A Tale of Two Baseball Teams

The Boston Red Sox, favorite team of every stout-hearted person, are now steamrolling through the baseball season, wining series from three good teams in a row. All on the road, they have whipped the New York Yankees, the Cleveland Indians, and the Detroit Tigers. They return to Fenway Park tonight in first place in the American League East and from all appearances are ready to make a shambles of the pennant race.

All this comes in the wake of a truly awful start, and with two of their starting pitchers on the shelf. Alfredo Aceves and Tim Wakefield have thrown the ball so effectively that we almost wish John Lackey and especially Daisuke Matsuzaka wouldn't return. The defense has been very good, and the hitting now looks terrific. Jacoby Ellsbury, who a year or two ago looked over-matched against left-handers, now sprays hits to all parts of the field and is starting to show some home-run power. Adrian Gonzalez has been as good or better than advertised and David Ortiz is having a season reminiscent of years gone by. Carl Crawford, after a dreadful beginning, is now showing what $142 million can buy, and Jared Saltalamacchia has started to hit. Even the players who have not shown well so far can be expected to get hot - Dustin Pedroia, and Kevin Youkilis will equal career norms. The right-field position has not contributed much, and both J.D. Drew and Mike Cameron are clearly fading stars, but they still field capably, and offense from them is a bonus at this point.

Jed Lowery has been a catalyst for the team and has made the plays at shortstop.

Finally, these are not your father's Red Sox. They have excellent team speed, and Ellsbury, Crawford and Pedroia should move them among the league leaders in stolen bases.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Rockies are sinking like - well, like rocks. Ubaldo Jimenez, one year ago thought of as the next great right-handed pitcher, is winless on Memorial Day with an earned run average of six. Jorge de la Rosa, counted on as his left-handed complement, must have Tommy John surgery and is done for the year. Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez are having years that are down from what was expected, and though Todd Helton has rebounded from several declining years, he doesn't hit with much home-run power anymore. Seth Smith in right-field defines mediocrity and Dexter Fowler in center-field strikes out much too much. From an offensive standpoint, third base has been a black hole.

Jonathan Herrera at second base, the man for whom the words "scrappy" and "plucky" were invented can't carry a team by himself. Chris Iannetta, behind the plate, calls a good game and throws effectively. He has some power, but his batting average barely tops .200.

The remaining starting pitchers are capable, but there is no big horse for the team to ride. The bullpen has been erratic, in particular the closer, Houston Street (and is that a great name or what).

Manager Jim Tracy and the front office are trying everything to turn things around. Veterans have been released or demoted and the youth of America has been promoted to the big club. A young right-hander, Juan Nicosia, gave the team a shot in the arm over the weekend, but it's dangerous to pin one's hopes on a rookie pitcher. Right now, their chances don't look good despite the injury to Buster Posey that weakens the Giants and the slim possibility that the Arizona Diamondbacks can continue to play good baseball. It could be a long summer in Denver and throughout the Rockies.

But then, the Broncos have always been number one around here.

The "Repeal Amendment"

My Congressman, Doug Lamborn, ne plus ultra right-winger, is touting a proposal called the "Repeal Amendment" to the Constitution. Here's the text of the proposed amendment.

“Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”

In other words, thirty-four state legislatures would be able to stop federal law.

On the surface, this seems innocuous, even democratic. Does anyone think two-thirds of the state legislatures could agree on anything, much less agree on wording that "particularly describe the same provision. . ." of a federal law or regulation? Even presuming that the legislatures would vote by simple majority, I doubt you could get two-thirds of them to agree that on a clear day the sky is blue. So it would seem this is a dead letter, a way to make the rabid right happy without actually accomplishing anything.

Still, I smell a rat. Thinking back a hundred years, I remember that federal law was needed to begin conservation of natural resources because numerous state legislatures were simply in the pocket of energy producers, in those days the coal companies. It seems to me that state legislatures nowadays are more susceptible to being bought or stampeded than the Congress is.

Procedurally, the whole thing is a nightmare. What if, for example, the states agree for the most part on repeal of a federal law, but the language of their repeals differs slightly? What if a legislature repeals its own repeal act before the two-thirds majority has been obtained? What about federal lands? They are within the borders of states, but many have exclusive federal jurisdiction. Would their laws and regulations now be subject to state repeal?

