Training Report
In a last-minute change of plans, Juno shipped out last Friday to Calder. Elf, who was scheduled to go, came back from a slower-than-expected work a trifle off and we didn’t want to take any chances. She seems fine. Wilson’s two-minute-lick/semi-work was 43 seconds flat on Tuesday. We’re training Wilson differently. He’s a very large colt who will probably never race shorter than six furlongs, so, instead of working him the traditional quarter, then three-eighths, etc., we’re sending him longer and trying to gradually cut down on the times. Next Thursday, he goes a half-mile, hopefully somewhere between 53 and 56 seconds.
Cosmic Song was claimed last out for $20,000 by leading trainer Nick Canani. She finished fourth in a race she clearly could have won with a better ride. But it’s always something with Cosmic Song and, when that’s the case, it’s probably just as well to give somebody else a shot with her. We still collect breeder’s awards whenever she finishes first to third. And twenty thou buys a lot of York’s Peppermint Patties.
Don’t Blame Us, We Voted For The Other Guys
We’re number one again. Yep, more than 800 public officials in Florida were convicted on various criminal charges between 1997 and 2007, making Florida the top state in the country for government corruption, according to the grand jury. This being the case, the Florida Legislature, of course, is loath to pass any serious ethics legislation, leaving it to a growing number of counties to initiate new laws.
If you’re wondering what Governor Rick Scott has been up to, well, he’s been busy making himself Mr. Congeniality. According to a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters, Scott is now one of the country’s most unpopular governors, a dubious feat after only four months in office. Here’s what Carl Hiaasen has to say:
“It’s bad news for Republican Party bosses, but all is not lost. Scott recently signed a new election bill that is callously designed to suppress voter turnout, making it harder for many disgruntled Floridians to cast a valid ballot in 2012.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, so GOP leaders are desperate to find ways to keep certain people away from the polls. One of the Legislature’s top priorities was to change the voting rules to avoid a repeat of 2008, when Barack Obama won the state’s 27 electoral votes on his way to the presidency. Obama benefited from early-voting days, which proved popular among minorities, college students and retirees. Republican officials became incensed during the election when then-Governor Charlie Crist—one of their own—decided to extend polling hours to accommodate the long lines.
The nerve of that guy, making it easier for common citizens to vote!
Determined not to let this whole democracy thing get out of hand, the GOP-held Legislature crafted a bill, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, that reduces the number of voting days from 15 to 8, and requires some voters who have moved to cast provisional ballots, a deliberate inconvenience aimed at students.
The GOP’s dream scenario is a low turnout dominated by a grumpy, aging core of conservative white people who can’t stand Obama. With their party outnumbered on Florida’s voter rolls, top Republicans hope that rigging the voting rules will improve their chances to recapture the White House.
You could call it democracy with selective exclusion.”
Another Dissatisfied Customer
Before the Preakness, we gave you four horses—Animal House, Shackleford, Dialed In and Mucho Macho Man as our top four (out of 14, mind you) and went on to say that we didn’t expect the top-heavy favorite, Animal Kingdom, to win, pretty astute handicapping if we do say so ourselves. Not good enough, however, for Siobhan’s persnickety brother, Stuart, who called from Chattanooga to chastise us for not giving him the precise order of finish. Hell, if we could do that we wouldn’t be sitting here writing little blog columns, we’d be out on the Champs-Elysees clinking champagne glasses with the other high-rollers. And we certainly wouldn’t be telling you our secrets, Stuart.
Pondering The Afterlife
The other day, we found a little envelope on our computer screen. It was from Stuart Bentler’s daughter, Katherine Chamberlain, and when you “opened” it with your cursor an invitation popped out. “The bad news is that I’m dead!” it announced, cheerfully enough. “The good news that you’re invited to spread my ashes.” Time, place and date followed. It was exactly the sort of thing Stuart would have done were he around to do it. And it got us to wondering where Stuart was, exactly. Oh yeah, we know the logical answer is that what’s left of his body is in that incinerator over there and the rest of him, soul, spirit, thoughts or whatever is gone with the wind. But who knows, really? Time Magazine tells us about a fellow at New York City’s Weill Cornell Medical Center named Dr. Sam Parnia who is “one of the world’s leading experts on the scientific study of death.” Old Sam and his pals at the Human Consciousness Project are finishing up a 3 year study exploring the biology behind “out-of-body” experiences, which involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers throughout Europe, Canada and the U.S. in examining some 1500 survivors of cardiac arrest. Quoting Dr. Parnia:
When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about ten seconds, brain activity ceases—as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who are all clinically dead, and yet they’re able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able to see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn’t functioning.
