Braunstein Speaks

No smoking

I smoked my last cigar on May 17th, 1988. That was the summer that I had blood pressure problems. I had been taking meds for hypertension for years, and my pressure had always been under control until that summer, when it got to 180/120 for no apparent reason. Six weeks of tests and treatment accomplished nothing, and as suddenly as my runaway hypertension started, it stopped—but I never smoked another cigar.

I never smoked cigarettes. When I started college in the early 1960s, pipe-smoking was cool; and as I imagined myself an intellectual, I smoked a pipe. Over the years, I got rid of the pipe because pipe-smoking requires at least two and preferably three pipes if you smoke throughout the day. In addition to a tobacco pouch, you must also carry a pipe tool of some sort, wire pipe cleaners, and a lighter.

When I started working as a field engineer, I switched to cigars. In the 1970s, any meeting you attended had at least three cigar smokers among the dozen cigarette smokers. In addition, in the steel mill, I wasn’t allowed—not being a member of the union—to touch a tool, or use my hands in any manner, so having a cigar gave me something to fidget with.

Back to May, 1988. When I told the doctor that I smoked four or five cigars a day, he put down “two packs.” “I don’t inhale,” I protested. “No matter,” he answered. “The nicotine is absorbed through your palate. One cigar is the equivalent to half a pack of cigarettes.”

These days, if you tried to put a cigar or pipe into your mouth, you’ll probably be shot on sight. I can’t even remember the last time I saw anybody with a pipe, and cigar-smoking is rare.

When my wife was pregnant with our last child, some 30 years ago, she stopped smoking although she started as a teenager. She had smoked for over 20 years, but stopped like that!

I suppose that cigar and pipe smoking is not as addictive as inhaling cigarettes, but when I stopped smoking 22 years ago, I never felt even a twinge, except for the fact that I no longer had something to do with my hands until I left the mill.

Super Bowl XLIV: Recalling Super Bowl XLIII

Once again it is Super Bowl Sunday—This Super Bowl being number XLIV. Two football teams will play, there will be a halftime show, and sponsors will air the most novel commercials.

The only two things that will be different—excepting the participating teams—will be that the game is in Miami, which is a good place for any midwinter event, and last year’s Hope and Change has been replaced by the Hope that the president doesn’t try to Change anything else.

So we proudly reprise last year’s Super Bowl column, from February 1st, 2009:

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, which is practically a national holiday. In a tradition started XLIII years ago, promoters in the National Football League found a way to extend the fall football season well into winter, and in doing so, make a ton (MM pounds) of money.

The Super Bowl is obviously an important event, because otherwise they wouldn’t use Roman Numerals to mark its sequence, which began in MCMLXVII when the Green Bay Packers played the Kansas City Chiefs at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

The Super Bowl—like NASCAR racing—is a heavily blue-collar happening, and this year few fans have any idea what XLIII means—just as they had no idea what XXXIV meant only IX years ago.

Roman Numerals are always used to highlight important historic dates, like MDCCLXXVI, which was the year of our nation’s founding, and is written along the base of the pyramid on the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States, which appears on the left side of the one-dollar bill.

Like Roman Numerals, Latin is also used to impress the hoi polloi (Greek for “the masses”) with our national mottos—like Annuit Coeptis (Providence Favors our Undertakings) seen above the eye on the pyramid; and Novus Ordo Seclorum (A New Order of the Ages) written on a banner below the pyramid.

On the obverse (front) of the Great Seal, which can be found on the dollar-bill’s right, E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) appears on the banner held in the eagle’s mouth.

Another place where impressive Roman Numerals are used is in movies, where production dates are also written in this obsolete gibberish, which was quickly abandoned by the rest of the world when the Romans were no longer around to kick their asses.

The last impressive-looking Roman Numeral date was MCMXCIX; because when the century turned, the year became MM, which was nowhere nearly as impressive as the more mundane 2000.

This year, MMIX, really doesn’t have enough letters in it to impress, and we will have to wait another XL years—until MMXLIX—when we’ll get two more letters in the date, making it more impressive looking than 2049.

My own date of record is MCMXLIV, a year which is impressive enough by the fact that I was born in it.

