My friend Harry Kenney, Philly webmaster, virtual fighting Irishman, and noted food porn web blogger is in the hospital with a reasonably mild heart problem. MEN ESPECIALLY (who seem to hate having exams), PLEASE READ THIS: Harry has been experiencing weird, all-over-pain symptoms for MONTHS and he wouldn't go to the doctor. Granted, there was the medical insurance problem all self-employed people face, but when you're having something like this, you deal. Anyway, Harry FINALLY went to the doctor (thank you to his partner Electra for making this happen) and was immediately hospitalized. PLEASE GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU HAVE FRIGHTENING SYMPTOMS. I've managed to get Harry to start watching House, but I couldn't cajole him into seeing a real doctor.

Since I just called him out in public, I'll give a nice blurb to his kickass foodie blog: http://tvchefsblog.com/

We lead from this to an example with a much sadder outcome. One of my husband's best and oldest friends Gene Autrey Bolton passed away suddenly from a heart attack. His funeral is today. Gene was 65 years old -- far too young to die. He was, however, black and African-American men in this culture live substantially shorter lives than white men do. Gino (as we all called him) danced at my son's wedding, laughed with us on more than one occasion, and was looking forward to finally retiring to his little fishing hole in Texas. Sadly, none of that will be possible now. Life is so damned short. Gene had high blood pressure, was black, had a history of various other problems ... the usual risk factors.

I go from this to a plea to take aspirin. If you have risk factors, one low dose/children's strength aspirin a day can prevent one out of three heart attacks and strokes. That means, with my late friends Sam and Lin (both died from heart attacks) and our friend Gene, one of them might well be alive today, had they taken aspirin.

You know all the talk about Texas, well it looks like the media called it too soon -- congrats to both Clinton and Obama, but it now looks like a 2 state split. Texas will be going over to Obama's tally as a state victory, not to Clinton's. This according to UPI as of a few minutes ago.

Lastly, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream (a wonderful progressive company based in Vermont) has named their new Obama-inspired flavor. Lots of entries (it was a contest) including the usual riffs on Obama's name -- Peanut Butter Barackle, Obamana Split, and Barackadamia Nut, etc, but the winner is brilliant -- Aaron Nathan of Amherst, Mass. won with his entry: "Yes, Pecan!"




Gotta love it. Sorry for the uncut entry today (all my slash friends' minds just went to a different place) but I thought the medical info was worth shoving it in peoples' face and the graphic is small. Tomorrow I'll be good, I swear.