YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN..........and evidently glenn beck too.
i remember when his show on CNN headline news started and he was just ho-hum.... then he found his niche as a watered down right-wing alex jones and steadily ramped up the schtick until even fox was like ".....ok dude" which plays into his followers thinking that the man got him or he was speaking too much truth to be allowed on a major cable news network, so now he's got his little channel 212 outpost on one of the satellite providers, much like his jaggy less-conspiratoral but more-formal lefty counterpart keith olbermann got on libTV, aka current network.
all of these cable news channel talking heads are complete works.... the lefty guy "big ed" schultz was originally a big pudgy righty up in nebraska or north dakota or wherever he comes from.... then over time he basically realized there's a total niche to literally be the liberal/lefty rush limbaugh and he dove into it, giving some hanky panky story about "seeing the light" and changing over to the democratic side of things. in reality, it was just a shrewd business move as the success of conservative talk-radio and later tv punditry meant that the inevitable democratic/liberal/lefty antithesis was coming, so he went out and got ahead of it and now he's a fixture on MSNBC.
ah well, god bless you guys who buy into the watered down conservative alex jones thing..... does glenn preach about FEMA death camps and try to get everyone buying gold to circumvent the inevitable collapse of the financial system (speaking of, my grandfather suddenly thinks there's gonna be a depression next year because someone on the right side hit him with a talking point like WHERE DOES ALL THIS MONEY COME FROM?!!?) and get your emergency 30-60 days of freeze-dried food ready in your bunker.... get some guns to fight off the roaming bands of pirates.... the end is nigh! cross the rubicon like that one dude..... fuck whats his name? ah well he's another peak oil the end is near guy. whatever.
long story short, i love how in today's contemporary society people faction up and basically decide that they're "enlightened" thanks to continued patronage of one television/news/channel as opposed to another one, whereas everyone else is "sheeple"... and then if you wanna transcend the bipartesian system and "go further down the rabbit hole" you can always get around to fearing the new world order and/or the illuminati. THE END IS NIGH!!! QUOTE BIBLE SCRIPTURES!!!!
nevermind that the "old world order" wasn't necessarily utopia, and like, if the pope is infallible and god's bottom bitch on earth, why does he have to travel around in a bulletproof pope mobile? what does that say about his faith? shrug. i love to tell people that the "new world order" is basically already here as all of the things that people fear (surveilance/police state, loss of rights, super-giant disparity between the haves and the have-nots) have basically been here.... and like, yeah, all this "economic crisis" is your corporate masters basically taking more of their cut on the tail end of ~30 years of "reaganomics" aka supply side economics aka <cartman> IMMA DO WHAT I WANT</cartman> cuz like.... shit.... when you have a country that had a ton of native industry for however long basically shit on tariffs until the 1980s when they went from like 30% to 2% and all of a sudden these american factories producing things have to compete with third world/chinese factories who are selling their same product at the price it costs for an american factory to produce it in the first place, there is no competition all the jobs are gonna go away and then with less jobs and a generally downward trend of the remaining jobs being unskilled clerkdom, when people have less and less money en masse obviously the economy's gonna take a hit, but hey, we'll just blame it on a president (reaganomics/obamacare/etc) because, you know, THE PRESIDENT IS SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT AS HE'S THE ONE MAN WHO HAS DIRECT CONTROL OVER THE FATE OF YOUR LIFE!!!! lol.
when just about everyone bitched about bush when it was en vogue circa 03-08, i would tell them that the president is merely the (brand-recognizing) hood ornament on the car that's running you over. there's countless working parts, but since we live in a secularly tribal cults of personality (sports teams, political parties, etc, as your freedom in this contemporary world of ours is being free to choose between coke and pepsi, nike or adidas, etc) you have to have a president who you focus all of your feelings on to the point where i've got relatives running around saying that the only way to save the country is to get romney in office NOW. lol.
it's kind of like that one thread right b4 conan got on TBS where someone asked if conan was about to change television as we know it, cuz now that he's away from NBC and he's got more lax rules and guidelines and precedents over on TBS will he go out and absolutely go for the jugular and give us edgy/edge-of-your-seat captivating tv that pushes the boundaries and limits?!?! PFFT. HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 HE'S JUST GONNA HAVE ANOTHER FUCKING HOLLYWOOD-SALADTOSSING LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW YOU TWITS!!!
