The "O" in "Homely", Brochelle Obama

first lady of style she ain't

Michelle Obama's "good" side

Sometimes, all the politics, intrigue, and corruption starts to get me down.  When that happens, I do my best to try and find silver linings in and out among the clouds.  

Men have football to take their minds off of things...but truth be told, I hate football. I'm pretty poor at all sports in general, and as such, I dislike all sports, pretty much, really; I think sports are dumb.  Said dislike at least in part explains my total disdain for the "Olympic Movement."

Fashion is to women what sports are to men, I figure.  It relaxes us in some strange way to look at other women and watch how they rock their look - or not; it relaxes me, at any rate.  So today we'll become a bit more fashion savvy thanks to our national fashion icon, FLOTUS Michelle Obama.

The press has been so very kind to First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama...championing her Let's Move! Campaign, gobbling up her White House garden growth, and nodding approvingly at her keen fashion sense. Indeed, People magazine included Obama in their 100 Most Beautiful People list.

I, however, am not of the same opinion, and do not share the mainstream media's enthusiasm for Michelle Obama's look.  To me, it just seems that there are some folks who want to embrace the thought of a black first family so much that they're willing to overlook the obvious.



I’ve read more than one article comparing Michelle Obama’s style to that of Jacqueline Kennedy.

Born beautiful.

Classy by nature.

Yeah, sure, ok. 

Please:  There's simply no comparison between the two women.

I become physically uneasy when contemplating Obama's
penchant for loud prints and clothes that cinch right under her blah bust-line.

Just one example of Michelle Obama's
want for taste,  fashion sense, and a clue.

Michelle Obama is hardly the black Jackie O, who always had style, and rocked it; no, Shelly O is much more the black Elly Ro.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Michelle Obama - eternally awkward

In Dutch, the expression is "Niet moeder's mooiste" which translates to "not mother's prettiest"...and wow, does it ever fit in this circumstance.  Excepting for time and differences in hue, Shelly and Elly could be body doubles.  It would seem that both women were hit very hard with the exact same ugly stick -- perhaps they’re distant kinfolk, I dunno...at least we know what Michelle Obama would look like if she were white; we also know what she looked like in the past and how she'll look in the future.

Yesterday's Michelle Huxtable-Obama

Tomorrow's Michelle Obama-Sanford

On a side note...check it out:  our leaders are all kin to each other...and it sure can lead one to wonder about the effects of generational inbreeding.

Call me lookist, but I just can't see myself horizontally bopping with such a motley muttley crew by choice, I don't give a damn what type of pedigree papers they're holding.  Looking back over the presidents of the United States,  there is no presidential model of mom's boyfriend; Lyndon Johnson came close but no cigar...and mom's evil boyfriend Dick Cheney only made it to Vice President.  Barack Obama, however, has NEVER been one of mom's boyfriends.

Speaking as one strongly of the heterosexual persuasion, I must say I prefer the red-blooded common man to most of our leaders -- especially our exotic POTUS,thank you very much.  Lots of women have confessed to desiring Mr. Obama, and dreaming of sexual encounters with him.  But I never have thought Obama was good-looking...have always considered him strangely metrosexual, strangely un-black, strangely un-American, strangely un-presidential, strangely inhuman....just strange -- I mean Mitt Romney-strange, folks, and looking worse each passing day.

I took a look at Michelle Obama’s family to get a better understanding of her facial resemblance and such – after all, consider the striking resemblance between Obama senior and junior -- like two drops of water, no?  Consider his resemblance to any one of  his many kinfolk -- uncanny, no?  I swear, the Obama family intrasimilarity is flat-out staggering -- these people could pass as TWINS, friends.

Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., Barry's dad

Stanley Ann Dunham, Barry's mom

Obama's half-brother, son of Barack Obama Sr.

Obama's half-sister, daughter of Stanley Ann Dunham

Barack Obama with his Kenyan kin

Barry Soetoro with his Indonesian kin

Here’s a snapshot of Michelle’s pa, ma, and her big brah. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson are not necessarily bad-looking; indeed, Gramma Robinson actually looks sorta pretty, despite her resemblance to her daughter.

