A Modest Proposal for the Looming Medicare Crisis

It seems all this hand-wringing over the aging American population and its potentially catastrophic impact can finally end.

On a Sunday morning at the Costco in Raleigh, N.C., Ron Moerbe filled his shopping cart with all the things a self-described aging, hearing-challenged diabetic might need: some amplifying earphones, organic cucumbers and a case of 5-Hour Energy shots.

That's "all the things a self-described aging diabetic might need?!" Here's a list of ten things I can think of that said person might need from Costco beyond the aforementioned spartan list:

Toilet paper
Insulin
Vegetable peeler for that organic cucumber
Something to eat other than a cucumber
James Patterson novels
Potable liquids of any kind
One of those unreasonably large tubs of Cheeze Balls
Batteries
The box sets of "Murder, She Wrote" and "Matlock" (why choose between them?)
Condoms

How is 5 Hour Energy #3 on the list? I understand you're going for a kitsch opening to an article about 5 Hour Energy, but your premise is fatally flawed.

The 65-year-old salesman says he drinks up to three a day to stay alert when he's on the road. He scoffs at the idea that he might be too old for the stuff. "I'm reverse discriminate," he says. "I don't see why kids need 'em."

My grandpa used to say this - - "How are you tired? You're just a boy!" - - like tired is something you grow. Like a beard.

Also, I'm no scientist, but three 5HEs (roughly 6000% of the RDV of B6 and 24999% of the RDV of B12, total) seems like far too much. In fact, 5HE thinks that's too much also. Here is the label of 5HE:

RECOMMENDED USE: Drink one half (1/2) bottle for moderate energy. Drink one whole bottle for maximum energy. Do not exceed two bottles of 5-hour ENERGY^® shots daily, consumed several hours apart. Use or discard any remainder within 72 hours (three days) after opening. Refrigeration not required.

When the company volunteers a warning, you know it's a keeper.

Their makers pitch them as a youthful tonic when coffee just isn't enough. "You know what 2:30 in the afternoon feels like, right?" a young fan asks on a late-night TV ad for 5-hour Energy.

I hate those ads. And since when are paid actors "fans?"

Also, virtually every old person I know switched to decaf 20 years ago. We're really asking these old coots to go from 0 to 60 in the energy department.

Now, the shots are appealing to a growing number of people over 60 who aren't ready to slow down with age. At the Raleigh Costco, cases of energy shots are stacked beside Ensure nutrition shakes and across from tubes of wrinkle cream.

Circumstantial at best. There may be an ad campaign aimed at seniors, but placing cases of 5HE next to products that people from many age groups and both sexes use is not evidence of that.

Last October, the company handed out thousands of samples at the annual AARP convention in Orlando. "It was amazing to see the number of people who took it right there and then," says Mr. Bhargava, who staffed the booth.

You were at an AARP convention! They probably thought it was cough syrup! We need to be careful with how much spare change we leave lying around so that my grandma doesn't end up eating it. If we handed her some, she would surely ingest it.

In January, 5-Hour began running full-page ads in the AARP Bulletin, which is delivered to 22 million households. The ad shows John Ratzenberger, best known as postman Cliff Clavin on "Cheers," holding a bicycle. "Getting older is fine," says the 64-year-old Mr. Ratzenberger. "But not having the energy to do the things I enjoy isn't."

In the history of our great nation, how much influence has been gained by scaring the shit out of old people?

Turns out, 5HE brought in $1 billion last year, due in large part to the new-found zeal for the product among the elderly. Shit, old people really love this shit! Is there any downside?

Sold as dietary supplements, energy shots don't require Food and Drug Administration approval.

Hmmm...

A study in the journal Pediatrics in February warned that consumption of too many energy drinks can give children heart palpitations, seizures and other problems.

Welp, there you have it. If 5HE seizures are sort of like the virus in "The Andromeda Strain," we're about to have a lot fewer old people on hand. If your elderly loved ones have any hobbies that require wakefulness, make sure their affairs are in order.

Groundhog Day?

In the week or so since Dick decided to get back into writing here, I've been looking for something to write about. Unfortunately, I haven't really found anything that interests me, so I've tried to figure out why. And the conclusion I came to while scouring Newser.com for something to write about was this: pretty much everything is the same as it was two years ago.