so now with the monied people and their cult of wannabes coached up by the massmedia to personally blame obama for everything, we've got people thinking that we're gonna save the damn country by getting a guy with BUSINESS EXPERIENCE in there!!! hell yeah!! get a guy in there who lost the company money whilst lining his pockets via all kinds of outsourcing, and we're clearly gonna "save" this country... lol. everything's fine, its just that everything on television, especially the "news" and "politics" is nothing more than entertainment to keep you satiated living life vicariously through the chosen few, be they athletes beautiful or simply entertainers of some sort, because your life is going to get increasingly and increasingly more docile and homeward bound as the upper echelon of the monied continue their quest to usurp as much $$$ as they can from the middle class until there's basically just rich people and the working poor, but hey, it won't be all bad cuz as time goes on gizmos and gadgets will get cheaper and cheaper so you'll be able to have a slick smartphone, a cable/satellite tv with a bunch of channels, and of course as much alcohol/drugs as you want to wash it all down. big picture you'll lose a lot of financial flexibility relative to your grand/parents, but hey, who needs that? you've got a cool phone flashy clothes and readily available/affordable intoxicants so like the british prepared to tell people in the wake of a proper german invasion: keep calm and carry on. all of this stuff is a show, a spectacle.... etc.
and glenn beck, to get back to the OP, is just another ringleader in the circus the barnum and ringling brothers called the greatest show on earth..... or you can listen to aceyalone's song called "the greatest show on earth" on youtube to get an idea... that's all it is. so yeah, i gotta LOL at JR here or anyone who thinks glenn beck is a hero..... pfft. he's an entertainer, but the best part is that it masquerades as "information" or "news' or "the truth" but in reality.... everything on tv is a simulation there to PROGRAM YOU into adhering to societal norms, customs, and ideas. it's an
electronic behaviorcontrol system and it works rather brilliantly, as you'll notice when you see people talking politics during election season. MY CHANNEL CAN BEAT UP YOUR CHANNEL. IT'S TRUTHIER THAN YOURS, STOP BEING ONE OF THE SHEEPLE AND TURN ON MY PREFERRED TALKING HEAD SO YOU CAN LEARN WHAT'S *REALLY* GOING ON. DUH.
strength in numbers; forever the #1 societal defense mechanism.
By Dan Bernstein
AS TOLD BY MORT GOLDMANCBSChicago.com Senior Columnist
(CBS) I like to think I have a pretty good memory, but I’m pleased that it fails me when I think about the exact moment in February of 2002 when my right knee exploded.
ILL NEVA FORGET FEBRUARY OF 2002, THE WORST MONTH OF MY LIFEIt’s pretty much gray, as far as recalling what it felt like. That’s good.
Three on three at a now-defunct health club in Lincoln Park, the same curl around the same pin-down screen as always, the same crappy left-handed jumper, the same around-and-out as usual, and then the landing that everyone knew was bad, because the pop-crunch was audible.
I WAS PLAYING ATHLETICS AND I SLIPPED AND FELL TO THE FLOOROne of the guys there recalled that I said “ACL. Ice. Hospital.” I believe him.
I LET THEM KNOW IN NO UNCERTIN TERMS THAT I WAS HURT VERY BADLYThey had a pair of crutches at the front desk, which helped me down two flights of stairs to where my seven-months-pregnant wife waited with the car. The ER doc at St. Elizabeth’s shrugged, and said “You probably f—ed youself up pretty good, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.” He gave me two Vicodins and sent me home. He would check on me later, as a good cousin should.
DID YOU KNOW MY COUSIN IS A DOCTAH?Up another two flights of stairs from the garage to the condo, and onto the couch, wondering two things: what did I do to my knee, and how the hell am I going to use the bathroom right now?
OY! HOW WOULD I GET MY TOOKAS ON THE TOILET***
“Prehab” would come before surgery, according to Dr. Preston Wolin, the accomplished sports orthopedist who was kind enough to fit me into his full schedule. An MRI was planned, but the T VERY BADLYswelling had to come down.
I WENT TO THE BEST DOCTAH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAI visited his office in Old Town, where a hands-on field test told him my ACL was fully ruptured. Any other damage would be discovered by the imaging. He stuck a long needle into the side of my ballooning knee, and drained out bloody fluid to fill a syringe the size of a rolling pin. I was instructed to ride a stationary bike as often as I could. Ice was constant, as were elevation and loads of Vioxx, before they knew it was bad for you. The pain pills were there, but only used to take the edge off an occasional, acute episode.
