VATICAN CITY (AP)— Pope John Paul II may have to return to the hospital to have a feeding tube inserted, an Italian news agency reported today. It stressed that no decision had been made.

The AP.com news agency, citing an unidentified source, said the 84-year-old pope might have to have the tube inserted to improve his nutrition since he is having difficulty swallowing with the breathing tube that was inserted Feb. 24.

APcom said the idea of inserting a feeding tube was a hypothesis that was being considered. The procedure involves inserting a tube into the stomach to allow for artificial feeding.

Earlier today, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that the pope’s doctors were considering a new hospitalization next week both to perform tests on the breathing tube and to adjust his diet because of problems swallowing.

Guy at burger joint is wearing oversized black sleeveless “club” shirt with velvet style painting of tiger in the moonlight; giant black raverguy pants with about 50 zippers on them; native american peace pipe tat; goatee; smirk.

It’s all mr_flippant‘s fault:

GUY MANN-DUDE
GUY MANN-DUDE
GUY MANN-DUDE

Man, I feel like shit. Something about the pills I’ve been given makes me shaky, slow, and uncoordinated. I keep making weird logical mistakes or saying the wrong word, and I sometimes can’t think of a phrase or memory I need for 30 seconds or so longer than I should. Good times. I guess it’s better than actual medieval medicine where I’d be doing shots of warm mercury or being bled through my urethra.

Going to bitch to the doctor about it on Thursday though. It’s sort of hard to help maintain the infrastructure for a big media website when you’re, like, dumb and stuff. Also I’m afraid I’m going to have a car accident or something.

There was a pudgy, messy teenaged boy at D’s tonight whose trucker hat said “SAFE SEX ISN’T”.

Did you know that at restaurants, server-suggested food actually tastes better? I learned this from the book joyfulagitator was reading so that she could pretend tomorrow that she knows all about SERVING FOR SUCCESS or something.

My self image lately is the guy below.

“We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and soak it in rich, creamery butter, then we top it off with bacon, ham, and a fried egg. We call it the Good Morning Burger.”

http://www.negrospaceprogram.com/

If you’ve ever thrown your cheetos at the TV because of a supercilious Ken Burns documentary, this is for you.

Oh god the violins, the academics, the slow pans.

When you fill up your car, there’s often a tv monitor at the pump with ads on it now. Elevators have monitors in them with ads. Any of the interstices of life where you’re stuck somewhere for a minute, someone is trying to get an ad in there. Ted Turner likes the gas pump ads and he likes the idea of supermarket line ads too; can’t get away there.

Blame Chris Whittle. In the 80s, he saw the power of imprisonment. He invented a whole set of publications that were available for free to doctors’ offices, hair salons, car repair joints, anywhere people were stuck. The only condition of receiving these magazines was that you had no others available; his was a jealous God. Later, he invented Channel One, the free news television provided to schools only if they forced all the students to watch it, including all the ads.

Channel One still exists, although Whittle Publication is gone. But everywhere there’s an ad. TiVo recently began putting ads on when you hit fast forward or reverse. A couple of years ago someone patented the idea of putting ads in the tone you hear when calling someone and their phone is ringing. The next natural step there, of course, would be making the ad happen if they were ready to answer the phone, or charging you for ad-free phones.

What’s next? Seriously, where do you think the ads will go next? Someplace you can’t avoid it…