“This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level
determined by the Environmental Protection Agency.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its
valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right. ”

Reposted from ireport.com

And I will never forget the way I fell toward what you wanted and what I thought I had. Seeing your demise wasn’t at all grand; I’m still a barrel of jaded contraband. It hurts as much today as it did when I hit the floor that dreadful August night.

New times brought too many changes and you grew tired with my obsession with stages. And now I’m flashing back; I see your eyes when they were craving me. And the way you held your breath when I was naming the stars! You brought me back to life; turned my skin the color of sand. I hope you’re happy in “the end”.

Standing there alone again, you don’t need another friend. Walking down the road of blame, truth will never be the same.

Give way for another truthless day. You rise as a beating on your soul. You hold your breath while feeling numb as black rain clouds are sealing up the sun. The shouting voices in your head tell you nothing. You scream but no one hears you calling; you’re left with all your lies.

Lies.

Standing there alone again, you don’t need another friend. Walking down the road of blame, truth will never be the same.

Standing Alone by Echo Image

Close your eyes to corral a virtue. Is this fooling anyone else? Never worked so long and hard to cement a failure. We can blow on our thumbs and posture but the lonely are such delicate things. The wind from a wasp could blow them into the sea with stones on their feet; lost to the light and the loving we need.

Still to come: the worst part and you know it. There is a numbness in your heart and it’s growing.

With burnt sage and a forest of bygones I click my heels, get the devils in line. A list of things I could lay the blame on might give me a way out. But with each turn it’s this front and center, like a dart stuck square in your eye. Every post you can hitch your faith on is a pie in the sky, chock full of lies, a tool we devise to make sinking stones fly.

And still to come: the worst part and you know it. There is a numbness in your heart and it’s growing.

A Comet Appears by The Shins

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I WATCHED TUESDAY NIGHT’S Presidential debate—as I did the first, and as I did the Vice Presidential debate between Biden and Palin—to learn more about the candidates, and to help me make a decision I consider one of the most important I will ever make. Yes, despite my endorsement of Barack Obama in the party primaries, I have continued to listen and read, and to consider what I have learned in the new light of each increasingly tumultuous day.

These are dangerous and difficult times; I want to be sure that all four of these candidates have been thoroughly examined and well-tested for the daunting task that lies ahead.

Turns out, I needn’t have bothered.

Sarah Palin’s recent performance on the campaign trail—and John McCain’s apparent tacit approval of that performance—have made the decision for me.

I was shocked by McCain’s sudden surprise VP pick and by Palin’s unimpeded glide to the Republican nomination. Knowing little about Alaska’s Governor, I was impressed by her speech at the GOP convention—impressed enough with her deft delivery and her faux populist appeal that I wanted to learn more.

As much as I dislike the near interminable length of the Presidential campaign season, I also appreciate the exposure it offers, the pressure-testing of each candidate that we are able to observe. That McCain short-circuited all of that by choosing a relative unknown—while certainly his perogative—renewed my reluctant appreciation for the lengthy vetting process.

As I have learned more, and as Palin has revealed more in her less scripted words and actions, my concern and anger and disgust with the Republican ticket’s toxic tactics have grown.

I share Sarah Palin’s experience as a frontier woman, of sorts, having lived for a decade in the frigid clime of northernmost Maine on the edge of the Allagash Wilderness. My experience might actually have been rawer than hers. I lived without electricity or running water, cooked and heated with wood from the trees I helped fell and with logs I split and stacked by the cord.

I worked and read by kerosene light, and was grateful for the battery-operated radio that brought the world closer to me. My family and I lived, in part, on the vegetable garden we were able to grow in the short season between first and last frost. We hauled water for drinking, for cooking, for bathing. We relied on our own considerable resources of health and knowledge and hard work to subsist, and even to thrive.

It was a lifestyle we chose many years ago, because we had the choice. Should I return to it, though, it will be out of necessity, not choice. By equal parts challenging and exhilarating, my time in Maine taught me what is absolutely necessary for life—and what is not. It has proven invaluable knowledge. It may well come in handy again if this country’s dire economic circumstances are not somehow reversed and our plunge into recession and eventual depression not stopped.