Maybe that's pessimistic, and admittedly it's pretty hard to discern progress without some amount of hindsight, but seriously, look at what's happening now:

• Sarah Palin has unleashed her inner media whore, and the media (and no one else) is following breathlessly.
• Lance Armstrong is being accused of using steroids in a bike race that happened almost a decade ago (I'd appreciate it if someone would let 60 Minutes know that no one, probably not even Lance Armstrong at this point, cares about professional cycling).
• Some global panel has declared that the War on Drugs has been a bust (seriously, I need to find a way to get paid for telling people things that everyone has known for at least fifteen years). No one wants to get rid of drugs, people who make drugs (alcohol and tobacco companies) just want to get rid of the drugs that other people (minorities) make. What drug you're using isn't of any interest to the government, they only care about whose drug it is.
• Shaq retired (I thought he died in 2007).
• Democrats and Republicans are accusing each other of distorting facts and engaging in demagoguery (how else is anyone supposed to get elected when people like my brother, who told me the other day that the number of members of the House changes, are allowed to vote?).
• Seriously, this Octomom lady, the one with the cavernous vagina, still has her name in the news.
• The Supreme Court is still protecting Bush Administration officials from any sort of retribution for how they raped America (and I still can't figure out where there are still people out there who value the opinions of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and Karl Rove, as if all of their theories of governance hadn't been empirically proven to be abject failures over eight years).
• Some dumb cooze is denying that the naked pictures she took of herself are her (but really, she should just embrace them, she looked good).
• Shit, people are still talking about the vapid whore with the ass, the one that Ray J pissed on.
• The Phillies are better than the Mets.

So what's actually happening that isn't a boring retread of things that have been covered ad nauseum over the last two or three years? Well, there's the shocking revelation that Frank Sinatra took twelve showers a day. I guess that's interesting. Meh. Someone in government has finally started trying to do something about the disgustingly racist sentencing disparity between convictions for possession of cocaine and crack. I guess it's refreshing that Obama is being criticized for his "European ways"; I mean, the underlying complaint is still that he's not American enough (because he's black), but it's a nice break from the Kenyan agitation and Islamophobia.

So really, what is there to write about that hasn't already been beaten into the ground? Oh well, I guess I'm not one to talk, I wrote this while listening to Blink 182 and SR-71.

Traffic Patterns

At the penultimate intersection of my morning commute, there are two right-hand turn lanes. This is necessary because only half a block after that right hand turn, most cars will make a left into one of the busier parking garages in the downtown area; it's a refreshingly logic traffic pattern, relaly. Since that is the garage that I use every morning, I make my right turn from the left right-turn lane, so that I am in position to turn into the garage. It appears many people don't understand this.

If I felt that people were simply trying to take advantage of the much shorter right right-turn lane line and thought they could easily cut into the approaching left turn lane, that would be one thing. But I honestly think people just don't understand how it's supposed to work. The looks on the offending drivers' faces is not that of either determination or selfish indifference, but confusion and abject terror.

What's worse - - in the past few days, I've been cut off like usual, but then I've done reasonable well to take a breath and put that person out of my mind once they pulled out of sight, only to end up on the stairwell or in the elevator with them. I am a little worried about my impending sarcastic comments if this pattern keeps up.

LoMo Hemingway

The fact that people care about this enough to prompt an AP article is astounding and depressing.

Logan Morrison a hit on Twitter

Good Lord.

MIAMI -- Logan Morrison tweets to the amusement of thousands and the dismay of his team's top executive.

The 23-year-old left fielder known as "LoMo" may lead the league in Twitter wisecracks.

He does, it's true. Logan Morrison has an astounding TWA of .455, good enough for a 30-point lead over second place Twitterer Hunter Pence. But once you adjust for the low attendance and thereby quick cell reception at Marlins games, LoMo's xTWA is a dismal +89.

Morrison engages in exchanges with his Twitter followers, unlike celebrity athletes who limit their tweeting to status reports on dinner plans and such.

This was written by ESPN.com news services. To ESPN, this is news.

What's more, we first hear about whether or not LoMo uses asterisks in the middle of naughty, grown-up words (sometimes he DOESN'T!) before we hear about the fact that he also uses Twitter to raise money for the American Lung Association in memory of his late father who died of lung cancer. Priorities.

Mike Wilbon. Meh.

The point in this article from Michael Wilbon isn't all that objectionable - - that people are no longer tepid towards LeBron James - - provided you can find that point, and you've found it at one of the small moments right before Wilbon rebounds like a bungy cord and changes his stance.

Taken in order, here are some of the there's-no-way-you-can-think-both-of-these-things-at-the-same-time claims:

The Eastern Conference finals just enjoyed ratings and viewership records for cable TV on TNT, according to Nielsen.com…And it's entirely because of LeBron James.

Again, perhaps you’re right, and that’s a strong statement to make. Let’s see how Wilbon backs it up in the next sentence.

OK, the Knicks getting Carmelo Anthony and making it back into the playoffs caused a little bump, as did the run of the Chicago Bulls, whose local viewership reached historic levels. Having so many big-market teams in the postseason mix (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philly, Dallas, Boston, Miami) is always good for a league tilted toward urban fans. But this, or 90 percent of it, is about LeBron.

So, your argument for LeBron being responsible for increased ratings is that a number of enormous markets that had not been in the playoffs for quite some time are now in the playoffs? Was LeBron so hated that the Sixers and Knicks, oddly good enough to make the playoffs each season for the last decade, but too complacent to finish out the season, had their ennui obliterated by their hatred of Bron Bron and decided to reach the playoffs again after a succession of team meetings and dramatic roll call votes? That’s the only way that LeBron could account for “90 percent” of this increased attention, rather than say the successes of any of these teams front offices in finally securing players that could win more than 30 regular season games.

