National League Pennant Race: The Big Blue Wrecking Crew vs. The Philly Cheesesteak Eaters

The National League Pennant race begins tonight in Los Angeles with the Dodgers taking on the Philadelphia Phillies, and whipping their asses. It is unfortunate for the Phillies, but they must lose so that the nation can have a Dodgers-Yankees World Series.

But the Phillies have a good baseball team, they've had a good year, and the city of Philadelphia has the honor of being one of the culinary capitals of the U.S.

Didn't know that, did you?

If you thought that the Yankees and the Red Sox were an intense rivalry, or the U.S. Civil War pitted brother against brother in a bloody battle, or that Leno vs. Letterman tested the loyalties of real Americans, then you've probably never heard of the Pat's vs. Geno's Philly Cheesesteak War in that great city of Philadelphia, the city that is sending their team to Los Angeles to be badly beaten, then sent home as the team that could'a been contenders.

But one thing they have in Philadelphia that nobody can take away from them (in addition to that cracked bell) is the great honor of being the city that invented the Philly Cheesesteak. The two top contenders who claim to make the best Philly Cheesesteak sit on opposite corners in South Philly, a decades-long rivalry for the throne: Pat's and Geno's.



Some people claim that Pat's, the original, makes the better Philly Cheesesteak because they use the "real" Cheez Whiz, not the artificial kind. But it's a subject of controversy.



Go Dodgers!

American League Pennant Playoff: The Bronx Bombers vs. The Mickey Mouse Club

The two American League teams who will battle it out for four of seven games for the American League Pennant this year are the New York Yankees (better known as the Bronx Bombers) and the Anaheim Angels (better known as the Mickey Mouse Club).

Okay, I made up that last part.

Who would name a baseball team the "Angels?" Is it because of the Crystal Cathedral influence in that region, the only church in the country in which the "services" for the masses consist of a drive-through ATM where people give money instead of receiving cash? And instead of a receipt, they get a written Blessing. So they can go spend the rest of their lives annoying everyone by saying "I am so blessed." Orange County sucks.

The Angels have a nice stadium. In the City of Anaheim, County of Orange, State of California. They've got this phony rock formation in one corner, and sometimes they have fireworks out there, which is pretty cool.

I went to a game at that stadium once. Angels vs. Yankees, American League playoff. I got there early and stalked the Yankee players, saw Reggie Jackson on the field, Bernie Williams. Joe Torre. I was in heaven. I wore my Yankee T-Shirt, my Yankee hat, and walked proudly through the stadium. Every person there, or probably 99% anyway, were Angels fans. Everyone except me and a really drunk loud guy sitting next to me whose name I no longer remember.

Yankees lost, and I was crushed. Before they lost, early in the game, all the Angels fans pulled out these cheap plastic orange-colored dildo-looking devices and smashed them against other things to make this really obnoxious sound. They've got something called a "Rally Monkey" that they show up on the screen to get the fans to bang their dildos. I mean honestly, a Rally Monkey? What do you expect from a team called the Angels.

But anyway, they were the Anaheim Angels. And guess what everyone thinks of when they heard the name Anaheim? Disneyland. Mickey Mouse. M-I-C K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E.

I guess the Angels got tired of being called Mouseketeers, or the Mickey Mouse Club, and wanted to change their name. So they come up with the bright idea that from now on, they're going to call themselves the Los Angeles Angels.

Now mind you, the Angels are not located in the City of Los Angeles. They are not located in the County of Los Angeles. So it's like they just arbitrarily decided to pick some other city and pretend that's where they were from.

But the thing is, if you got to pick an entire new city, make up a fantasy identity, who would pick Los Angeles? Other than the Dodgers, Los Angeles is a Pit. Why didn't they call themselves the Paris Angels, or the Dublin Angels? But Los Angeles? Los Angeles already has a major league baseball team. They're named the Dodgers. And, unlike the Anaheim Angels, the Los Angeles Dodgers will be going to the World Series this year.

I like Mike Scoscia. I wish him the best. A long winter break. Relax. Take a vacation. Because the Mickey Mouse Club is going to get their collective asses kicked by the Bronx Bombers. Or so I predict.

