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Post by steev on May 28, 2011 12:44:33 GMT -5
I've been chewing on the idea of voting for a divided Congress so as to avoid their doing anything, and I have two conclusions as to why it sticks in my craw: first, it provides those members who don't want to declare a real position a perfect excuse for not having done their jobs ( despite cashing their paychecks and using their socialized, single-payer, taxpayer-funded health care ); second, would I really want to be the patient in an ambulance with dual controls and two drivers who disagree adamantly about which hospital they should take me to before I die of my injuries? When one of them has a clear record of driving into the ditch and the stated intention of doing so again to prevent any insurance company from having to spend any of its income on my medical care? Really!? When the other will only offer to let just a couple tires go into the ditch? Really!? Is it time to get off the litter, kick both these jerks out, and drive myself to the nearest hospital, or should I just lie here quietly bleeding until I'm too far gone to even hear their feckless theatrical bickering?
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 28, 2011 14:45:08 GMT -5
2 weeks after our shed burned down, early March it was, I was slicing a slightly stale bagel to toast for one of my boys. The bread knife was brand new with an incredibly sharp micro toothed blade. It slipped and sliced down into my left wrist almost to the bone. Blood was shooting everywhere. I told my son (whose eyes were bigger than dinner plates) to run across the road and get Daddy because I was hurt. Mind you, my husband is legally blind so he would not be able to drive, but we always travel together. Anyhow, both the boys and Mike come running in, I've put a compression bandage on and it's already soaked through. I'm getting my clothes on and telling them to get ready to go to the hospital.
We go to the hospital quite a bit with all kinds of lovely boo boos, but this is the first time the kids have gotten a good view of a whole lot of blood coming out really fast. ANYway, the bottom line is that going to the ER is a down pat drill we all know by heart.
Immediately Mike starts walking furiously from one end of the house to the other shouting out various things that I was not bother to listen to. The boys are following him like dolphins in the wake of an anchovy boat. By the time they've made 3 or 4 round trips across the house, I'm ready to leave with a fresh bandage on the wound. They are no where near ready to get in the car. I left. I was VERY upset because 1, I needed their company and support and 2, because I couldn't believe how incompetent they all were in the face of a crisis.
Our political "machine" is ALWAYS in a panic mode and they are ALWAYS incompetent. It always has been and it always will be because that is simply the way of life. Nobody is perfect, but we always have some things we are better at in certain moments than in others.
Perfection of life is devotion to the soil and to family and friends. But honestly, how often can that simple basic lifestyle exist? It ebbs and flows some do it better than others. Arrogance is one of the greatest inhibitors.
Now I feel like I'm ranting so I'll quit. But first, allow me to hang out a sign: DANGER! DO NOT FEED THE POLITICIANS!
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Post by steev on Jun 8, 2011 1:01:41 GMT -5
Is this the soapbox? OK, now I'm pouring gasoline on it and sparking it up, and by it's flickering light I'm going to rant, now that I have your attention. Today, in Iraq, five Americans were killed; they didn't lose their lives; they didn't misplace them; they knew right where they were; they were killed. To what purpose? They weren't fighting a war; we aren't in a war; only Congress can declare a war and Congress hasn't done so since WWII. What was Congress doing today? Getting its knickers in a twist about Weiner's crotch-shot, tweeted to another person who apparently would not have found that terminally shocking. He didn't pick her at random from the phonebook! Then he lied. Gasp! He lied about engaging in long-distance porn-play; the horror, the horror! Why couldn't he have lied for some noble purpose like starting a war in Iraq that would last years, kill thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, piss away billions of dollars we haven't got, enrich war-profiteers who would then move out of the country to avoid paying taxes, and result in the killing today of five more Americans.
I really don't give a husky fuck about Weiner's indiscretion or his panicky, cheesey lies. I am irate at the hypocrisy of Congress in taking this sparrowfart issue seriously when they should be begging the families of these murdered Americans for forgiveness for Congress' having enabled this atrocity to continue these many years. My Representative, Barbara Lee, was the only one who voted against Bush's (Cheney's) permission to do whatever he pleased when he wanted a war, and I wrote to her to express my pride in her at the time.
What's wrong with this country? People being financed by corporations to run for office whose IQs are lower than their body-temperatures but who can be told to support legislation that is ludicrous, when the only L-word they can spell is "loot".
The soapbox is burned out and so am I. You folks in the choir can go back to whatever; I'm done preaching. Tomorrow is another day, and both the sun and I will doubtless arise brightly shining and full of irrational optimism. La-de-dah, la-de-dah.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 8, 2011 13:00:12 GMT -5
::warms hands by the glowing embers, humming softly::
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Post by wildseed57 on Jun 8, 2011 16:41:02 GMT -5
Ok Ok I got a new Box to stand on, and God only knows why we put up with all the BS that our Government gives us. I'm a Vietnam Vet, with two years on a gun Boat and two years on a refitted Destroyer. I have a lot of respect for our Boys, more than I ever got and I just shake with anger when one of our boys gets killed for no other reason than being at the wrong place at the wrong time and our Government pays there poor parents a pocket of change for getting killed while they paid millions to the relatives of those that were killed at 911. Hell our Boys are there because the people that are in Power put them in Harms way and for what? Our Government feels that we have to have our footprint in every Mideast Oil country in the world.. I think its time we took a long hard look at what the politicians get paid and demand that they get paid the same way we do and take away their special status were they give themselves pay raises while every one else is out of work and loosing their Homes!! They should try standing in the unemployment line with hat in Hand and get told that they are no longer eligible for unemployment. I get so mad, what are those people thinking?? And our President Flying all over the place in Air Force One, who the heck is Paying every time he takes a trip in it or one of the helicopters? If he is going to go flying around he should pay for it not the American tax payer. There Now some one else can jump on.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 8, 2011 17:43:33 GMT -5
I live in Onslow County North Carolina. Home of Camp LeJeune. Ring any bells? I have close friends in active service as well as retired. I have all kinds of stories.
When a finger of blame needs to be pointed, I point it at myself.
America is not perfect. But I would much rather be a woman here than a woman in Afghanistan, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Darfur region of Sudan, Libya, Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Finland, Russia, Lapland, Thailand...
I think mankind is far less civilized than we tend to think we are. I think we will self destruct before we can truly realize our full potential. I think we are close to that point now.
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