Category Archives: Health
National Prayer Breakfast
Every year about this time there’s a pious politician public event called the National Prayer Breakfast.
Two years ago Dr. Ben Carson made his political debut there. The soft spoken brain surgeon insulted President Obama by ordering off the menu and choosing health savings accounts instead of ObamaCare. Now the good doctor is contemplating his own run for the president’s seat at the table.
At last year’s breakfast, after trying to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to buy birth control and morning after pills, Obama droned about religious freedom.
This year he made headlines providing the insight that Crusaders killed in the name of religion 1000 years ago. Not only that, Christians were responsible for Jim Crow.
A Pox on Anti-Vaxxer Pols
Are anti-vaxxers the soccer moms of 2016? Not likely. Chris Christie gave them a shot but he’s not breaking out from the Republican pack.
Politicians often “inoculate” themselves by condemning an issue expected to be unpopular with voters. A hard line against parents who don’t vaccinate their children could be the litmus test of the day for 2016 presidential campaign. Christie may need a booster.
He’s quarantined himself from interviewers on his luxury trip to England.
President Fruit Loop
One day YouTube star GloZell Green is thrashing in her milk filled bath tub bobbing for Fruit Loops. Next thing you know she’s interviewing the president of the United States.
The president is concerned that the dignity of his office has been gravely damaged – by Speaker Boehner.
John Boehner invited the Israeli Prime minister to speak to Congress. Bibi accepted. Obama blew his lid. Mouthpiece Josh Ernest claimed it was a violation of protocol for Congress to extend the invitation without the permission of the co-equal executive branch. Payback was promised. This was no mere violation of the Constitution.
John Kerry is especially miffed at being dissed by Netanyahu after all he’s done for him. Somebody, give him a hug. And, James Taylor, could you please come back and sing You got a Friend?
Meanwhile the president dissed the Main Stream Media. They’ve long been in the tank for him. Now he’s in the tub with GloZell. But it wasn’t all milk and Fruit Loops. GloZell upstaged the msm with a question about Cuba. She demanded to know how he could “justify negotiating with the guy who puts the dick in dictatorship”.
Artful Art and Big D
My father was a big man. In fact we called him “Big D”. He encouraged it.
Dr. Arthur Bernard Bok, Jr. served 23 years as team physician for the University of Dayton. He was a pioneer in the field of sports medicine. Before that he was team physician for the Dayton Gems IHL hockey team. He was an expert face stitcher. My brothers’ mugs as well as my own were canvases for his work. The same goes for many of our friends. Dad donated countless hours of medical service to everyone from neighborhood rink rats to college athletes. Any kid trying out for any team in any sport was entitled to a free physical at Doc Bok’s office.
Artful Art
He was born in Cincinnati, grew up in Toledo and came to Dayton on a football scholarship.
He played in the first Ohio high school North/South all-star game in 1946. Notre Dame legend Frank Leahy coached the South team. Leahy tried to poach my pop for the Irish. But, this being the pre-Urban Meyer era, dad kept his commitment to the Flyers. This upset my grandmother but pleased my grandfather. It also pleased my siblings and me because Dayton is where he met a pretty cheerleader, Jeanne Stewart, who became our mother.
He really was big for a back in those days – 6’2″ 192 pounds. And fast. He ran a 10 second flat hundred yard dash. The 40 had not yet been invented.
As a 17 year old in training camp he competed against much older returning war vets and earned a starting job as a freshman. He went on to become the Flyers’ all-time leading scorer. In 1948 he averaged 6.7 yards per carry.
The papers called him “Artful Art” and “Mr. Inside Outside”.
Following a 72 yard touchdown run against John Carroll in Cleveland stadium, Paul Brown paid him a visit in the locker room. His hopes, however, of playing for the Cleveland Browns were dashed when the Baltimore Colts drafted him in 1950.
He signed a $5,000.00 contract. Today’s NFL was not my father’s NFL. The team was lousy and the equipment worse. He stuck around long enough to get mentioned in Art Donavan’s book Fatso but soon gave up football for med school and marriage.
He attended the Chicago School of Osteopathic Medicine and returned to Dayton to begin his practice and raise his family.
Everybody loved him. I wanted to be just like him. When I was 12 or so someone asked if I would be a football player too. Big D’s reply was, “he may be small but he’s slow”. That stung but not too much because it was funny. I got bigger and faster but in the end he was right. I became a cartoonist.
My dad lived a rich and rewarding life. He was surrounded by our loving mother, 5 children, and 16 of his 19 grandchildren when it came to an end. After he breathed his last we said a prayer, poured martinis and toasted him. Old number 44 was 86.
Now, back to drawing the people I don’t like!
Chuck Schumer Bails on ObamaCare
Chuck Schumer, the third ranking Senate Democrat, gave a speech trashing ObamaCare. He said it was a mistake to ram through health care reform when the main concern of voters was the economy. The uninsured were a small percentage of the electorate and most of them didn’t vote. ObamaCare meant middle class working people had to pay more for their insurance to subsidize the non-voting beneficiaries of ObamaCare. Schemer said that was politically stupid. As a result Democrats are now getting shellacked at the polls.
The speech came as a shock to Progressives and the press but it’s something Schumer must have given a lot of thought to. As Dan Henninger said in the WSJ, “Let us count the times Sen. Chuck Schumer has blown himself up politically.
That was a short count, wasn’t it?”
