Status Asthmaticus

Penny and I are heading down to Little Rock tomorrow to scope it out, begin looking for an apartment, check out the campus, and generally see what we can see. We're driving down through Oklahoma and then across central Arkansas. I've never been farther south than Coffeyville, KS before. Unless you count the Atlanta airport, and I do not. We'll be staying till Monday.

So...yeah. Looks like I won't be getting a new computer anytime soon, so I'm going ahead and canceling the Internet service at home. Sigh.

Anyway, back to work.

Being broke sucks. That is all.

Well, I thinj LJ just ate a post. Dammit.

...that friends make the world go 'round? You know who you are! :)

My low-income prescription assistance ends forever on June 19. I never could get the referrals to two doctors I needed to see, due to all sorts of bureaucratic bullshit (and me not being able to pay $20 each time just to go to the clinic to get the damned referrals over and over again), and I saw my dermatologist for the last time in May, so...that's it.

Oh shit. Oh shit. OH SHIT.

I seriously do not know what I am going to do.

While sitting in the Star Trek Chair
And wheezing up a storm,
Swift drinking tea by liter-full
So soothing, strong, and warm,

The cup did Patrick knock aside
Onto his keyboard black!
So now his laptop's good and fried
And never coming back.

Thus out of dollars Patrick is,
Twelve-hundred down the drain!
He can't afford a new machine
So now he'll just complain.

...can someone please tell me why it is that, while downloading a torrent that has more than 5,000 seeds, I can't connect to more than about ten of them!? And why does my upload rate suck like a Hoover on crack? Over a cable connection? With my max download/upload ratio set at 1:1?

It's driving me nuts.

...or are the Star Trek comms currently being inundated with Kirk/Spock slash? Gah.

Why there's never any Sisko/Bashir slash, I don't know!

France will honor Wichita aviator's heroism

More than nine decades after his plane was shot down, a Wichitan will be honored in France for his heroism.

This fall, Lt. Erwin Bleckley, a World War I Medal of Honor recipient, will have his name placed on a bronze memorial plaque alongside that of his pilot, Lt. Harold E. Goettler, in ceremonies that will include a flyover of vintage World War I planes.( Read more... )

I used to live on Bleckley Drive, and I've admired him ever since I first read about him years ago. Two Wichitans became fighter aces: Bleckley and James Jabara (the first American jet ace and no. 2 American ace in Korea). It's great to see one of them be honored again.

...I think I've got A Virus. I can't explain it, but there's a certain way my body feels when I do, and it feels that way now. Of course, my thermometer has gone missing. My throat feels like hell, the lungs aren't much better, and I'm coughing up a storm. So, I've hunkered down in my living room (we got back to Wichita about an hour ago) with Perrier, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a fresh baguette. I was supposed to go to a free jazz concert with Penny tonight, but that ain't happening now.

I am going to work tomorrow regardless.

Can I just say that I am really sick of how Dr. Tiller is being glorified, venerated, almost canonized as a hero and a martyr? I'm not speaking hyperbole here, folks. Everyone from local pastors (including the priest at Penny's church) to the local paper to your average Democrat On The Street is treating him as if he were a wondrous, wise saint whose untimely departure has robbed the community and the world of a miracle worker. The national and international media are full of reports of candlelight vigils and rallies and other such things.

Look, it's disgusting that he was shot dead, especially in a house of worship on the Lord's Day. It's appalling that anyone has to live in fear of their life to the point of wearing bulletproof vests and employing armed bodyguards, and whose place of work is wired like Fort Knox. It's shameful that someone who so ludicrously and hypocritically presents themselves as being "pro-life" becomes an instant evil image of the whole movement for his one insane act of violence.

But my God, people...regardless of what you think of abortion, the man was far from being a saint! He engendered thirty years of governmental corruption in order to keep his business running and avoid legitimate investigations into his practices. He used the courts and the law to harrass and intimidate peaceful, non-confrontational protestors exercising their right to free speech on public property. He was no more a "pillar of the community" than any of the other numerous Wichita personalities who, though in differing lines of work, employed similar shady tactics to keep themselves out of legal trouble.

