Letter to Mr. Obama

Dear Mr. B. H. Obama,

In light of recent events, I just thought I’d drop you a note and let you know how I feel about your healthcare bill. Given my current situation, I feel as much a right as anyone to comment on this bill. So, please, read on and hear me out. I know it might be slightly tedious, but just pretend it’s a giant teleprompter and everything will be just fine.

I am 27 years old. I am underemployed in a state where about one in five of us are under employed, or unemployed. (For the Congressman reading over your shoulder, tell him that’s about 20%. Remind him that 20% is more than 8%). I have three jobs currently, one which I may lose to justifiable state budget cuts, another which depends exclusively on wealthy citizens and their financial well-being, and another which is non-profit, and very part-time.
I lost my job early last year, and within four months my wife lost her job. I managed to remain under-employed, and find work within two weeks. Yes, Mr. Obama, there is a God.
My wife was not so fortunate. After four plus months of unemployment (the real life kind, not the check-collecting-kind), my wife landed work at our local fine Scottish food emporium, also known as McDonald’s. (I understand your wife isn’t a big fan, but then she doesn’t pay my bills either.)
We had done what your budget and congress could not do—we set aside money beforehand. In spite of this, our collective job losses cleaned us out, and we gave up our lease on our little apartment. Yes, we were technically homeless. From October ’10 to February ’11, we lived in someone else’s spare bedroom. It was about the size of Michelle’s walk-in shoe closet, but hey, it was sheltered and warm. Thank goodness our friends didn’t let us fall too far, because we would have had no other help if not for them.
Now, my wife and I haven’t had healthcare for a long time. To give you an example, my last trip to the dentist was in my teen years, at thirteen, or perhaps even twelve. My wife is about the same. No money, no dentist—we’ve never reached median income for the US.
Two years ago my teeth finally gave out. I couldn’t eat without pain, and a lot of it. Since I’m broke, cereal is a major part of my diet. Imagine how hard it is when you can’t even eat cereal. We were in desperate need of dental care. I had a motorcycle…a nice one. Maybe not by your Harvard/Yale standards, but I thought it was pretty nice. I sold it to pay for my dental care. It was my baby, you know. When you only own a few nice things, you tend to appreciate them more, you know?
After selling the bike, we still owed $1200. So we paid $400 a month and paid the debt off. Shocking? Yes. God knows we didn’t get the idea from your senators or congressmen. Guess what? My fillings have all, each and every one of them chipped, cracked, or flaked off. $3400 buys me this? I guess.

My wife’s teeth are a mess. Cavities and a desperate need for braces are at the top of her list. Her bill will be at least as big as mine, but I own a junker bike now, and money’s tighter than it was.

I have intestinal trouble too. I feel sick to my stomach most days. Sometimes I eat something and I get violent diarrhea. Other times I just feel gross. We don’t know if it’s food allergies or parasites. The $1200 doc bill really isn’t in the budget, savvy? So I’m riding it out. It’s a doozy…I don’t know what will aggravate it. It’s like playing Russian-roulette with my bowels.
My wife has had the same pair of glasses/lenses, and tennis-shoes for the last five years. Thank goodness the tax-man didn’t pick our pockets too badly, and some of our return is buying her a pair glasses. And shoes. Just one pair though. We don’t do extras, or frivolous things like $500 sneakers…oh, too close to home? Sorry. (But seriously, dude, $500 sneakers to a homeless shelter? Cultural insensitivity fail.)

Our car is paid for (I know, I know, the congressmen fainted), but it will need a timing belt in the next year. Maybe tires too. Struts are also a possibility.
I haven’t been to any M.D. in almost five years.

I go to school, and my wife works like a dog. Then I go to work and she gives me a ride. Then we go home and do it all over again.

Now you’ve heard my story. Now hear me, Mr. Obama. I don’t want your healthcare. I don’t care if it’s free. I don’t care if you were to pay me to take it. I don’t want it, and I don’t want my millionaire friends from my second job getting taxed for it. I don’t want my wealthy families members paying for it via your hand in their pockets. (Hey, the money has to come from somewhere. You weren’t going to pay for it, right?) Leave my rich friends out of this.

If I want healthcare, I’ll go buy it myself. Once I graduate, I’m going to make some good money (provided you don’t take 70% of it like they do in Europe), and I’m going to go buy myself the healthcare of my choosing. I don’t need yours, I don’t want it, and I don’t want to be forced to take it. You dig?

