myopic myth that modern is best

ok, i don't do drugs. i drink, yes, and i am trying to cut back on that. but i have never done drugs, not sure why, just never have and i have no desire to start.
but the drug czar just looked like a big idiot on CNN. here he is, the drug czar, and he's advising people who are recovering alcoholics on how to get through the holiday season without relapsing. so...let me get this straight. we have no national health plan or program that *helps* people recover, we funnel them into religious programs like AA, require them to link their only chance at recovery with god, not their own self discipline. but the drug czar thinks that he can authoritatively advise already recovered people how to make it through the pesky holidays. he takes personal credit, by the way, for the number of recovering people, inexplicably.
like there aren't bigger issues on the drug front (hello columbia) than how not to have a cocktail at your work mixer this season.
then, when broached about an actual subject: medical marijuana, he looked like a bigger moron. he seems offended by the fact that people, who are in unbearable pain, who are not going to recover, who are just trying to live out their last moments in relative comfort, are just a front for young people who want to smoke pot. now, i'm sure some young people want to smoke pot, but i doubt the chronically ill would take kindly to this characterization. "We don't smoke weeds in modern medicine," spake the Drug Czar. So, its cheap, its natural, it has less harmful side effects than most FDA drugs on the market, and its effective. We have, what, a hundred years of medical research on the effects of marijuana, (more than that actually), but we should instead use other man made drugs with unknown long term side effects, really expensive to make and research because....its illegal? isn't morphine illegal without a prescription too? we don't tell patients they can't have that or a dozen other narcotics under supervision, just because some drug addicts would love for it to be legalized for them to use it.
so it comes down to that one statement really, "We don't smoke weeds in modern medicine." why? because no huge pharmacuetical companies make millions manufacturing marijuana. if you can't fleece the chronically ill pain sufferers of their last dollars before they die, you're not a drug company worth your salt.

Click here to learn about more voting shenanigans

Do you remember a terror emergency in Ohio during voting? Neither do I: but apparently there was one in Warren county, during the vote count. A terror emergency which election officials said meant that they had to count ballots in secret.
Also emerging irregularities in Florida voting. Apparently this guy is the only one in the mainstream media reporting on this stuff.
I think we should keep on this stuff, it doesn't mean we aren't going to keep fighting for the future as well. I don't think it would be squandering energy to keep this stuff in the public eye. We should keep fighting for last Tuesday, and for the future.
Someday the actual vote count will come clear. If Kerry only lost because Bushies undermined the election process, then his entire presidency will have been illegitimate, all 8 years. And THAT is what history will remember about Bush: that he illegally obtained the presidency of the united states to advance his fundmentalist christian, imperialistic regime.
History will note that all the people of the united states, of the world for that matter, were just an entrepenuerial enterprise for him; history will see us as resources Bush exploited to gather the "political capital" he needed to secure his place in the history books, as a more important president than his father.
Very oedipal, actually.
Now, a sad fact. To offset that sad fact, immediately after that I will post a link to a happy website; just so you guys don't get too depressed.
Found out today that Fallujah had a population of 300,000 people. It is estimated that 100,000 civilians have fled. The current estimate is that between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians remain in the city, to be injured or killed during the present offensive. I don't have a cite for this, just heard it on NPR on my way home from class.

Link to SorryEverybody.com
http://72.3.131.10/
Click above for happy website; really it's fun. Some guy started collecting pictures from the kerry-voting half of americans with slogans apologizing to the rest of the world for the fact that our country re-elected bush. apparently sometimes the world accepts the apology. check it out!!!

On the other side of despair is wary optimism

One week from what Al Franken likes to call "that thing that happened last week, that thing for short", and I'm feeling a little better.
I have since found out that my extended family did not contribute to Bush winning Ohio, something I did not know. I talked to my aunt for about an hour on Saturday, and she told me that my two uncles in the north of the state were both Democrats. I have not been close to that part of the family for years, partly out of a sense of alienation, a feeling that we believed in very different things. Granted, I am not a Democrat, that is still too far right for me. But at least my family didn't help put Bush over the top. That will make the holidays much easier to survive.
Next, I have been testing the waters by telling reasonable people that I think the election was stolen and why. Some of them openly agree, and others at least don't think I'm a whacko, which is surprising. With the progressives on radio and the internet now, I think info about Bush&Co's diabolical schemes gets disseminated faster and more broadly. Yay!
finally, I have been reminding everyone, including Republicans, that Bush only won by 130,000 votes. that way the "broad nationwide victory" meme will have a harder time taking hold. Let's remind those myopic Repubs and conservatives that just because there's more red on the map doesn't mean that the blue states are isolated enclaves of crazies who voted for Kerry. For example: the entire population of New York City (give or take freaks like Giuliani) went for Kerry; the same amount of people as say, Wyoming, Montana and Kansas combined. I'm so sick of hearing their coloring book logic. But it *is* a meme; they know what they are doing, they are trying to demoralize Dems in the red states right now, who really are feeling alone in the world. So Fight the Meme!! (I live in Ohio by the way, and we were green for "too close to call" most of the night on CNN. I refuse to accept that I live in a red state myself. Yeah, its called denial, you wanna make something of it?!?!?!)
Anyway dear friends, in the aftermath, reading all the literature out there about "why we lost", I have come to at least one conclusion. I am actually glad Bush won that thing that happened last week on one very narrow point: now it will be perfectly clear who ran up the deficit and not only initiated but failed to resolve the quagmire in Iraq. There will be NO confusion in the history books, OR the next election. Can't still blame the economy on Clinton eight years later, W.
One final post election thought: W DOES NOT STAND FOR WOMEN. I randomly shout this at people. It's so goddamn ridiculous.