The whole thing is just a mess, in my opinion, and like many other attempts to take a meataxe to the Constitution, it should just disappear without a trace.

For the record, my Congressman, the redoubtable Mr. Lamborn, also supports a Congressional resolution aimed at preventing the president from negotiating arms reduction agreements without congressional involvement. The Constitution clearly empowers the president to negotiate treaties, subject to Senate ratification. So much for Mr. Lamborn's version of strict constructionism.

And More's the Pity

Editor's note: James Carville is a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, appearing frequently on CNN's "The Situation Room" as well as other programs on all CNN networks. Carville remains active in Democratic politics and is a party fundraiser.

(CNN) -- As I sat watching the hysterical and apocalyptic reaction to President Barack Obama's speech addressing the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, in which he endorsed a position that was previously advocated by George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, opposition leader Tzipi Livni and even Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, it got me thinking about the other vicious attacks on the president's previous policies.

Let's start with the president's decision to continue George W. Bush's TARP -- the successful program that averted a financial collapse and bailed out the automotive industry.

I've always wondered why Bush didn't try to lay some claim to the successful outcome of that situation instead of expecting to be credited with the downfall of Osama bin Laden, which he actually had very little to do with.

The fact that Obama promoted the individual mandate health-care plan previously endorsed by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty had the GOP up in arms.

But boy, what really got the boys on Fox News, talk radio and the Tea Party gassed up was when Obama praised Pawlenty, McCain and Romney's cap-and-trade carbon-control plan. And I almost forgot his stimulus program was attacked by John Huntsman for not being large enough.

But then again, it's hard to to top the doomsday predictions that resulted when the chairman of the Federal Reserve (who, by the way, was appointed by George W. Bush) instituted a program that was advocated by Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, the late Milton Friedman, who is universally acknowledged to be the most influential conservative economist of the 20th century.

James Carville

Of course, he sure got an earful about taking Newt's advice and intervening in Libya, not to mention the stir he caused by just following George W. Bush's lead in sending troops to Afghanistan.

In 1992, Bill Clinton famously proclaimed himself to be an Eisenhower Republican. By that measure, I'd say President Obama is a pre-2008 John McCain Republican.

But this much is sure: The policies of the eventual Republican nominee, that is, anybody left running for it by the time of the vote, will be right in line with those of Sarah Palin. It's pretty remarkable that the next election is going to boil down to a competition between the 2008 Republican presidential candidate and his vice presidential nominee.

It's not that Obama is a socialist born somewhere other than Hawaii, or that he possesses a Kenyan anti-colonial mentality -- but that some Republican needs to stand up and say, with some legitimacy, that Obama is taking all of the GOP's ideas.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of James Carville.

A Poem

God made the world in six days flat.

On the seventh He said, "I'll rest."

So He let the thing

Into orbit swing

To give it a dry-run test.

A billion years went spinning by

Then He looked at the whirling blob.

His spirits fell

As He shrugged, "Oh well,

"It was only a six-day job."

I don't know who wrote this, but thought of it today on the eve of the end of the world.

Charles Koch, Ahnuld, the Donald, Bernie's wife, Dick Cheney, and "Enhanced Interrogation"

CNN carried a story yesterday from the Washington Post concerning my alma mater, Florida State University. Charles Koch, multi-billionaire and reactionary, contributed $1.5 million to FSU recently to endow two professorships in economics, specifically to study free market economies. According to the story, Mr. Koch and his foundation retained veto power over the selection of professors for the positions. FSU has denied the claim that strings were attached to the gift, but acknowledged there was interaction between the college and the Koch charity.

Like all state universities, FSU is funded by taxpayer dollars, tuitions and endowments. Like all state universities, they undoubtedly spend a lot of time soliciting donations, what I used to call "dialing for dollars," when I worked for the National Park Service. The question is whether it is appropriate for a college to accept a gift if the donor clearly expects the money to foster a particular slant on subject matter and reach conclusions that might not be scientifically valid. Not saying that's the case here, but it sure makes a fellow wonder. And why give the money to FSU when the Koch charity has no special connection to either the college or the state?