Now, if you’re smart, you’ll ask yourself why. Well, it’s pretty simple.
Social Security is broke. There ain’t any money in there—it went to your multi-trillion dollar budget. Medicare, and Medicaid are broke too. When we tried to get food stamps, they “lost” all our information…and promptly dropped us. Unemployment is a joke too; we never did get that. Every time I go to the DMV or post office it’s an understaffed nightmare, with waiting times that approach the ridiculous, and fees that make me sick. You’ve not delivered on too many (maybe even any?) of your campaign promises. If your healthcare looks like any of these or rinky-dink outfits, then we are unequivocally screwed. I have no reason to think that your program for healthcare would be any different than your other programs. And no, I don’t want to give you the chance to “try” it (see previous paragraph on funding).
So that’s my story. I’m broke, I’m not super healthy, and the last thing I want is you and your pompous wife ramming healthcare down my throat. I’ll stay sick rather than take “charity” from the government. I’m uninsured, and proud of it.
I’m an American, and if I need healthcare then I’ll just go get it for myself with cash, not on borrowed Communist Chinese debt, and not on the siphoned dollars from the wealthy. Until then, I’ll be happy to stay lucky or sick, on principle alone—and you can use that healthcare bill for toilet paper for all I care.
If you do ram that atrocity of a bill into law somehow, and the conservatives don’t have the good fortune to financially castrate that abomination, I’d like to request that you add a clause that denies care to the aging. They do this in Europe all the time by denying heart surgery to the aging, so this shouldn’t be a problem. I realize it will be difficult to sell, but I’ll do my part and help by delivering S.O.L. messages to that old duffer, Harry Reid and his old-bag-buddy Nancy Pelosi when they need surgery.

Thanks for reading. I snickered as I wrote that, just FYI.

Sincerely,

Me

PS: if you were wondering what you CAN do to help, I’d appreciate it if you cut taxes for my wealthy landlord so he has no reason to raise my rent. Also, if you could do it for the people at my second job at the golf club. That way they’d eat and drink more there, and I could get back to bartending. It’ll work, trust me.

Jared Loughner -- Not who you think

In the wake of the horrific events in Tucson in early January there has been a flurry of media activity. There’s a saying that goes, “Never let it be said that the media let a good tragedy go to waste” and it was proven in the whirlwind of news reports, talking heads and various pundits flocking to the microphones and blogs to say something.
Before the bodies of a church volunteer, a nine-year-old girl, a federal judge, and three others had even fully cooled these same talking heads had already picked those responsible for the heinous acts at the Safeway grocery store. In spite of the lack of verifiable facts and evidence at the time, the immediate rallying cry became, “to hell with the truth; we’ve already got someone to crucify.”
Jared Lee Loughner was immediately reckoned as a talk-radio inspired right-wing wacko shooting a liberal congresswoman. But in recent days the ugly facts have started to creep out.
Ms. Giffords is a democrat, yes, but by no means is she a bona fide liberal. She is a second amendment supporter, and openly opposed Mr. Obama’s boarder strategies because they weren’t tough enough. She is fiscally conservative, and was one of the few democrats who voted against Nancy Pelosi. She could be described as a moderate, and the above description of her political stances denies her membership to the far-left. She simply isn’t liberal enough. This can be further proven by the fact that a conservative district elected her this last year.
Loughner on the other hand is another story. Because of his ideal of a gold-backed U.S. currency, he was immediately branded a right-winger. But that’s not the whole truth.
WND reports that Loughner attended Mountain View High School in southern Arizona. This school is part of an educational network partially founded by William Ayers, and also partially funded in the 90s by one of his known associates: Barack H. Obama. It goes without saying that this is not a right-wing institution.
Loughner’s old classmates from college referred to him as very liberal, and outspoken.
Loughner also subscribes to the 9/11 Truther theories, (that the U.S. Government was behind the attacks on the twin towers), and is an ardent atheist. Among his favorites reads are The Communist Manifesto, by none other than Karl Marx, and Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.
He also used marijuana recreationally, and possibly burned an American flag as a political statement in a YouTube video.
This portrait of Loughner comes from part of an AP story I read and other news (not blog) sources. This is not the portrait of anyone right-of-center. This is the portrait of a leftist, perhaps someone even so far left that other liberals, or even moderates might feel uncomfortable around him.
These are facts that the Associated Press reported on. Somehow, I think they’ve gotten lost in the frothing-at-the-mouth attempts to run talk radio, and others rather irrelevant figures to the virtual chopping block.
The pundits became bent on seeing its “most hated list” pinned with the murders, and in so doing, the facts and the truth were left by the wayside. The agenda was all that mattered, and many in the media as well as the sheriff in Tucson ran to the microphones to blame Limbaugh, Palin, and others who had no hand in the events at Safeway. The AP reported those who know Loughner as saying that he "hated the news." There is no way, given this fact and his political stances, that Loughner was influenced by Limbaugh, Palin, or anyone on the right. Talk radio thrives on the news, and Palin's beliefs are a far cry from those of Loughner's heroes: Obama, Che, and Chavez.
While Loughner may be a “leftist”, other evidence seems to point to the fact that he was not like the liberals in the general public. His writings are often full of non sequitur and illogical arguments, and this (among other things) strongly allude to the fact that he is not a main-stream liberal--he's an anomaly.
Ironically, Loughner’s previous run-in with Ms. Giffords had nothing to do with partisan politics, but rather it had to do with Loughner’s personal belief that, “…Words create reality.” Lougher’s ideas about words are almost hermetic, or thaumaturgical in a sense, almost a wholesale belief in the idea of “as above, so below” in regards to words and language. When Loughner asked Giffords (years ago), "What is the government if words have no meaning?" Giffords did what any sane person would have done. She politely passed over the question with a few remarks. The question itself is almost philosophical and overly complicated, but not to Loughner, who apparently took deep offense to the Democratic congresswomen's perceived snubbing of his own intellect.
At the end of the day Loughner is a leftist, yes, but not a mainstream one. Moreover, his sanity and sense of logic are deeply questionable, and his ideas stray far from the path
The truth is, I don’t believe Loughner’s leftist political beliefs drove him to do what he did. I believe the unchecked evil of his heart drove him to do what he did. There is a potential killer in all of us, that same anger, that same hate. But Lougher fed his demons, unlike most of the civilized society around him.
All Loughner’s beliefs did was provide a sick, and fallacy-ridden logic that (in his mind), justified his actions. I know plenty of far-left, and far-right leaning people, and none of them would do what Loughner did. But then, Loughner is truly mentally ill, unlike most people in American today.
In other words, politics may be the scapegoat, but the events in Tucson weren’t really about politics. They were about anger, paranoia, mental instability, and the inability to deal with these things properly, which led to violence.
It is doubtful that the federal judge, now in the hereafter, cares much about the beliefs of the shooter. The parents of little Christina Greene probably don’t care if Loughner was conservative, or liberal. The friends, and families of the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters who died that day probably aren’t very concerned with politics. They’re too busy coping with the fact that their loved one isn’t coming home ever again.
The sheriff, pundits, and talking heads of the media who were and are bent on blaming irrelevant parties for the tragedy owe these families an apology. They also owe those they’ve falsely accused an apology for their journalistic malpractice, and for falsely politicizing a terrible tragedy.

