To Old to Run?

Increasingly, I find myself reading about someone or something that has quit working, or just croaked.  And then, upon checking, it turns out they/it was younger than me.  For example, Gordon Lightfoot, the amazing singer-songwriter, just died at the age of 84 of “natural causes”.  To be fair, some folks have been croaking at well past my age of 88. But, many/most are younger.

We attended a party the other day, and, as we were sitting and chatting, someone asked, “So, how long have you been married?”  And I replied. “Coming up on 68 years this July.” And she looked baffled and said, while laughing, “So, what, you were 3 when you got married?” And then we all laughed. See, nobody else in the group was past maybe their mid-50s.

88?? Who in the hell is 88 and still wandering around, drinking wine and still driving home? It doesn’t even seem right to me.  I mean, I don’t feel like I’m in my 30’s or 40’s, but 88? Nah!.

Now we do know folks who are older. We have a friend, Sidney Tynan, who lives in Rhode Island by herself at the tender age of (almost) 102.  And she still writes a monthly paper called her “Country Newsletter”.  We knew Sidney from our days spent in India during the mid-1960s. And we have remained friends.  And we have another friend from India, now in his 90s, who lives in Florida and still works with his artist wife. And then, we have our friend who lives in Australia and who worked in India with us. He is just 4 months older, but he always makes believe he is younger.

So what does it feel like to be 88? Well, it really is just one day at a time. Mostly, one day resembles the other. Oh we have some variation. We both go to work out three days a week.  And we go out to shop on Fridays and Saturdays (the latter to a local Farmers Market). And Carol works with our local Literacy Council teaching folks to speak better English.  And then Carol spends a lot of her time making quilts for sick kids at our local children’s hospital.  Me?? I don’t do too much. I write this piece occasionally and I play around with vaguely artsy creations. I used to appear at local Art Walks, but they kind of died out during COVID.  Yeah, COVID killed off some nice affairs.  So I find myself reading a bit more and playing on Facebook and Instagram. No, I don’t do Twitter—too mindless, even for me.

One thing I am finding increasingly, is my impatience with Republicans. I cannot believe that I actually voted for a republican for my first vote—Dwight Eisenhower instead of Adlai Stevenson.  But now, I look at almost all republicans and think, Oh God, they are stuck in their minds in 1936 Germany, looking for their very own Adolph Hitler. And who is they wish to kill? Well, anyone trying to gatecrash their way into America from South America—really any people of color, though. And they seem to despise women, but they have to be a bit more careful there, since they tend to marry women.  Oh, and they really hate anyone in the LGBTQ community. They will do almost anything to make their lives miserable.

Now, being 88, I have difficulty with all this hatred. I realize I’m supposed to be far rightwing, hating along with the worst of them. But I’m just not like that, and I am having increasing difficulty with all these hatreds. I guess Donald Trump triggered all this awful stuff and, well he is old, just not as old as me, or even as Joe.

And so I now have to come to grips with this old people thing.  It would seem that the two main characters planning on running for President in 2024 are Donald Trump, age 76, and Joe Biden, age 80. Yeah, yeah, I know that Ron DeSantis is planning a run, and he is only 44. So, maybe I ought to be reconsidering. But no, DeSantis is young, but he is a young Idiot-Malenfant.  He seems to have joined the weird world of Republican Hate groups. So, No, he is not a candidate I might take seriously.

But How about Joe? Well, he would be 82 on taking office, and 86 on finally retiring from Office, assuming he remains alive.  OK, so I’m 88, and I will be way older than Joe, assuming I continue to remain alive.  And I am hearing a lot of jokes about Joe’s age.  He sometimes seems to stumble a bit in speaking and is not exactly agile physically. Still, he is pretty good for his age. And I am familiar with folks who succumb to things like dementia—my Mother for example. So, how can I continue to consider voting for Joe? Well, first, any prediction you might have for Joe, would be hovering above Donald Trump. Yeah, he’s a few years younger, but he begins as an idiot, whereas Joe still has a functional brain.

But suppose Joe begins to slip partway through his term of Office? Well, for one thing, he has a wife who would be positioned to rein him in. But even more importantly, he would have a Vice President (Kamala maybe?) capable of slipping into the position smoothly. Plus, we have all these highly paid folks who would be working for him who would also likely notice should Joe begin to slip. See, that’s the thing about an American Presidency, as distinct from Russia’s Dictator, Vlad. Over there, I assume someone would have to step in and shoot Vlad. See, we have less drastic ways of “retiring” our leaders.

