I’m Sorry, Did I Misunderstand Mr. Cosby?

 

Mr. Cosby,

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Did I hear correctly that you would only be granting interviews to black publications? Or that only black publications would be FAIR to you. Why? Doesn’t that sound a little racist? Why only black magazines since you always spouted equality for all. I’m sure all fine journalists have the same standards, excellent standards, impeccable standards, why would you need to call them out?

You used to advise and criticize boys whose pants were hanging down below their belts, you were quite vocal about that too. And, I don’t BELIEVE you are anyone to now criticize pants hanging below the belt, right?  It would be humorous if it wasn’t so miserably sad and sick. I bet the boys who just wanted to just go along with fashion have much better characters than you do. Boys? What do you have to say? You were judged by Mr. Cosby how do you feel now? Judged by someone who did horrible things (allegedly.)

 

Now, in the wake of your current “allegations” you break your muddied silence to say that when you speak (if you speak) your voice can only be heard in the black community? Is there a breakdown of how many women you “allegedly” date raped by race? Religion? Brown skin, White skin, Tan skin, Asian skin? Because I would like to know the alleged break down report on that information not that it matters to me one bit. You allegedly hurt women, allegedly many women, that’s what matters.

We are just interested in how long this is going to take before you sing like an injured, broken raven? It seems hard to believe that people will forget THIS. Even if Whoopi Goldberg, a

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woman I used to admire greatly, gave you the thumbs up, that does not in the LEAST BIT sway me. I am with Rosie O’Donnell all the way. She admittedly gets a little childish (Donald Trump comb over)  but she’s really a big kid that has been hurt badly. I think her heart is truly golden. I would bet my life on that.

She is flawed like everyone else, but perhaps more damaged goods than we know. If there is one thing I know for sure, Rosie O’Donell’s heart is golden. I have always stuck by her and always will. She has a huge heart, maybe some people don’t understand her. I do.

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Cosby, Come on. I don’t have a reliable source but I heard (allegedly) someone has proof or photographs What are you going to do when those surface? By the way, I watched Whoopi Goldberg’s face when Beverly Johnson was on the show, Whoopi didn’t say too much in your defense. Is she still your cheerleader?

 

I hope not.

I give thanks, great thanks to Beverly Johnson for going on the show and sharing her experience. I know that’s not easy to do. Thank you, Beverly. Also, did Kathy Lee say that Bill Cosby tried to kiss her? Sorry if I am confusing celebrities.

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I was going to say “I don’t know how you can sleep at night” But silly me, I forgot you have an easy concoction already made, have a cappuccino or two, I hear they are incredibly fresh.




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An Open Letter To The World Via The New York TImes

Dear World,

Manufacturers, Researchers, FDA, DNA, NPR, and ABC,

I am speaking on behalf of many people who think the same way I do. No, I do not have empirical evidence or research to back my claim but guess what? I don’t need it. Apparently all the studies that have been done in the past by your researches are, to be delicate, for shit.( Sorry, are not substantiated)

One day you tell us to drink milk, lots of milk so that are bones are strong and healthy. I’m sorry I believe I heard something about “drinking too much milk is bad for our bones?” What?  This type of stuff goes on and on and I for one am sick of it.

I already wrote an essay in my blog about anti-anxiety pills for anxious people are going to give us, most probably, Alzheimer’s disease. What a great idea to tell someone who is anxious to begin with, without alternative ideas. I have anxiety issues, I have no problem revealing that and when my psychiatrist told me, albeit rather nervously, about this new study, she gave me a handout of a copy of the study.

Maybe that would have been handled better if this had begun in the beginning of the session and discussed with alternatives. What happened after being told? Major anxiety. After processing this new information, if indeed it is true, I need to think of quality of life and choices. But, that is something we should have talked about BEFORE those five sheets of paper were handed to my sweaty palms.

I find it wrong that open communication is allowed OUT so very cavalierly and THEN retracted months or years later with the opposite findings. Basically, all this media is making us crazy. Would it be so wrong to ask all of you to “shut the blank up?”

Do we need to know every simple thing at every minute of every hour of every day? Some of you want to know, some of us don’t. Yes, I know freedom of speech but what about something in the middle? I don’t want to know everything, every minute in every detail. Plus, the media exploits serious events, I truly can’t handle it. That is why I choose NOT to watch the news at night because there is enough madness, violence, gore and blood in the world that I don’t want to be reminded of it before I TRY to go to sleep. Do you understand?

All I’m asking is for is for you to think and be considerate. Think before you speak? Do complete research before you announce news like its one of the Entertainment Shows on television. At least they are honest, their intent is to entertain.