There's more news today. Arnold Schwarzenegger has acknowledged fathering a child by a domestic servant in his home. His wife, Maria Schriever, moved out last week, prompting the media frenzy that led to the revelation. The governator has supported (he says) the woman and child for the last ten years, but did not admit the child's paternity to Maria until very recently.

Arnold also campaigned for governor in 2003 denying allegations of sexual infidelity. So, he lied to the public and to his wife. He's not exactly the first or the last man ever to lie about falling off the fidelity wagon, but he was a public figure by his own decision, and now is exposed as a hypocrite.

Donald Trump, "the Donald," after dipping his toes in presidential waters, has decided not to be a candidate. Possibly he was told he couldn't win or even get nominated, but the already lackluster GOP pool of potential presidents has become even shallower. Can anyone actually see a President Romney, or President Pawlenty, or President Whats-his-name, the Domino's Pizza guy, or, God help us, President Gingrich? So back to "Celebrity Apprentice" to Donald Trump, where he can say, "You're fired," to forlorn wannabes.

This morning we learned that Bernie Madoff's wine cellar will be auctioned. Madoff, as everyone remembers, is in prison for bilking thousands of people, but contrived to shelter something like six or seven million dollars for his wife to live off. I have just a bit of sympathy for the good Mrs. Madoff. She didn't actually connive with her husband, though she'd have to be pretty stupid not to know some sort of shenanigans were afoot. So, I could support leaving her some sort of endowment. I don't know her age or physical condition, but there's still part of me that says, "Hey, Burger King is hiring. Lots of other people work there. You could too."

So, readership, does anyone want to buy a very expensive bottle of wine?

Now that Osama bin Laden is dead - what shall we call his death - justice, execution, assassination, or murder? - everyone is trying to claim the action was attributable to one or another partisan politician. Dick Cheney, once vice-president of the United States, said the raid was the result of intelligence gathered at Guantanamo Bay prison by "enhanced interrogation," waterboarding in the vernacular. The men still detained at Guantanamo were delivered there in 2001 and Osama didn't take up residence at the compound where he was killed until 2006, so it's a little difficult for me to figure how any information gleaned from the captives at Guantanamo could have led to him. But logic never was Mr. Cheney's forte.

Let me conclude with a word about use of these "enhanced interrogation" methods. The Bush-Cheney administration stoutly denied that forcing water into a bound captive's mouth until he was near drowning was not torture. It's true that waterboarding did not inflict pain on the subject in the way that, say, burning or beating would, but it still put the subject in fear of his life, or what's the purpose of it? To me, that constitutes torture.

Cheney argued further that if a captive had information that would save the lives of Americans, then obtaining that information by any means necessary is morally justified. Leaving alone the thought that the "shelf-life" of any information these men might have is probably quite short, I'll just say that any interrogator has to assume that any information obtained by coercion or inflicting pain is false. Until the subject reaches the last extremity of suffering he will continue to lie and throw up red herrings.

Bringing a prisoner to that extremity of pain is fundamentally immoral. If that's not wrong, nothing is wrong.

Reminiscences

The first professional baseball game I ever saw featured a tall thin right-handed pitcher I had never heard of, but my father was eager to see. This was in Miami, in 1955, when I was about six years old. We had moved from Boston to Miami in November 1953, and being as I was only four at the time, I decided to go along with the family.

I don't actually remember the game at all, except that I wanted to chase around the upper reaches of the stadium after foul balls and Dad insisted I stay with him. I've always cherished the game, however, because the pitcher for the Marlins was Satchel Paige. He meant nothing to me at the time, but now I can say I saw one of the truly great players.

In 1964, my brother Larry and I were treated to a game at Fenway Park, the first time I had ever been there. It was the last game before the All-Star break and the Red Sox and White Sox started relievers, Jack Lamabe and Hoyt Wilhelm. I remember Carl Yastrzemski throwing out a runner at the plate, Dick Radatz pitching in relief for Boston and the Pale Hose winning in extra innings. I thought my father would be mad at us for keeping him waiting outside the park, but he was chatting with my uncle Raymond and said he had guessed the game was running long. He was not a man to be patient with tardiness, so I was surprised and pleased that he didn't bawl us out.