What Palin and I do not share, however, is a dangerous disregard for the words we wield, for the ideas we advance, for the powerful consequence—be it intended or otherwise—of political rhetoric unleashed on a country that is suddenly poised for disaster, whose citizens are fearful and increasingly angry, whose leaders appear ever more uncertain, divided, ineffective and powerless, and whose national crisis has quickly reverberated around the globe.

Sent forth to serve as McCain’s attack dog, Palin is virtually foaming at the mouth, setting a new standard for vitriol and demagoguery that has found fertile ground among audiences whose prejudice and paranoia have needed only a good strong stir to reach boiling point.

I’ve learned enough about Palin. My curiosity is sated. And unfortunately, what I thought I knew of McCain has been proven wrong. Whether or not I might ever have supported John McCain’s political views or preferred his style of leadership, or honored his undeniable sacrifice and service to this country, the point has been rendered moot. I despise these tactics and fear their result.

In this, he has put himself and his own goals above his country. Our divisions should not be plundered for political gain, nor should our fears and prejudices be exploited for electoral advantage. We face serious threats as a nation—threats of growing debt and financial insolvency, of waning international influence and questionable moral authority. We are engaged in war in two foreign countries, and the costs in both human and financial capital cannot be sustained.

Our quest for energy independence and for alternate energy sources is urgent; we will be judged by our children and our children’s children according to the success or failure of our efforts. Despite our relative wealth as a nation, we have failed to ensure the right of affordable health care to every citizen, and the excellence of our educational institutions is no longer unparalleled.

We must learn to find common agreement on the solutions to these problems. We must make the sacrifices necessary to regain our footing.

The leaders we choose today must be capable of forging that agreement, of working with us to find new solutions to daunting problems, of inspiring sacrifice and generosity and of bridging the gaps that separate us. They must dedicate their service to curing this epidemic of distrust and restoring our confidence in them, ourselves and each other once again.

By their acts shall we know them. The desperate and despicable actions of John McCain and Sarah Palin in the final days of this campaign provide stark contrast to Barrack Obama’s grace in withstanding the barrage and his continued focus on and grasp of the issues we face.

I know now what I need know to cast my vote with confidence this November.

Love cannot be bought. Now there’s a thought.

Why? Why did you lead me on some fantastical journey, only to send me away on a blood stained gurney? Have you no idea what your inconsideration has done to me? I’m not one to “let it be.” You meant the world to me, but locked the door and swallowed the key. Gee. What a friend.

Love cannot be taught. What was I saying? I forgot.

Why? Why did you suddenly sell? I sent you a letter; you sent me to hell. Should I have known? Wednesday night surely did tell. Now that I look back, you were so distant and compassion you surely did lack. I should’ve gotten my iPhone back as a matter of fact.

Love deserves truth. Truth deserves love. My youth was the greatest time of my life. People actually cared about me. I was involved and care free. Now I’m no longer me.

Why did you kill me? I was on board the express train to success. Now my life is a mess. Wait, some episode of reckless distress. Why? Your silence the tie for me to decry I ever knew you, so why?

Please, let me untie this lie. Please, just tell me goodbye.

Day one, day one: start over again. Step one, step one: I’m barely making sense. For now I’m faking it ’til I’m pseudo making it from scratch. Begin again, but this time I as I, and not as we.

Gun shy and quivering, timid without a hand. Feign brave with steel intent. Little and hardly here.

Day one, day one: start over again. Step one, step one: with not much making sense. Just yet I’m faking it ’til I’m pseudo making it from scratch. Begin again, but this time I as I, and not as we.

Eyes wet toward wide open frayed. If God’s taking bets, I pray he wants to lose.

Day one, day one: start over again. Step one, step one: I’m barely making sense. Just yet I’m faking it ’til I’m pseudo making it from scratch. Begin again, but this time I as I, and not as we.

Not As We by Alanis Morissette

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