What you are doing is tormenting people. Do this, no do that. So now, when we get anxious, we have to think twice before we take an anti-anxiety pill because for years it has been the solution to so many of our problems, now we live in fear, choosing quality of life vs. quantity of life. Please, just think about it.

Sincerely yours,

How I Stay Healthy??????

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Give Us A Break……

There’s a fundamental mistake here: you are assuming I am healthy and I’m not. Along with thousands upon thousands of other patients I have a chronic pain disease and an auto-immune disease (not to mention others: IBS, narrow angled glaucoma, interstitial cystitis, painful and swollen joints, flare ups and….oh, is that too much? Because I could continue and I could also go blind instantly but that’s another post altogether.

First off, I am really not complaining just commenting and venting. “It is what it is” and it could be a lot worse: pain is not life threatening so I am grateful for that. TRULY. However, Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain disorders ARE extremely painful (and no it is NOT in our minds.) That is totally insulting. Also, there is little to relieve the pain, at best, and certainly no cure. Live with it? Not comforting. If this affected more men than women you bet there would be more research and no tiptoeing around about pain medication. The latest information frenzy that has all chronic pain patients up in arms (and my mother who saw a show on TV!) is that doctors and the media now are becoming increasingly hysterical about dispensing pain medication to THOSE OF US WHO ARE IN PAIN.

To me, it’s idiotic. I have a Doctor who writes prescriptions for Vicodin like they are gummy bears, lots of gummy bears, but when I tell him I have taken one and it doesn’t seem to help the pain, he insists it’s the only pain reliever he can dispense. Does that make any sense to you? Because, Vicodin itself is highly addictive and he writes prescriptions for them all the time YET he won’t write a prescription for half the amount for something different, like, I don’t know, Tylenol with Codeine? What am I missing here? A different class of pain killers? I am not swallowing pain killers for a high, I have tried Vicodin (one pill) on two separate occasions when I was in dire pain. It. Did. Not. Work.

I’m beginning to feel like the chronic pain community should an old-fashioned revolution. All the patients talk about it but I don’t think all of us have spoken directly to the doctors about it. I have but it does no good. Do you know why other patients are reluctant to be honest and I don’t blame them? Because we have to deal with the raised eyebrow, and the ‘are you a junkie quizzical smirk.’ I want to find a Doctor that HAS Fibromyalgia and see what they say!!

Do you think if we have addictive personalities we will misuse codeine and not Vicodin? I KNOW I don’t have an addictive personality, believe me I would have had plenty of opportunities to have one but it’s just not something I would do, want to do or will ever do. Shouldn’t doctors be able to differentiate patients from junkies?

Think about the Hippocratic (Hypocritical?) Oath that says: “First, Do No Harm.” You are causing harm refusing to treat illnesses that are incredibly painful. How about a different warning label? USE ONLY WHEN IN DIRE PAIN. That works! I don’t know anyone personally who would abuse it but I am sure there is a percentage of people who would abuse anything. Don’t punish us, for them. I certainly wouldn’t want to take anything every day if I didn’t need it. My doctor had me on two different medications to prevent pain that didn’t work and I ASKED if I could stop them, he hesitated and I then convinced him and stopped. I WANTED to use as little medication as possible. Frustrating.

In terms of exercise I walk slowly to try to get exercise and if I had the extra thousands of dollars I would probably buy a membership for a gym that has an indoor pool so I could swim but that’s money a lot of us don’t have lying around. My special diet? I usually eat healthy meals, chicken,veggies, salad, pasta, red meat a couple of times every month or two. However, my special chronic pain diet, for comfort since there is no pain relief usually involves Cadbury Creme Eggs, Yodels and Egg Salad Sandwiches. Sometimes comfort, even though it is not a pain reliever, might just make you feel a little bit better emotionally since no one is trying to help us physically.

Rumors, The Golden Globes And Ricky Gervais

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“What do George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Josh Groban and John Travolta have in common?” Yes, they are all great actors/singers and celebrities. What else? They are all handsome in their own way. Other than that?  I’ll tell you. What they all have in common is that there have been many rumors swirling around for years that they are all gay: “NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT’ as the writers on the late, great Seinfeld show would say.

Who cares? Not me. Ricky Gervais threw out a line last night from The Golden Globe Awards mentioning two leading men who were known for their involvement in Scientology and for their homosexuality. Meow. I did think that was a little over the line but I’m sure some people salivated, nodded their heads up and down and smirked. It was rather forthright, but I expect that from Ricky Gervais, he is an unpredictable comedian. He was hired to amuse and to provoke people and apparently he did just that.