With LeBron and the Heat in the championship series, the NBA Finals has a chance to be the highest-rated and most-viewed Finals since the Orlando-Houston series in 1995 or even the Bulls-Portland series, Jordan's second Finals, in 1992.

The highest-rated championship series in recent memory is one that featured two profoundly team-oriented contenders. And all these comparisons to Jordan (like the one about to follow) are decidedly misplaced, then.

Whatever; the league hasn't enjoyed this kind of wire-to-wire attention since the 1995-96 season, when Jordan, back for his first full season since 1992-93, commanded unprecedented interest. Jordan, of course, also enjoyed unprecedented popularity without villainy.

This is where I really started to have trouble. Wilbon seems to be saying the entire time that LeBron-cum-super villain is what has made the NBA season popular, but he keeps comparing him to Michael Jordan (who, also, could be much more aptly compared to Tiger Woods than can LeBron), who captivated sports fans simply by doing things with a basketball that continued to shock and amaze. Isn’t LeBron drawing this much attention off the court closer to Dennis Rodman wearing a wedding dress than it is to Jordan’s flu game? And he also keeps comparing LeBron to Jordan and then these finals to the 95-96 Finals which did not feature Jordan nor did they feature a stand-alone character that stole all of the attention (with the possible exception of Hakeem, but I don't think the amount of individual attention is really that close at all).

Frankly, LeBron doesn't have any of the stuff villains are made of, yet he has accepted being cast in that role.

“Accepted” is a funny word to use here, because I often think of “accepted” as meaning “totally cool with that,” whereas LeBron continues to whine about his image like he didn’t get invited to the cool kid’s birthday party in 4th grade.

LeBron doesn't play with any noticeable physicality, hardly ever fouls anybody hard, doesn't talk much -- if any -- trash by today's standards, and other than a couple of notable occasions of walking off the court without shaking hands after playoff series defeats (a trend that, annoyingly, seems to be on the increase across the league), has been guilty of nothing objectionable. He simply hasn't fit the villain's bill.

Sure, he doesn’t fit the villain’s bill ON THE COURT. But he remains the only example in all of sports of a player that turned down more money from the only team for which he ever played - - a team based in his hometown - - to go play somewhere else. And he rubbed everyone’s face in it, stopping only to apologize after he beat the Celtics and was able to declare that, at least from a basketball standpoint, the move to Miami wasn’t a totally fuck job.

But the thing that really made me comment on this article is what seems to be a prevailing sentiment throughout sports coverage that Wilbon saves for the end of his piece:

And with that, LeBron James smiled and walked into the NBA Finals, his image having changed dramatically since he appeared in the 2007 Finals: a much richer, more controversial, more hated, more internationally celebrated, more complex and more fascinating figure now than then.

Yes, his image has most definitely changed, but I don’t think his (Suffering Idiots buzzword alert) solipsism is fascinating at all. It’s utterly predictable. LeBron would have been a fascinating figure if he had made the bold choice and risked never winning a championship in Cleveland (unless he could pretty much do it on his own, which he almost did) out of some profound sense of loyalty or the historic importance that a championship in Cleveland might have.

But looking out for #1 isn’t dramatic or interesting or complex or fascinating. It’s timeless and it’s unchanging, and it got sports fans upset, not because they all feel bad for Cleveland, but because they all feel the urge to hate the prototypical selfish athlete made manifest in King James.

The Relatively Short Hello

It's been over a year since anyone posted here, and far longer than that for me, but what do you say we get back to this? I'm feeling a rush of inspiration having started to read FJM over again from the beginning.

I don't have anything to say at the moment, but let this post be the harbinger of ill-advised commentary to come.

-Gerber

Tiger Apology

I'm watching First Take right now, and they have on some lady who wrote some book called "The Art of the Apology," or something like that.

And honestly, she's just spewing nonsensical drivel, talking about all the things that Tiger should do or say in his apology. Fuck that. People shouldn't be dictating what Woods should be saying. Well, that's only half true. People to whom Tiger owes no apology shouldn't dictate what he should say. And that's every fucking person in the entire world who isn't married to him.

She said that some golf writers won't be covering the event because they're not allowed to ask questions. That's ridiculous too. Without Tiger most of these people wouldn't have jobs. We can't go back to a pre-Tiger PGA, and as unfortunate as it is for people like Ernie Els (but honestly, fuck him), without Tiger no one cares about golf. These writers shouldn't be trying to ask Tiger questions, they should be groveling and begging for him to come back, and probably apologizing for publicizing his personal life.

Finally, I love that Tiger is stealing all of the attention away from the Accenture Match Play tournament (I refuse to call it a championship, because Tiger isn't in it). Accenture, of course, is the first company that dropped Tiger as it's representive. They're also, of course, the guys who helped Enron cover things up. (http://tinyurl.com/ylzkqm9) Fuck them, too.

He's apologizing now. Disappointing.