HE WAS POKING AND PRODDING ME AND SENT ME HOME WITH A GAGGLE OF PILLS. RED ONES, BLUE ONES, THEN MORE RED ONES. OYThe MRI revealed the expected – the ACL was gone – and new, fun things: both menisci were torn. The lateral one was damaged but still in place, but half of the medial was flipped back, pinned between the femur and the tibia in what was described as a partial “bucket handle” tear.
The swelling had returned, too. Another needle, another salami-sized syringe filled with blood and whatever. The nurse said I set a new office record for total cc’s of drainage. What an honor.
I was introduced to athletic trainer Mike McCormick at Athletico on Diversey, who would be my guide back from the uncertain wilderness of injury, doing a complicated job that entailed coaching, medicine, psychology, and at times — I thought – torture.
SO THE DOCTAH SETS ME UP WITH THIS SMENDRIK OF A TRAINER. THIS MAN'S GOAL IN LIFE WAS TO INFLICT PAIN ON ME. IT WAS HORRIBLEThe facility, a street-level rectangle of exercise equipment and examination tables, was a three-block crutch from home, and would be the center of my existence for months, interrupted only by time at home waiting to become a dad, and the four hours on air each day when my leg was propped up and smothered in ice bags at NBC Tower.
“Motion is lotion,” was the mantra. Never limp. Gait matters. Strengthen the surrounding muscles. Turn a negative into a positive.
I COULD BARELY GET AROUND***
I awakened in the harsh glare of surgical lighting, and I was looking inside my own knee.
Per my request, Dr. Wolin brought me out of anesthesia to show me what was going on. He had put me under for the messy stuff, the removal of the middle third of my patella tendon with a plug of bone on either end, which was fashioned into a new ACL with the help of a couple titanium screws.
Now, he was pointing to a monitor, directing the arthroscopic camera to show me the new ligament and what happened to the cartilage.
Bad news and good news, on that front. The meniscal damage could not be repaired, so it was simply resected. Half the medial gone, a third of the lateral. But this meant a less complicated rehab, with no immobilization required to let the cartilage heal. Longer term, I could require another procedure of some kind in 5-7 years, he said, but that could be pushed back or prevented by dropping (and keeping off) any excess weight and maintaining strength in the leg. The knee was now stable, and I was to ditch the crutches as soon as possible.
I WOKE UP DURING SURGERY AND MY KNEE LOOKED LIKE LIZA MINELLI'S BACKSIDE. Home to the couch again, and a couple rough days.
A medical supplier came over to set up a CPM machine for me. This Continuous Passive Movement device cranked my leg in slow circles while I lay in a Vicodin haze. Another machine kept ice-cold water pumping into a sleeve Velcro-ed around the knee, compressing in intervals. I smiled vacantly at the TeleTubbies, listening to the low electrical hum.
I guess I ate. Bathroom trips were a multistage operation of disconnections, deliberately planned movement and reconnections. I grew impatient quickly.
I GOT TIRED OF ALL THIS WORK. I FELT LIKE SUCH A SHLIMAZEL***
You don’t know you even have a vastus medialis oblique until it’s withered away.
That’s what’s really unfair about all this, I felt. Building muscle is so difficult, it shouldn’t disappear as quickly as it does. I hated looking at my right leg for a long time, the left one sitting there at full strength, mocking its damaged counterpart.
Atrophy’s a bitch.
The electric stimulation was hooked up to get muscles firing again after each session, trying to remind them they’re there. I saw them moving, but my brain still couldn’t seem to get them started as well as those sticky patches with the wires in them.
The bike, the balance-board, “monster-walking” with my ankles bound together by rubber bands, single-leg presses on the pilates reformer. Ice, stim. Range of motion. Motion is lotion. Don’t limp. Steady and routine every day, with Mike reinforcing at every turn.
EVERYDAY I LISTENED TO THIS SCHMUCK'S SPIEL. IM NOT ONE TO KVETSCH, BUT MY EARS WERE HURTING. HE WAS YELLING VERY LOUDLYAlso at Athletico for much of this was Chris Armas, midfielder for the Chicago Fire and the US national soccer team. Both Wolin and McCormick were working for USA Soccer at the time, and Armas was rehabbing from the same ACL reconstruction, performed by the same guy in the same operating room. I was told my program would be no different from his, as long as I could keep up.