But now, he has de facto been canonized into St. George Tiller, Virtuous Defender of Women's Rights and Valorous Foe of Right Wing Fanatics. Granted, I can see why pro-choice folks might support him; but even most pro-choice people I know are opposed to late-term abortions. It's funny, though, how people shriek and moan about corruption but conveniently ignore it when practiced by their own heroes. Conservatives do this as much as do liberals. So here we are again...Tiller is canonized as a redeeming angel of Good, while all pro-life people are demonized as being violent, woman-hating Neanderthals.

It makes me sick.

...just washed his wallet and destroyed his graduation gift checks.

OMG I M SO SMRT!

This morning, (in)famous abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was slain in the lobby of his church while handing out bulletins as the 10:00 service started.

I don't particularly mourn his passing, but nor will I applaud his slaying. While I am not going to get into the abortion debate now (I think y'all know I am pro-life), I deplored the corruption he spread in his wake. He had the local District Attorney as well as several judges in his pocket, in addition to holding a leash over numerous state legislators and executives. His corrupt influence of the local criminal justice system allowed him to avoid several attempts to have him prosecuted for violating the state's late-term abortion regulations. That he broke the law continually is not really in dispute except among his more radical supporters, but every effort has failed because he effectively pulls the strings of the DA and courts.

I also am not going to cheer his killer, and I will be satisfied when the full measure of justice comes down upon him. He is not a hero or a martyr for anyone's cause; he is a murderer, plain and simple. If anything, he has only done great damage to the pro-life cause. We're widely viewed by some in the pro-choice movement as being violent, hypocritical, irrational reactionaries, and this will only serve to reinforce that false image. Now, and with good reason, I think, those of us who are truly pro-life (by which I mean we view all human life as sacred and inviolate, even abortion doctors, dictators, and murderers, and deplore the taking of any life) are concerned that some might try to use this to silence our voices. Not that our voices carry much weight these days, it seems.

I am truly sick of the debate by this point, especially as it has been played out right here in Wichita. One one side you have a fabulously corrupt abortion doctor with his hand in every pot, able to slough off any and all efforts to restrict his practices, and on the other you have fanatics who'll do anything to stop him. The rest of us get caught in the middle...those of us who want to end abortion by legal means are damned if we do and damned if we don't, battered by both sides. We're treated as little more than misogynistic terrorist sympathizers by the more radical pro-choicers, and as weak-willed collaborators by the more radical pro-lifers.

I am sick over this. As a Christian and being pro-life I believe that violence never justifies violence, evil is never an answer to evil. It is especially egregious that such an evil act was committed in a house of the Lord during a worship service. I think Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, said it better than I can:

Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our "weapons" in the fight to defend the lives of abortion's tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.

I fear only more evil will be birthed by this evil act. And so the cycle continues, and all must suffer.

...and two to go.

Music 161: A
Theater 385: A
History 399: A

Yes, I did actually shave. Shocking, I know.

Henceforth, Meghan is no longer allowed to purchase fruit for home consumption. Any fruit I find will immediately goe into the trash, no exceptions, no explanations, no warning.

Why? Because I just found multiple rotting, moldy specimens in the kitchen (grapefruit, oranges, a mango, and strawberries, some of which were fused to the countertop) that literally gave me an asthma attack when I started putting them in the trash.

Ugh. NO MORE DAMNED FRUIT.

I love cranberry juice. I'd drink the stuff in gallons if I could afford it. And, I prefer the "light" kind because I don't like sugary drinks. Used to be, light cranberry juice was pretty vile stuff, but since they started using Splenda, it's wonderful.

Problem is, light juice never, in my experience, has any vitamin C in it. The regular, sugary kind does. What the heck is the deal with that? Don't we drinkers of non-sugary juice deserve vitamin C, too? Is there some sort of reason why vitamin C can only be dispensed in the presence of sugar?

