It seems to me that his luck — and methods

What methods are those?

Posted by I.Publius on 17 May 2008 @ 10pm

None at all. That’s the point. :)

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 17 May 2008 @ 10pm

Ahhh. I didn’t realize that anyone was following the man around 24/7, keeping fully apprised of everything he does. How do you find the time?

Posted by I.Publius on 18 May 2008 @ 6am

This reminds me of an interesting encounter I had this morning with a very wealthy, older gentleman from one of Richmond’s, self described socialite class. The gentleman started off the conversation by bragging about how he came from old money and had raised his girls in the biggest home in town. That alone, although a bit boorish would not have been so alarming, but as this fellow continued, I began to realize that the reason he was babbling on, often incoherently, was because he was drugged out of his mind.

After I finally extracted myself from the conversation, as politely as one can in such circumstances, I paused to wonder about just how many among our self anointed leadership class act the way they do because they are high as kites for much of the time?

Being from a somewhat typical, working class Virginia family, most of which spent their lives as railroad engineers, James River pilots, and ship builders. I fail to see why these trust-fund babies among our rich gentry think that they need to anesthetize themselves with various prescribed concoctions. More importantly, it occurred to me that much of what we witness as bizarre and incomprehensible behavior among our leadership class, might find its root cause in rampant abuse of prescription drugs.

I do not infer that our former Senator had this affliction, however after my recent meeting with a prime example of Virginia’s “old wealth” I must wonder just how many of the folks who we see in leadership, and more importantly the big money backers behind them, have their powers to reason permanently blurred due to their drug addiction to Zoloft, Prozac, Focalin and the plethora of mood/perception enhancers now popular among our nation’s wealthy.

Drug use would certainly provide a plausible explanation as to why the children of America’s giants of industry have sold off their family businesses and allowed most of our nation’s manufacturing base to be shipped to Red China and other third world countries. What should a country expect to happen when the children of the top one percent of our citizens, who control ninety-eight percent of the capital in our economy, spend most of their waking hours with their minds over stimulated by a continuous cocktail of drugs that have been happily supplied to them by their family pill-pusher/doctor?

No, we must not leap to hasty conclusions based on a small sample size, but I think that when we see further examples of our leaders doing or saying crazy things, we should question whether these people who have been given positions of power over us, could likely be impaired and addicted to prescription drugs.

One wishes this were just a joke, but history has seen many societies that approached greatness, only to be led astray by leaders who were not only drunk with power, but were also suffering from drug induced deliriums.

Posted by J. Tyler Ballance on 18 May 2008 @ 9am

I didn’t realize that anyone was following the man around 24/7, keeping fully apprised of everything he does. How do you find the time?

I’ll tell ya’, it’s a lot of work. Especially since I’m also following O.J.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 18 May 2008 @ 10am

Thanks, Waldo. He must be leading the fight in a stealthy way, but then again I wasn’t counting on him to take the mantle of the Anti-Defamation League.

Posted by Jim Schuyler on 19 May 2008 @ 9am

Waldo,
This is a little off topic, but I was doing some searching and saw that you’ve been dealing with Meniere’s Disease. I saw that your last entry on it was way back in 2004. As a former C’Villian and cvillenews reader (commenter), I’m wondering how it’s going, as my wife (UVA-MUEP ‘02) suffers from it also.

thanks,
arkitect75

Posted by arkitect75 on 20 May 2008 @ 1pm

Funny you’d ask. I have an appointment on Thursday — my first in a decade — to have my hearing tested. I suspect that I’ve lost a good bit of hearing (I can’t talk on the phone w/ my right ear, the sound of applause is painful, some frequencies shut down my ear), but I can’t say without testing.

The good news is that my other classic Meniere’s symptoms have abated. I haven’t had an attack in maybe eight or nine years. I had great luck with an osteopath, who performed some adjustments on my jaw, neck and cranium over the course of half an hour or so. That halted the attack that I was having, and I haven’t had one since. At the recommendation of the same doctor, I’ve taken magnesium every day or many years, too. If you’d like more details about any of this, just holler.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 May 2008 @ 6pm