Now I, at the tender age of 88, still function pretty much the same as I did in my 60s or 70s. I think there has not been much deterioration in my brain functioning. And so, although I am well aware of the aging problems, I don’t yet see that as a major deterrent to Joe running for office.  Would I be happier were Joe only 70, rather than 80, well maybe.  And so, do I think maybe he should not run? Well, no I do not.  It still comes down to Joe Biden vs. whoever the republicans select to run against him. And they seem to have no leaders who are not of the Fascist mindset. I am not sure how or why the republican party as a whole has slipped into the world of 1936 Germany, but there it is. If we want to continue living in a democracy, then folks, we are stuck with the Democrats and likely, with Joe Biden. It is so split that I think we dare not vote for a republican for major national office.  I do not know any longer what happened to those thinking people, of ethical/moral character who were/are republican, but they all seem to have gone into their respective closets.  They are no longer available as aides and counselors helping to keep the American ship afloat.  Maybe someday, they will return and kick out the Trumps, Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Kevin McCarthys and Ron DeSantis’ of this world.

Ahh, that would be a wonderful world indeed.

Fond Hope Springs Eternal. And maybe I will still be alive to see that happening. Who knows??? The Shadow Knows.

The Beginning of the End?

I wonder how one knows that one’s country has begun to fail. And also, what happens to a country that fails? I assume that some financial things would begin happening, maybe banks beginning to move their assets to another country, or an increase in the number of industrial or commercial companies that begin failing.  Maybe larger numbers of people would be taking steps to move to a different country, although there are only a few countries that seem logical places to move.   I assume it is still possible that we might “fail” as we did in the 1920s, when the stock markets collapsed and people were forced out of their jobs and millions went looking for work and money.

We normally just assume that all of our safeguards will always remain in place. The various levels of government will remain and continue to do things like fix roads, keep electricity flowing, catch bad guys who are out robbing and killing folks, and protect us against insurrectionists (like Trump) or foreign powers (like Russia). Yet, all of those various levels of protective government require both financial and spoken support. Folks still need to believe in the various institutions of government. And that is what seems to be somehow wearing thin these days.

Ever since Trump was elected and all the right wing racists, misogynists, anti-everything crowd emerged from their respective closets, America has been on a downhill slide. I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could have voted for idiots the like of Marjorie Taylor Greene, and now Ron DeSantis. DeSantis???? He is regarded as a serious candidate for President of America??? Seriously? Whatever happened to the Republican Party of old?  I know that, Yes, Republicans have long toyed at the edges of Fascism. Reagan perhaps began this long trek to failure, but he has had lots of help along the way. But whatever one thinks of, say Ronald Reagan, or George Bush (aka Shrub)  . . . Trump??? How could anyone in their right mind waste their vote on Donald Trump? And then the movement continues downhill.

And consider if you will, all of the legislative battles fought by Republicans to not only ban abortion (thank you Trump SCOTUS), but ban books for God’s sake.  They have banned abortion pills, and then went on to try to ban contraception. Seriously?? You want to ban contraceptive measures so that . . . what? You would have more unwanted pregnancies???

And now their ongoing battles against Gays, Transgender folks, anyone associated with the LGBTQ people. Why? Why would you care about such folks, who have enough problems in life without Republicans stepping in to make their lives even more unhappy.

And then, think Ethics. We have a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence by name, who seems to imagine that he is immune to ethical considerations of any kind. He imagines it is really ok to accept bribes from super-rich associates without any consequences.  A Justice of the Supreme Court?? And these are the folks we rely on to make final decisions on any and all matters of legal, social and ethical concerns?  Note please that SCOTUS as a whole has been entirely silent on Clarence’s trials and tribulations. Not a word from the holy ones. So, Kavenaugh, Barrett, et al, nothing??? You think that crap is none of our business? Amazing. Truly, and a very large sign that our Nation is failing and nobody seems to care, certainly not any of the Republican “holier-than-thou” crew.

