter on TPM

Now that's the Percival I know and love

This morning he ate his own food and then he ate the rest of Lizzie's while she was busy playing. And - wait for it - he pooped!

Not bad for a zombie.

Full of piss and vinegar

That was one of my grandma's favorite expressions and it's the perfect description for Lizzie this morning. Right now she's in time out, locked in the bathroom with a couple of toys.

I've discovered that Percival never really responded to his name as much as my tone of voice. Every time I say "Lizzie" or "Elizabeth" in that bad kitty tone, Percy stops whatever he's doing. Unfortunately, Lizzie doesn't.

After days of no appetite, last night Percy was so hungry that he got up on the counter and tore open a loaf of bread. He just took a few nibbles though. This morning when I fed him, he only ate about a tablespoon of canned food but he gobbled down about a quarter cup of dry kitten food and a couple of crunchy treats. I'm leaving a bowl of dry on the counter since I know he'll look there now.

I've been feeding him on the counter or on top of the dresser in the bedroom because Lizzie is one of those grass-is-greener kitties who wants whatever he's having. I used to leave food out all the time, but she's been overeating and having loose stools as a result. His canned food is too rich for her. Yesterday, I only allowed her a couple of teaspoons of canned and her diarrhea stopped.

If it seems like I'm a little obsessed with my cats lately, it's because I am. Waiting for someone you love to die is stressful. I thought Percy was within hours of death several times last week. Now I'm starting to think he'll outlive me.

He won't. But it's nice to see him enjoying what's left of his life.

Lately, my hands have been shaking a lot so all my pictures are blurry. These are from yesterday. Note the layers of fur on the curtains and the couches. Lizzie was sleeping with her head propped up like that. Percy was patiently indulging me while I took 10 shots of him in the same position.

I love that old broad - quote of the day

I cannot stand the people who get wonderful starts in show business and who abuse it. Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen for example ... They party too much, don’t learn their lines, are unprofessional, and they grumble about everything. I think they are terribly ungrateful.

- Betty White

He's out of the closet

Yesterday, Percival started drinking again. He wasn't throwing up so I gave him a couple of teaspoons of tuna water and he lapped it up right away. When he managed to keep that down, I kept giving him more, a tablespoon or so every couple of hours.

He's been hiding in the closet the last couple of days. Last night, when I came home from writers group, he met me at the door. He spent part of the night in the living room with me.

This morning, he's been out more. I gave him a couple of teaspoons of gravy from his favorite cat food and he licked it up right away. I waited an hour then offered him some more. No interest. He didn't want any more tuna water either, but he's drinking water and he peed in the litter box. He even jumped up on the kitchen counter when I was working there.

He's not out of the woods yet but I'm glad I didn't take the vet's advice. When I called them yesterday, she thought it was time to put him to sleep. She talked about quality of life and allowing him to die with dignity.

After being diagnosed with cancer and going through chemo and radiation, I've had plenty of time to think about what would be the best way to die. I'd rather do it at home, in my own bed, and I want the same for Percy. I'm not sure there's any dignity in being put in a box, pissed off and terrified, then hauled to the vet and poked with needles. I did that to Carolina and I swore I'd never do it again.

Since he was a little better than he'd been on Wednesday, I told the vet I wanted to wait. Percy's rallied before when I thought he was a goner. I don't think he's going to come all the way back this time, but he's sleeping in his favorite hiding place and he purrs when I pet him. He still has some quality in his life.

Quote of the day

Oh, please with Donald Trump ... He's full of it ... The only thing he's running is his mouth.

- Bill Cosby

To be or not to be

When I woke up this morning, I really expected to find Percival dead. And I thought he was at first. He didn't move when I approached him and grabbed a t-shirt from the closet where he's sleeping, or when I fed the fish or fussed around the bedroom. When I put my glasses on, I could see he was breathing slowly but still hadn't moved.

I let Lizzie out of the bathroom - I had confined her for a few hours so Percival could have free run. I fed her then went back to check on him. He was awake, with his head up, looking at me.

I was happy and disappointed at the same time. Yesterday, he seemed to be in pain. I do not want to see him suffer but the thought of taking him to be put down makes me sick to my stomach.

He hasn't had anything to eat since late Monday or very early Tuesday. Yesterday, he vomited every time he drank any water.