I'm Glad More Men Are Getting Breast Cancer. When It's Only The Women Who Are Doing The Dying, Nobody Seems To Care.

It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For some reason, the color for this national awareness month is pink. I guess that's because pink is a girl's color, and most of the victims of breast cancer are female. Pink ribbons, folded at the edges, are the symbols for the national breast cancer awareness month. Yogurt lids and box tops and bottle caps and receipts or proofs of purchase are collected and mailed by women from every state to get donations for research. Lots of groups have fund raisers and lunches, wear pink T-shirts and scarfs, sponsor walk-a-thons and run-a-thons to raise money.

The apparent primary goal of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is to raise money for research for a cure, which is well and good for people who have enough money to afford healthcare. All the research in the world isn't going to help women who have no healthcare, can't afford a mammogram, can't afford treatment even if cancer is found. But our country refuses to pay for women to have mammograms, and pay for treatment for breast cancer.

Women always have to do the bake-sale to try to raise money for anything that is important. Do your children need money to buy schoolbooks? The women will have a bakesale. Does your church want to raise money to help the poor and homeless? The women will have a bakesale. We always have to hold bakesales to raise money for ourselves, for our children, education, healthcare, anything of value. We get nothing from society or from our government. They let us die. So we make things and sell things, and try to raise money for the things that really matter.

In an effort to raise money to do research to find a cure for breast cancer, there is a national bakesale conducted by women every year in the entire month of October. You can buy all sorts of things, and if there is a pink ribbon anywhere near the display in a store, it probably means the seller will give a little money to breast cancer research.

When you think of it, it's kind of odd to ask people to contribute money so the medical industry can find a cure for breast cancer, but then most of us won't be able to afford it. It's like we're pitching in to find a cure for rich women. Like the Real Housewives of some upscale exclusive community. We should collect bottle caps to find a cure for them. For ourselves, it probably will be too expensive if they come up with something.
I support the idea of research, free mammograms, free treatment. But the key issues remain undercover, not mentioned in polite society. Breast cancer among women is an epidemic in the U.S. WTF is going on? It is most likely being caused by chemical and poisoned compounds used by U.S. corporations, inserted into the genetically modified food that they sell us, injected into the building materials and carpets and drapes in our homes and the plastics that surround us. So why not spend a few of those bucks that are raised every October to nail down the cause of this radical increase in this disease that is killing so many women. And then once it's nailed down, let's sue the companies who have caused these increases and caused these deaths, and make them pay.

Just for example, millions of women were all but force-fed hormones by their doctors starting at the age of 40. They were told that the hormones would protect them from heart disease, osteoporosis, wrinkles, weight-gain, hot flashes, dowager's hump, and everything else that women dread as part of the aging process. Any woman over the age of 40 who did not take hormones was considered un-american.

Until, that is, it started coming out that instead of helping women, the hormones were killing them. They increased the incidence of breast cancer dramatically, caused heart attacks and strokes, had no effect whatsoever on strengthening bones despite these bullshit claims by the drug dealers. As for the wrinkles, who cares if somebody's got wrinkles if they're dead?

How much money has been paid out to the families of the women who were killed by these hormone drug pushers? Not a penny, as far as I know. Oops. Lots of dead women. Oops. My bad. Nobody cares when it's women who are doing the dying.

In 1950, a U.S. woman had one chance in 20 that she would ever get breast cancer. Today that number has increased to 1 chance in 8. If we keep going at this rate, soon we will be able to guarantee that all U.S. women will get breast cancer. Of course since the Democrats refuse to pass a national healthcare program, many women can't even afford to get a mammogram never mind afford treatment for breast cancer to save their own lives.

During the 40 year period from 1950 to 1990, the rate of breast cancer among white women in the U.S. increased by 53%. Is that an epidemic? I'd say so. That's a 1% increase annually.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women, and the leading cause of death for women between the ages of 40 and 55.

Over 200,000 women in this country are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and at least 50,000 women die every year from breast cancer.

So why is this happening? And exactly what is being done to stop this plague against women in this country?

