Mowing down psychological tall grass and tangled weeds; clearing the field and planting new seeds. Thoughts lifted from my angry days, when someone asks my opinion and then denies it. If I tell you my favorite color, who else would have the "right" answer? Challenge it, oppose if you must, but to correct it is to erase my existence. If we all had the same thoughts, there would be no need for democracy. Cogito Ergo Sum.

2009/02/16

REDUX: Why that goddamn smile makes my blood run cold

I still am far more uncomfortable by people who are always smiling when there isn't an obvious reason why. It's the political equivalent of stepford wives, and anyone who's always smiling in this country in this time is either completely full of shit or too blind, deaf, and stupid to be trusted to tell me if the Earth is round.

"The secret to success is sincerity; once you can fake that you've got it made."


French diplomat, dramatist, & novelist (1882 - 1944)
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Why that goddamn smirk makes my blood run cold
by snafubar

Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 04:36:20 AM EST
I was listening to Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, and the other day she had a segment with Tony Bennett, who has been getting a lot of attention on the occasion of his entry into the Octogenarians club. The money quote came from Frank Sinatra, when a younger Bennett asked ole Blue Eyes how he could control his nervousness in front of a crowd:

"Don't ever worry about being nervous. If the audience sees that you are nervous, then they know you care, and they will be behind you."

That's why Bush/Cheney scares the fuck out of me. Can you ever imagine a situation in our lifetimes where things were this incredibly fubar, and yet every one of the bastards in the administration has that perennial Joker smile on their face. They're never nervous - and it makes me shiver to contemplate just how bad it would have to get before these freaks actually develop a countenance with any semblence of humanity on it.

That Sinatra quote has been with me now for a couple days. It really hits home whenever I see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, or Condi. They are so creepy with that Harvard Business School/Stephen Covey 'successful habits' 'nothin's gonna get me down' grin.

Can you really fathom just what has kind of training and mental masturbation it takes to keep those muscles clenched in the right direction? When Bush was finally asked a question with some teeth "How many Iraqis have died in this war?" and W just nonchalantly spit out "About, um, thirty-thousand" I almost threw up. Seriously. That's the entire population of my town and the three surrounding. At least Nixon looked solemn. These people look like they're really having fun.

How about Rummy's retort when Hillary fluffed up her shoulderpads and asked him "Given your track record, Secretary Rumsfeld, why should we believe your assurances now?" :

A very calm, contemptable, "My Goodness". Well, how 'bout it, you lying bastard? That's the best you have? You were wrong about the WMD, you were wrong about being welcomed as liberators, you were wrong about the post-invasion troop levels, you were wrong about the oil revenue, Israel is looking for a fight, and "My Goodness" is all you've got?

A few months ago, on the day that some reporter asked Bush if he thought the current events were signs of the apocolypse, everybody just giggled and gave the clown a free pass. WTF - it's a legitimate question only because the man has the religious right actually sending money to Jews who they are sure will go to Hell in the rapture - that ought to be a sign. This is the Elephant in the room, folks, and now that fat pachyderm is about to sit on the couch with your little sister and grandma on it. If Bush does believe the way a true born-again should, and he does believe that God wanted him in office, then we need to realize that when the book of Revelations describes the blood rising to the height of a horse's bridle, this man believes that will be a good sign.

Look at the Condi "strategy" - that's not diplomacy, it's her middle finger in everyone's face. You could not develop a better catalyst to war than this "Israel is always right even if they have to bomb the playground" attitude. This is party who claims that life is so sacred that we can't be allowed to spend one federal penny if it will kill a stem cell to cure a disease, but we can stand back and let Israel and Hezbollah keep throwing missles at each other because it will somehow make things more stable? Are you kidding me?

These lunatics are trying to provoke a war, people, and the hand-over-the-eyes "I can't see what you're telling me" attitude that most of this country has about itself because it blindly believes we're always on the right side is going to send us to Hell. I'm an atheist, and I believe we will have a battle of Armageddon, only without the thousand year reign of glory and all the rapture. We will see the blood start to flow and keep cheering because we're convinced Jesus is right over that hill....

he's comin right soon....

...any minute now....

...we can see him....

People that blind would make Hitler and Goebbels jealous to have a population so gullible. And I am seriously frightened. We're the only species on the planet with the capability to deliberately and consciously change our environment; don't you think it's pathetic that 80% of the U.S. population thinks that the story has already been written and they have no control?

Help. I'm almost ready to start the prozac again, even if I do act like a zombie.

2009/02/10

CBS' "Survivor" is what started me on this path

I think that show marked a turning point in American society. Think about it - the idea that you lie, cheat, steal and cajole people to ride with you as far as you need them to get as close to the prize as you can get, then you cut them loose and run off with it - that's a hell of a lesson.

If you want a reality show to impress me, put one guy on the island every day and no one gets a fucking thing unless everyone survives with no wounds, no scars, and in good health. Just keep adding people - like we do in real life - and the prize goes up as a function of the number of people and number of days.

That would be the only show resembling reality like that I'm stuck in.

2009/02/04

The price of your pills: $5 each, or two for $15

So I'm officially over the hill now. Not only am I 41, but the doctor says my blood pressure is absurd, even though my cholesterol is half the healthy level (I'll try to remember to tell more on that later) So he prescribes a pill that works - it does wonders at 10mg, and I ask him if I can up the dosage since I notice it wearing off halfway through the day.

He ups it to 40mg. It really does the trick.

So I go to the pharmacy to get the new refil, and I'm on my ass in the aise of the drugstore after I get the bill: Get this - the old 10mg x 30 days was $6.00. Got that? So if I had taken the same 10mg pills four times per day, that would be a total of 1200 mg for the month at a cost of 4 x $6.00 or, $24.00

But if you ask for 40mg pills of the same medication - I checked, it's not time-release, or with any special coating - it's $56.85 for 30 days.

So I get daring and ask the doctor if he can go back and write me a prescription for the old 10mg pills and just prescribe 4x the quantity, so I will be taking 120 pills per month at a total cost of $24 instead of 30 pills per month at a total cost of $56.85 - and the receptionist says, "will your insurance let you do that?"

And I said, "huh?" I told her I don't have insurance, and the reason I'm making the switch is that because cash-out-of-pocket I could use the extra $32 a month given that I'm getting exactly the same dosage. She says, "Well some insurance plans won't let you do that..."

And there it is folks; how your government helped out the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry at the same time. If the 40mg pills are the ones that the doctor prescribes more often, you multiply the price by almost 250%. And if your uppity patient complains, you tell them that the rules don't allow common sense to intervene.

Now you have to wonder if mathematical shenanigans like this are why the Medicare prescription drug plan is something that Bush was so proud of, despite the fact that it was yet another unfunded mandate (the kind only Democrats are supposed to be guilty of proposing). Because if Medicare can't recognize they're getting reamed a hole that's two-and-a-half-times the size of the pill going into it, then we should all be slapped for letting it happen.

So - in the end, ONLY because I don't have insurance and my doctor has a brain that can do simple accounting, I have dropped back to the 10mg pill, only now I take four of them at once with the same glass of water, and I have saved $34 a month, or $394 per year to get the same quantity of medication. I still get 1200 mg per month, only at less than half the cost. .