Tell me that Michelle Obama DOESN'T look like a baby monkey in this pic

While shades of Michelle Obama are visible in the faces of her parents, the family resemblance between brother and sister is absolutely unmistakable. They both have the exact same face.

Mr. and Mrs. Craig Robinson

Big bro and little sis

Robinson coaches basketball for the University of Oregon. Here’s a pic of Mr. and Mrs. Craig. Robinson...which leads me again to ask of Obama once again:

Ya know...I was joshin' about how much Barack Obama resembles his alleged family -- he doesn't...AT ALL.  But just the opposite is true of Michelle Obama and brother Craig.  Here are a few examples demonstrating said similarities -- Craig Robinson looks just like Michelle Obama sans makeup and airbrush:

Despite all the talk and rhetoric about how *together*and in love the Obamas are...I just don't buy it.  I don't think there's even a smidgen of chemistry between them...and their love story literally reeks of horse manure.  I do not believe Barack and Michelle Obama discuss their kids, sex, work, exercise, diet, or how their garden doth grow...


No, this is what the Obamas talk about behind closed doors:

GORILLA COOKIES -- LOL!!!!

Ah, well, as they say, love is blind...and that’s gotta be something for which Michelle Obama must give thanks each time her face shatters glass.
 

I have a good friend who has an eye for the ladies, I mean, a real wolf-whistlin' girl-watchin' he-man who tries hard to identify at least one positive attribute in every woman he sees; on the subject of Michelle Obama, his diagnosis was quick; her affliction: "butter face."

“What’s ‘butter face’,”  I asked?

“It’s all good -- but her face!” 

I don't think any of her looks good, though; Michelle Obama puts the "O" in "homely".

The hypocrite talks about craving state-fair-food-on-a-stick...and talks about something rearing up its ugly head -- by now we all know that the ugly-headed entity she's talking about above is her own reflection. I am struck by how every word she spoke back then was a huge lie in the making...and moreover, *struck* by how horribly horribly ugly she is.

Horse pucky;
she doesn't tend this garden, she has a gigantic staff to hoe her rows for her.

Personally, I resent Michelle Obama’s “Let's Move!” campaign – who does she think she is?   Her body shape is less than desirable, she’s none too slim, and I’m sorry, but she really, truly, honestly reminds me of a yeti -- particularly in how she lumbers.  She should worry less about whether or not our kids are too fat (I think her daughter Sasha is fat -- now what?), and more about improving her posture; after all, as with obesity, there are manifold physical maladies associated with poor posture that affect our national health.  Learning to walk in high heels would be a step in the right direction.  A crash course in color coordination could do wonders, along with a gym bag -- for her face…

I really don’t expect Michelle Obama to ever cultivate some style; as our own Jan Tanner proved a long time ago, you either got it or you don’t.  I have it, but usually don’t have enough money to afford it; Michelle Obama and Jan Tanner can easily afford it -- they just don't have any.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What Michelle and Barack Obama both demonstrate is that beauty is only skin deep; but ugly go all the way down to the bone.  Let's not have four more years of their ugly mugs.

Proud to be American

Lie of omission

 

I wrote this, and it passed my muster, but I sought the opinion of a higher power before running it; in this case, my higher power answered via email: 

"Run it.. You don't accuse anyone directly of anything, just asking hypotheticals."

and so I'm running it.

This is dedicated to the memory of the late, great Doctor Ted Eastburn.

Hi, everybody. I apologize for being lax - my attention and free time have been monopolized of late, and I cannot hardly complain...


However, today is a big day for me, because today is the last day of our Gazette home delivery.  Today, I will circle my job in the employment notices...today, I will fill the tub and soak for an hour or two as I read every article and dampen every page, and yes, I will move slow and leisurely as I enjoy these last, luxurious moments together.


