Tea Party Express fizzles

Iraq is lost too? No no no way. It is imperative we prevent their money-strapped peasant population from building a nuclear superiority in the region and eventually attacking us with a Navy superior to our own. Whip it, whip it real good I tell you. Pour more money on it, bog them down in maple syrup, get them good and obese. We can win, yeah. Get them so fat they can't wear those stupid heavy garments too.

actually I am minding my own business, and as you guys on the right would say...I'm exercising my first amendment rights....and doing it without resorting to profanity....I don't know how it was in your house growing up, but I was brought up believing that when an individual begins ad hominem attacks, he is signaling that he is out of intellectual ammunition.

ya whatever tyr, have a nice life

Cmdinc that was painful to read. seriously, if your comment gets flagged it should be for writing like a fucking third grader.

@ randomly, although it was in the general posts it was intended for CZ. So basically mind your own fucking business. Another that has to pick out phonics ratehr than substance.

no i won't mind my business. you're saying some really stupid shit and i felt compelled to respond.

lol. Well prove it. Explain why it is stupid, pretty ballsy to interfere and then give no facts. Better yet shut the hell up, I am sure you have the same simplistic view as CZ

i don't know if you reaqlized it random but i was catagoricaly responding to CZ bitching. but i am sure you knew that before you decided to put your 10 cents in.....here is your change

"The people cannot be silenced by the ignorant."

Truth does prevail over the ignorant, but the ignorant have sure been getting loud and arrogant. Good thing the tea baggers dont really make up that much of the country.

As long as the truth prevails, it is possible for people to set themselves free by following it regardless of where it leads.

SamtheSixth wrote "it is possible for people to set themselves free by following it regardless of where it leads." The Bible says the time will come when "the nations will stream to Jehovah". I don't see any mention of governments there... so it looks like at some point in the future people will start walking a new path around the governments.

Just a thought.

2 Corinthians 4:4 and also too Ephesians 2:2 (amongst many other references) tells us who the master controller is; and one way the people are divided constantly is by Money. Money rules this world => an invention of Satan rules mankind, not overwhelming intellect and good sense.

A smart man and a smart woman knows when to walk, and that time is the day they realize nothing they do or think really matters. We should continue to pay the taxes but our real hope needs to be transferred over and exchanged for God currency. Looking to those who call themselves nobles in this world always disappoints: Psalm 146 verse 3 is very clear about that.

You guys don't get it - saying "you lie" isn't worth the breath you waste on voicing it unless you follow that statement with incontrovertible evidence to support your claim. Try it on and see:

You lie, Bob Wilson! You lie!

There, now what have we demonstrated? An completely empty statement. Sort of like saying Obama is both a nazi and a socialist. Well, which is he? Nazi? Socialist? Because fascism and socialism don't really mix, but there you guys are claiming he is both. And that he's a lying Nazi socialist as well.

I'll hand you one back: you neo conservatives are insurrectionists intent of destroying America - that you'd like nothing better than the institution of martial law, believing (mistakenly) that you 'd be declared the lords of the Earth. You carry on about how government is wasting your money taking are of it's citizenry, but you don't understand that without government you would have no opportunity to earn as you do. Don't believe me? Put your money where your mouth is and secede already.

And you don't make one tiny peep when your government takes you from a state of unlimited prosperity to the verge of financial destruction waging illegal war that has lasted longer and World War II has, and has no clear end in sight. Lets go back two administrations - back to the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush: On March 10, 1991, Operation Desert Storm began to move 540,000 American troops out of the Persian Gulf. Why didn't they take Baghdad? Let's ask your man Dick Cheney who said in 1992: "I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

Yes, Dick Cheney said that - look it up.

But then along come folks like you, who don't do there homework, inflate themselves with self importance and claim God is on their side and manifest their ill informed destiny.

The Gulf War: a total success. Between Bush I & Bush II we had incredible prosperity. And from Bush II to Obama, utter chaos, financial destruction, and ultimately mobs like yours stalking around America shooting their mouths off; mobs don't believe that equality is a part of the American equation, who believe that they are some sort of elite or aristocratic class, who are willing to take with both hands but unwilling to roll up their sleeves and help their fellows.