If we wanted someone to blame, perhaps it would be best to blame those who saw the warning signs in Loughner’s life and did nothing. Even so, at the end of the day Loughner made his own choices, and he will live with them, and he may even die by them.

Mystery and Beauty

The moon covers the land
in sheets of silver
alabaster dust
the wind will not carry

The moon
one edge in black
beckons
in mystery
of the shadow

luna halo
flowing beauty
luna shadow
entice in enigma
saying
come
come
with me to the dark side
of the moon

In Sonnation of the Gin Martini

Martini, you say, shaken cold
Sapphire’s the best no vermouth three olives
Don’t bruise the gin advice that’s never old
Let the strained herbs and berries soothe, forgive
Where others cannot speak of your ill deeds
Where memories cause downward glance and shake
Like a drink the pictures from your rev’ries
Where time and pain cannot your choice unmake.
So here you stand your glass in hand searching
For resolution here at church of gin,
and tonic pray, beg, hope that they forgive
you. Yet the morn brings no relief from sin
Will you find your way out this time or will
You seek the same old gin tired way still?

Best Friend

everyone's best friend
and favorite person
for the ten seconds the bottle
hovers over their glass

psychologist, thinker, attendant
nevermind the hour
have another
let me help you
have a good time

everyone's best friend
nameless tonight, faceless tomorrow
amidst the fog of chemicals
colors and flavors
shaken over ice
strained
sipped
sliding smooth down into the night

it's a good time tonight
for you
it's a party now
for you
don't let it stop
you say

*****

everyone's best friend
amongst the cold glasses
endless touchdowns on the screen
everyone trying to score
everyone lying thru their drink
to make it happen

tonight let's all be friends
who are you—another drink?
let the music pull you away
pour another and forget
the rest

Choices

He entered the room like a judge,
slowly,
with purpose

With judicial care he
made his selection and
weighed his options as if Justice herself
were holding the scales and
with the deliberation of a jury
he selected the tools for his task

When at last,
like the aged satisfied with long life,
he was content with the direction
of the proceedings and he
sat in his robe behind
the massive desk
poured the milk and
cereal and began to eat.

The Chosen

The Chosen

The line goes on forever
standing in the drifts
holding what’s left
of their lives
in frozen hands
against shivering bodies.

Merely a spectre and spectator alone
against the boxcars
I watch them shuffle
torn shoes not withstanding
against the snow
worn coats a worthless shield
and caps of no use against the wind

Trains come and go
but the line is eternally longer
coming from the gray storm
leading only to darkness
snapping dogs, boots, and
machine guns keep it moving

Their eyes tell them
what their mind rejects
The trains are arrivals only
there will be no departures

There are young
and old
some were rich
but nothing matters now

Pasts varied
and every walk a different one
but that which is same
is the tie that binds them to destiny
manifest
in the yellow star
upon the torn coats
and thin sleeves
of those with fearful eyes

I watch as they go
Only ashes await.