Too Early for Politics

It’s a pleasant eight months after the lengthy 2008 presidential campaign season. For more than a year, Americans were bombarded with daily tracking polls on how the candidates were faring in the minds of voters. Ultimately, the predictions proved to be extremely accurate.

I thought we might have another couple of years of rest before the pollsters and pundits began pummeling us with the next presidential race. I was wrong. Rasmussen Reports already is asking people about the November 2012 election. I find that a bit goofy, for several reasons:

• How can people be asked if they favor Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin over Barack Obama when no one will declare a candidacy until 2011?

• The Republican Party is in disarray, so to anoint a front-runner right now seems premature.

• The issues during the next three years will have a lot to do with how people feel about Obama. By 2012, most people will either have him as a financial savior or label him as the man who bankrupted the country. Remember George W. Bush had the support of nearly all Americans in September 2011. By the end of his second term, even his friends didn’t want to admit they supported him.

• Early front-runners have a way of flaming out. Rudy Giuliani had the media tag of can’t-miss GOP nominee a couple of years ago. Despite spending a tremendous amount of money, he ended up withdrawing from the race without capturing any states.

Medical Missteps

My wife and I rarely take any drug more potent than an aspirin; she rarely takes even an aspirin.

We’ve seen the folly of taking too many medications, both firsthand and with friends and relatives. We’ve managed to find alternative herbal remedies — to be taken as needed rather than several times a day for life — for nearly everything for which we used to pop prescription pills.

Pharmaceutical defenders quickly chastise us for living so dangerously. Don’t you know the FDA hasn’t run clinical trials to verify the safety of these herbs, they ask? I guess that’s why FDA-regulated drugs list possible side effects such as blindness, seizures and death.

We have doctor and nurse friends. I had no qualms going to an emergency room when I broke my finger last month. But much of the medical profession, driven by the insurance industry, has become too concerned with profits and not enough about patients. The only time my wife has been to a doctor’s office in the past couple of years was for a urine test — which cost us more than $300.

In the 1980s physicians convinced my wife to undergo a couple of operations that left her in worse shape than before. A quarter century later, she’s still dealing with nerve damage from the carpal tunnel surgery.

Unnecessary surgeries are only part of the problem. We’ve become an overmedicated society. At the slightest sign of discomfort we want a pill to ease it, despite the potentially damaging side effects. Heath Ledger’s death testifies about the dangers of mixing prescription drugs.

Being wealthy is no protection from an improper drug regimen, hospital infections or misdiagnosis. Ask the families of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, John Ritter, Maurice Gibb, June Carter Cash, Jim Henson and Natasha Richardson. Better living through chemistry isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

A Navigation Godsend

Recently I flew to Atlanta for a two-day reporting trip that required me to cover two stories in two different cities near the Georgia capital.

The car rental clerk inquired whether I would like a GPS system with the vehicle.

“How much?” I asked. I never had driven with one before.

"Only $10 a day," she replied.

I think God prompted her to ask the question.

I’m not much for 20th century technology. I haven’t felt the need to own a BlackBerry or an iPod. But after a weekend in the company of a Global Positioning System, I’m convinced it’s one of the greatest inventions of my lifetime, right up there with the cell phone, the Internet and the DVR — all devices that save time and relieve stress.

If my wife is with me, one of us can read a road map. But when alone, trying to decipher 18 steps of written MapQuest instructions while getting from point A to point B can be risky — for me and other drivers.

To reach my destinations I had to drive through Atlanta, once going north, the other time south, in the midst of a city that must rank near the top in vehicles per capita. Atlanta and its suburbs have a lot of traffic, and the roads aren’t necessarily straight or logically designed.

But typing an address into the portable GPS resulted in perfect voice results every time to get me to the exact location. Every step of the way a voice prompted me where to go to reach my destination. It spared me from a potential crash, missing a turn or being late.

I don’t understand how the satellite technology works. I just benefited from it. For a brief history of GPS, see: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1900862,00.html

Eating Right for Your Blood Type

Years ago I gave up ingesting the bad stuff: apple fritters, soda pop, pepperoni pizza, ice cream. Nevertheless, despite a moderate amount of exercise, I’ve managed to gain an average of a pound or two a year for awhile to the point where I’m 20 pounds over my recommended healthy weight.

I’ve tried to eat the right stuff, according to what the health and nutrition experts tell me. I’ve loaded up on foods containing whole grains, tomatoes, raw nuts and pomegranates. Now, a book by a naturopathic physician and researcher that my wife picked up recently, informs me that those wonder foods are anathema because I’m a B-positive blood type.

In great detail, “Eat Right 4 Your Type” by Peter J. D’Adamo contends that we aren’t healthy and we don’t lose weight because we’re eating the wrong foods for our makeup. Certain foods for certain people don’t digest well and thus are likely to add the pounds. So, Patty and I are embarking on a new eating plan with this premise: eat the foods deemed beneficial, avoid the foods that are toxic.

So I’ll be saying goodbye to some of my favorite foods: crab, shrimp, lobster, sea bass, cashews, shredded wheat. Some of those foods that are supposedly great for me I don’t like, such as rice cakes, horseradish and licorice.

Patty is an O blood type and finding foods that boost both of us will be a challenge. Looks like we’ll be having a lot of cod and sweet potato dinners. But I’ll be able to partake of many good foods I’ve avoided, including cottage cheese, pineapple and yogurt.

No Recipe for Healing

A week after the story of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s adulterous affair broke, I’m still waiting for him to wise up. On Tuesday, Sanford admitted that he had repeatedly hedged on revealing the details of his eight-year relationship with Argentinean Maria Belen Chapur ( http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090701/sanford01_st.art.htm). He also confessed that he had engaged in multiple physical contacts with other women outside the country, but that he hadn’t had sexual intercourse with them.

He didn’t provide specifics, but any improper physical relationship with a woman not your wife is infidelity. The new revelations come after Sanford, who professes to be a Christian, made a secret six-day trip to Argentina to see Chapur, telling aides that if anyone inquired they should say he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Amazingly on Tuesday Sanford called Chapur his “soul mate,” which isn’t a step toward healing a 20-year marriage to his wife Jenny. Sanford made the recent trip to see his paramour against the wishes of his wife as well as his “spiritual adviser” Cubby Culbertson.

I’m also flabbergasted that Sanford is clinging to his job as governor. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace last year to salvage his marriage after disclosure that he had been paying prostitutes. His successor David Patterson didn’t resign when affairs were revealed, but he took steps to ensure that his marriage would be a priority. (http://jkennedy.agblogger.org/2008/03/19/early-admission-john-w-kennedy/)

Sanford has all the marks of a sex addict who refuses to give up an adulterous partner at the risk of losing his family. Jenny Sanford has rightly avoided standing silently by his side at press conferences, which would give the impression that she condones his behavior. She has said her priority is seeing that the couple’s four sons recover from this ordeal.

Without wanting to appear judgmental, it’s clear that Sanford is more interested in preserving his power and his adulterous behavior than in saving his marriage. For his marriage to be saved he needs to relinquish sinful selfish behavior.