You have big mouths, I'll grant you that. But you don't do one bit of research, save parroting statistics that *SEEM* to support whatever jackass agenda you try to push through, and then denying it when it later proves that you're wrong. Collectively, you're a mob - and a mob is only as intelligent as it's dumbest member.

You're not an American patriot, despite what you may claim.

Bobby you just got kung fu chopped!!

P.S. your link is total crap. distorted, uncredited and unreliable.

I'll send you a bucket and a shovel! Give me a break! Your racist rant is junk! You have not seen our faces, you may have seen some really bad faces. But not ours. We are not racists, we hate that type of violence on any race! We love our nation. We are NOT African Americans, European Americans, etc., we are Americans as are we all! WE want a fair government, balanced budget, reforms and an end to corruption for us all, no matter what the color! Have a great day!

Where's the rant? How in the world did you conclude that I was a racist? I merely posted the events in my lifetime where I have seen these same "real Americans" show up.

Way to go for bringing race where it does not belong.

Way to follow the Liberal/Democrat playbook.

#1 she was nice. #2 she was nice by excluding religion. #3 she said Have a Great Day. I thin she wrote her own playbook.

Gravity where did I mention race? I used items in my life where I have seen people openly defy the Govt. when they are bring about societal changes that conservatives react negatively to.

I don't mind you bringing up Race, Tyr. Race and dealings between Races is a fact of life. If you want to talk about Blacks, all-white schools, segregationist get togethers, it's all fine here. Just don't forget to mention somewhere about all the changes the Black inventors made to locomotives and barely got paid a McDonald's Happy Meal for it... and I'll be happy.

We're all Blacks now. Giving them justice and equality didn't raise them up it brought everybody else down. We who are about to die salute you!

Tyr - got to go to work, but - The racist part came in when you said, about the tea partiers, I have SEEN THOSE FACES! That is like giving a bad rap to the tea party folks. You will find, some day soon, that the tea partiers are from all races, all walks of life, all ages, and all colors! We are average citizens. No one paid me to go to the tea party or rally, or do these videos for 3 years now, I just feel it!

Bingo - you had 8 years to complain about America's unlimited prosperity going down the toilet, and now that we're trying to spend some money in a way that doesn't destroy brown people, you have a problem?

It's all or nothing folks - either you count all of the beans, or you end up full of gas.

great photos! the irony is delicious

Yeah, I have to admit that I feel sorry for that poor chair his ass has engulfed. Definitely want to keep this guy away from the President -- the sign guy might EAT him.

--great pictures, 2D, thanks!

He needs the exercise .

THat photo above seems to indicate quite a bit fewer than 1.5 million. In fact, that crowd is smaller than the last Gay Pride March they had in D.C.

Hee hee,

Gammy, I have to admit that there are few posters here on Current who are consistently as completely full of shit as you are. Less than 100,000 people showed up. A movement with any integrity would simply acknoweldge the true numbers and make the best of them (e.g., create a slogan like "We may be infinitesimal now, but we will be TWICE as big next year! ...or something equally inspiring). But of course distortion is like oxygen to a conservative.

Keep up the good work...your posts make me laugh like no others!

I think I covered it above>>>>>>>>>>>>

It is easier to get Liberals to the Capital because they just want to collect their government checks and handouts in person instead of waiting on the mail. Plus with no job they have the time.

Or perhaps this "army of righteousness" My_America is on about only exists in his head. Like those unemployed liberals who all live in the capital where all 50 states welfare offices are.

Great pics ! ;)

Actually, it's our America. Your name says it all.

KUNG
So what's wrong with My_America? Because your name is KUNGFUCHOP I am suppose to assume you own all rights to Kung Fu.

Its a BLOG handle.

Actually I do.

You're attitude is that you own America, and my attitude is that you should get a Kung Fu Chop.

Kung.
You are no martial artist with a comment like that. LIAR

KUNG
Thanks for the education tonight. Feel free to share your meaningless comments anytime especially if they pertain to the actual post.

peaceful yes, but patriotic? I disagree.

Partisan is a better word. This whole national media attempt to hijack the words patriotic and freedom to mean "our party politics" is transparently lame. "Pravda" used to mean truth in Russian. Now it means government lies. Poop in perfume enough and it will eventually just smell like shit.