Years later, in college at Florida State, I went to see a game between the professional Pittsfield Red Sox and the FSU team. I mostly was interested in the center-fielder for the Sox, Billy Conigliaro, but took notice of the big catcher they had too. His name was Carlton Fisk.

The only time I ever caught a foul ball at a professional game took place when I lived in Pennsylvania and went to a Reading Phillies game. There was a sparse crowd and the ball arced back directly to me, so I had a cherished souvenir. About a week later, my daughter, age two, threw the ball out the window of our car while it was moving and I never found it. I still tell her the story.

While living in Pennsylvania, I also saw two Philadelphia games, both against the Chicago Cubs. In one of them the Phillies scored ten runs in the first inning. After that it was the most boring game I ever witnessed.

Living in smaller cities, I've mostly seen minor league games, but every minor league team has at least one real prospect, and at AAA games there are big league veterans trying for one more chance at the majors. I remember the Peninsula Pilots in Newport News Virginia had Juan Samuel at shortstop, for example.

Lower levels in the minors sometimes have plays you'd never see in the big leagues. Once at a Pilots game I remember a suicide squeeze play, where the runner came barreling in from third base as the batter dropped his bunt in front of the mound, the pitcher scooped it up, shoveled it underhand to the catcher, blocking the plate as the runner slid, there was a cloud of dust, the umpire shouted "Safe!" and the everyone was mesmerized. Including the batter, who was still standing there and decided as the call was made that maybe he should run to first. He was thrown out by seventy feet and then had to return to his dugout where the manager was waiting, hands on hips, for him.

Richmond, Virginia, had the top farm team of the Atlanta Braves. The first game I saw there featured John Smoltz, who, as I recall, wasn't very good that night. Braves teams included Ryan Klesko, probably the most powerful hitter I ever saw in the minors, David Justice, who went on to a solid big league career, and Kevin Millwood, who came closest to a no-hitter I ever saw, eight and one-third innings before he gave up a single. The fastest bats I ever saw belonged to Chipper Jones and Nomar Garciaparra. The ball just jumped when they hit it.

Since coming to Colorado, I've been to numerous Rockies games and several of their Colorado Springs farm club contests. (The Colorado Springs team is called the "Sky Sox" whatever that is. Their mascot is a fox, again for no readily apparent reason.) Rockies players of note include Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, and Ubaldo Jimenez. I've seen the very graceful Carlos Gonzalez in both the minors and majors. He's probably the best athlete I have seen, a true five-tool player. Two years ago, the Sky Sox team included Mark Bellhorn, once a hero on the 2004 Red Sox, but clearly winding up his career at Colorado Springs.

Last year brought some trauma as Kris and I attended a Rockies - Red Sox game at Coors field, won in the bottom of the ninth inning when Ian Stewart and Jason Giambi both homered off Jonathan Papelbon. My wife, who showed no interest in baseball before I married her, wore Rockies purple to the game, which I countered with a battered old Red Sox cap. It's a mixed marriage, as we used to say.

The "Dusseldorf Rules of Revolution"

This article appeared in a recent issue of the California Legionnaire Chaplains’ Corner

I remembered a document which had fallen into my hands, a duplicate of one found by our Allied forces in May of 1919 at Dusseldorf, Germany which contained “Communist Rules for Revolution” which read as follows:

A. Corrupt the young: get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial; destroy their ruggedness.

B. Get control of all means of publicity thereby:

1. Get people’s minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics,
sexy books and plays and other trivialities.

2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping
on controversial matters of no importance.

3. Destroy the people’s faith in their leaders by holding them up to contempt,
ridicule and obliquity.

4. Always preach true democracy, but, seize’ power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible.

5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit,
“produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent.

6. Foment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders
and foster lenient and soft attitudes on the part of the government towards such disorders.

7. By specious argument, cause the breakdown of the old moral virtues of honesty,
sobriety, continence, faith in the pledged word.

C. Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext with the view of confiscating them and leaving the population helpless.

