Saw the surgeon today: Verdict was basically the beginnings of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Ergo, I won’t be using the computer much for the next six weeks and so won’t be posting here much. I’m to remain splint-ed up for the whole period and he injected my wrists/hands with cortisone and an anesthetic which made things really, really weird for awhile. Another injection in six weeks and maybe surgery will follow.

What was even weirder than my hands going suddenly numb after having a needle shoved into the sensitive parts of my wrists was that the surgical office is at Domino Farms, an Ann Arbor experience I hadn’t had yet. Plunked down in the middle of the Ave Maria art gallery, bookstore and radio station is the doctor’s office. When I was sent for x-rays, I had to walk through the whole Ave Maria/Bleedin’ Christ/radio station blaring in-your-face fascist propaganda thing.

In a large glass case was a lifesize plaster statue of the torso of Christ in agony with his arms outstretched and hovering overhead the crown of thorns, about to descend on his bleeding brow.

Being of the protestant/pentecostal background, we were always told that the Catholic penchant for depicting Christ in agony on the cross was a work of Satan because the cross should always be empty, signifying his triumph over it and death. Needless to say, in Duncan, Oklahoma, even at Assumption Catholic Church, there is nothing to compare to the very weird confluence of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, farm animals and bleedin’ Jesus that is Tom Monaghan’s Domino Farms. I’ll never be able to look a Domino’s pizza in the face ever again.

It was all very Mel Gibson, especially when the doctor shoved the needles into my wrists.

I got lots of very pointed and suspicious looks as I walked through the halls trying to find radiology. You think Opus Dei can tell you’re a heathen trailing fire and brimstone behind you? Sure seemed like it.

But then again, it could just be because I happened to have toted along Jimmy Breslin’s new fire-and-brimstone indictment of the Catholic church for its greed, venality and sexual abuse entitled The Church That Forgot Christ. The lettering on the cover is white on black, so it stands out.

Yeah, maybe that was it.

Meanwhile, time to splint things up and lie on the couch. For six weeks.

Good god.

John Kerry’s speech had its eye-rolling moments, but it also had it’s total kick-ass ones too. He’ll have to keep hammering these points home if he expects to decisively send the Boy Emperor packing in November, but it’s a good start. Excerpts:

‘We can do better and we will. We’re the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future. We’re the can do people. And let’s not forget what we did in the 1990s. We balanced the budget. We paid down the debt. We created 23 million new jobs. We lifted millions out of poverty and we lifted the standard of living for the middle class. We just need to believe in ourselves—and we can do it again.

…

‘Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities—and I do—because some issues just aren’t all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn’t make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn’t make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn’t make it so.

‘As President, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system—so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as President, I will bring back this nation’s time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

‘I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can’t tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they’re out on patrol at night and they don’t know what’s coming around the next bend. I know what it’s like to write letters home telling your family that everything’s all right when you’re not sure that’s true.

‘As President, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: “I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm’s way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent.” So lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war.

‘And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.

…

‘And tonight, we have an important message for those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country. Before wrapping themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.

‘You see that flag up there. We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you here and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.

‘That flag doesn’t belong to any president. It doesn’t belong to any ideology and it doesn’t belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people.’

Amen, brother, amen!