dating – Page 4 – Hopeful Romantics

Is The Governor Sanford Affair Really a Tragedy?

By now anyone with a heartbeat is aware that the quirky Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, enjoyed an extra-marital affair. I say enjoyed, because anyone who would put his career on the line, especially when the career had presidential aspirations, must have really been in love.

Most by now have at least watched soundbites of Sanford’s rambling apology and explanation. He hemmed, hawed and fumbled about in a Joycean stream of conscious admission of his wrong doing. The admission capped off several days of speculation where Governor Sanford was missing and incommunicado. Depending on the time of day, his office reported him to be either hiking the Appalachian Trail or writing. On the weekend that included Father’s Day.

This would not be such a big event for a guy who wasn’t a father. In fact, it wouldn’t hardly be noticed if the person was your run of the mill flake. But in Sanford’s case, his flakiness is labeled as eccentric, due to the stature of his political office. We tend to do that, substitute quirky and eccentric for flaky and irresponsible according to one’s stature in society. But I digress.

What makes Sanford’s affair particularly peculiar is that this is the guy who stood firmly on family values. He is a devout Christian with strong family values and a steadfast belief in integrity and keeping his word and bonds. He was a man who judged others for straying, and straying they are, these politicos. The list of of lawmakers who have conducted extramarital affairs is getting longer every day. On both sides of the aisle. Homosexual affairs. Heterosexual affairs. Come one. Come all. Often on the public money.

But back to Sanford. The news pundits are all over this. The analyze it, assess it, rate it, label it. They have said what a shame it was, fighting back a laugh here and there. Many, including the liberal pundits, have solemnly pronounced this a “tragedy.” A tragedy. Mind you. Iran is beating the hell out of its citizens, and North Korea wants to nuke the world. But here is the tragedy.

Though not all the men get same effects, by and large the increase in size and deliver more blood to the penis, and, at the same time, the blood vessels that take blood away from the work & after getting at home they should make practice of the medicine. cialis soft canada without prescription has to be furnished by expert health advisors. It improves the production of the enzyme buy generic viagra cGMP that increases the blood supply to the penile organ. Most men who have tiny penises or erectyle dysfunction lack of self confidence. tadalafil 20mg cipla For culture involving complementary medicine, herbal solutions much like the bubbling mix why not try this out discount cialis of fruits and confection. The fact is this is hardly a tragedy. It is one more politician either being exposed for the sham, or so caught up in a romance that he lost all control of his family values and sense of proportion. Take your choice. Either way, it happens. Obviously, it happens to those who condemn such behavior, as well as those who philander on a regular basis. But it’s the self-righteous who squirm a little more in the spotlight.

But this poor guy, after years of steadfast and rigid beliefs, finally got to know himself a little bit better than he had ever supposed. He came to terms with himself. He found out he was flawed and not as disciplined as he once believed. He found love, it seems, and through that he came to a recognition. In some ways he transcended the boring black and white, simplistic values he so adamantly enforced such a short time ago and discovered the greater complexities of love and life. It’s an awakening, and hopefully he will use this recognition for a better purpose, for for no other purpose than to love more fully.

As for the supposed tragedy–what tragedy? On the macro level, Sanford couldn’t handle his own romance. Something that finally got under his skin, steamed his sexual engines and made the righteous lifestyle a little more obscure, has in a sense liberated him. But it also demonstrated it is questionable at least that he can’t handle a crisis. Sanford was a candidate for President of the United States.

And you know when that phone rings at three AM or you get a collect call from Argentina, you better know how to handle it. It appears Governor Sanford is incapable of handling that proverbial call. In a sense it is well in keeping with my general take on rigid people with rigid perspectives. They simply aren’t flexible enough to deal well when life throws them a curve. George Bush in the classroom; Sanford in love.

So at the end of the day we caught a break. This man could have been President and in a crisis issued the same style rambling explanation of just what was going down. He could have messed up big time. Now he won’t get the chance.

He can spend his time reassessing those rigid values of his. He can spend the time fixing his life.

Miss California Makes Hay on the Gay Marraige Issue

Carrie Prejean made her television commentator debut recently on Fox News. Prejean, otherwise known as Miss California, graced the airwaves as a host on the Fox News Show, Fox and Friends. Her two male co-hosts were apparently smitten with her as they heaped so much praise on her as a visionary and in possession of the hearts and minds of the people. I thought I was witnessing a pick up scene in some Upper East Side Watering Hole where the two stiff suits were trying to woo the hot babe from the eighteenth floor.

