I’m grateful that I even -have- insurance but they are really annoying businesses. I decided to see a nutritionist. I found one in Baton Rouge who is also a therapist. Just what I need, right? A food therapist. So I called the insurance company, and they won’t pay for a nutritionist unless it is for either A) a protein deficiency or B) diabetes. The customer service representative said the company definitely won’t cover a nutritionist for weight loss. That makes no sense. According to BlueCross/BlueShield, Louisiana ranks 4th in the country for obesity, and obesity-related diseases account for nearly half of Louisiana’s state health careRead More →

Like the rest of the country, I am spending the morning reflecting on and reading about the shootings at Virginia Tech. As one article on Michael Moore’s website puts it, all the usual suspects have lined up along predictable rhetorical lines. Anti-gun control folks say that letting citizens have handguns on the college campus would have enabled students to stop the gunman before he mowed down 32 people. The logic in that boggles me. Gun-control advocates trot out their legislation. Nonetheless, even in the face of all the evidence about gun violence in America, I remain ambivalent about gun control. This is primarily due toRead More →

Michael Moore’s “Farenheit 9/11” was rather brilliant. Although it dragged in some parts, it impressed because of the way that Moore managed to present cinematically a potentially boring, text-centered issue. Most of what Moore shows comes from documents in the public domain for some time. He weaves these together in a dramatic blitz of information with his signature humor. Much in the film was old material, but it was touching and hilarious. We’ve all forgotten the pre-9/11 W., the man who golfed more than he presided. The most hysterical scene showed W.’s immediate reaction to 9/11. Moore also slowed down every facial expression we hadRead More →

Like everyone else, this WTC thing has really scared me. The event itself is surreal. What scares me most is the way we are reacting to it. I am not the first to say this. Neither is Michael Moore, but he did make a statement about it in “Mike’s Message” on 9/12/01. What he says is so sharp.