[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Not Bad...

Let's see here. I just finished up watching the debates, and I'm plopping down with a big mug of licorice tea to drool at the television for the next couple of hours or so.

First, the tea: It's licorice, and I like it. It's one of those things that I bought on a whim some time ago, and when it made it then and took a sip, my first reaction was to wonder just what the hell it was I was dumping into my head. After that, however, some sort of odd addiciton seems to have kicked in, and now I find myself craving it late at night like a tweaker in search of a fix.

The thing is, it doesn't have that terribly cloying, acrid flavor that licorice usually has. In this drink, it's subtle and mixed with cinnamon (I think) and other things, and it's actually really good.

Now, the debates: I'll admit, Sarah Palin did better than I thought she would. Of course, that's not saying much since I thought she would have a meltdown and throw her shoe at Joe Biden's head. But, considering her target, she hit all the codewords, and, still considering the target to whom she was speaking, she gave absolutely no facts or details and just made the ears on the horde of Conservatives eager to see her sit in the second biggest chair perk up with each vapid platitude she rattled out with a wink and a smile. I'd imagine there was a lot of lapping on the right as there was a bucket of bullshit to lap up.

The voters she's after are those Bushies who have learned to replace relevant information with slack-jawed, empty soundbytes designed, not to educate, but to inspire. There's a danger in that, however. After all, Bush rallied a nation to war with nothing but catch phrases, and though a great many hearts may have been behind it, the head was ignored, and we wound up with the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history. And we still are paying for it. And, we will continue to pay for it long after we are dead and gone.

To think McCain would be any different, or set us on a right path, is not only foolish, it's terrifyingly dangerous. He calls himself a maverick; however, as Joe Biden pointed out, McCain has towed the party line time and time and time again, voting with President Bush ninety percent of the time.

Not exactly the hallmark of a trailblazer, don't you think?

Now, do I think Palin won the debate? No. There was no substance to a single thing she said. Biden had the facts, he had the numbers, he had the truth on his side.

However, Palin accomplished her task. She most likely didn't lose Conservative voters as a result of her saying what amounted to absolutely nothing.

With drool and television: Right now, I'm watching some sort of House rerun on USA. I've got a blow-out ankle that's been screeching at me all day (actually, it's been off and on for the last several months). The funny thing is, I didn't do a damn thing to it, and that's just crazy frustrating. Really. I'd be happy if I twisted it and it hurt. Hell, even if I accidentally sawed it off somehow while building that rocket ship I think I'm going to be needing in a few years, I'd be all like "Well, hell yes it hurts! I sawed the damn thing off. It's supposed to hurt."

Of course, since I didn't do anything to it, I'm confused. And annoyed.

Mostly annoyed.

Oh hey! House ended, and I changed the channel, and I managed to find the Robot Chicken: Star Wars special thingy.

I'm going to say, Robot Chicken probably the best fifteen minutes on television, and if I was ever to work in the entertainment world, I would be falling all over myself to get a gig working on that show in some way or another. It's freakin' hilarious.

Let's see... The show's over now, and life has lost a little meaning.

Bonus Pain & Whining: Unfortunately, the ankle isn't the only thing hurting on me. It's just a big ass mess of aches that seem to have settled into random joints, and it's beginning to really get to me. Last year, I was getting my Remicade infusions, and those things were a fucking miracle. It was astounding the effect they had on everything from my mobility to my quality of life and even my mood and my attitude.

Sure. Things still hurt, but it wasn't bad. Instead of aches that lead me to constantly alter the way I do things, my joints and bones just had a sort of dull ache that didn't get in the way of anything. And, right now, I'd poke a nun in the eye to get back to that magical place where things still hurt, but they didn't hurt bad enough to put my life on hold.

Back then, a couple of Advil, and I was good to go. Today? Ha! It's a fistfull of Vicodin just to be able to get out of bed.

I knew when I replaced those infusions with weekly injections of Humira things would not be as pleasant. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that they would get this bad. Since I started taking this stuff back in February, things have only gotten worse. Sure, the icky, psoriatic skin is gone for all intents and purposes, with only a few ugly spots here and there. But, the arthritis has just been slowly getting worse.

I wish I could go back to the Remicade. Unfortunately, America's health care system is so blown to shit by rampant corruption and greed, those medications could very well never have been invented for all I care.

John McCain would be the complete wrong direction with his desire to create a deregulated system of health care to encourage and reward the rampant greed and corruption and inhuman treatment of America's sick and suffering by the pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

Consider the following situation if you're looking for an example: In order to get the medications I need, I have to have some pretty damn good insurance. However, in order to afford that pretty damn good insurance, I'd need a damn good job. However, in order to get that damn good job, I need those medications.

Now, I can't be the only one in America who sees that as sorta fucked up.

And yes. I still stand by my assertion that going to college was the greatest mistake I, or anyone, could make. I'd fallen off my parents' insurance (which happens to pretty much each and every college student, unless you're Doogie Howser).

At the time, it wasn't a big deal. The school had a clinic or some sort of student health center designed to treat simple things that college kids usually come down with, and it was free. So long as you needed nothing more than an ice pack or a shot to clear up that case of the clap you got from some Friday night frat bash, you were good to go. Anything more, and they refer you to a very expensive hospital.

So, obviously, my plan, like most normal folks, was to simply finish school, get a decent job and have a happy, normal life.

That didn't happen. That will never happen.

Eventually, I left school to fight this disease, and since the only doctors I could see were a hundred miles away, I moved back to Milwaukee, and for more than a decade, I've been stuck in this disaster with no way out.

So really. When some cock-sucking, spoiled, neo-con, sycophant politician tells me that I should vote for him because he wants to deregulate an already overly corrupt and murderous privatized system because he's in the pocket of one lobbyist and/or another, I find myself with the urge to laugh.... and the urge slash that son of a bitch with a million papercuts before dousing him in gas and setting him on fire.

Seriously. McCain received better health care as a POW in Hanoi than a great many Americans receive today. It's amazing, really. I simply can't understand how people can vote for a spineless, boot-licking coward who's entire presidency will have been bought by those with special interests and a desire to have a direct line to the most influential person in America for their own personal gain. We have one of those corrupt fools now, and how's that working out, again?

Anyway, this is just me venting and rambling and whining. But, this is the reason why I am permanently angry. You don't see a lot of that anger because I compartmentalize it fairly well. But, it's there, looming beneath the surface.

Unfortunately, things do spring up to spark that pent up rage. For example, right now, I'm trying to get into my AOL Journal to go through some entries to see if I want to save them, but AOL is denying me access. Soooo.... I'm a little pissed.

Anyway, I apologize for the pile of babble. I'm hoping you didn't read it all.

-DP

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 10/02/2008 10:22:00 PM