Mark Knows It All

Tony Bennett and Queen Latifah - Who Can I Turn To? Tonight is the end of a bad Friday ending a really bad week. Outside it’s cold and windy, drizzly, usual northeast Ohio weather!!! A cold that I got over last week liked me so much it has decided to visit me again. My nose is running like sieve. What’s a body to do? Television is filled with more Republican debates and discussion and pundits yakking away on the same stuff they were talking about this morning, yesterday, last week…enough already. And television just plain sucks. People actually get paid to write this stuff! I must have picked the wrong profession. So it was with a degree of trepidation that I sat in my chair dressed in my pajamas and robe, wrapped in my throw blanket with an angel stitched into the fabric to watch over me, and channel surfed hoping against hope to find something worth watching. I struck gold tonight. PBS aired a ninety minute Great Performances program of Tony Bennett’s Duet II al...

Sunday was my birthday. Normally I am NOT a birthday person. I find them a tad more retrospective than I can tolerate. Let’s start with the ten pounds I gained since my last birthday. Don’t even talk about surprise parties. My wife threw me a surprise 40th birthday party, and I thought the house was being robbed. All I saw was this round thing pointed out the front door of my house right at me in the dark. Turned out to be a camera!! I thought it was gun. Took three years off my life! My friend has the opposite attitude. He loves birthdays, especially his own. He says he looks good for his age, feels better than most his age, and there are several his age who no longer have to worry about birthdays, if you get my drift. I envy his attitude. Notwithstanding, this year is different. This year is a landmark birthday. I turned 62. I can retire!!! So this is what retirement age feels like! And don’t forget all the additional senior discounts that come with the territor...

How’s that no inflation thing working out for you? In case you haven’t noticed, things are getting mighty expensive notwithstanding what the government and a supplicant press wants you to believe. Check out the cost of Peanut Butter, Crisco, Cereal (oatmeal in particular), almonds, olive oil, orange juice. Then look at the price of clothing, men’s shirts and shoes in particular. How about the cost of gasoline? Have you gone to a movie lately? Even deals in electronics don’t look like such good deals anymore, but rather desperate ploys to get rid of last year’s merchandise at last year’s prices. I did not see the bargains for electronic goods this year that I have seen in the past. Inflation is bubbling all around you. Have you tried to have a home appliance repaired lately, or have someone come in to do some electrical or plumbing work? Nail tech’s and hairdressers are off the charts, with prices rising almost weekly. Don’t even mention the cost of hotel rooms and airplane tickets. Th...

It’s tax time. And one of the lawyers in my office was going ape over IRS requirements on filing various forms. Specifically, the IRS has decreed that all W-2’s must be filed electronically. If you file a handwritten W-2, it will be assumed that there is fraud and the filer will be subject to audit. The rules are a little less stringent with 1099’s, but still you have to be a Philadelphia lawyer and CPA to figure who does or does not get a 1099. All of this, of course, must be verified by YOUR signature on YOUR tax return under the severest of penalties…and the threat in the booklet reads like a horror movie. Another gift from your friendly progressive Obama who is afraid you may make a nickel. Even more disturbing, and almost poignantly sad, my buddy who has several grandchildren, went to buy his granddaughter a birthday savings bond. Guess what!!! No more paper savings bonds. Instead, you get an electronic account that you may only access through use of a computer...

This is an odd topic. Notwithstanding, the older I get, the more I have come to believe in it. I have become a firm believer in holistic medicine. This comes from three chronic illnesses in my life that were treated conventionally for years, and ultimately resolved by an holistic approach to the problem. Let me qualify my comments by saying that I fully believe in conventional medicine. I would never counsel ANYONE facing a serious illness to forego the medical doctors and the miracles modern medicine has to offer. Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs did, and an untreated curable form of pancreatic cancer cost him his life. On the other hand, one shouldn't overlook holistic approaches to illness to compliment whatever the doctors are recommending. Many modern medical centers offer holistic supplements as a matter of course. The human body is wondrous mechanism, and as I can personally attest, acts in strange ways to odd thngs. After I graduated from college, I was diagnosed wi...