Some celebrities feel comfortable about coming out, i.e. the lovely Ellen Degeneres, others not so much. That’s alright. Not everyone has to go through life waving a flag for the rainbow coalition. It’s your choice….however if you are covering it up and lying, people with whisper.  It hasn’t been long enough for everyone living in the closet to swing open the door proudly. Personally I go for truth over lies any day but there are still people in the world that would not like a leading man to be gay, to them, it just doesn’t fit. Tom Cruise, John Travolta are stars in their own right and both involved heavily in Scientology. Their personal live are their own but it would be nice for them to set it straight (no pun intended.) It seemed that it was perfectly alright that two straight men Jake Gyllenthal and  Heath Ledger  played gay lovers in Brokeback Mountain. What’s up with the double standard?

What I don’t understand is that some celebrities get maliciously outed ( ok, villified) by “entertainment” magazines and by the media. What causes one star to get the slick, slippery red carpet of secrecy and others get thrown to the wolves or in this case, the press. Is there money involved? I’m not suggesting it I’m just trying to figure it all out.

Why do we even talk about it?  Curiosity. We want the truth and don’t want people pretending they are something they are not. I  I would still listen to Josh Groben’s angelic voice as often as I do now. I would see good movies if the movies were good not if their characters were gay or not. It’s 2011, I’m sorry people still feel the need, and they do, to hide their homosexuality but that is their right.

Why do we want to know what’s real and what is fake? Because they are celebrities and they are in our lives through movies, commercials, ads, talk shows, the media and magazines at the supermarket check out counters. So, come clean if you want to, we’re all here to listen. Yes, it is a little like jumping into a lake of ice water. First, there is the initial shock but very soon  everyone adjusts, jumps out or swims incredibly fast to get over that very first hurdle. Your fans are here and we are listening and waiting; for, hopefully, the truth.

Pop Cop: Lindsey Lohan (Get A Grip)

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I read today that the quintessential Lindsey Lohan is headed back to rehab for violating the terms of her probation. Really. If it were up to me I would  boot her skinny white ass to jail where, I think, she belongs. Forgive me for being crass but let’s take the rich, glamorous, Hollywood glitz and celebrity status out of this situation and then do the math.  Replace Lindsey Lohan’s name with an UNKNOWN drug addict from ANYWHERE:  Hawaii, Nevada, Florida, New York, a tiny crack house in Los Angeles ( you pick) and then hand down your verdict. Remove the expensive lawyers, the media frenzy and the public’s fascination for Hollywood and where does that leave you? Probably in jail, with the rest of the people who don’t have a ton of money for rich, top-notch lawyers. If this case involved an unknown, “regular” person would they too receive the “get out of jail free” card? Not in my opinion. I don’t think they would get the same number of chances when they relapsed either.

How many “do-overs” would we get for the same exact crime?  Many people have drug and alcohol addictions and I am sure its an extremely difficult thing to go through but, in my personal opinion, it was made easier for Ms. Lohan.

I’m sick of a justice system that allows a young addict like Lindsey Lohan to go back to a rehab program instead of sharing a cell in the county jail (oh right, I forgot, she had her own private cell when she was in jail.)  Where is her orange jumpsuit now? What privileges have been taken away from her? They even removed the SCRAM bracelet that detects drugs and alcohol from her fragile, famed, skinny, ankle.

What’s next for Lindsey Lohan after rehab? Perhaps a movie career, a modeling job or a talk show host for the daytime diva.  I seem to be missing the part where she is supposed to say “I am totally responsible for my actions.” I don’t know what will happen to Ms. Lohan after her stint in rehab; I have no idea, nor do I truly care. In all likelihood she will be able to work on her clothing line in rehab and will reap the financial rewards when she gets discharged.

Will Lindsey Lohan go the route of Anna Nicole Smith? It’s a possibility, I’m sure. It’s in her best interest to finally get herself clean, I’m just not sure if she can stay clean and sober. For her sake, I hope she does. She has brought this upon herself, partying to all hours of the night with her friends; touting liquor like it was her favorite lipstick. Get clean Lindsey, you’ve been given yet another chance. Don’t mess it up.

Fibro Frights And Fatal Fantasies

 

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I messed up and didn’t realize that the PFAM’s ( Patients For A Moment) blog carnival deadline was by midnight tonight. The subject was fear. I’m wondering if deep inside I just didn’t feel up to writing, competing, finishing or if I was dissassocating myself from the project. I was going to talk about the web of anxiety and how it feels when it starts to swell in my stomach. It always starts in my stomach beginning with a slight twinge, quickly advancing to panic and anxiety. My arms and legs feel tingly and somehow not connected to my body, I am alternately hot and cold or both together.