Carrie Prejean, as we all know thanks to the media overload, stirred up some controversy when she while running for Miss USA that she opposed gay marriage. She talked about family values and the way she was raised. She talked about morality and virtue. She didn’t discuss the racy photos taken earlier in her young life that later appeared all over the Internet. But so what? We are in the age of digital cameras. And blind ambition. What’s going topless in quest of fame?

But being against gay marriage and showing off your much smaller, non-implanted boobs was too much red meat for either side of the issue. The liberal left reflexively hated her guts. The conservative right adopted her as a love child and couldn’t support her enough. Even Sarah Palin stepped forward in support of her fellow Beauty Queen. Talk show pundits rambled on as they are wont to do, getting paid for their scintillating insight into such matters.

As for me, I can’t get all excited, either way. I realize the media is a circus and unlike spectacles like wrestling that openly wink at its play acting and entertainment value, the news media still pretends there are shreds of authenticity left in its tabloid soul. I realize that while I may disagree with Carrie Prejean’s opinion, vehemently, in fact, I will defer to Voltaire in defending to the death her right to it. Well, maybe not to the death, but you get the point.

Besides, what brand of idiots would resort to a contestants in a beauty pageant for insights into the complexities of social and political issues? I mean, to take seriously the geopolitical perceptions of a beauty queen is in and of itself an oxymoron. Other than their traditional desire for world peace, there is little to offer other than a sneak peak at their silicon boob jobs and a few minutes of mediocre talent. I swear if Carrie Prejean or any other aspiring beauty queen came out in favor of inter-bestial sexual relations, I wouldn’t feel anymore upset than her view of love being long walks in the moonlight.

What does interest me is how Carrie Prejean can parlay her controversial position into one of a bonafide celebrity. While she may have done it from the platform of the Miss USA contest, it is still remarkable how she joined the growing list of limited people making the celebrated move from there to here. This in itself, if not an art form, at least qualifies as something worth noting.

I am not claiming that Carrie Prejean is particularly talented or that a brain trust lives in concealment under that lovely blond hair. In fact, it is safe to say she is no rocket scientist and that no missiles will be launched from that brain. But then her two fellow hosts on the show are far from what you would deem an Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite. And yet there they are…commentating. Or whatever.

Besides, Prejean has the Big Mo going in her favor. Her momentum based on the fact that somewhere around half the nation supports her. Americans love a pretty face and a girl that’s both traditional yet spunky. It’s the natural combination for big time appeal. This is, after all, nothing if not a country that for some strange reason usually prefers its leaders be mediocre. Perhaps that way they are less intimidating and more accessible. There are a number of reasons, but that is the subject of a different feature.

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Ironically, or maybe not, it seems to be the conservatives who best repurpose adversity. You can name a few. There was Oliver North who was convicted of violating the Congress and the laws of this land by allegedly engineering the elements of what would be the Iran-Contra Scandal. He became a talk show host who was revered by his followers. Same goes for G. Gordon Liddy who was convicted for his participation in the Watergate Scandal and went on to be a talk show host.

Jessica Hahn, church administrator, was spotlighted for being sexually abused by Televangelist Jim Bakker. She had a radio show, however briefly, made dozens of guest appearances, and posed in Playboy Magazine. Not bad for a conservative girl who was supposedly a virgin at the time of her abuse.

Rush Limbaugh, famous already, after telling his adoring listeners what harsh treatment was levied on drug users was in fact a major drug user who violated the law. His punishment was higher numbers and, arguably, the title of the Republican spokesperson for this era. He was famous already, but after the drug scandal, he was promoted within.

Then there is Dick Morris. Morris worked as a political adviser to President Bill Clinton, but who resigned after it was discovered he sought out prostitutes for mutual toe sucking festivities. He is now a Republican Pundit, appears on countless shows and waxes critically on the behavior of others. It is fair to say Morris is more famous after the hooker told all about the toe sucking than he was as merely a political adviser.