Every day it gets a little bit easier to breathe

Ok, so how are we progressives/liberals/Democrats/pinko commies recovering from the Stolen Election Part Deux? Slowly. Polls show that 50% of Dems are afraid personally for our future and the future of our country. Terrified is more like it.
Today King George is launching an all out offensive on Fallujeh. My stomach clenches into a knot while watching footage of the bombardment on CNN; while across the bottom of the screen, scrolls the news that Pres. Bush and his Stepford Wife are "welcoming their new Scottish terrier, Miss Beazley into the family." It makes me want to puke, to use the fifth grade vernacular, that while people are dying and shivering in fear in Iraq on his orders, that "man" is getting his wife a puppy. Aww.
I am actually proud of the left this week. The Columbus Dispatch, cowardly traitorous rag that it is, has been running good articles by New York Times columnists on the aftermath of the election and how scary it is for some of us. (notice the good articles are not by Dispatch writers; no surprise, that)
Paul Begala, after looking like an ineffectual weenie when Jon Stewart was on Crossfire a few weeks ago, delievered a pretty spirited dose of Bush bashing the other day, for once.
All in all, there's less feeling sorry for ourselves than I expected, and more a sense of indignation that Bush thinks he has a "mandate." I am glad that liberals are still speaking up, even though it does no good, even though we lost. That gives me some comfort. I hope we can keep it up, and shine a light on all the shady things Bush is getting ready to do. I have even been hearing people mention the fact that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the Iraqi invasion. I'm glad that info like that is getting out to the public, because I'm so sick of the running tally of US soldiers, as if they are the only people dying as a result of this.
Kofi Annan also tried to warn the "coalition" of US and Britain that attacking Fallujeh will anger Iraqis and make it even more difficult to have elections in January. Of course, King George has ignored this advice. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the people involved in the ongoing bloody conflict: No matter what country they come from.

November 3d: the revolution starts now

Ok, I feel like I've been beat up. My eyes are sore and swollen from bouts of crying and generally being weepy all day. I skipped my second class today because I just could not hold it together anymore. Now I think I have recovered enough to fight the good fight again. And fight it harder.
After an entire day of blog reading, and listening to Air America I actually feel better than I thought I could. I feel connected to people, for the first time in a LONG time. Last night I felt so alienated, like the entire country is populated by aliens, not like I am one. But its not true, I am not alone. I am in good company.
I think this loss will mobilize those of the left, like me, who have been making excuses such as "I'm so busy." Up til now, some of us have let others do all the work. This must stop now. We must all do the work. We have to get rid of our "free rider" problem because it is now abundantly clear that if we don't all get out and push, there is no ride for anybody.
If we could accomplish what we did this election notwithstanding the free riding problem of lazy liberals, then just think what we can do with a lot of agenda pushing, angry, energized liberals! Bring it on! I'm just waiting for the inaugaral protest march.
It's just a matter of time people. I truly believe that. We'll take our country back. Because this is the important stuff. We have all been brought together by this experience, and we WILL NOT forget again. They are counting on us forgetting, going back to sleep, resume complacency, nibble the grass like good little sheep. Ha. We are like insurgents ourselves: the more you beat us down the stronger we will get. Do the kids say "booyah" anymore?

Ohio, shame of the nation

There are a lot of horrible things I could say right now. I am severely depressed about the election, and it has me thinking bitter thoughts. Since Herr Bush is still president, I think I will just go drink some wine. I thought I might listen to Kerry's concession speech, but it would probably just start me crying again. Its going to be hard to get out of bed for the next couple of weeks. The vote in Ohio was fixed, by the way. I'm completely convinced of it. There's enough evidence out there, I'll point it out in the coming weeks. But that doesn't really matter, you see, because even though the election was rigged, there are still so many disgusting, retarded, Xian bigots in this country that I don't want to live here anymore. Have a nice day.

more proof that there are two americas...click here

actually, there are at least 4: given central and south, but i digress.
the guardian readers tried to tell Ohio voters why they shouldn't vote for bush.
here's some responses. yeah, i'm serious.