Deporting Auntie Zeituni

Barack Obama’s Kenyan “auntie” appealed Thurday night to an immigration judge not to throw her out of the United States. Zeituni Onyango, 57, who turned up at the hearing in a wheelchair, was expected to claim that her relationship to the president would make her a target in her homeland’s unstable political climate.

But the hearing at the U.S. Immigration Court in Boston, Massachusetts ended without an immediate decision in her second bid for asylum.

Just about a year ago, Auntie Zeituni turned up at President Obama’s inauguration after spending four years as a fugitive from justice when she ignored a Final Order of Deportation after the the court denied her request for asylum in 2005.

At that time I wrote of her case and assumed that to spare the new president embarrassment, Zeituni Onyango would simply disappear as far as the government was concerned.

“Auntie Zeituni” now has 30 days for the lawyers to write closing briefs. If that date is missed, the case could be continued until May 25th. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Zeituni to get on a plane back to Kenya.

From January 27th, 2009: “Arresting Auntie Zeituni.”

Among the other “firsts” that our new president brings, is that Barack Obama has an aunt who is a fugitive illegal alien. Zeituni Onyango is a Kenyan national who is now believed to be living in Cleveland.

The president’s aunt has ignored a final order of deportation issued after her request for asylum was denied by an immigration judge in 2005, and is therefore considered a fugitive from justice.

I spent quite a few years with the Immigration & Naturalization Service in the Miami District, and immigration is the most political of all issues at federal enforcement agencies—especially in immigrant-rich Miami.

The last major worksite-enforcement action in Miami was in 1997 at the Paragon Wholesale Flower warehouse. Somebody had tipped off the media, who met the immigration agents at Paragon just before closing time on a weekday afternoon.

One-by-one the employees—mostly women—came out after being cleared by the agents. Each one was tearfully and telegenically holding up her green card, showing that they were all lawful permanent residents, and not illegal aliens.

Of course, when clearing employees in any mass action, they are all put against a wall and searched, with the innocent being allowed to leave. The illegals—who were arrested on the spot—weren’t available to address the cameras.

The heat of the media-attended action, with all the crying women emoting on live television, proved too much for the INS, and no other mass worksite enforcement was ever again attempted in Miami.

The last worksite enforcement that I took part in was at a Chinese restaurant in Broward County. Under the new rules put in place, the action had to take place before the lunchtime trade would fill the restaurant.

Five immigration agents cleared the small restaurant, arresting two illegal aliens in the process, and making sure that there was a public affairs officer along in case the media showed up.

After the demise of the INS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement took over worksite actions, but they are still conducted with an eye toward political-correctness, and avoiding embarrassment to the agency.

When Barack Obama’s illegal aunt was discovered by the media during the presidential campaign, the Bush Administration took special care not to find the fugitive Auntie Zeituni.

Now President Obama has reversed Bush’s policy of requiring “special handling” of high profile cases—like the president’s aunt.

Somehow I doubt that Auntie Zeituni Onyango will ever again be found, despite her “high profile.” She did attend her favorite nephew’s inauguration in Washington last week, attending at least one inaugural ball, and staying at the luxurious Renaissance Mayflower Hotel.

‘The IRS is Buying Shotguns!’

This is a headline in today’s Drudge Report. The article itself is merely a federal solicitation-order for the Internal Revenue Service to purchase 60 Remington Model 870 police shotguns to add to their inventory. The shotguns are for the Criminal Investigation Division.

So what’s the story? Most police agencies use shotguns, and the Model 870 is one of the most popular. When I was with the Immigration & Naturalization Service, our quarterly firearms training included qualification with this shotgun. Anybody who has ever seen a police car has noticed the shotgun in a bracket on the dashboard.

So what’s the story? Does anyone not know that in addition to accountants and revenue agents, the IRS employs criminal investigators who get involved when criminal intent to evade taxes is suspected?

Is the intent of the Drudge Report to render the impression that the IRS is getting tougher? That the next time you are informed of an audit, that the revenue agent who visits you will be carrying a 12-gauge shotgun that fires either slugs or nine .30-caliber pellets?