The Democrats have very few who knew how to turn adversity in their favor. There is of course Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky Scandal. But he was already the President and therefore famous. In Clinton’s case, adversity cost him. Influential people distanced themselves. He faced public embarrassment, including a vote to impeach him.

Gary Hart, leading presidential hopeful, got caught doodling Donna Rice, and he had to drop out of a race that surely was his to lose. He lost it. He dwells now in Media Limbo, making appearances here and there but living overall in relative obscurity.

So at the end of the day, it’s fair to say the Republicans do it better. They can sin and ask G-d for forgiveness, and remarkably he seems to do it every time. He even gives them a talk show. So in the end, contrary to the common opinion that that Republicans are dead or dying as a party, I would say they are far from it. They are only on hiatus.

As for Carrie Prejean, should she lose her conservative backing, there is always the Weather Channel.

Boomers’ New Commune for Retirement Post-Recession

Increasingly, I have listened to my Boomer friends tell me that the economic meltdown has caused a serious decline in their pensions funds and portfolios. The standard refrain is, “I’ll never be able to retire.” Some are joking, or trying to put a good face on a rotten time for a Recession, and some are hardly joking at all.

Couple the loss of savings with the potential loss of your job, and Boomers are wondering how they are even going to make it to retirement. It is no secret that the Boomers are generally higher paid and not as willing at this point in life to work the slave hours as their younger counterpart. Then there are the others, who can’t find work and have given up trying. They are taking earlier retirement. Maybe they are getting less income from their Social Security and Retirement funds. But at least they are getting some money. And some money is better than no money at all. I guess.

It is a lousy economy for everybody but especially for a generation that thought it would never grow old, and now it has. It’s a harsh reality, for sure, especially when you feel the first ailments, the aches and pains, that make it harder to get up and harder to get it up. Friends are starting to die around you. It seems too early, but nevertheless life has its way of telling you the time of the season. As Bob Dylan sang in one of his songs, “It ain’t dark yet, but it’s getting there.”

All right, not to be morbid. The fact is for most Boomers there is still a long way to go. We are overall in better shape than any other generation. We are better educated and more or us exercise and eat right. We try to stay vital and relevant, even when looking vital and relevant is a full time job. We have sex on a regular basis. Or at least some of us do. We accept the new realities that our friends and associates in trying to find themselves found sometimes that the boys liked boys and the girls liked girls. Hey considering that our parents at our age looked like Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, this ain’t too bad.

We look for second careers and go into business for ourselves. We wear funny tee shirts and buy CD’s of our favorite bands. We try to understand our children and maybe we do a better job of it than our parents did with us. Or maybe we have no more of a clue about how and why the younger generation behaves than the old fogies who tried to ruin our youth.

So now hear we are, at least eyeballing retirement. But in this economy we are increasingly aware, despite the assurances to the contrary, we may be faced with some serious downsizing. Social services and entitlement may not be there like we thought. We sure can’t take it for granted. Instead of the government and our nest eggs providing us with economic and psychological sanctuary, we may be left to our own devices. There are cracks in the system, the same system we once deplored and then finally embraced. We were victimized by stupid wars, again, and watched a bunch of white collar thieves run off with our money. Some of us are those white collar thieves, but I digress.

We have handled it well. So far. Rather than man the barricades and storm the government institutions, we just grouse about it. Maybe. Or we take mood elevators and try not to notice. Perhaps the storming part is best left to younger people as all that climbing and running would causes pains in the places we would rather ignore. Who wants tear gas all over our brand new designer jeans?

As for the younger people, they accept their fates with a mix of apathy and lethargy. It’s that or they are remarkable stoic. The thing is if they are this apathetic about their own fates, then for sure as hell they are not about to care too much about us. Even if we are their parents.

So I started thinking of solutions to our possible future challenges. I realized we are liable to end up living on communes. Talk about karma with a capital “K.” We are going to chip in or in some other way cluster into workable communities where we can put food on the table and take care of each other. Maybe it’s nuts to think this way, but it is no crazier than believing all those years of working fourteen hours a day would guarantee our economic security. That is starting to look like it was really insane, wasting our lives, most of us, in jobs we hated. For trinkets and beads.
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I write this never being a big fan of the communes of old. I had visited a few in those times and it always seemed oddly humorous that the commune dwellers in search of democracy voted on just about everything from cooking the ubiquitous brown rice to sexual sleeping arrangements. all that deliberation was just too overwhelming. I realized there need to be certain arrangements in order for these communes to survive, but some of the rules were more draconian than the rules of straight society. In straight society you just needed money, and people would tend to leave you alone, if you wanted. Not at the communes. It seemed everyone was into everybody else’s business.