Those are the "Dusseldorf Rules of Revolution." It's been more than forty years now since I first heard of them. The "Rules" were brought to my attention by someone who had started life as a Franklin Roosevelt, "New Deal" Democrat, but by 1970 was sliding far to the political right. The idea was to demonstrate the perfidy and wickedness of Communism and the counter-culture of that time.

Even then I was suspicious of the "Rules." From personal experience and from what I saw in other young people, I didn't think it would be necessary to "get" young people interested in sex. We had a lively interest in sex all by ourselves without any encouragement. Nor did it seem in 1970 that we would become uninterested in politics in favor of trivia. (I didn't know in 1970 the scale of the disillusion that would shortly settle in.)

Soon after reading the "Rules" I came upon a column by conservative writer Jack Kilpatrick that dismissed them as just a forgery and not a very good one. I figured that would lay the matter to rest. So I was surprised a few days ago to find them on the Internet without even hardly trying.

A very little bit of research discovered that the "Rules" were allegedly found in 1919 by "our" troops in Dusseldorf. The prelude doesn't indicate who "our" troops were, but American troops in the Third Army did occupy part of the Ruhr Valley that year. They were headquartered in Coblenz, however, a hundred miles from Dusseldorf, so it seems unlikely Americans would have uncovered the "Rules." Nor is there any indication of what language the "Rules" were written. One would suppose they would have been in German, but here they are in English without any notation of what the original looked like, if different from the English version.

More damning for the "Rules" is why they were not published at that time. In fact, there does not seem to be any record of them until 1946, when they were published in, of all places, Oklahoma. Where they might have been for the missing twenty-seven years is a mystery that believers cannot explain.

Finally, there is the text itself, with its strange message. Marxist theory suggests the Communist revolution will take place when people become passionately interested in politics and society, not distracted by sex and trivia. Marx claimed that "religion is the opiate of the masses," lulling poor people with promises of salvation, but he might have added that sex, drugs and rock and roll are the opiates. So it would hardly be the premise of revolutionaries to turn youth away from political outrage.

Nowadays, it's easy to see the "Rules" are made up from whole cloth by someone who had serious sex issues and a major hangup with "ruggedness." But they still appear on the Internet to stoke the flames of hatred and paranoia. It's not that I'm sympathetic to Communism on either a sentimental or practical basis, but a simple interest in honesty should dismiss these "Rules" forever.

By the way, "harping on controversial matters of no importance" is a hallmark of the political right, not the left.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Legislators?

"Congress: the accumulated wisdom of the American people."

"Suppose you are a Congressman. And suppose you are an idiot. But, I repeat myself."

The House of Representatives, "the peoples' house," the part of our national government that must be best because it is closest to the people, is contemplating removing wolves from the list of endangered species in Montana and Idaho. There does not seem to be any scientific basis for thinking wolves are so plentiful there that they need no further protection. Instead, the House is paying attention to the complaints of ranchers and the desire of hunters to knock off a wolf so they can say they've done it.

I don't make any claims to be an expert on wolves. I'm like every Congressman in that regard. I'm so proud. That's the point, however - Congress should be consulting biologists about the wolves to ascertain the sustainability of their populations.

Ranchers are already compensated by the government for any of their animals killed by wolves. They're not suffering any monetary losses from wolves. Among the numerous ironies of the situation is the fact that wolves reduce the population of coyotes as soon as they move into a territory. The government does not pay ranchers for any lambs or calves killed by coyotes. So it seems the ranchers are acting against their own best interests by trying to reduce the number of wolves.

Years ago when I was still a park ranger, I attended a training course on management of wild animals that included a visit to Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota. I was there on the summer weekend when the local rangers rounded up all the bison in the park and herded them into corrals so they could be inoculated against brucellosis, a disease fatal to both bison and cattle. South Dakota ranchers had influenced the state's Congressional representatives to insist on the roundup to protect the domestic animals.

There is no documented case on record of a bison ever spreading brucellosis to cattle. The roundup and inoculations are completely unnecessary. It also violates Park Service policy concerning management of native species of wildlife. On the other hand, elk also get brucellosis and they do spread the illness to cattle. There is no requirement for elk to be rounded up and inoculated.