And that is what I find most disturbing. That a very large percentage of our Nation’s population can continue to go on as though nothing has happened. Donald Trump? No, he’s a great candidate.  It’s those nasty books on racism that is the problem. We need to ban more books, maybe take our public education and get rid of it, replaced by a private system. We know they’re better, right?

Oh, and let’s get rid of those damned students who are voting in elections.  Yeah, so let’s take away their rights to vote, unless they show up at the voting places at home. And even then we should make it more difficult. Can’t have those kids voting. They tend to vote for Democrats for God’s sake. Can’t have that. Maybe Adolph was right in 1936. We need supreme leaders.  That’s the ticket.

And so we continue on this downward slide into oblivion. Is this why those folks like Washington created America out of a British Colony?  So that Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis could complete our slide into 1936 Germany? I don't know folks. We really need to do some hard thinking. And Yes, we need to vote them out of office.  So get on with it folks. Or the End really is Near.

Still Aging In Place

 Increasingly, I have begun feeling like I am somehow “outside” of wherever it is I am in. Even if I am sitting within a family group, with, say, kids and/or grandkids I have begun feeling as though I am sitting somewhere else, but still observing them.  Sometimes, I am almost startled when one of them actually addresses me directly by asking me a question, or commenting on something about me.  And then that state of being (or maybe non-being) is enhanced when I am reading the news, or a news e-mail, or listening/watching the news on TV or radio.  Why? Well, inevitably the reporter or the article begins discussing one of our republican friends, and then I feel like I have just arrived from outer space, and they are discussing something I simply do not understand. The other day, for example, I sat and watched the Governor of North Dakota address the NRA at their convention. And she told us that she had made sure to arm her two-year old grandchild with both a rifle and a shotgun. I mean, you just never know when another two-year old brat is going to do something threatening, and her grandkid might have to shoot that other kid. Well, sort of like that dude who answered his door, gun in hand (don’t we all answer our doorbell with a gun in hand?) and then when he saw a young Black kid, he began firing his gun.  I mean, clearly that young Black kid was going to harm him, so he was simply protecting himself. Right?? Or that other dude who saw three young ladies enter his driveway in their car, and then began to back away, but he of course had to open fire on them.  Obviously, the girls meant him harm, even if they were backing away.

And then there is that whole set of characters who profess to represent the Republican Party. Take Marjory Taylor Greene. She actually said that the California wildfires were caused by Jewish Space Lasers. And then she failed to back away and laugh.

Oh and that January 6^th thing at the Capitol? They are now portrayed of course as simple tourists who wanted to visit the Capitol, but were being denied their proper tourist rights.  Now, as you watch that event taking place, don’t you begin to feel as though you have just arrived from Mars and you really don’t understand what you are witnessing? I sometimes think I am actually in 1936 Germany and I am wondering when Adolph is going to show up (Oh, that’s Ron DeSantis, not Adolph Hitler approaching the podium?)

See, it isn’t a specific person, oh like Donald Trump. It’s that there seem to be so many of them. An entire political party has actually entered the realm of 1936 Nazi Germany, or maybe just 2023 Crazy America. But how did that happen, and will it (and I) ever return to something approaching normalcy? I’m 88 for Christ sake, and I can’t take much more of this.

And worse, it seems to be the case that Americans in very large numbers have joined this Crazy Party, yet how could that have happened. See, I still remember voting for Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for President in 1952. Can you even imagine what Ike would be thinking were he present at some rally where Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis were rambling on about one of their latest thoughts concerning America? Would that Ike not also begin wondering whether he had somehow been transmitted to a Foreign Land on Mars? Surely this could not be Florida within the US of A.

And I listen to/watch the commentary and they tear that bunch apart, but nothing actually happens to them.  Americans, actual Americans keep on listening to them and, whenever they can, still voting for them.  That is the part I fail to understand and why I feel like I am floating somewhere in outer space. How could this be? How is it possible that Americans in any number beyond a few hundred (ok even a few thousand) could possibly go to a polling place and mark the ballots to elect such people—Trump, DeSantis, Greene, Hawley, Cawthorne, McConnell, McCarthy? Really, America . . . you actually approve of such manic pseudohumans?  And you are going to refuse to control guns, while facing the largest collection of mass shootings in our history? And you also refuse to allow people to have medical abortions, or even to buy and consume abortion pills, regardless of the later effects on the lives of the women involved.  So, you’re not actually “Pro-Life” as much as you are Anti-sex, or maybe “Pro-Foetus”. Yeah, once those foetuses become actual humans, it’s ok to shoot them, right?

