(Sent by Tom Cooley)

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By Tobin Barnes
Who knows what the nose knows? So speak beak.

And I will, even though as Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

But I’m fearlessly going to do it anyway. I know the future. I see it clearly. And I defy anyone to prove my predictions wrong.

I know this might spook some people out, reading the prophetic words of a seer, but stick with me and experience your conversion, eerie though it may be.

Take, for instance, the pending health care legislation before Congress.

My first prediction is that something’s going to pass. Yep, you can take this one to the bank. After working on it all year long, Congress will go thumbs up on at least something. How can they not and keep their fifteen percent approval rating? No way. If not they’d look like fools…again. Something’s got to come out of the pipe, even if it’s a gurgle like after a flush.

My second prediction on health care is that the passed bill will make some people sick and others healthy. Some will get sick because the bill didn’t go far enough, and some will get sick because it went too far. Uh huh, there’s going to be a lot of moaning and groaning amongst the talking heads. Matter of fact, everybody’s going to moan and groan, at least a little.

As far as people getting healthier, well, hey, that’s inevitable. Some people somewhere will be healthier after the passage of this bill.

That’s right. Some people who had bad health before will get healthier later. It happens all the time, and I guarantee you it will happen this time, too. Of course, people will die as well, because everyone who lives dies.

But what can you do? Better health care overall can only do so much. You can’t always blame politicians, although you’d like to.

My third prediction?

Everyone’s going to declare victory on this baby. Just like in Lake Wobegon, in Congress everybody’s above average. So one way or another, everybody’s got to figure out how he or she was a winner in this and every other ideological confrontation. Might take a lot of figuring, but that’s why we pay them.

There will be no losers, even when you’re talking to the losers. It’s kind of amazing really, almost magical.

When health care legislation passes, the Democrats are going to take the credit for it. Once again, progress was made even though Republicans had to be dragged into the Twenty-First Century kicking and screaming. Things are now in the law books that weren’t there before. Woo-hoo! Smiles all around and everybody gets a pen at the signing.

Then they’ll go to bed that night and lie awake, thinking, “Oh my God! What did we do?”

You see, the problem with championing legislation is that you “own it,” as President Obama says. For the next generation or two, people are going to be second-guessing and nit-picking the legislation that Democrats took credit for passing.

Positives naturally carry with them negatives, and negatives naturally carry with them positives. It’s the yin and yang of life. Consult any philosophy professor or talk to your local town drunk.

Nevertheless, your political opposition will always focus on the negatives to your disparagement unless the general population finally comes to a consensus that the positives were worth it after all. So it goes.

Those against progressive legislation will turn out to be winners, too. According to the positives-produce-negatives and vice-versa theory, opposers will be fully equipped with negative ghosts to haunt those who helped pass the legislation. And for a long time, it’ll be fun for them. They’ll be able to dig up all kinds of pertinent, if isolated, horror stories proving they were right to oppose the legislation in the first place.

Now that may lead some to think it best never propose anything and to be against everything. Makes them think the past is always better. Matter of fact, they think, let’s go back to it as soon as we can. “Return to Normalcy.” Yeah, the past is so good, they never want to leave it until maybe after they’re dead.

These things I predict.

So you be the judge. How were those predictions? Spot on?

I told you it would be eerie.

Imma let you finish....

More here …

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(Sent by Roy Wilson) Hope no one got hurt...badly.

COLUMN: It's Not True Till You Realize It

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By Tobin Barnes
My doctor once told me, “It’s tough for us guys in the Fat Boys Club to keep the weight off, isn’t it?”

I remember being offended. Speak for yourself there, Tubby.

I had always tried to think of myself as having an athletic physic…just maybe gone to seed a tad. After all, I’m the son of a former professional football player.

Ramp up the activity a skosh and eat one less deep-pan pizza a year, and I’m back to fit and trim anytime I want.

Fat Boys Club!

Is someone else in this room with you and me, Doc?

Of course, my dad ended up pretty hefty and that was soon after his football and Army days were over. And you couldn’t really call his brothers and sister svelte. Sometimes even “chubby” didn’t really fit the bill.

And, yes, when being honest with myself, I’ll have to admit I’ve certainly inherited his genetic tendencies toward instant weight gain. It doesn’t take much either.

A few days of neglect, and I’m hauling another pound around. Make it a week or two and I’ve got five extra on my body going that way when I’m going this way.

So I guess my doctor was right all those years ago. No doubt, I’m a dues-paying, member-in-good-standing of the Fat Boys Club International. Yes, it’s been a constant battle even though I used to think I was winning overall.

That is, until we got the Wii Fit about eight months ago. On my first weigh-in, my little Mii (the digital icon man that represents me) explosively transformed into a big Mii. Rotund might be the best description.

Whoasa!

Then the munchkin-like, diminutive but intrusive Wii Fit voice declared this about my weight: “That’s obese.”

Obese? I’m not obese.

Obese is the word used to describe those headless, unidentified whale bodies that waddle across the TV screen when they’re illustrating a news story on the fattening of America. Wii Fit must have its calculations screwed up. No self-respecting TV news reporter would use my headless body as a prime example of a shirt-stretching, super-size me, big gulper, would they?

Well, maybe not, but I had certainly gotten chubby. And the evidence was there whether I was willing to admit it or not.

One of the most telltale examples is a blown-up picture of a snapshot I’d placed on one of the bookshelves in my classroom. It was of me amongst some high school girls, given to me by them as a remembrance. I was touched at their thoughtfulness.

But one problem: In the photo I was taking up the space of two of them. When they gave it to me, I had gratefully told them I’d keep that picture forever. It haunts me still up there on the bookshelf.

Since last January, I’ve tried to increase the exercise and reduce the intake. I’ve been bicycling longer distances and taking grueling uphill walks, all the while eating like a pigeon rather than a vulture. I’ve been merciless—to my way of thinking anyway.

I’ve lost close to twenty pounds, but with all the sacrifice, it seems like I should instead weigh only twenty pounds. And even though the Wii munchkin voice doesn’t say I’m obese anymore, it does still say: “That’s overweight.”

So I’d like to lose more and hopefully keep it off.

But I know it’s kind of like Samuel Butler’s quote: “Friendships are like money, easier made than kept.”

Same thing with weight in a mixed metaphor kind of way: It’s easier to take it off than keep it off.

We’ll see.