Mark Knows It All

When it is snowing outside…when the Dow is tumbling…when a Democrat occupies the White House…it’s time for comfort food. Some people eat to live. I live to eat. I LOVE eating. When I’m happy, I eat. When I am depressed, I eat. I am sure there is some psychological reason for it, but I don’t care. I love food. So when the going gets tough, I get comfort food. What kind of comfort food do you like? Sunday dinner with chicken and mashed potatoes is always at the top of somebody’s list. Then there is pot roast and swiss steak. Mac and cheese is another favorite. I like mine plain. I watched a Tyler Florence blurb about making it with peas and onions. I don't think so!!! The universal comfort food is chicken soup. My mother used to make chicken soup. My father didn't like it and called it hot Kool Aid. He liked Campbell's chicken soup. There is no accounting for taste. For the kids there is grilled cheese and PB and J sandwiches. Of course, now one has to watch out for the Salmo...

If I learned nothing more during my late mother’s recent illness, I learned that the state of senior care in Ohio is abysmal. We as a society should be ashamed of what we have done to our senior citizens. As one who is looking at age 60 just down the pike, I am personally frightened for myself and my wife. With the huge number of aging baby boomers just over the horizon, it will only get worse. I have come to the conclusion that nursing homes are nothing more than a place to warehouse people until they die. Minimally, they are depressing. Many of them are smelly with poor ventilation. Some of them are dirty. They are grossly understaffed. Most of them are over-crowded. There is a shortage of beds in any of the facilities that are tolerable, and the mad dash to find a place for one’s loved one is something akin to herding cows into a pen…you take what you can get. Physicians work for nursing homes on a full time basis, or close to it. They visit the patient once each month, and in betw...

It is time to say goodbye to President George W. Bush. Bush bashing has become a national pastime. The press has bordered on obscene in its treatment of him. Turn on any of the late night television shows or television programs like The Daily Show or SNL, and it is a continual litany of hate. Any and all objectivity from New York and/or Hollywood media news types is dead. Journalism is dead. We are the poorer for it, and we will pay the price. History will treat Bush much kinder than his contemporaries. His handling of the September 11 debacle was magnificent. He inherited 20 years of foreign policy blunders culminating in the worst attack on American soil in history. He defined the means by which terrorism can be defeated, and you will see President Obama pay lip service to the whiny civil libertarians, but his actions will be more in line with President Bush, except the New York Times won’t be leaking classified information to undermine him. You see, when an attack occurs, you don’t...

Have you ever felt like you have failed at “being all you can be”? The media is the message, and the media is continually telling us we have to be all we can be. Unfortunately, I have yet figure out what being all I can be is. Or maybe I know, and I am too darn lazy to worry about it. After all, wouldn’t being all you can be involve a whole lot of effort? It’s too hard. I am happy if I can get out of bed in the morning. So…I have taken a different approach to measuring my success or lack thereof. Instead of looking at those ahead of me, as my sainted parents taught me, I have decided to look at people who have really screwed up and say: “At least I didn’t do that!” Look at the Blago dude in Illinois. I always wanted to be in politics, but c’mon…going door to door listening to constituent complaints. Ya! Right! And who wants to deal with that press thing. So I am not a successful politician. But I can look at Governor Blago’s "pay to play" scheme as he tried to sell a Senate ...