Saturday, October 3, 2009

Bowels and Bras and Gas - Oh My!


Today the mind is wandering as I reflect on my porcelain friend and better days gone by.  How long has it been since we last danced cheek to cheek?  Three days?  Four? No.  Five.  Five shitty days of shitlessness.

And no, I don't need your sage advice.  I've tried it all: exercise, bushels of dried fruit, oceans of spring water, enough Activia to make Jamie Lee Curtis herself run for the can, Metamucil by the shovelful. 'Super Colon Blow'-level fiber in the diet. Roughage to the point where the contents of my stomach could be used to peel paint off your walls.

Nothing.

Liquid Plumber is next on my shopping list.  I'm usually full of shit on several dimensions but I try (and lately, fail) to restrict them to the metaphorical variety.  As you can see, at the moment I'm failing.


So in search of online diversion from my offline malady, I stumbled across this wonderful article on an invention that deserves more notice than it has gotten to date: the bra that converts into a functioning gas mask!  I almost shit my pants laughing.  If only.  Sigh. I wish I had one of those bras here with me now because although my bowels may be dysfunctional, it doesn't mean they aren't functioning at all (Jumping Jack Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas).  All smoke and no fire.

But I imagine you didn't tune in to listen to ruminations on my digestive woes.

Indeed.

But I just let fly with whatever musings come running out of my head down onto the keyboard, happy I have the runs somewhere.

What really backs my pipes up is the shitstorm deja vous going on in Congress with healthcare.  I'm sick of the whole lot of them. The Democrats couldn't get a law passed against roasting baby kittens in public parks if they had a 100% majority in both houses.

Far too often the resistance is due to a bunch of unrelated pork that slips in.  But when the resistance is due to right wing rabble-rousing or even just philosophical differences (as is the case now), why can't the Dems just say, "fuck you, we won, deal with it!"  They're not going to get any support anyway so why not pass something useful?  But nooooo, that's just not their way, the weaselly worms.

A healthcare bill of some sort will pass in the end, without any support of the Republicans and without any of the provisions that would make the legislation useful (that is, actually providing healthcare to those who cannot currently afford it). The right-wing fearmongers did a great job in dredging up a small but vocal outcry by those who live in terror that any sort of government expansion means the drum of Soviet-style communism beats not far behind.  Strangely, these same folks have no fear of the expansion of the military (in their eyes, the DOD can't grow fast enough).   They know people in the military.  They aren't government!  They're 'us'!  All said without a trace of irony.  Yo, Charlie - the government is us.


I'm a libertarian liberal (some would label that an oxymoron but I've been called worse).  That means I believe there are hundreds of government entities that should be disbanded (many, but certainly not all of them, belong to the DOD).  That said, a public option for healthcare is both innocuous and essential, in my opinion.  I'd have some respect for the Dems in congress if they disagreed with me but the fact is they don't - they just haven't had the political spine to follow through on their own convictions.

I only wish Hunter was still around to riff on all this idiocy.  Guess I'll just have to be satisfied with Maureen.

But enough focus on these swine, time to watch Washington dismantle the Rudy-less Notre Dame Drunken Irish.  Go Huskies!