November 26, 2012

If the Democratic Party allows Medicare or Social Security to be cut,

they will reap the whirlwind. The backlash will be fast and fierce.

People are emotionally connected to these programs. Many rely on them as a sole source of income and any medical care. Others are counting on these programs to keep them off the streets when they retire.

In addition, every paycheck has money taken out for these programs. People can physically see their money being taken out every payday.

Congress can whine until they are blue in the face. They knew decades ago how much money was coming in. They were also told of population trends that were coming. They were supposed to be stewards of that money and keep those funds solvent. According to some, it was used for other things.

People know billions or possibly trillion were spent bailing out people who are still making obscene salaries. These very people started the whole financial mess by creating derivatives and such that were used to just make money. When that fun maneuver blew up, they ran to the government for help.

In addition, our defense budget is so wildly out of whack in relation to the overall budget that it's mind boggling. We have eleventy billion types of drones and more being developed. There is a great push by some for more civilian use. What are they going to watch? More people on the streets and a crumbling infrastructure. What the hell are they protecting?

The Democrats will take the biggest hit because they have always been seen as the protectors of these programs. The Republicans will be close behind for retribution. The whacks will come from everywhere because even the teaspitters don't want them touched.

The politicians can try to explain their way out of it, but that won't work. Once that emotional button has been pushed by fear, people can't hear. They react.

We are slouching towards a tipping point of some kind, and we better get off that road. The destination is not a place we want to go.

November 21, 2012

Fiona Apple's Heartbreakingly Beautiful Letter To Her Fans About Staying With Her Dying Dog

<snip>
On Friday, in a heartbreaking, handwritten letter addressed to "a few thousand friends I have not met yet," Fiona Apple announced that she is postponing the South American leg of her tour due to the ill-health of her beloved pit bull, Janet — a 13-year-old rescue dog suffering from Addison's disease and, more worryingly, a tumor on her chest.
<snip>
It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable & comforted & safe & important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life that keeps us feeling terrified & alone. I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.

I'll be seeing you.

Love,

Fiona
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/11/she-is-my-best-friend.html

Something in my eye......