Fiscal Cliff, Health Care, Entitlements, Social Security


Dave and Mike Katz, Manhattan IOL Bash, 2004
Mike's doing great and will be released from the hospital shortly,
but you still have time to get a card in the mail if you do it now:
Yale New Haven Hospital, Patient Mike Katz, 20 York Street, New Haven, CT 06510

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Who says I don’t watch the news?

I enter the gym feeling like two bits. One hour later I leave feeling like a million bucks. Not a bad exchange in today’s market. I figure if I continue to make this investment twice a week I’ll be rich. Perhaps there’s something in my plan the White House can use to solve the nation’s fiscal woes.
 
Better yet, assuming there is something of value, I can sell it to China, take the proceeds and invest them in solar energy. We’ve got to think ahead, muscleheads.

My wraps and water bottle are in my bag and ready to go. I’ll be under the steel and high on the iron in 15 minutes. I’m rich.

Washington, can you hear me now? Plan A: 2 bits + 1 hour = 1,000,000 bucks. The simple math adds exponentially to social security and radically reduces health care needs. Debts and irresponsibility plunge, assets and personal worth skyrocket.

Right about now I should introduce Plan A, Part 2, smart eating, to save lives and revenue and prevent waste and nationwide bankruptcy. Laree and I saw an ad on TV last night, there before us in living color and stereo on a 20 x 30 flat screen was a gooped-out double burger with bacon and onion rings, a pile of salted fries, a 32-ounce Coke (free refills) and a cookie-ice cream dessert. One meal totaling some 4,000 calories, enough nasty sugar and fat for a growing rhino.

Holy Molly, Rolly Polly!
 
I saw the same tempting, frivolous image on a giant in-my-face billboard driving to Stanford last week. “Eat like you mean it!” was the brazen punch line. Just do it, no pain, no gain.

Made in America. Sold in America. Come and get ’em, Mom and Dad. Free toys for the kids. Diabetes and heart attacks, gluttony and shriveling self-esteem at no extra charge. Help yourself. Dig in.

Give me an ironbound gym, nice ’n clean, airy ’n quiet (heck, it can be a dump), and I’ll fix what ails me. No, not the debt, dents or dings or the encumbering age thing, but the woe and pain that surrounds them. If there’s a problem, I’ll resolve it between sets and reps. A saddened heart or a heap of guilt are soothed with focus and form. Carelessness, uselessness or hopelessness -- aches from a dysfunctional world -- I counter with a glorious pump and mean burn. Anger and disappointment are overcome by a volley of fully engaged supersets. Joy and relief come from the very last rep.

Don’t forget: Stay hydrated… water, water, water. Bomber Blend is for champions, the wise and the downtrodden. Rejoice! Be thankful always.

We’re ruining, shaming and abusing this wonderful and beautiful, amazing and blessed country with our lack of discipline and responsibility, diminishing faith and family. In some corners, ‘Gimme’ is a popular across-the-board notion, a common single-word command. ‘I deserve it’ is another perky one-liner. ‘I don’t wanna’ is heard a lot in the face of certain bribed children and bribing parents. Not a whole bunch of kids have chores, but they have iPods and twitter and Red Bull. No fulfillment, plenty of entertainment. No satisfaction, plenty of distraction.

I have the perfect idea with perfect timing. Get your kid or Mom and Pop a bright and shiny 310-pound barbell-dumbbell combo (including wall charts) for Christmas. Too heavy, too much, too little, too late, too good to be true?

How about a year’s membership at a nearby gym? A pair of handgrips… an exertube… a month’s supply of tuna and water… a one-a-day vitamin mineral… a mouth lock?

Look around, bombers. I think we’re on our own. Stock up on supplies, lock ’n load; I’ll watch your back, you watch mine. God Bless America and her friends.

DD

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Laree here...

In the late '60s, Dave hunkered down in a studio for a couple of weeks to read some kind of training information product for Joe Weider. The recording was never released, but the memory is so huge that to this day Dave doesn't do phone or radio interviews, and wouldn't even consider doing a lecture for our movementlectures.com site.

To him, the idea that people would be willing to talk into the 20 recorders we have traversing the country for the audio lectures is just crazy. He thought I'd never find people who would do it, yet we now have about 100 lectures on the site, and usually have a waiting list for the recorders.

Fast-forward to today, and I have years in print and digital, and about a year-and-a-half experience editing audio lectures, but hadn't worked on an audio book. Print books, ebooks...no audio book.

Dan John told me a few years ago he'd be willing to read Never Let Go for an audio book, but in the busy-ness of life, neither of us made it happen. Then, earlier this year as we started working on Intervention, we talked about doing an audio book, but again, no real momentum. About a month ago, Dan told me to send him a recorder and he'd record it.

I sent the recorder, but honestly, I expected to get the recorder back in a couple of months, empty. Really, it's just too much to ask. Reading your own words is hard. Reading anything out loud is hard. Reading your own words, out loud, for public production? For pay? Yikes. No way did I think this would happen.

You know where this is going, right?...click to discover the rest and listen to the first chapter.

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