This morning I sat on the floor next to him. He purred while I petted him. I picked him up and put him on the bed. He tried to get away at first - he probably thought I was going to give him his pill - but he settled down when I lay down beside him and started petting him again.

Then, after a few minutes, he got up and went back to his spot on the closet floor.

I didn't find any fresh vomit this morning. I think he's stopped drinking. As long as he's resting and seems to be reasonably comfortable, I'm going to leave him alone. I don't expect him to make it through the day.

But he's surprised me before.

Update #1: Percy is drinking some water. If he keeps that down, I'll try giving him some tuna water later. Not sure if I should make him take his pill.

Update #2: There are two baby birds in the nest instead of one, and they both look really healthy.

That gray fuzz is a baby bird

For awhile, I've been thinking I heard a baby bird twitting (the sound's not quite a tweet). It's hard getting a good look in the nest. But this afternoon, mom and dad were both eating when I looked in to find a wide open little beak. He's a chubby little thing covered with gray fluff.

There are two other eggs that haven't hatched. I'm not sure what happened to the fourth egg.

Sorry I couldn't get a better picture, but I didn't want to freak out mom and dad too much.

I'll rent a carpet shampooer

Percival is very sick today. He's vomiting bile and straining to poop, but only producing small drops of liquified poo. He didn't eat all day yesterday. This morning, I gave him the water from a can of tuna. He lapped up a little bit then vomited soon after.

If he didn't have heart failure, I'd be rushing him to the vet. But I hate putting him through that when chances are, there's very little the vet can do to help him.

I should confine him to the bathroom so he can't leave little poo drops all over the apartment. Instead, I'm confining the kitten and giving Percy free rein. He's mostly hiding in his favorite spot on top of my dirty laundry in the closet.

He had been doing so well the last few weeks, especially the few days prior to this episode. But I have a feeling today might be his last day.

Carrie Underwood just got cool

Quote of the day

Republicans are always talking about deregulation and big government ... And I always say their philosophy is small government for the big guy and big government for the little guy. And so, if my wife's uterus was incorporated or my friend's bedroom was incorporated, maybe they would be talking about deregulating.

- Florida state Rep. Scott Randolph

It's about time and other quickies

Well, I broke down and called the cancer center to see if they'd flush my chemo port. My appointment's on Thursday.

I didn't ever want to go back there again but it was either that or get my port taken out. The gyn-oncologist told me I should keep it for 2 years in case I have a recurrence. I'm superstitious - getting it taken out now would almost guarantee a recurrence.

I spent the last 15 minutes petting Percival even though I had a dozen other things to do. Only moments before I had sent the new kitten on her way. Then he jumped up on my lap and said, "My turn."

He's heavier than he was a month ago. Ever since he puked that hairball and pooped a log, his appetite has been better and he's gaining weight.

The picture is from way back when he wasn't much older than Lizzie. He was "helping" me sew.

Time for some quickies:

• A South African man became an international hero after he beheaded one guy and killed 2 others with his axe after they raped his young daughter. Except there was no rape. He doesn't even have a daughter.

• Penny Lawrence never knew her birth father, so she went looking for him. Oh boy, did she find him. Now she's knocked up with his baby. But it's okay because they're in love. Or they're "victims" of the newest made-up disease - "Genetic Sexual Attraction."

Victim of Love. Isn't that an old Eagles song?

• Worldwide Penis Size Map - Don't get too excited. Those are centimeters, not inches.

• And to that, Rep. Ted Poe of Texas says: "It's about time we start laying pipe."

The dynamics of abuse

Elizabeth stepped in her own poop. She was trying to be a good kitty and cover it up but she's young and awkward and her poop is soft. So her two back feet were covered in stinky, sticky goo.

Rather than letting her track it all over the house - and all over me - I scooped her up and took her to the bathroom sink and washed her feet. She cried the whole time and ran away as soon as I let her go.

From a kitty's point of view, what I did would seem like abuse. But here she is now, cuddling up to me, purring like crazy, making sure I still love her. Her very life, her health, her safety depend on me. She understands on some instinctual level that she has to endear herself to me.

It occurred to me that this is what it's like for an abused child. You have to love the people who hurt you because otherwise you'll die.