I didn't have to wait long before taking my first bite of delicious Gazette Classic Cheesecake, served up by Daniel Chacon and Andrew Weineke in their story about the Memorial Hospital/Larry McEvoy severance scandal.  Chacon, ever servile, deserves top billing in the piece, marking it with his trademarked half-truths and innuendo like a dog and a tree; but really, I'd higher hopes for Weineke...


No matter.  The "timeline" purported in the article leaves out a GREAT BIG FACT, and I'm about to share that with you, since no one at the Gazette seems to remember it:

1999-2000
The Memorial board, which is appointed by the council, used to include several voting members from City Hall.  But in either 1999 or 2000, the council decided that one of its members would no longer sit on the board.
Former councilman Randy Purvis, who served on the Memorial board as a council representative from 1991 to 1999, said the council wanted to separate politics from the operation of the hospital and make the board more independent.
"For a time, there were two council members on the board," he said.  "If you go back to the 1980's, there was a time when the city manager sat on the board of trustees as an ex-officio member (and) the city finance chief was on the board as a member of the board."

Did good Mr. Purvis forget or just fail to mention the rest of the story?


Chacon interviewed Purvis as he was compiling this compost - was he unable to find other interviewees from the time frame in question, like, oh, say, Mary Lou Makepeace, Judy Noyes, Lionel Rivera...or perhaps better yet, RICHARD SKORMAN?


If Shillcon was any kind of real investigative reporter, he'd have uncovered a heck of a lot more of the actual who, what, when, where, how, and whys; but then, he's not; like Noreen, Chacon has a paying job and I don't, and it hurts like hell and I'm mad about it, but it doesn't change the fact that I've already covered this story...indeed, I lived through it; and why I should let all that hard work just go to waste?  Paid or unpaid, what's done is done. Waste not, want not, I always say...so curl up for the part that Chacon conveniently left out:


DR. TED EASTBURN SAT ON CITY COUNCIL DURING THE TIME-FRAME IN QUESTION; BUT WHEN HE SOUGHT A PLACE AT THE MEMORIAL TRUSTEE TABLE, ACCUSATORY WHISPERS OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST AROSE...AND IN THE ENSUING MAELSTROM, EASTBURN GRACEFULLY WALKED AWAY FROM WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HIS COMMON-SENSE APPOINTMENT TO THE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL BOARD OF TRUSTEES AS THE CITY'S REPRESENTATIVE.


That's WHEN the change happened, and WHY the change happened.


They wouldn't let Ted sit on the Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees.  If memory serves me correctly, the last two city councilmen to sit on the Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees were Lionel Rivera and Richard Skorman.


And so I just think this is all so interesting...how this has all come about, and how long in the making.


For those of you who don't know, Ted Eastburn was a cardiologist, former city councilman and mayoral candidate; he was married for many years to Kathryn Eastburn, who co-founded the Colorado Springs Independent.  They had children...they divorced.  He remarried, to Deb Mahan; their union produced a son before it, too ended in divorce. He was engaged to be married to Elizabeth Arnold when he reportedly committed suicide August 17, 2010 in his office at Memorial Hospital; it was the anniversary of his marriage to Kathryn; it was also the day their divorce became final, apparently and coincidentally.

So, perhaps the doctor pined after the wordsmith; I know I would steal her magic pen from her hand just so as to write my name with it.  Eastburn writes a lot like Steinbeck...her every word a rope wrapping around me, pulling me in and then stabbing me - in my heart, and making me cry, and when the tears slow, I go back and re-read it again, because it always hurts so good.


I met her once, you know; my first day at the Independent was her last day. Matthew Schniper introduced me to her breezily as we passed through the copy room; I looked at her face and the gold crucifix around her neck, and on the spot became star-struck and tongue-tied.  But her handshake was crushingly light and limp, and suffice it to say, she didn't offer to autograph an Independent for me. After fifteen days, my stint at the Independent was history...but despite the taste of sour grapes in mouth, I omitted Eastburn's name from the aforementioned diatribe; I will always admire Kathryn Eastburn, and the way that she weaves and writes with her words.  Though she knows me not, she's long influenced me; her impact upon me is profound...and so it would take so much to make me think anything of her than admiringly.