Most of the research that is done in the field of health is done for the benefit of white men. They are the wealthiest and most powerful group of people in this country since they tend to exclude women and non-whites from well-paying jobs. The white men also tend to have health insurance so they can pay for whatever expensive treatments the medical industry comes up with to prolong the lives of white men.

For example, much of our national health research has been directed at heart disease in white men. And much progress has been made in helping white men with that disease. But the research has traditionally excluded women, and the same types of treatments that save men's lives are not so successful when it comes to women with heart disease.

Black men are 40% more likely than are white men in this country to get cancer. And guess what? They're also generally poorer, have more periods of unemployment, fewer assets, and are less likely to have healthcare. So when they get cancer, they just die.

http://www.fwhc.org/health/xeno.htm

You can buy oreos that have pink on them, and some money will be given from that bake sale for breast cancer research. That's part of our bakesale that we women have to carry on every year because our government won't pay for us to have mammograms, breast cancer treatment, and research to find out what is causing this increase in breast cancer in women in this country.

You know how the politicians keep saying that "we" have the best healthcare system in the world? Well, don't get too excited about that. Maybe the politicians should say that "they" have the best healthcare. For the rest of us, things pretty much suck.

You know how they keep suggesting that "we" will beat cancer in our lifetime, which implies that things are getting better every year in our "war" against cancer. Well, that's just another lie. Like the war on terror, war on drugs. All a lie. None of them are working.

From the National Cancer Institute, the facts show that cancer keeps rising, other than the decrease in lung cancer associated with the reduction in the number of people who smoke. For everybody else, your situation gets bleaker every year.

http://progressreport.cancer.gov/highlights.asp

You can buy a bracelet for your women friends, a breast cancer bracelet, and some of what you spend will be given to some group to do research on breast cancer. Men have bracelets too. Their bracelets are blue. That's a boy's color. They sell bracelets to raise money for research into prostrate cancer. They have their own form of yearly bakesale because the government won't give men free prostrate cancer screenings and treatment, and the government won't do the investigation that is necessary to find out why so many men are getting prostrate cancer. So men have bake sales too. And they die from cancer too.
Here are a few facts from the government's 2007 "progress" report on cancer. http://progressreport.cancer.gov/highlights.asp. That term "progress" suggests a move forward to beat cancer. But the facts don't support that.

"The nation is making progress toward major cancer-related Healthy People 2010 targets."

"Death rates for the four most common cancers (prostate, breast, lung, and colorectal), as well as for all cancers combined, continue to decline."

[Then they talk about a decline in smoking].

"The nation is losing ground in other important areas that demand attention." See that? We're going in the wrong direction. The headline is that the nation is "making progress," but the facts are that things are getting worse. There is actually an increase in most cancers in our country. That's not what I would call progress.

"The incidence rates of cancer of the liver, pancreas, kidney, esophagus, and thyroid have continued to rise, as have the rates of new cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, myeloma, and childhood cancers. The incidence rates of cancer of the brain and bladder and melanoma of the skin in women, and testicular cancer in men, are rising."

"Lung cancer death rates in women continue to rise, but not as rapidly as before. Death rates for cancer of the esophagus and thyroid in men, as well as of the liver, are increasing."

Poor people and black people have both the highest rates of cancer and the highest death rates for cancer:

"Unexplained cancer-related health disparities remain among population subgroups. For example, Blacks and people with low socioeconomic status have the highest rates of both new cancers and cancer deaths."

While breast cancer rates have risen dramatically since 1950 (with a radical 15% drop when the medical industry stopped telling women to use hormone drugs), fewer women get mammograms. Of course they're expensive, and our nation refuses to provide women with free mammograms and breast cancer treatment to save their lives. Like I said, I'm glad more men are getting breast cancer, because when it's only the women doing the dying, nobody seems to care.

"Mammography rates dropped slightly between 2003–2005, especially for women 50–64."