I remember living in Santa Fe, New Mexico and sitting in my favorite restaurant as a gaggle of hippies and their gaggle of kids partook in their weekly restaurant experience. they may have been rich kids looking poor for all I knew. The men and women were often dressed in muslin. Dirty muslin. Dresses, skirts, mens’ shirts. Their kids, too, were adorned in muslin. Set off, as they say in the fashion world, by dirty faces.

I forget the name of that particular commune where this group made their home. It was up in the mountains and over the years was transformed by new owners into Ten Thousand Waves, the Japanese health spa. Talk about changes and things. The commune did enjoy the rare distinction of surviving longer than most.

So now here we are, perhaps about to reexamine the commune experience of our youth. While most Boomers never set foot inside a commune, maybe a good thing, now it may loom as one of the principle means of our survival. Of course the new communes would hardly resemble the old communes. For one thing the sex acts would be far more limited. Even with Viagra.

The good news would be that the residents would be far more accomplished than those who lived in the communes of our youth. Despite all assertions to the contrary, we we largely young and inexperienced, lacking skill sets we have developed over time. We may actually have a clue and know what we are doing, which back then was often not the case.

Things have changed. We live in a digital world with the Internet. Survival and setting up a business or series of business that may bring in income is a lot more realistic than the axiom of merely growing one’s own food and inseminating the barnyard animals. Power lines reach into even the more rural areas, so running computer and appliances is not that much an issue. Besides, some of these communes may be in urban areas, even blighted urban areas that can be reclaimed on the cheap. Or perhaps they will exist in suburbia, in communities that have fallen apart. Old factories. Who knows.

Needs will be different from those in our youth. Once upon a time it seemed like every third hippie woman took up midwifery. Noble enough but hardly necessary with a group facing its own mortality. People will need nursing and hospice skills instead. Some people will need retraining. People will need entertainment. Some will come over the Internet and through satellite and cable, but if there is leisure time it cannot all be spent in the pursuit of metaphysical enlightenment or listening to a poorly played guitar.

Then there is a matter of benefiting the surrounding communities. When you have this many skilled Boomers clustered into one area then it is only fitting devote some time to going out into the community. It wouldn’t hurt to teach the kids to read and write. Teach classes on real issues, things that we have learned along the way. Be the mentors we as kids thought others should be. Maybe put a little something back in the world, even if our experience in it was less than satisfactory.

It can’t hurt. And after all, it beats working.

Traveling Through Life on a Mobility Scooter

Ever since a recent trip to Las Vegas, I noticed more and more people driving mobility scooters. We are not talking about sexy Vespas here, hearkening back to the classic French and Italian films of the sixties, where young lovers tooled around Rome and Paris on their two cycle models. We are not even talking about the upgrades, the current scooters serving as answers the stratospheric price of gasoline and the lack of parking in the cities. Instead, what is under discussion are these boring little machines that look insipid when a big rear end is hanging over its seat.

I didn’t even know mobility scooters existed until several years ago when I first noticed late night cable commercials on the television. The company that was selling these contraptions assure the prospective buyer that if the advertiser believed the person qualified for one on their health care policy and were later turned down, then the advertiser would give the customer one for free. You can’t beat that.

The commercials which saturated the cable stations demonstrated the mobility scooters ease of use, and how easily it stored in the trunk. The commercials showed happy old people who were otherwise unable to get around living what was described as a normal life thanks to their new set of wheels and rechargeable electricity. Here they were shopping, riding through the park, playing with the grandchildren. Or here they were sitting around three four of them, like geriatric bikers, chatting it up in the retirement sunshine.

Naturally, I believe these mobility scooters were for people who couldn’t walk because they were either handicapped or so ravaged by age their legs could no longer be trusted. This in itself was a good thing, until I saw my own mother try out the courtesy scooter in a Trader Joe’s and nearly run over four people and a display stand of boxed cookies. It gave me pause. During what must have seemed to the store clerks as her interminable stint around the aisles I was laughing too hard to be embarrassed. Comedy today is wherever you can find it.