And so, I have begun drifting off into some outer space existence. I am no longer a full-time resident of America, maybe even of Earth, I am still technically alive, I know, cuz I can still watch Stephen Colbert or John Oliver, but I no longer recognize what I observe going on around me.

Maybe I am actually in a dream-state and I will awaken to re-enter our world and it will still be 1975, or maybe even 2010 and that dude Barack Obama is still president. Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Oh shit, go back to sleep Richard. That ain’t gonna happen.

Life Ends Language

 “It’s not your fault. My father died in my arms. So did my wife,” he said. “It’s just my turn now.”

“I feel bad that I didn’t talk to you about this sooner,” I said. “I thought I’d upset you or maybe you weren’t ready yet.”

He laughed. “Ready?” he said. “I’ve wrapped my head around being dead, certainly. Not sure if I’ll ever really be ready. It’s not like packing a bag and standing outside waiting for a taxi.”

“He died in his sleep a month later, missing his vacation and his friend’s wedding. Even if he told me he was ready, nothing could have lessened the blunt force of losing him.”

 

This was from a Sunday NY Times article by Dr. Sunita Puri. In the article she talks about how doctors try to sense a patient’s readiness to die, that is, when they realize they are in the final stage of life and will soon die. The interesting thing to me is the question, “Why is that important?” To a doctor, the only point of importance here is that a patient who is “ready to die” is also finally ready to give up “end of life treatments”.  There really is no other issue that matters to the doctor, because doctors are no better prepared to talk about the actual Cessation of Life than anyone else. 

I wonder myself how I might become “ready to die”, given what I believe that means. See, I think that the end of life is not a journey, as when we say the person “has gone”, or “has departed”. Those words imply a journey, whereas I believe strongly that the end of life means only a cessation of the brain’s function. That is, when we die, our brain ceases operating, and we no longer are aware of anything. We do not know we are dead, because we do not know anything.  And that is hard to wrap one’s head around. We are not embarking on a final journey. Instead, we simply cease knowing anything. We are not even aware that we are dead, because we are not “aware” of anything. And see, we actually have no language that describes that state of Non-being.

What would it be like, for the brain to simply cease functioning? It is not like we are moving into a sort of dream-like state. Because see, a dream-like state implies that the brain continues to function, even if we do not move onto some cloud and begin looking down on our still-alive relatives.  And we do not suddenly come back into contact with all of our deceased relatives.

See, we have no language to describe what I believe actually happens. How does one describe  a state of “nothingness”, a state in which we are no longer aware of our former self, or in fact of anything.  Now that is hard to wrap your current lively head around.

So, I guess it is understandable that doctors do not have such a talk with their patients who express an understanding that their life is about to cease.  Why? Well, because the doctor also has no language to express what that means.  And, I guess that’s why they (our forebears) invented Heaven and Hell, and folks sitting around on clouds looking down while they played their harps.  The Heaven or Hell thing is obviously a device to get you to behave, or to pay proper attention to what this priest is telling you to do, or not to do. That’s their main tool in the Priestly Ponzi Scheme called Religion.

Now if the priests of our world need that Ponzi scheme portrait of “Life After”, our poor doctors are stuck without any serious explanation to offer their patients. As we said, the doctor’s only reason for a patient reaching such a state of understanding is that the doctor then has some guidance on “end of Life” care, which is known often as “Palliative Care”, whose aim only is to relieve suffering, so as to improve the quality of that final life stage. Maybe the medical profession needs some kind of “after-Life” language that is at least equal in some value to the Ponzi scheme language of religious purveyors. So, maybe the medical profession needs to step up their game to create a kind of “after-life” death description that seems more promising than “Nothingness”. Somehow, the reality of brain cessation seems at best difficult to convey in positive terms. So, docs need to become more inventive so as to at least compete with the religious purveyors.  Something that conveys a sense of final peace, like entering a long state of deep sleep. Yeah, that’s it. Just try not to get into anything like dreams, cuz then the docs would be competing with the Ponzi-guys.

So, Think On Docs. You need a new language. Put on your most creative brain caps and get to work. Maybe eventually, you too will be able to make it profitable, like those religious dudes. How to make "nothingness" sound desirable . . . hmmmm. 