When I wrote the Downtown Partnership to complain about the boat made out of black people sitting in front of the Terry Harris Court Building on Vermijo and Tejon, it was Judy Noyes who responded with crisp nonchalance. In the same week, God told me to look at America the Beautiful Park from the sky, and to expect to see something in the shape of an eye.  I looked.  And the eye looked back. So, I researched the HELL out of that park, and learned that Judy Noyes was also the leader of the pack responsible for America the Beautiful Park and the Continuum fountain.  I also discovered that Noyes, who with her husband operated Chinook Book for 45 years, opened the store in 1959 and closed it on the same day in 2004 -- June 15...(dates that, incidentally, both amount numerologically to 666).


When the Noyes closed their store, Kathryn Eastburn wrote a tribute piece entitled "Promise of Spring Fulfilled."  At the time, I thought nothing of it; but as I researched the park six years later, I thought of it a lot; Eastburn describes them as best friends, and it bothered me..and  somehow made me think less of her -- how could and why would anyone write so lovingly about a woman who through her actions and deeds appears to be a serious practitioner of the occult?


When Ted's suicide was reported, I was in shock. Why would a brilliant, handsome, successful doctor shoot himself in his office AT THE HOSPITAL? Richard Skorman lunched with Eastburn within three days of his suicide, but could provide no insight.  The suicide of Ted's adopted son a few years earlier depressed him, it was said; he was prone to mood swings, I was told. I remembered Ted, and couldn't believe he killed himself at the hospital...convinced he would have never upset his patients in such a manner.


I grieved...with Kathryn, for Kathryn, for Ted, for me, for all of us.  For, you see, the rumblings about what to do with Memorial Hospital had just begun, as had the announcements of who intended to run for mayor; what, I wondered, would that great man's opinion have been on Memorial Hospital? Might he have had plans to again run for mayor?  


I could only go back to City Council minutes and old Gazette articles for clues to the answers.  What resulted was a picture of one of the few good men who have become mom's boyfriend post-humously.  Nothing, nothing, nothing negative, nothing dark, nothing mysterious or questionable; just a really, really nice guy who took care of his ill, single mother...who put himself through school by serving in the military; one of the most skilled heart-surgeons in the region - in the state; an elected city councilman who asked questions and voted his heart.  Ted was a liberal - but on local issues, he routinely voted as I would have voted...which must not have rubbed his sneakier councilmates in quite the right way - such as Makepeace, Skorman, Rivera and Noyes.


Like what votes, exactly, you ask?  Well, how about SDS?  Banning-Lewis Ranch? How about the paraplegic baseball field out east? How about America the Beautiful Park right down town?  And when talk about the sculpture cropped up, Ted wisely opined that the Starr Kempf metal sculptures might serve the alleged need.  Kempf, too, shot himself...


I had to wonder, after all they'd endured together, what killed his marriage to Kathryn?  What killed his marriage to Deb Mahan?  I asked Wayne Laugesen at the Gazette if Deb Mahan was any relation to Brian Mahan, the head of Memorial Hospital's cardiology department, but never received an answer...

I told my friend Mitch Christiansen that I, as one who has long and often struggled with suicidal ideation, had a hard time believing that Dr. Eastburn shot himself in his office at Memorial Hospital; why would he have wanted to disturb so many patients, all at once..why not in his car at Queen's Canyon or something?    What purpose did it serve, or what statement was he trying to make?  There were no reports of a note.  Every initial report shows that officers arrived to a call of shots fired - more than one, that is.  I looked up how commonplace that is...more than one shot being fired in suicides by handgun:  it's occurred in less than .07%.  The door to his office was locked, and first responders had to kick in the door...