One of the common deadly cancers in this country is colon cancer. The most effective screening for that is a colonoscopy, recommended by most doctors for patients at 50, and every 5 years thereafter. That test costs well over $1,000, and most people cannot afford it, and do not have insurance that will cover it. So people die from colon cancer because our country refuses to provide all our citizens with free colonoscopies and treatment for colon cancer:

"Screening for colorectal cancer remains low, despite its proven effectiveness, though use is increasing. " Notice the tone of this statement, as if the author can't really figure out why more people aren't doing this, given its proven effectiveness. Psst: most people can't afford it, that's why.

You can buy a watch, a breast cancer watch, if you want to count the minutes until you or your sister or wife or mother or daughter will likely become another victim to this disease. Or die from it. But don't ask the government to pay for your mammogram, or your mother's mammogram, or their breast cancer treatment. Don't ask the politicians to get up off their fat corrupt lazy asses and do some real investigations into what is causing these increases in cancer in our country, so that we can protect future generations. Our government gives all our money to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and to war. So buy your breast cancer watch, send in the boxtops, save the yogurt lids, hope for a miracle but don't bet on one, and count off the minutes until another woman dies from this disease.

Chris Hedges - Empire of Illusion

*
Chris Hedges is a brilliant writer. His book "Christian Fascists" was a stunning and comprehensive indictment of the right-wing religions in the U.S. and their tactics and goals of destroying democracy and replacing it with a theocratic fascist system. He's a former reporter with the New York Times who left under pressure because of his outspoken opposition to the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq. He currently writes at Truthdig, http://www.truthdig.com/ and is the author of many books. His most recent is called Empire of Illusion, and he's been interviewed by several members of the progressive media, one excerpt being below by Laura Flanders at GritTV. GritTV is broadcast on Freespeech tv and is available online at the following link: http://www.freespeech.org/grittv

Laura Flanders is a journalist and is host of a daily current events TV show called GRITtv. She is also the author of several books, and has written articles which have appeared in The Nation, In These Times, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, and ZNet. Noted journalists Alexander and Patrick Cockburn are her uncles.

Excerpt from one review by Brian Bethune in Maclane's magazine, a Canadian newsweekly:

"[Chris Hedges] is not likely to win a lot of new friends with his latest work, Empire of Illusion (Knopf). The “illusion” part of the title is made clear in Hedges’ savage assault on celebrity/pop culture.... [and discusses] how Americans (and, increasingly, the rest of the world) are “bombarded with cant and spectacle” that robs them of “the intellectual and linguistic tools to separate illusion from truth.” Celebrity culture is one of images and sound bites, he writes, one that both drives and is enabled by, functional illiteracy. (He cites studies estimating the illiterate and semi-literate proportion of the U.S. and Canadian populations to be about 42 per cent.)"
....
"[T]he “illusion” [of celebrity and pop culture] serves the other half of his title, the “empire,” the corporate and military forces that he believes profit from the impoverishment, moral and financial, of his countrymen. It prevents Americans from seeing what is done in their name or even what is done to them."

"What seems to truly drive Hedges’ rage is his conviction that no republic has ever survived the acquisition of empire, and that his own will be no exception. The U.S. is in a death spiral, he believes, inextricably trapped in other nation’s lives and in “a culture of illusion that is, at its core, a culture of death—it will die and leave little of value behind.” Remarkable, bracing and highly moral, Empire of Illusion is Hedges’ lament for his nation.

Next Time, Buy The Cookies.

I never was a Girl Scout. I could claim it was because even back then I thought these youth scouting groups were neo-fascist militaristic brain-washing factories designed to turn out fodder for the war machine. But that's not why I never became a girl scout. The truth is I never qualified because I got kicked out of the Brownies. The adult woman who was our "leader" thought I was a bad influence on the other girls.

One of our big Brownie "functions" was to learn to prepare a dinner, to which our parents were invited. We served pigs in the blanket (hot dog rolled in a packaged crescent roll then baked) and red jello with a can of fruit cocktail in it, with syrup, and fresh whipped cream on top. We were trying to earn our nutrition badge. When it came to making the whipped cream, our adult lady leader wouldn't let us put any sugar in it, because she was on a diet. So the entire group had to have sugarless whipped cream because this woman had the eating habits of a suicidal imbecile. She said we should put bowls of sugar out on the table, so everyone could sprinkle sugar on top of the whipped cream. We had crunchy whipped cream. Which I loudly protested at the dinner.