It might be good for us to reflect on the wisdom of our representatives as demonstrated in this little narrative.

Prov 24.17, "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice"; Ezek 18.32, "I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord"; Ezek 33.11, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked."

No tears for bin Laden, he was a mass murderer, but his death is not a cause of glee.

How to Annoy People

I laid in bed last night thinking about annoying television commercials. Only after some time had passed did I realize this isn't conducive to sleep, which was my objective. But I did compile a list of particularly offensive ads, and here it is.

Any commercial featuring a local used car dealer. Here in Colo Spgs we have "Dealin' Doug," who shouts that he won't be undersold, will beat any other dealer's offer and will accept any credit application. During the autumn he appears holding a football, as if to persuade us that no football fan would ever take advantage of us. He's loud, strident, and devious. He has to accept any credit application by law. Doesn't mean you'll get a car loan.

Any commercial featuring a personal injury lawyer. Again, locally, we have a lawyer who calls himself "the strong arm," and has testimonials from people who say he procured large cash settlements for their injuries. Looking at him, I'd have to say he's more accurately the "obese arm," or the "flabby arm," but no matter. Another lawyer here in Colorado claims you can snap your fingers, "It's just that easy," for him to settle a case in your favor. Finally, a third attorney runs ads comparing the injured party to Little Red Riding Hood, and the insurance company to the Big Bad Wolf. I have very little sympathy for insurance companies but this is (almost) enough to make me want to support limiting awards to injured plaintiffs.

J.G. Wentworth. I mentioned him in another post, but must chastise him again. Singing annuitants throwing open windows to insist, "It's my money and I need it now," reminds me of the movie "Network" and the exclamation, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Probably that's the idea. The fact that J.G. Wentworth is preying on other peoples' misfortunes is the important point here.

Commercials featuring people who are much younger than I am, but nevertheless worry they're getting old. Oh, yes, poor thing, you're nearly thirty now. Those laugh lines are getting a bit deeper. Your hair is getting gray. Especially egregious, from my standpoint, are the ads for men's hair coloring. So you dyed your hair and got the big promotion, and the babe who interviewed you is giving you that, "Come and get me," look. Oh, please.

Body-building ads. Get ripped in just six weeks, exercising only fifteen minutes daily (or five minutes, or ten seconds, or just buy the product and store it in your basement). One machine promises to "harness the awesome power of dynamic inertia," which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Inertia is sitting on the couch, for cryin' out loud. The none too subtle sexual content of these ads also bothers me. Get that hard body and have lots of sex with lots of different women, all of whom will also be super-toned.

That woman in the pants-suit who tells us how wonderful off-shore oil drilling is. It's only one year since eleven men died when the BP rig exploded, and the Gulf of Mexico was fouled by oil that will be there for generations. Do they think we've forgotten so soon? The same contempt for us is manifested by ads touting coal mining.

Political ads. I could endure these if they were actually informative, but nowadays they're almost all meant to disparage the candidate's opponent, not tell us about the attributes of the person running the ad. "My opponent hangs around playgrounds, waiting to seduce your kids. He wants to destroy our economy and hand over the keys to the White House to Osama bin Laden. He's so soft on crime he even paroled me. We can't have a man like that in public office. Vote for me instead." Political skulduggery has been around since Biblical times, of course. Just remember Absolom, trying to undermine his father, David. But lately it's just become reprehensible.

Firestone tire ads. Singing bystanders as Dad becomes a hero for driving on Firestones. It's insipid and insults our intelligence.

And finally, the worst.

Viagra. "Viva, Viagra," they sing, middle-aged men who are just so happy not to be flaccid anymore. Setting aside the appropriateness, or inappropriateness, of these ads, they promote the kind of "performance enhancement from a pill" culture that we rightly bemoan. Do you want to prolong your sex life? Well then, lose weight, exercise, read erotic poetry, make an effort to satisfy your love partner. But it's so much easier to just take a pill.

By the way, these medications can fall into unintended hands. When I was teaching school I overheard a boy say that another boy had taken four of the kid's father's Viagra tablets all at once. Teenagers will try anything. They're like the rest of us.