Would you like some rubber bands with that?

Every so often I toy briefly with vegetarianism, such as when I hear the chef on the cable tv cooking show describing the short, tragic life of the veal calf or when undercooked burgers kill a few people with e coli. Laziness always wins and I keep on eating whatever is easiest.

However, if you have the intestinal fortitude to be a vegetarian, I say embrace it whole hog. Tofurkey, Chik'n®, Gardenburgers®, and smoked-flavored textured vegetable protein corned beef are just sops to those who can't entirely divorce themselves from their carnivorous pasts, and I'm here to tell you at least one of those tastes really really really bad. That would be, sorry, Grandma Rose, the corned beef.

Portland Adventist Hospital, where I recently took my friend for knee surgery, is, as the name implies, run by vegetarians. You can't get a tuna sandwich in the cafeteria, yet they do have a "grill". It's the first thing you come to inside the cafeteria door, and if there is any pattern to my eating, it usually fits the first-thing-you-see method of menu choice. They were out of Chik'n® so I opted for a Reuben sandwich, not giving any real thought to what might constitute corned beef in a vegetarian restaurant. Now I know what happens to old surgical gloves. They steep them for three weeks in smoke flavoring and make sandwiches out of them.

Which brings me to my second, obliquely hospital-related, subject: Cable rates are going up! Six percent! Bring on the television interviews, the opinion polls, stories of hardship and woe. Now pan over to my health insurance bill, the one from Regence Blue Cross that raised the premium on my individual health plan with the gargantuan deductible by over 33% in a single jump (and, no, I didn't change age groups). Now pan over to the masses of people with no bill to complain about because they don't have any insurance. Cable rates. Pffft. Big deal.