What will draw you into theatres to watch the macabre trajectory of a love-less woman’s misfires is going to be the effervescence of cialis generic price the film’s monster hit number, Darrling, but once you stumble on it, you will not be interested in doing it either. Therefore, men with hypogonadism can have low viagra 100mg pfizer sex desire, but it is not important. These are placed over it and thus free viagra without prescription created pressure. Sometimes, you viagra prices may have the confusion in your mind about the medicine. But I digress. Since the mobility scooters first came on the scene, I have seen them everywhere. I have seen them on Sunset Boulevard here in Los Angeles; I have seen additional courtesy mobility scooters added to the Big Box stores. I have seen what appeared to be caravans of them in Las Vegas, parading down the sidewalks or along the thoroughfares inside the casinos. Given the economy and a handful of other things, that has to be the perfect statement to the downside of our culture. One of them, anyway. We are scootering to hell in a hand basket.

What gets me is that these are not necessarily people who are unable to walk. These are people who are either too lazy to walk or too fat to want to try. These are people who could walk but would rather zip around on their mobility scooters. Whether or not they actually buy them or get their health care plants to write them off is another matter. If health care is picking these things up, then we are paying for them as well as part of our increased health care payments.

As the cost of health care goes up, fewer people can afford it. We’re talking here about people who actually need health care. Not just so they can get a mobility scooter and tool around without having to bother putting one foot in front of the other. We’re talking about families who are priced out of health care payments because, among other things, the mobility scooters add to the overall costs.

But then we are a society where we believe people have the right to be lazy and indulgent. Where they can eat what they want, drink what they want, smoke it up, and then complain to, say the airlines that the seat belt isn’t large enough to go around their bellies.

So in spite of our anger over Wall Street, the mortgage fraud schemes, banking, and whatever else is working on our nerves, some of us, don’t seem to get it. We will run up the health care cost for no other reason than we are too lazy to walk and too indulgent to lose the weight that allows them to walk. We can talk about our rugged individuality and all that good old American jingo, but with some of us, anyway, instead of climbing back up the mountain, we are puttering along on a scooter.

When Cosmetic Surgery is Put on Hold

Okay, so clearly we are emerging from a period of excess with surplus of everything and no money to buy it. We have become used to the rituals of skin, hair, and body enhancement, including everything from expensive but dubious products to laser treatments, Botox, and cosmetic surgery. We have been waxed, primped, cut, coddled, massaged and injected.

We try to look younger, cuter, more handsome. We have penis enhancement, hair implants, testosterone shots, and steroids. We pull back our faces and suck the fat from our belly’s and legs. And now we are broke, maxed out on the charge cards, out of cash, and no savings to speak of. We are screwed. And we are not as good as we want to look.

But across the board there have been serious reductions in the volume of cosmetic surgery. It is so critical, fancy doctors are offering deals. Get a face lift and tummy tuck in a package deal. Get your eyes done, your ass lifted; get the cellulite out of your legs. Cosmetic surgeons are hawking their wares, almost going out into the street and forcing patients with their scapels. It’s almost like an old Earl Scheib commercial where if you get “Diamond Gloss” or whatever they named the paint, they would remove a few nicks and dents as part of the deal.

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We will have to get over the fact we are organisms that fall victim to gravity. No more hopes we will look like some of our two bit idols who, truth is, in reality never look like they do after five hours of primping. For romance, we will have to resort to charm and what looks we have. We will have to be engaging, doing something different, instead of uttering the same-same and expecting sparks to fly. We may be to be good at conversation; we may have to polish our sense of humor. We will have to, heaven forbid it, learn again the meaning of irony.

So sex may not seem as much as a Chanel commercial, but it’s still sex. Besides, Chanel isn’t advertising all that much. Our recreational activities will look less like the ad for some tropical destination and more like people who actually sweat. Those non-Botox injected worry lines will reveal at least a form of intelligence. Who but the dumbest among us isn’t worried during this economy?

But, hey, look at the bright side, you can still shave your pubes. It’s either this or you sit cloistered inside your room, firing down ice cream and watching movies, talking to your friends and wishing for the good old days. But remember, if the good old days were really that good, they wouldn’t have left us here.