We walked to the Brownie meetings after school, and went right past a little store that sold the best gumballs probably in the whole state. The big gumballs: grape, sour apple (yellow and red mottled), orange, cherry. These were huge gumballs, with a thick coating of hard candy on the outside, like none I've ever seen since. When you put the big gumball in your mouth and tried to bite down, it was so sour and the flavor so intense, but the candy shell so thick and hard to bite through, that colored drool would run down one side of your chin, which you'd have to try to lick up real fast with your tongue, get the rest with your hand. If I could find those same gumballs today, I'd buy a million of them.

The only benefit to going to the Brownie meetings was that we would all collect a few pennies from the sofa cushions, and buy gumballs on the way.

Then the "leader" decided that we were enjoying ourselves too much, so she banned gum.

I asked why.

She said "because I said so."

I said that I disagreed, that there was no reason we couldn't chew gum. We weren't babies, we were 10 years old. We weren't boys, we didn't stick the gum on the chairs, we just chewed it.

She kicked me out, and I never became a girlscout. I never again ate a "pig-in-the-blanket" or red jello with fruit cocktail, and I always put the sugar right in with the cream before I beat it. And I defiantly eat gumballs whenever and wherever the spirit moves me.

Post-Season Nail-Biters

I want a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. Longshot, perhaps, but that's what I want.

Widespread Swine Flu Activity In 37 States With No Medical Treatment Available For The Citizens. We Need A National Healthcare Program.

Something as common and "simple" as influenza could wipe out a large percentage of the world's population within a few months. During the 1918 "Spanish" flu (which actually originated in the U.S., in the military bases where draftees were lodged before being shipped to Europe during World War I) John Barry, in his book The Great Influenza, estimates as many as 100 million people died.

Now we have the swine flu, which they want us to call the H1N1Whatever1 flu because the people who sell pork products are understandably afraid that they will lose sales if people think they can get the flu from eating bacon. And a few years ago we had the bird flu, then the avian flu as a variation, and various other terrifying epidemics that capture the media until it turns that millions do not die, at which point they go back to the latest in the divorce filings of Jon and Kate.

But what if one of these days we get a flu that could have been controlled with proper medical care, but was not controlled because most people had no money to pay for drugs, and had no national healthcare program. What then? Talk about death panels. What is the difference between leaving people without medical protection to be killed by airborne influenza assassins, simply because both the Democrats and Republicans, in bipartisan fashion, took hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from the insurance industry, the doctor's lobbies, the hospital owners, and the drug sellers, to stop any form of national healthcare program for this country. A bipartisan deathpanel.

Who needs a national healthcare program? Not the rich people. They can afford to buy lots of insurance. They've got primary insurance with no deductible, and they've got umbrella or excess insurance to cover everything else. Some of these people have millions of dollars of coverage. The politicians don't need a national healthcare program because they steal money from the taxpayers and buy themselves very expensive insurance with great coverage, and they "vote" on laws to say that even if they just serve for a few years in Congress, Joe Taxpayer will be providing them with health insurance for life. And their spouses too.

Who needs a national program? All the rest of us do. You know how the Republicans scream about death panels for grandma? Well grandma is going to die in an epidemic because her neighbors couldn't afford a flu shot, and grandma's immune system was compromised because she was old, or maybe sick. If anybody really cared about grandma, they'd make sure that every citizen in this country had national healthcare provided to them.

As for the costs, they keep saying we can't raise taxes to pay for it. Nonsense. Every person with insurance is already paying probably $300/month anyway, let's say $4,000/year. So let's cut that by 1/3 by getting rid of the insurance industry, which takes 30-40% off the top, and every person in the country can still pay something for healthcare, but their actual costs would be at least 1/3 less than what they pay now.