I need answers, people!

That I find the backstabbing among Senate Democrats fascinating?

Now, I don't think Arlen Specter expected to be acclaimed as a triumphing hero once he switched parties, and anyone who thinks that is naive; he's too shrewd an operator for that, and I think he fully realized that not all on the Democratic side of the aisle would be particularly pleased when he came over. He immediately became eighth in seniority among Senate Democrats, and that was calculated to upset the apple cart of the fifty-odd Democrats who suddenly dropped a point in seniority, in a chamber where seniority is basically everything. Senators as a rule are almost childishly jealous of their privileges and perceived status (so much higher than those mere politicians in the House!). My personal belief is that, their own opinions to the contrary, latter-day legislators in that hallowed upper chamber don't hold a candle to the luminaries who went before them; Henry Cabot Lodge and Lyndon Johnson could have eaten them for breakfast.

However, I really don't think Specter expected his new party to stab him in the nuts and drop him to very last place in every committee he sits on. I am wondering, although I have no evidence, if old Harry Reid is doing this as an extremely belated "screw you!" for 2001's little affiliation-switch episode; when Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party to become an independent who caucused with the Democrats, then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle awarded him a committee chairmanship, a chairmanship that would otherwise have gone to Reid on the basis of seniority. Chairmanships are as ravenously coveted and jealously defended as any other privilege of rank. Reid is, by most accounts, not exactly the most sober of personalities, and I fully believe him capable of harboring such a grudge, although taking it out on Specter (who had nothing to do with Jeffords getting the chairmanship in 2001) would be little short of moronic. But, since Reid didn't act alone in assigning the committee seats, it's more likely that this was a communal decision.

Some have postulated that the reason could be Specter's recent comments about the Al Franken/Norm Coleman electoral debacle in Minnesota; Specter basically said that Franken's being awarded the seat would be "unjust." This was not something calculated to please a party that is positively salivating over the prospect of a 60-seat, possibly filibuster-proof majority, for which a Franken victory is necessary. I think the Franken argument is plausible.

At any rate, watching this is a gleeful experience for me. To have Almighty Senators, fancying themselves the Conscience of the Nation, a last bastion of dignity and gravity in an uncouth world, be revealed (yet again) as the bickering, petty, downright adolescent schoolchildren they really are, makes me grin like a fool.

Keep at it, guys. Why watch dross like American Idol, when I can watch the reality show of American politics? Of course, some might object and be outraged that all these shenanigans are going on while important business is afoot, but, you know, it's always been like this. In the end, I'd much rather watch these schoolyard antics than have them do the important business of propping up Wall Street and putting us into horrendous debt for the rest of my life.

...I am not superstitious and do not believe in omens, cause if I did, man, it's going to be a bad day. First, I fell in the shower. That's only the second time I've ever fallen in the shower, and the last time was in sixth grade. I remember it well because I'd burned myself on some soup and had a big blister on my hand...fell and landed on that hand. Suffice it to say, no more blister.

About 30 seconds after I got up, swearing and muttering, the shower curtain falls on me. Then, when I got out, my glasses fell off my desk and that pesky right lens popped out.

I hate mornings.

Dear Girlfriend's Neighbor,

No, she's not moved out completely yet. Yes, this does mean you don't get to commandeer her side of the garage yet. Every time you ask, I add an hour to the move, just to spite you. We've also informed your potential new neighbors, who may be taking over Penny's apartment if the landlord agrees, of your wily ways, and told them not to let you have the half of the garage which, I remind you, your lease does not entitle you to. Look, we're sorry, but you're the guy with four cars (two Porsches, a suped-up Lincoln, and a pickup truck the size of a battlecruiser) who lives in a duplex with a two-car garage, so don't complain when there isn't space for all of your fine vehicles.

Who the hell owns two Porsches, a suped-up Lincoln, and a pickup truck the size of a battlecruiser and lives in such a crappy neighborhood in a duplex anyway, dude?

Insincerely Yours,

Me.