BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I am back. Slowly. Gently. My surgery went very well. Things removed that didn't belong. Things removed that were damaged beyond repair. My doctors are all very impressed with my excellent pathology results and how well I am doing. My (female) surgeon was shocked that I was not in a lot more pain. Prior to surgery I was told many of the findings of my tests showed my health had improved quite a bit... but not my disability. PCOS has once again felled me for a while. I am slowly getting better, walking and functioning but the large incision is painful. The doctors and especially the nurses at NYU/Tisch ICU, Post-Op and Women's Division were fantastic. I was complemented on how personally clean, well put together and intelligent I was during my recovery time. I got to educate a few people on PCOS and this time, I actually did sleep some! (and if this is what you have to do to get a room with view in Manhattan, no thanks!) Your prayers, I am positive, helped a lot as we...

***holes of the Week by Paul Krassner 1. ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, who is perhaps the worst offender when it comes to condescending verbal postscripts to news stories, this time following a report on the threat of global warming to penguins with this comment: "They just make you smile." 2. Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff, for simultaneously instilling fear and gaining psychic brownie points by simultaneously claiming that a gut feeling told him a terrorist attack could occur this summer and covering his ass if it were to happen; of course my speculation as to his motivation is just a gut feeling. 3. Pope Benedict XVI, who, by approving a document perpetrating the notion that Christian communities are either defective or not true churches, and that Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation, thereby indicating that yet another religious leader is a bigoted nut. Can I add Sen. David Vitter for talking the talk about being God-fearing , a fa...