Getting Old Again . . . Still

Hey, did I tell you . . . I am getting old(er). Yeah, seems like every day I get/feel a little bit older. Part of it is this back sciatic nerve thingie. Yeah, I thought maybe it was going away, cuz it seemed to ease for a couple of days. But then it came back again   . . . maybe not with the same fierceness, but a lingering pain nonetheless.  But even beyond that daily pain, there is a lingering thing about being old. Somehow I just feel differently about my life, each day. And yes, there is this thing about reading the paper or listening to a radio report about some dude or dudette who just passed on. And they often say, conclusively, He/she was 85, as though that is the explanation. And I’m sitting there thinking, “Hell, he was younger than me”.

And then I find myself thinking about an old friend, maybe someone I knew in India. Yeah, of the 8 people who served there with me during the mid-60’s, four are still alive, one has passed on and two are just lost—I have no idea about them.  And that was nearly 60 years ago. So, yeah, I think about them often.  Part of this lingering thought pattern is that I no longer work for a living. So, I don’t have this preoccupation with a job. Now, I awaken, and my next job, after showering is to turn on the computers, and then go make a nice cappuccino for me and my bride.  And then, hey, it’s almost noon, time for an espresso and a small piece of chocolate.

And then, hey it’s time to Wine On and Dine On.

And so life goes on. Now Carol still makes quilts for little sick kids at the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital. She and her crew of women, still create quilted, knitted and crocheted blankets for the kids. The hospital loves them, because they make sick kids feel a little bit better.  And so Carol goes on.  Oh, and she is also responsible for keeping me alive by creating wondrous meals every day. Amazing really. Almost 68 years together and she continues to amaze me with her cooking creativity.

While me? Well, I occasionally do what I’m doing here, and write some drivel just to demonstrate that I haven’t yet croaked.  Now, until a little while ago, I also used to pretend I was an artist. Yeah, I created something called Digital Art. What’s that you say? Well, I have this camera thingie and I use it to take pictures. Then I fool with the resulting images until I have something that folks might call “ART”. And what is “ART” you might ask? Well, “ART” is what I call a picture, after I get finished fooling around with it.  See, here’s a picture I converted into “ART”, after I snapped it inside my camera, and then played with it.

So, “ART” literally is in the eye of the creator, not to mention the Beholder.  But, in any case, I don’t do such things any longer. No, our local Arts Council used to sponsor these things they called Art Walks. They would find a nice empty indoor space right downtown (mostly an empty Bank office space) and make that space available for local artists. We would pay them $25 and gain access to a space and a modest table on which to display our art. But then the empty office spaces were lost to new ventures and so the Arts Council was reduced to offering a space outside on the street. And so I at least decided that Art Walk days were now over, and so my artsy phase ceased.

So, now my days are reduced to wondering who is still alive in my little world.  Now I still take pictures of naturey things, and “publish” them on Facebook, but art it ain’t.  See, in part, Art is a creation of a somebody that might be sold to another somebody. The exchange of money makes the object “ART” officially.

And so my aging life continues day by day. And each day, I am aware that my life continues through sheer luck. Each day is a new gift to me , I guess from my mom, no longer with us. She passed on these genes that comprise my body. So, thanks Mom. As usual, you did good.

Continue you LIFE thingie. Each day might be boring for some, but it opens the possibility of something new and vastly more interesting.  You never know, do you? Age on Richard, Age on. 100 is out there somewhere. So go get it.

Passwords & Life

 I finally just completed two days of struggling to regain my access to my e-mail system under Spectrum and Outlook.  Something happened to my ability to “send” e-mails from Outlook, and then it all went downhill from there. I got onto Chat with Spectrum and as we were beginning to conclude, suddenly the chat session ended, but not before a message flashed onto the screen, something about how some Spectrum technical change had caused a problem with e-mail that seemed to reflect what happened to mine. But then, I continued to have no access to my e-mail. It kept asking for my password, which I was unable to provide, because the Tekkie had changed it just before we lost contact.  When I tried to change it via their system, it kept asking me for both the new password, and my MAC ID. I looked on the Spectrum modem for the MAC ID, thought I recorded it, but that failed to work. So, then I was stuck without a valid password. Therefore, I also had no access to my e-mail.