Is this some new intimidation technique? The only reason that middle-class workers on salary—where withholding tax is already held back—are audited is strictly for intimidation. The IRS knows that for every salaried employee who is audited, thousands more will hear the story—and think twice about those shaky deductions.

With withholding tax already paid, most salaried workers get a “refund” of their own money which the federal government has full use of throughout the year, and are happy to see that refund check from the Treasury Department.

Ultimately though, people pay their taxes because deep-down inside they know that when the letters from the IRS stop, and attempts to telephone have failed, then they will indeed be visited by men with guns—these are the criminal investigators—and if they do not cooperate with these investigators, then at that point wayward taxpayers might notice that the IRS CID agents are carrying guns, along with handcuffs and a warrant for their arrest.

But even then, unless the tax evader engages in an armed standoff, he will not see a single shotgun.

So what’s the story that the IRS—which is the branch of the Treasury Department that is responsible for tax collection—is buying 60 more shotguns?

My guess is the new shotguns are to replace old ones which have worn out.

That’s the story.

Groundhog Day

We secretly dispatched Braunstein Speaks correspondent Achmed Katz to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania a few days ago to interview Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s most famous groundhog.

Most of the interview was conducted in Phil’s quarters in the basement of City Hall last evening, but Achmed got Phil to say a few words after his prediction this morning of six more weeks of winter.

Achmed Katz: First of all Phil, it’s a pleasure to meet you. How do you feel about being the most famous rodent in the world?

Punxsutawney Phil: First of all Mr. Katz, I am a sciurid; specifically a member of the genus “Marmota.” We resent being called rodents. In fact, we refer to it as the “R-word.”

AK: I apologize for any offense; I didn’t know.

PP: No problem, but you should also know that “Phil” is a only my stage name. My real name is Seymour.

AK: Well, anyway Seymour, I’d like to get to the issue, which is your reputation as, I believe they say it, “Seer of seers, and prognosticator of prognosticators.” How did you or any other groundhog get the reputation for predicting how long winter will last?

PP: I really have no idea how it started, but I was raised to the calling. It’s in the family, you see. My father used to do it before he got glaucoma about six years ago, and I remember my grandfather forecasting the weather when I was a little cub.

AK: So all groundhogs have this talent?

PP: I guess so, but to tell you the truth, I think it’s fixed. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Griffiths, who announce my findings, are either hard of hearing or don’t really understand the language. Today, they called it as I saw it, but last year they just made it up. Dad told me that in his day, they tried to get him to predict global warming or some such garbage.

Listen: I saw my shadow and I dived back into my hole. That’s what we groundhogs do. What do I know about how long winter will last? What am I, a weather maven?

AK: Do you have any parting thoughts?

PP: Yeah, Achmed. This is a good gig, and my hot momma over there just had a litter of two. It’s nice to have a profession to hand down to the kids, you know; especially in this economy.

AK: Thanks, Seymour.

PP: No prob.

Playing Double-Dare With the Mullahs

Next Thursday, February 11th, is the 31st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, an event that wouldn’t have taken place without a pussy like Jimmuh Carter in the White House.

This year, the Iranian mullahs—among many others—have figured that we have yet another pussy in the White House, and in addition to showing 30-year-old videotape of hostages on television, are threatening “to deliver a telling blow to global powers on February 11th.”

Iranian state-run Press TV quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this past Sunday as saying that the nation will deliver a harsh blow to “global arrogance” on February 11th.

What could it be? For years now, Iran has been threatening the West with its bathtub navy, threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz which is the chokepoint of the Persian Gulf.

Would Iran cut off oil to the West? That might raise prices, but one has to remember that Iran is a net importer of gasoline, having only one refinery. A blockade by the West combined with a single air raid on the refinery would be even better than dropping bridges. Nothing in Iran would move.

Perhaps the Mad Mullahs would use this anniversary to detonate a nuclear bomb to demonstrate that they have achieved the technology in spite of Obama’s imaginary “deadline” that they dare not cross.

What would Bammy Boy do then? Give Iran deadline after deadline to dismantle its nuclear program? That would surely work!