The first time that queasy sensation started was the summer before my freshmen year at college.  I was eating dinner with my family in a fancy Italian restaurant in Queens, NY.  I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t speak, it was the first time I had ever felt anxious and I remember calling it “cold dread.” How could I explain this new, horrible feeling when I had never experienced it before? How do you name something you do not know?

Those fearful sensations in my body became like a close cousin to me. We lived as if we were conjoined; I could not separate reality from frightful fantasies. It was something that I have learned to live with and deal with.  I started with a tiny germ of truth and blew it up out of proportion. There was no stopping my obsessive worrying, nothing helped: warm milk, hot baths, reading a book, distraction.  I remember a time when I was sitting in the trolley in Boston and thought what I had whispered to my friend was overheard by someone else and I became overwhelmed and frightened. What if? What if? It became a wakeful nightmare for me.  I did a lot of catastrophizing back then and even now, once in a while, it still tries to creep into my brain. I need to forcefully push it away, as if an intruder was about to enter and I had to slam the door hard, with brute force.  Sometimes that is enough, sometimes it isn’t.

My cousin’s stomach ache could be pancreatic cancer,  my sister’s low throaty voice could mean she was manic, my narrow-angled glaucoma could make me blind in a second.  I worked with a hot-headed, explosive employee that I thought, for sure, would bring a gun to a grievance meeting and shoot us all. I remember strategically seating myself closest to the door, just in case. I lived in a world of tragedy, of horrendous outcomes, death, madness, cancer, stroke, coma, terrorist attacks, murder, mayhem and more. “Health and welfare” is what I worry about as I tried to succinctly wrap it up like an adorned Christmas present, perfect silver wrapping with a tight red bow.

The truth of the matter is that now we DO live in a fearful world and something COULD happen.  Fear perpetuates fear and even while  I am writing this down I feel the first fingers of anxiety like a gray mouse with darting eyes. I take deep cleansing breathes. I ask myself questions: “what are the odds of that happening?” The media doesn’t help: “Don’t go to public places when you are traveling in Europe” What? Of course we would go to public  places if we were in Europe. Is too much information just too much?  I refuse to watch the news on TV before I go to sleep.  The only thing we can do is try to push the worry aside and live as normally as we can; even if it takes enormous strength and effort. Carpe Diem as they said at Boston College where I worked: Seize The Day, as best as you can.

Pop Cop: Heidi Montag –Repost

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1/24/2010

Heidi WHO?   There has been a lot of media attention about some actress named Heidi and I have no idea why. Her name and tons of photos of her have been shown relentlessly on TV and articles have been written about her in all the gossip rags. Why? Supposedly, this  TV” star”( and I use that term VERY loosely) recently had ten cosmetic surgical procedures done in one day. She’s getting all this media attention for THAT? Now, won’t that certainly assure her of getting her a star on Hollywood Boulevard…..? Not.

Frankly, I don’t give a crap about Heidi Montag and all her surgeries.  The only people who SHOULD be concerned and involved are her mother, husband, best friend and the psychiatrist she apparently really needs to meet.   I could care less whether Heidi Montag or Jane Fame have ten surgeries in a day,  let them have 20 procedures for all I care. Can’t we just keep it under wraps and not give her this shameful publicity?  In my opinion, I think she needs serious psychiatric help instead of  fame.  I read that she was/is on a tv show with some dude, Spencer Pratt. From what I have read, I thinks she is married to him but there’s a bit of controversy regarding that.  Incredible Hall of Fame. Fabulous resume too.

Heidi,  you famous thing. Apparently you are an actress so why don’t we  just put you in the same category of say, the invincible Meryl Streep while we are at it? The difference? Meryl Streep deserves to be famous; Meryl Streep is an unbelievable actress and a true star. A woman I would be honored to meet, an icon.   Heidi -Who, in my opinion should get help for her mind, not her body. Does anyone else hear the word Dysmorphic syndrome?  And, why, why, when girls are just getting exposed (finally) to full-figured models and “real” women are we showcasing this person?  Think, people, think. Do you think it’s a good message?  Right. NO, it isn’t. I’m all for freedom of speech but really?    TMZ,  I actually really like you but come on, even you?

Heidi, and I quote, says that “she feels like plastic”and basically, she is plastic, from top to bottom and ten times over.   She says she is not addicted to plastic surgery, umm, ok if you say so but I beg to differ. If you want to emulate Barbie, fine. Barbie is a GOOD role model compared to you. She has different types of careers and areas of expertise. She can be a veterinarian or a pilot, or a brain surgeon, a mom or an Olympic gold medalist.

Heidi-Who on the other hand? I’ve got it.  She will be a contender for the silver medal in the Nip/Tuck category of the Olympics. For representing a really bad role model to others,  and a disturbing image of herself.