Passwords are becoming the bane of my existence. It seems I need to change a password every time I turn around.  I had settled on a nice new one a while ago, and suddenly I was unable to use that one—it was an oldie, don’t you know.

But why do we use passwords on everything?  Well, because there are crooks all around us. Apparently America is filled with con men. Well, maybe the whole world is filled with con men, following Donald Trump’s lead.  I mean, if it’s ok for the President of the United States to be a con man, then why not everybody?

And so, we use passwords for everything. And we periodically have to change our passwords, don’t you know?  I mean, wouldn’t do to keep that same old thing, cuz the con men of the world will soon discover our passwords, and then we’re screwed.

So, get out your table of random letters and numbers folks, and get on with this password juggling game.

And speaking of con men, what is our ex-president up to lately? Well, he was asserting that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday, and he was urging his MAGAHead violence crowd to repeat their January 6^th actions and protest peacefully, like they did on January 6^th. But nobody else seemed to know anything about this supposed arrest. He really is amazing. He continues this game of conning the American people, urging them to do evil things, and then pretending he had nothing to do with any of it.  And his gangbangers continue to love him. I keep wondering whether this is what happens when the head of some Italian Mafia crew gets into trouble.  Does he escape the same way? Do Mafia bosses ever go to jail, or only their underlings?  Well, No, some mob bosses, Al Capone, John Gotti, Lucky Luciano all served time in Federal prisons, mostly as a result of the RICO Act.  But Trump, maybe because he served as the World’s Greatest Mob boss (President of the US), has avoided prison. He does seem to be creeping closer and closer, however.  Makes me kind of wish Alcatraz was still open.  Or maybe we should send him down to Guantanamo.  Hey that would be nice, huh?  Then his MAGAHeads would have to go down there and face the US military to spread their hate.

OK, go for it dudes.

Life and Pain

So, I awakened on a Saturday morning 1 ½ weeks ago, to a seemingly normal day.  But then as I began the day, I noticed suddenly a new pain. My left back, down by my hip, in that sciatic nerve area, suddenly began throwing pain down my leg from the hip area. Odd, I thought. It’s almost as though someone just flipped a switch. “OK, turn on the pain. It’s his turn to hurt”.  I mean, I know I’m old. 88 years is old by anyone’s definition. But, c’mon folks, I was just as old on Friday when I went to bed. What the hell is going on? I mean, I didn’t fall. I know, Falling is really bad when you’re my age. But I didn’t do that. I just went to bed and woke up with this new pain thing. Now, to be fair, On Friday, I did go to work out at the gym, as usual on Fridays. Then we went shopping at Trader Joe’s. Then what? We came home, put away the groceries and got on with our usual Friday. So I hadn’t tried to lift 400 pounds, or run on the treadmill. Nope. The workout was my usual one—ya’know, boring but a classic old dude’s workout routine.  So, maybe this is Life?  You go along normally and then one day, suddenly life is no longer “normal”.  And then what? It ends? So, this is how it ends? No, that’s crap.

OK, so now I have to go get an MRI. I went for an X-Ray, but it showed nothing beyond the fact that, yeah I’m old.  So, we will have to see what, if anything this MRI thingie shows. They tried “prescribing” some exercises for me, but they seem about as useless as teats on a boar.  See, the central problem is that the docs really did not know what was causing the problem, so they were forced to guess at some ameliorative solution.  Hopefully, after the MRI, we will have actual diagnostic data—a picture of what is actually wrong.

So, we now await that picture.  But maybe I am getting a preliminary picture of life as an old dude. Ya know. Shit happens, and then . . . well then you try to make believe nothing happened. Happily, we have some pretty fine medical practitioners at work trying to help me deduce what happened. Still, I think maybe the Old Guy has begun beckoning. We’ll see.

And in the meantime, I remain hopeful that Tucker Carlson and that Gang of thieves at The Fox Republican Mafia will continue demonstrating to the American people that, deep down, they, directed by Rupert, are actually Anti-American. Well, technically, we know Rupert is. But now we know for sure that the Foxies and all their republican friends are also ANTI-AMERICAN.  So, welcome to our new world folks.

I will yell out and about whenever I discover what is actually wrong with me. Meanwhile, I will limp along as best I can.