Republicans know how to strike terror into the hearts of seniors

The Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, are pushing for a 10-year budget proposal that would replace Medicare with vouchers so senior citizens and others on Medicare can buy private insurance and they're going to end Medicaid.

Under the plan, people currently on Medicare or expecting to be on Medicare within the next 10 years. But the poorest people in the country - people on Medicaid - almost all of whom are elderly, disabled or under the age of 18 - will lose the safety net that keeps them alive.

Let's take a 50 year old disabled woman, who had serious and expensive medical problems even before she was diagnosed with cancer, and pull the carpet right out from under her.

Medicare is good. The best part about it - for doctors and for patients - is that it's a single payer system. When a doctor is treating a Medicare patient, he knows what procedures and medications are covered. He can make treatment decisions based on that. Because, let's face it, when a patient is worried about how she's going to pay for treatment, she's less likely to seek help in the first place or follow through on the doctor's orders.

That's why my mom lay in bed all night in pain, unable to even get herself to the bathroom to pee, and finally called me at 5 a.m. even though I was an hour away. She couldn't afford to call an ambulance. Her fear of more medical bills was greater than her fear of death.

Her Medicare co-pays are that high. Imagine how high they would be if she was flung out into the private insurance system. Or how much harder it would be for someone who's currently on Medicaid, who has even less money than my mother.

A doctor who treats a lot of patients with the same insurance can easily tailor a treatment plan to fit not only the patient's medical needs but also her finances. A single-payer system also saves a fortune in administrative costs for the providers - they don't need all the extra man hours to file claims for all the different payers.

A millionaire like Paul Ryan doesn't have to worry about that. He can afford to get his hemorrhoid surgery and hair implants no matter what. Screw the rest of us.

The craziest thing about the plan is that it's just like the Medicare prescription drug plan Bush put in place. It ended up costing a lot more because they're paying the middleman. Instead of the government paying pharmacies to provide meds for patients, they pay the health insurance companies who then pay the pharmacies. And guess what? Health insurance companies take a big cut. The program turned out to be far more expensive than it had to be.

Now they want to replace Medicare with the same kind of system. More payola for the insurance corporations, less care for the patients.

Obamacare has the same component. It provides vouchers to help people buy insurance - in other words, the government is putting more money in the pockets of corporations.

How ironic Republicans fought against that when Democrats proposed it - they're still threatening to repeal it. While at the same time, they're planning to put the same system in place for Medicare patients.

Quote of the day

Bring on the bamboozlement ...

Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, which is now the official Republican plan, phases out Medicare over 10 years. Yet you'll be treated to numerous articles that call this a 'reform' or 'overhaul' or even 'saving' Medicare. But each are no better than straight outright deceptions, whether by design or ignorance ...

The Ryan plan is to get rid of Medicare and in place of it give seniors a voucher to buy health care insurance from private insurers. Now, what if you can't buy as much as insurance or as much care as you need? Well, start saving now or just too bad.

- Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo

Computers, cats and biochemistry

Here's my daily dose of paranoia. When I went to igoogle for the first time since my computer was reformatted, the page came up exactly the way I had it set up before. OMG, does Google plant cookies so deep that even reformatting won't get rid of them? Nah. I was signed into Blogger. Same user name. Duh.

On the pet front, my kitten answers to Elizabeth so that's her name. I call her Lizzie sometimes. Percival hasn't growled at her in more than 24 hours. They sniff each other and they're sleeping on the bed together - opposite ends, but still. Tonight I dangled a ribbon and they took turns attacking it.

Right now, Elizabeth is sleeping on my chest, buttoned into my cardigan so I can have my hands free. I need a baby sling.

My friend came over yesterday to install the new RAM on my computer. It's running great. But when I reinstalled my printer software, the CD tray wouldn't open. I had to mess around with that for a long time before I got it open. When I put the CD in, it roared like the motor of an industrial-sized fan. I was able to get the software installed but yikes.

I'm trying out Open Office instead of reinstalling MS Works. I couldn't figure out how to set up a database, but I was able to import my Works spreadsheets. Tomorrow, I'll try out the word processing.

All in all, things are pretty peaceful at my place. I'm not sure why I feel like slashing my wrists. Let's blame it on brain chemistry. On Friday and Saturday I was having olfactory hallucinations. I smelled formaldehyde all day, everywhere I went. Sometimes that seems to signal my moods are about to flip.