To this day, I think that was an invaluable motivator – the idea that I was expected to mirror the efforts of an elite, professional athlete. It also helped me appreciate the immense difference in what was at stake for the two of us.
A GIANT PUERTO RICAN MAN JOINED US IN RECOVERY. HE WAS TERRIFYING My job would not be affected by my return from this injury. I had only missed a few days already, two after it happened and four after the repair. Hell, I could have had the leg removed and still not see any difference in my professional trajectory, since being a smartass talk-show host only requires a voice and a microphone. Not even a brain half the time.
I could not begin to imagine the fear and uncertainty a real athlete felt at such times, and never would presume to try to do so now.
I am, indeed, revisiting my experience in the wake of the news regarding Derrick Rose, but only to provide one perspective. There is no comparison.
IM NOT SAYING IM DERRICK ROSE...BUT EHHH....YOU HAVE TO ADMIT....THERE ARE SOME....SIMILIARITIES***
It’s not often the labor and delivery nurses at Prentice Hospital are fetching ice for both parents, but such was the case after our daughter arrived on St. Patrick’s Day, three weeks ahead of schedule, two weeks removed from surgery.
So the sleeplessness became part of the rehab cycle, too. In hindsight, the demands of that period may have accelerated recovery, since there was simply no choice but to get on with it. Crutches were long gone, and there were stairs upon stairs– stairs up to bed and down to the kitchen for bottles, stairs down to the street for walking errands, down further to the garage underneath. We had a dog that needed walking, too. Motion and lotion and all that.
OY! EVERY WHERE I WENT I HAD STEPS TO GO UP. UP THE STEPS, DOWN THE STEPS. THEN BACK UP.Weeks and weeks more of increasing work finally started to bring tangible results. Muscle mass began to return, and proper gait and balance required less thought. Mike was increasing the amount of weight used for all the exercises, and it was considered a victory when a monster-walker could snap one or more of the resistance bands (just like a knee ligament, I thought).
There was still pain, but only amid longer stretches of normalcy. I required a gardening knee-pad to bathe my baby daughter, still, since one of the screws didn’t exactly like the tiled bathroom floor. Long periods of standing weren’t my favorite, and I had to remember to unlock my knees before the elevator at work moved upward, lest I get a quick meeting of bone and bone on the medial side that would have me sweating by the time the doors opened on six.
Soon it was clear the worst of it was in the past, and that allowed me to attack rehab harder, now that there was real reward. We’d overdo it some days, only to take it easier the next, but feeling like we were back in charge of this thing, dictating the outcome. I weighed 165, just as I did as a college freshman.
Seven months after the reconstruction, I was back in Wolin’s office. He had me do a standing broad-jump using my good leg, measuring the distance. He then asked me to do it with my right. If I could stick the landing at or near the same place, I’d be “back,” and released from rehab on my own recognizance.
FINALLY, THIS WHOLE MISHEGAS WAS OVER***
Chris Armas was named the MLS Comeback Player of the Year in 2003. He played four more full seasons after that before retiring at age 35.
I have not played basketball, however, other than dribbling around and shooting in an empty gym. I could, but I don’t miss it. I don’t miss the rolled ankles, the abraded cornea, the jammed fingers or the broken bone underneath my left eye. I also don’t want to give any other ligaments or tendons another ample opportunity to make themselves known while competing against those more elastic than I.
IVE BEEN VERY CAREFUL WITH BOTH MY KNEES EVAH SINCEThe work has never stopped since that right-leg broad-jump in an office hallway. Seven days a week of cardio, weights three days a week, push-ups every Saturday. Almost every exercise is built out from those days at Athletico, with more weight or reps added or new machines used. 163 and steady.
There are still bad days, and there will be more as time and age take their toll, but nothing is keeping me from full participation, at least on my terms. Whether walking mile after mile on the kind of busy, urban vacations we enjoy, golfing, ice skating, or just keeping up with a son who never stops, I rarely think about the knee.
This doesn’t really prove anything, other than that with proper dedication and the best care, a regular shmo can eventually get over an injury like this, mostly. And I think there’s something about great athletes – real athletes – that gives them awareness and control over their bodies that enable them to return, even as they confront deeper apprehensions and so much hanging in the balance.
I could never claim to know what anyone else is going through, and I never would. I only know what I went through.
Good luck, Derrick.
GOOD LUCK, DERRICK, ITS GONNA BE HORRIBLE
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