How about if Iran nuked Tel Aviv and killed two or three million Israelis? Would the Pussy President then pressure them to the negotiating table?

The only lucky break President Obama could get in this situation is if, as they usually do, the Iranians are threatening a bluff; and will confine their “telling blow” to placing more IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby killing more Americans; and aiding Hamas and Hezbollah in killing more Jews.

That way, Obama can pretend not to notice; and what’s more—wouldn’t care. That’ll show those mullahs!

‘Get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em’

So said Civil War Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forest about tactics to keep the enemy from regrouping.

From today’s Sunday (London) Times: “NASA Mission to Unravel Sun’s Threat to Earth.”

“A new probe could help scientists predict the solar storms that cause chaos for us,” continues the sub-head.

Nine days from now, NASA is going to launch its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to discover the causes of extreme solar activity, such as sun spots, solar winds, and solar flares. X-rays, charged particles, and magnetic fields often disrupt navigational systems, communications, and even damage electrical power grids.

On March 13, 1989, millions of people in Canada and the United States were left without electricity for more than nine hours after a magnetic storm sent shockwaves through the Hydro-Québec power grid.

It is not clear what space-weather forecasts will do for the public at large, except scare them silly about conditions that they have absolutely no control over.

It is interesting, however, that shortly after “climate change,” nee “man-made global warming” has lost its ability to “keep the skeer on ’em,” the Al Gores of the world will be able to switch their investments from “carbon credits” to “solar fallout shelters.”

I watched some program on the National Geographic Channel the other night called, “Six Degrees Could Change the World.” Instead of a tale about more moderate weather leading to longer growing seasons—as we have enjoyed since the end of the Little Ice Age 150 years ago—National Geographic portrayed a dry, dust bowl of a planet before it disappears under 20 feet of rising oceans due to glacier melts.

No explanation was offered how civilization survived the last global warm-up a thousand years ago, but if the global-warming fear-mongers acknowledged the regular “climate changes” recorded through the ages, people would have laughed them out of town years ago.

So, lacking the ability to skeer us into giving liberals control over all facets of energy production, the future might hold constant skeers about sun spots and other regular heavenly happenings.

“Solar flare! For the best in protection, take cover in your new and improved Gore-Out Shelter! Only $9,900 while they last!”

‘Off With His Head’

It was just three years ago that I first noticed that small bump on my leg. My wife and I both assumed it to be a boil, or some other kind of benign skin affliction. By April, it hadn’t come to head, but started turning red, and off we ran to a dermatologist.

Physicians don’t like telling patients bad news any more than anyone else does, so after much hemming and hawing after the biopsy came back positive, I helped the doctor along. “Cancer doesn’t frighten me,” I reassured him. “My wife is an oncology nurse practitioner. I know that cancer isn’t the death sentence it was 30 years ago.”

So began my three-year journey through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. I have often written that cancer is a lifelong battle. It has the highs of victory, as when my lymphoma went into remission two years ago, and the lows of having those harmless-looking bumps on my leg return, even though they readily shrank away when exposed to radiation.

The problem with these little bumps that formed just under the skin is that they kept reappearing a month or two after the completion of each five-week course of radiation therapy.

At this juncture, radiation is no longer an option, and four different types of chemotherapy haven’t lessened the lesions’ onslaught on my right leg below the knee. Some of these lesions are really large now, and will soon rupture.

I outlined all this in last Monday’s piece, “Hooray for Me,” Jan. 25th.

Yesterday the decision was made to lose my right leg. Although the Merkel hasn’t appeared again above my knee, there is no guarantee that it will not break out again there, or somewhere else. The amputation is more of a “palliative” move, to improve my quality of life. (I can barely remember a life that didn’t include regular trips to the doctor for radiation and chemo.)

Sometime in the next few weeks, my right leg will be removed above the knee. I will have a two or three-day hospital stay followed by many weeks of physical therapy learning to walk with a prosthetic leg. (No, they wouldn’t go for the whalebone.)

As a young Army officer, I learned how to jump out of airplanes. In later years, I learned how to be a federal law-enforcement officer. I’m sure that at age 65, I can learn to walk on a prosthetic leg.

