Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Recommended Reading

As I mentioned, I think the new elimination of habeas corpus is blatantly unconstitutional...and I should have added that I think it's a dangerous move that runs contrary to just about everything America stands for.

This article by Stephen Rohde does a good job of explaining why. Mr. Rohde is one of the acknowledged experts on copyright law in this country but he also specializes in constitutional law and is a high executive in the American Civil Liberties Union. Some people who read this weblog will be even more impressed to learn that he was the main lawyer who represented Jack Kirby in his infamous battle with Marvel Comics over ownership of his original artwork back in the eighties. (The other lawyer who worked wonders for Jack back then was Paul S. Levine, who was on our Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at this year's Comic-Con International.)

• Posted at 10:16 PM · LINK

Let's Get Small

What I write about on this weblog has everything to do with what's on my mind at any given moment. And what's on my mind often has a lot to do with the e-mail or other feedback I receive. Lately, I've gotten a lot of questions about my health since the big weight loss...and I see that I haven't really mentioned it here for around a month and a half.

That's because there hasn't been much to mention. I'm lost a little more of me but not a lot. My doctor says I've hit a "plateau," meaning that my system has stopped dropping poundage while it attempts to adjust to the new configuration. In theory, the weight loss will start up again one of these days...but even if it doesn't, I'm down more than a hundred pounds from my top weight (more than eighty since the Gastric Bypass Surgery at the end of May) and feeling jes' fine. I'd like to lose another thirty or so but I'd be quite satisfied just to stay where I am for the rest of my life. Almost all of me feels better and even my hair, which was falling out a lot for months after the procedure, seems to be making a slow and quiet return to my scalp.

Other effects? Well, this'll sound weird but for some reason, I began having trouble shaving. Maybe it had something to do with the contours of my face changing but all of a sudden, my trusty Norelco was cutting skin instead of follicles. I tried cleaning the razor repeatedly, installing new blades, pretreating my jowls with a couple of different pre-shave lotions. I even went back to my previous Norelco and it was the same thing. No matter what I did, I was still doing a Sweeney Todd on my stubble. Monday, the savior that is Costco Mail Order delivered a new Panasonic model and so far, it's removing facial hair expertly and without bloodshed. We'll see if it works a second time.

My taste for sugar has not returned. My ability to eat beef has, though I have to remember to chew it to the consistency of Cheez Whiz and to allow for the possibility of a brief feeling of weakness in the early throes of digestion. That happens once in a while but not always.

Friends keep asking me, "Do you eat? Can you eat?" as if I've made it since May off of stored body fat. I know I had plenty but jeez. Even a whale occasionally likes to nibble on a nice minnow or something. The answer is that I can eat just about anything I want but not as much of it as I used to. Around the house, I down four or five mini-meals a day. In restaurants, I've learned to order soup or an entree but not both...and to select an entree with an eye on taking much of it home. Some kinds of food are simply better the next morning than others. In instances when it isn't practical to doggy-bag it — say, when I won't be returning to Casa Evanier for a long time after the meal — I've accepted the necessity to have the busboy discard half a plate of perfectly edible supper. I think a lot of us eat too much because even when the stomach doesn't want it, the brain can't adjust to the idea of wasting it. Well, I'm adjusting.

I've also adjusted to not having much of a selection of beverages in my life. I don't like wine or tea or anything with artificial sweeteners. Dairy products and my tummy do not care for one another and like all Gastric Bypass patients, I had to give up anything carbonated or containing a lot of sugar, even natural sugar. So what does that leave? I'll tell you what it leaves. It leaves water, tomato juice and some watery lemonade and orange drinks that I mix for myself. More and more, I'm just making do with the water.

Every bit of clothing I was actively wearing in May is now too large for me except for socks, shoes and caps...and even those are getting a tad loose. At my friend Earl's wedding, I was dazzling in a sport coat that I bought around 1978, grew out of in 1983 and stashed away in storage around 1985. Inside it is the label of a store that went out of business long ago. I have most of my wardrobe marked with a color-coded clothespin system. A red clip, for instance, means "Way too big but I may be able to have it altered." The blue signifies, "Still a little too small for me." In the last two months, I've been able to get into apparel that I'd blue-clipped in June or July.

There's been some other odd adjusting that I'll write about one of these days soon. Some of it has to do with the way people relate to you when you suddenly go svelter on them but I don't have time for that now. Have to go eat a raisin...or at least, as much of one as I can finish now. I'll save the rest for later.

• Posted at 4:39 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Fred Kaplan explains why John McCain has his history all wrong with regard to North Korea. And I might add that one of my many disappointments in the world of politics this last decade or so has been watching John McCain, who once struck me as a man of integrity devolve into...well, I'm not sure if he's changed or if I was just wrong about him in the first place. But he sure seems willing now to say or do just about anything if it'll get him closer to the Republican nomination in '08.

• Posted at 4:31 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Keith Olbermann had a great segment last evening on the Bush administration's insistence on doing away with habeas corpus. It runs a little over seven minutes and I'd like to ask every visitor to this site to take the time to watch it.

Below is an embedded video of this report. You can also see a higher quality video over on the MSNBC site at this link...that is, if your browser can play videos on that site. Some can, some can't. Another copy of the video and a transcript are also available over at Crooks and Liars.com.

In case you want to watch it here, here's Mr. Olbermann with a look at what I think is an out-and-out trampling of the Constitution...

• Posted at 12:06 AM · LINK