As some of you may or may not know, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer a couple weeks ago and today she was scheduled to go into Spectrum Health for surgery.  I picked her up this morning at around 11 am, and on my way to picking her up, wondered what I should have playing in the background as we traveled to the hospital.  (the good news is that they caught it early and the surgeon believes if all goes as planned she will be able to avoid chemo or radiation, the bad news is it’s cancer and she was unable to have surgery due to a transplant taking place that bumped her surgery to Friday at 12:30pm)  That being said I knew she wouldn’t appreciate the podcasts I typically listen to, Bills Simmons and Tony Kornheiser are my go to podcasts, nor would she enjoy whatever would be playing on NPR.

Since it was a stressful situation for both of us, and especially stressful for my mom, I decided I could sacrifice my mental well being for one car ride and turned it to WOOD radio to listen to whatever right wing wind bag happen to be airing their particular talk show.  Lucky me, Glen Beck was on and they were airing a commercial.  The commercial was for the Glen Beck water purifier and indicated that no matter how dire times ended up getting this thing would do the trick, it could even derive clean drinking water out of a swamp.  (Not sure why they haven’t shipped 92,000 of these things to Flint)

A second commercial aired touting solar power generators that allow you to go “off the grid” and can be used even when the basic fabric of our society falls entirely apart so that you can power your sump pump, refrigerator, or short wave radio.  Hold on, I fully understand the necessity of a solar powered generator, not sure why every red blooded American doesn’t have one of these, but short wave radio? You lost me at short waive radio.  This commercial was followed by a commercial for a gun safe, and of course Glen Beck has that very brand of gun safe just in case the shit gets real in Beverly Hills and he has to take matters into his own hands.  You go Glenn!  (He use to be a DJ on a morning zoo but has now transformed himself into a right wing, Mercedes driving, product peddler, you got to love capitalism,  shouldn’t somebody who thinks to themselves “America Hell Yes!” drive an American car?  Google it, he drives a Benz, what a dick)

I picked up my mom, we engaged in small talk, both not real excited about the up coming surgery and the uncertainty that lingered in the air.  My mom had to stop at the Post Office so I waited out in the parking lot while she went in to have them put a hold on her mail.  Being the post office, this took a bit of time and there were more commercials of the same general nature.  There was a commercial that indicated that Obama hates coal and that electricity prices are soaring because of his disdain for coal.  It’s hard for me to imagine anyone hates coal, coal is an inanimate object, what did it ever do to Obama?  I can just imagine him driving through Pennsylvania with his arm out the window screaming “Damn you coal!”  Guess what Obama hates, he hates pollution, and in his mind and probably based upon a significant amount of scientific research, coal is a primary culprit in polluting our air.  He could give a shit about coal as it sits in its natural state in the ground not harming anyone, but when it creates plumes of unhealthy smoke that is hurled into the air he takes issue with coal.

Ultimately we ended up at the hospital neither one of us paying all that much attention to the radio as we engaged in conversation most of the way to the hospital.  My mom ended up in a pre-op room waiting to be moved to the operating room when we discovered that she was getting delayed.  It was similar to having your flight delayed, only my mom was in a hospital gown with IV’s protruding out of her about to get an epidural.

My mom had begun giving me names and phone numbers to put in my phone of people she wanted me to contact to update her on her condition after surgery.  Ultimately I took the phone and began to scroll through her contacts.  Some of the contacts were interesting to say the least, but one stood out to me.  She had Justin Amash as one of her contacts.  “Justin, yeah it’s Ardis again, I have this son who I don’t even think he voted for you, actually I think he doesn’t agree with your politics, is there any way you could just give hime a call just to show him you aren’t the huge asshole everyone seems to think you are?”

Only my mom wouldn’t use the word asshole.  It made me wonder if she had ever actually spoken to Justin Amash, I wouldn’t put it past her, she’s been on Rush Limbaugh a couple of times and she is a regular on the Wood Lawn and Garden show hosted by Rick Buist and some chick who thinks she’s funny but isn’t (men are just funnier than women, it’s a fact ladies).  One Saturday morning I was heading somewhere in my truck and for some strange reason, I”m not even sure why, I had my radio on WOOD and I didn’t bother to change it when I got in my truck.  I hear Rick Buist say that they have a caller on the line and her name is Yardis, I’m like you have got to be shitting me, so my mom gets on the line and she’s all clever and witty and the hosts both know her quite well.  It’s crazy to see your parent or parents in a way you are never use to seeing them.  I had no idea my mom, Yardis, was a quasi local celebrity.

Shirley works at Spectrum Hospital and was with us in the room when the manager of the entire floor came in and informed us of what was going on and the reason for the delay.  My wife knows  him well and he explained that they had a transplant come in along with five open heart surgeries going on at the same time.  If you ever want to feel like your job is unimportant and insignificant think about surgeons doing an organ transplant that saves a persons life while at the same time other surgeons are busy saving five  other lives.  The Cardio Thoracic surgery center at Spectrum is a truly amazing place and we are quite fortunate to have such an amazing health system in West Michigan.  The composure, talent, and intelligence these surgeons possess is truly remarkable.

Ultimately, I had to leave while my mom and Shirley waited for the surgeon so they could find out if the surgery was feasible for today.  (it wasn’t) I was somewhat deflated because I had a bad feeling that the surgery wasn’t going to happen and I knew my mom really wanted to get it over with.  As I exited the parking garage my radio was still tuned into WOOD and Rush was on the air.  It had been quite sometime, probably decades since I had listened to his show.  He was explaining how the Ted Cruz victory in Iowa was a mandate that Americans wanted a leader who stood up to big government because Ted Cruz stood up to Ethanol.  He then went on to say how he didn’t mention a poll the previous day about global warming  where 92 percent of the people polled didn’t believe global warming existed.   That’s why I can’t listen to right wing talk radio anymore. It’s not even plausible to disregard the fact that there is global warming.  I just read an article that was based upon scientific data that factually showed global warming exists due to the fact that the earth’s average temperature continues to increase on a yearly basis.  It’s as if the political parties base their platforms solely on the opposite of what the other party believes on a particular issue.

I’m not shouting on the street corner as to what the causes of global warming are, all I am saying is that it is happening and what I don’t understand is why it is a left win right wing issue.  Shouldn’t we all be concerned by the fact that the average temperature globally continues to increase? and shouldn’t we all pay attention to the possible negative consequences regardless of if we voted for Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz?  Why do all of the people on the right insist that there is not a warming trend occurring?  When people on sports radio say ridiculous things about sports it’s fine, because it’s just sports and it doesn’t matter.  When political radio hosts say ridiculous things I take issue with it because their listeners purchase their ridiculous products and buy into everything they say hook, line, and sinker even though in another life the person they are buying into was wearing Hawaiian shirts to work while doing morning drive traffic.  Why can’t we all just join together and fix the shit that’s broke instead of always taking one side or the other?