The only difficult part will be learning the “attitude” that ex-military amputees seem to display in the movies.

“Hey, you! What do you think you’re lookin’ at?”

Status

We all wear uniforms to communicate our status to the world. For most white-collar workers, it is the white collar itself, which is worn with a suit. The suit immediately conveys the fact that the wearer does not work with his hands—manual labor—but is a manager or professional of some kind.

As a young engineer reporting for my first day as a project engineer in a steel mill, I was told to wear a coat and tie in accordance with my “status” as a member of the engineering department. The next morning, I found myself atop a mill-stand; my sports jacket and pants smeared with grime and grease.

I soon learned why field engineers favor cheap suits and polyester ties. I started wearing inexpensive shirts—which I bought a half-dozen at a time—and I kept a can of lighter fluid in my desk to clean the grease from my wash-and-wear trousers.

Not all status uniforms are expensive. My wife—a nurse-practitioner—wears a lab coat, as do most physicians; but the ultimate in healthcare-professional status-clothing are surgical greens, especially when worn with a scrub-cap, gown, dangling surgical mask, and green shoe-covers. This outfit announces that you have just emerged from the surgical suite, where you have battled hand-to-hand with death—and emerged victorious.

Many status symbols speak for themselves. Even a cheap Mercedes Benz or BMW costs more than any Chevrolet; but even among the wealthy, there are status-steps in automobiles. Currently, professional athletes favor the Maybach, an obscure German brand that can cost upwards of $400,000.

In real estate, the three most important things about a home are, location, location, and location. An 1,800 square-foot house on a quarter-acre suburban lot may cost $300,000; but the same house on the water is worth three-million dollars.

As with many other things, a residence doesn’t always convey status to a person, but the person conveys status to his home.

When I lived in South Beach, an upscale rental unit was soon built next door. It was favored by young people on their way up who gladly paid $1,500 for a one-bedroom apartment, and furnished it for another $1,000 a month. Their last $1,500 went for their leased Ferrari. They might not have owned a pot to piss in, but they sure looked as if they didn’t need one.

A person’s true status is usually conveyed by that person’s verbal and nonverbal communication. It is said that your true nature is determined by how you treat others who you know can do nothing for you in return, but you treat them respectfully anyway.

When you have achieved that level of propriety, then you have achieved “status.”

Hooray for Me!

I began a series of tests today to see if I am in good enough shape for the “surgical option” should the need arise.

Today’s test was an echocardiogram, a form of an ultrasound examination of my heart. I am happy to report that it is still beating, and apparently with sufficient efficiency to allow me to walk around (so to speak) without the need for oxygen. One of my valves was a little calcified, but after all, I am 65 years old.

Tomorrow is another CT scan, something I have several times a year to see if my cancer has moved up from my leg. (The long-term prognosis for Merkel Cell is that, sooner or later, it shows up elsewhere, but then again, there are few histories to reliably project this rare disease’s future path.)

If I show up clean tomorrow, Thursday I am off for a consultation with an orthopedic oncologist to learn whether there is a practical surgical solution to my problem.

Yes, boys and girls, orthopedic surgeons work with saws, but before anybody gets me fitted for a wooden leg—I prefer whalebone, like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick—there may be other directions under consideration.

The bottom line is quality of life. Yes, it was sad to give up my career as a South Beach leg model (when I had my initial surgery in July of 2007) but now I can audition for “don’t let this happen to you” commercials!

If surgery—for whatever reason—is not an option, there are still plenty of chemicals for me to try. Perhaps the answer lies in the cocktail I had a few years ago to treat my lymphoma, as while I was on that chemo, no lesions appeared after the July surgery to remove the first one.

As long as the Merkel stays on my leg, it is not life threatening. Ultimately, however, the lesions on my right leg will ulcerate, and I’ll have lengthy stays in the hospital trying to graft new skin or some artificial Astroturf over the non-healing wounds.

I am not a prognosticator—except occasionally in politics—and I certainly don’t know more about cancer than the dozens of oncology professionals—including my wife—who have cared for me these past three years, come April.

In the mean time, I’m still here, so hooray for me!