Well...what if an assassin had laid in wait in Ted's office, shot, shot again, quickly set the stage...and then escaped the room via a ceiling tile, and up and out through the hospital's vent system?  Might Ted Eastburn have heard the earliest of the "let's sell Memorial Hospital" whispers and decided to once again run for mayor and try to put it all to a stop?  Might he have confided such to the wrong person, and ended up assassinated?  For such a thing to occur would have required both a hospital insider and a police insider - could such a thing really happen, or does it only happen on TV?  I don't know...but Mitch told me that if there was any truth whatsoever to my theory, someone might shoot me over it.


There was a time when I couldn't stop thinking of Ted Eastburn.  At one point, I sought out information from someone who would know; I was walking one way, and then suddenly my feet were stepping in another, until I stood on a unknown doorstep ringing a stranger's doorbell. The person, who'll remain anonymous, answered most of my questions:  Ted received some kind of devastating news the week of his suicide; yes, there was a note, in fact there were several (and only through respect and self-control did I withhold myself from asking to read it); Ted supposedly supported the sale of Memorial Hospital (thought this must have been a relatively recent reversal for him; he had previously stated that he would have to see entirely new data in order to support such a change); Ted, who gave lectures on gun safety and suicide, purportedly placed the items he cherished outside his office door before locking it and then shooting himself, so as not to smatter them with blood - but did anyone actually see him place those items outside his office door...or perhaps caught on camera?  The box the gun came in was found, but without a receipt...and when I asked if it still sometimes felt unreal, the answer was unequivocally, "Yes."


I left in tears, crushed to hear that it really, really, really did seem to be true; it really did appear as though Eastburn committed suicide.  I left, with far more questions than with which I came. I'm left, with those questions still haunting me to this day.




I am stuck at the corner of it was a murder staged to appear as a suicide...or it was a suicide - and at least in part, a gigantic FU to the powers that be at Memorial Hospital.

It all reminds me of this long ago X-File episode...Sanguinarium...where a doctor who's also a satanist arranges the ritual murders of persons who were born on dates that coincide with witch high holy days.  I can't include a link to it, but it is on Netflix; if you get a chance...it's season 4, episode 6...and then afterward, tell me that the doctor in question isn't eerily reminiscent of McEvoy.


I'm just sayin'.  What would Dr. Ted Eastburn have thought of Dr. Larry McEvoy's severance?  We will never know.

Isn't it interesting, though, that the new Memorial Hospital North is in the shape of a triquetra...a pagan symbol related to the witches sabbath of Beltane, wherein humans are regularly sacrificed..




Note from higher power:  The design of the building is something I know about.  This design is so to withstand high wind - no real edges or corners.  It also allows for air transport to deliver to any of the three specialty units below via the roof where the helipad is centered.  It does indeed resemble the shape you cite, but I think there's a less nefarious explanation.  I hope.


McEvoy's severance is not something we can blame on the present city council; no...there are sinister forces who have been working quietly behind the scenes for years and years...feeding the machine and keeping it running.


The same Anschutz/Tutts who own the Broadmoor, the El Pomar Foundation, and the USOC will now own Memorial Hospital for all intents and purposes; and surprise, surprise, now here comes the talk of shutting down the Drake Power Plant - wonder who'll end up owning Colorado Springs Utilities?


And we all keep swallowing it...hook, line and sinker.


Yes, this post is filled with speculation...but Chacon's omission of Eastburn's part of the Memorial Hospital story is a blatant lie of omission...and certainly cause for speculation.


Without a doubt, Ted Eastburn was a great doctor, and a very kind-hearted and generous man; he certainly held more than one key to the mysterious Memorial Hospital conundrum...and how dare anyone omit his great name?

There is no disrespect intended in this piece, and if I've opened up wounds then I'm sorry but sobeit.  I tried to write this a year ago, couldn't until now, and must say that time has made all the difference between a reckless rant and a meandering muse.  Led Zeppelin is my favorite band of all time, and it was Ted's favorite, too...and we both seemed to like the same writer a lot.  So, a toast to the good doctor, Ted Eastburn...a real man amongst men; gone too soon, but surely not forgotten...at least not as long as I'm still alive.

Here's to you, Ted.