If not this year, then soon we will have a pandemic that will kill people in the millions or hundreds of millions, not the thousands. Maybe then the citizens will understand why we need national healthcare, and will no longer be fooled by the lies from both the Democratic and Republican parties. And maybe then people will understand why we should be assisting other countries to develop sanitation and healthcare systems, instead of bombing them, murdering them, destroying their countries and stealing their oil.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the U.S. invading aggressor forces in Iraq and Afghanistan brought back some fatal pandemic to this country, that wiped out a lot of Americans? I actually think I've seen this story line in some horror film. Outbreak -- they were importing monkeys illegally from some other country into the U.S., smuggling them, and stealing resources from other countries to make money, and ended up bringing back into the U.S. some terrible disease that killed people very quickly after exposure, and for which there was no known treatment. Anyway, if a screenwriter could come up with the storyline, it's probably not hard to imagine that it could really happen.

The CDC is a good place to check about diseases floating around our country. They are reporting widespread swine flu activity in 37 states, with several thousand dead so far. The immunization against the swine flu is only available in limited amounts, and, to date, is not being made available to the public. I think medical caregivers, emergency (cops, firefighters) and children are first in line, then older people with existing health problems. If somebody gets sick and requires hospitalization, they'd better have lots of money or great insurance, because otherwise they will die. And they are claiming that it is mostly the children who will die. Nice country we have, murdering our little children so that the doctors can all have second homes and expensive cars. If you see a doctor who drives a BMW, remember what the letters stand for: Break My Windshield.

Even the seasonal flu shot costs money -- around $30 where I am -- and thousands of people die every year from the seasonal flu. But our government will not provide the citizens with free flu shots, choosing instead to let thousands die from this easily preventable death. Instead of saving the lives of citizens, the politicians give hundreds of billions of dollars to the loansharks, thieves and scumbuckets on Wall Street.

For the great majority of people in this country, there will be no protection for us against the Swine Flu. No drugs available to us. No hospitalization or medical care if we get sick, unless we've got insurance or lots of money to pay for it. Just think of all the churchgoers crowded together on Sundays sneezing and coughing on each other, praying they don't get the flu but probably making it almost certain they will.

The flu map that the CDC is showing is a bit unclear, but apparently most of the flu they are reporting is the swine flu, not the normal yearly flu. This is early for flu -- October, and the season often runs through February or March.

So, no treatment available, they're not even sure the drug they've got will work, the swine flu is widespread already. Wash your hands and hope you don't die. That's our national medical care program in the richest country in the world. Wash your hands. Avoid public places. (How can you get groceries, how can you go to work, how can you live? Should we all move into caves?)

If you get the swine flu, try to go pay your congressional Senators and Representatives a personal visit in their offices. Go sit in chairs and sneeze or cough, pass it around, stay for hours, and maybe that will help clarify for them why we need a national healthcare program. Don't just sit home and suffer: take it to the politicians.

If we the citizens are so insignificant that our politicians can't bother to provide us with free medical care -- starting with a simple flu shot, but going from there to mammograms and breast cancer treatment, colonoscopies and treatment for colon cancer, heart disease, diabetes, all the big killers -- if they don't care that we die from these things and can't afford treatment, then let's go visit them when we get the flu, and let them know how it feels to live every day thinking that if you get sick, there is no treatment available to you, so you just might die.

Or go hang out on Wall Street, go visit the stockbrokers, hang out in bars where the politicians drink, lick their glasses when they're not looking, shake their hands, go sit in the headquarters of the banks that have stolen all our money. Don't just sit home and suffer. If I get the swine flu, I'm going to visit every Republican I know and, after that, all the local politicians' offices will get the opportunity to spend the day with me, even if I need somebody to haul me in there on a stretcher. Get out and do your civic duty. If you have a local government, go visit the Mayor. Give them all a strong incentive to get off their complacent fat corrupt asses and pass a real national healthcare program for all the citizens of this country.

Disease is not contained by borders and can't be fought with expensive missile systems. We just need a flu shot for our people. But our politicians don't care enough to give us something that simple that could save our lives. And the drug companies and doctors and hospitals would walk over piles of our rotting corpses before making this basic medical treatment available to us for a modest affordable non-profit fee. They are all participating in a conspiracy to commit mass murder.