People commonly perceive death as being a moment—you’re either dead or you’re alive. And that’s a social definition we have. But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone’s pupil, it’s to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem, and that’s the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn’t work, then that means that the brain itself isn’t working. At that point, I’ll call a nurse into the room so I can certify this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn’t survive after that.
Nowadays, we have technology that’s improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now—who knows if they’ll ever make it to the market—that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you’ve given a patient, whose heart has stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would’ve happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.”
When You’re Dead, You’re Dead
From the first time you see Rover steamrollered on the side of the highway to the thickness of a half-dollar, it’s a little hard to take comfort in Mom’s reassurance that “he’s gone to doggie heaven.” Gee, I don’t know, Mom—not much left there to ascend. Well, if dogs had souls, which Monsignor Daley assured us they most certainly did not, maybe they could ascend. We’re not sure even people have souls, but even if they do have them, do those souls have to sorta get ready? What if the souls are unlucky enough to be in Hiroshima or Nagasaki—are they caught off guard and blown to smithereens with their human hosts or do they magically survive and advance? It’s a dilemma and nobody on the other side is talking, which lends credence to the “When You’re Dead….” philosophy. Siobhan says that Houdini, the greatest escape-artist in history, promised to come back, and if he couldn’t do it what hope is there for the rest of us? Even if this is true, however, it doesn’t mean Houdini isn’t somewhere, it just means he isn’t visible to us. And maybe Houdini, despite his expertise with earthly escapes, is less qualified to overcome cosmic encumbrances.
Heaven And Hell
This concept is popular because it solves a lot of problems, not unlike Karma. People enjoy conjuring up images of good old Uncle Ike, salt of the earth, plunking away on a bass fiddle in the Heavenly Orchestra while naughty boys like Joe Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Attila The Hun are relegated to stoking the boilers in Satan’s temperature-unregulated steel mill. It just seems fair to compensate according to one’s earthly contributions, but is it fair, really?
Catholics believe that your state of grace at death determines your eventual fate. But what if you’re Sister Theresa and you sacrifice your whole life for others but in your last days you steal a box of bananas and don’t have time to confess it and receive absolution. Do you then go to hell? Conversely, what if you are a serial killer who wipes out a few dozen people and mails their eyeballs back to their little daughters BUT confesses your sins at the last minute. Do you go to heaven? Is that fair. Assuming there is one, is God fair?
According to Christian tenets, we’re judged by our adherence to The Ten Commandments. Obey The Ten Commandments, you’re in. Deviate from the path, you’re out. So maybe we should take a closer look at these Ten Commandments:
1. I am the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt not have false gods before me. Do we detect a little insecurity here? It seems that a real god would be more self-assured. Nonetheless, not a difficult commandment to follow.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain. Easy enough. When in doubt, simply substitute the word “ratzofratz” for anything resembling “God”.
3. Remember thou keep holy the Lord’s day. Does this mean no football? Could be a deal-breaker.
4. Honor thy father and thy mother. Not a problem. Is a Mom & Pop barbecue okay?
5. Thou shalt not kill. Good one. We like it.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Now we might have a problem here. First of all, we’re not exactly sure what adultery really is. We have a pretty good idea, though, and we have a sinking feeling that we might actually like adultery. Even if adultery is not, well, nice…is it really hellworthy?
7. Thou shalt not steal (except in baseball). We’ll drink to that.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. A perfectly reasonable request.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Gee. It’s ONLY a little coveting.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. Sometimes you just can’t help it.
11. Thou shalt not vote Republican. A hell-assuring offense if ever there was one.
We think there are too many disqualifiers here. I mean, is the room in heaven limited? Is God trying to help Lucifer keep those apartments in Hell filled up? Does God sometimes seem like one of those little kids who, if everything doesn’t go exactly his own way, wants to take his ball and go home? And isn’t God perhaps a little too busy to be keeping track of all these millions of sins? What if he takes a day off and leaves the abacus work to somebody like, oh, I don’t know, say the Archangel Rudy, a lesser eminence more prone to make errors in his calculations? Do you want your ultimate fate left in the hands (or wings) of Archangel Rudy? I sure don’t. I think we need a new system.
How the time flies. Here we were all set to have a prolonged discussion of all the aspects of the afterlife and we’ve gone and run out of blog. What about reincarnation, you ask? What about Karma? What about cryogenics? The possibilities are endless. They boggle the mind. What do YOU think?
That could be all, folks. But maybe not….