"It is easier to get Liberals to the Capital because they just want to collect their government checks and handouts in person instead of waiting on the mail. Plus with no job they have the time."

See that? Right there? Gratuitous assertion? That's where you get a Kung Fu Chop. It hurts be more than you to do it, largely because your head is made entirely of bone.

Try over 2 million and thousands of sites throughout our Country. This is a movement that is real. WAKE UP WE'RE SCREAMING AT YOU!!!!

Thank God we are here to stand up for the real America and not the one Obama is trying to create. This is my America, not yours IF you believe the Govt. can actually run healthcare.

Well, first of all, Bob, in the America Obama is trying to create Government would/will not "run healthcare." I postd a summary of HB 3200 on Current yesterday. If you take the time to read it you will see that all it really does, in the end, is establish a framework in which everybody would be insured and nobody could be turne3d down when purchasing insurance. It dos almost NOTHING to change the ways in which medical treatment is provided in this country. People will go their doctors and clinics and emergency rooms exacltly the same way they always have. Those folks will just have a lot mre patients because of all the newly insured. But the docs aren't going to be working for the government or anything of the sort...

If you AREN'T willing to read it, then you aren't truly concerned about this issue and are just trying to pull a hatchet job rather than engaging in reasoned debate and discussion.f

Wealthy White Folks are the ones holding up the country from the top.

actually most of those white folks are ignorant poor white trash my friend.

Educated people do not support the tea partie nut jobs.

"Educated people" aren't under the pyramid I guess, and people under the pyramid are being ground into "the trash". Whew, I'm glad we got that straight.

For what it's worth I don't care how much anybody else take's home come Friday, whether they're an artist and real pretty like Delia or a McDonald's janitor. I just feel the people at the bottom shouldn't be at such a low point, so the bottom should be higher.

Which only makes common sense because raising the people on the bottom just makes sure they can afford to pay more people like Delia an even higher takehome $$$. When I got tired of paying two month's of my Rent payments a year to pay Cox Cable to flood my apartment mostly with channels I didn't even want, I cut them the heck off.

So this morning they sent a guy here to offer me a free month. Nope, not this time. I supported the Economy for over 10 years worth of cable TV I never wanted and the end came suddenly. Too bad. I can play this game a lot longer than anyone thinks, turning everything off.

The fridge and hot water are going soon. I'll get a little single pipe heater attached on the shower head and one on the kitchen sink, and get a small energy squeezer cold unit, and a one-room heater to keep me bed warm this winter and turn the heatpump DOWN.

Watch me smoke.

He said he wanted the country to go back 100 year WTF 100 years. That is stupid.

Word. Old/original ideals were awesome, but reality not so much (for me and 'my people' at least). Also, HMO's are a relatively new evil. Global markets, new in their size and proliferation. Global warming, new. We can't solely use documents written in the 1780's to determine what works NOW.

Yes, Delia! our founding fathers had it going on. You could own someone to do your work for you, have sex with the women slaves, thus cutting the high price of hookers. You could basically drag your woman around by the hair and it was all legal. No wonder they want it back.

"We should all applaud them for what they believe in?"

What??? Please tell me that you inadvertently left out a word or two in this sentence.

As to applauding them for exercising their right to free speech...no. I am not going to applaud someone holding up a placard calling on President Obama to "Go Back to Africa" simply because he had the "courage" to say it. The people to be applauded in this instance are those of us who stand by and take no action to infringe on the rights of these people to spew this filth...the same way we allow the Nazi party to do their annual parade down Main Street. You don't praise the Nazis for parading...you praise the people who ensure that the Nazi have the RIGHT to parade despite the vileness of their message and the hatred in their hearts and minds.

the key statement was your"...something to that effect" you don't even know what he said and your brood has decided to piss in his pockets.
what if he staement was "values" of our forefathers, or "courage" of our forefathers.

I would hate to cross the Donner pass" with you guys

I do know what he said; but I didn't want to give the impression that I knew the exact quote. The guy I am talking about didn't say anything about the founding fathers at all, only that he wanted to "restore the country." All the founding fathers talk was my own.

And you think he was saying we need to restore slavery?
Or genocidal attacks on Native Americans?

Come on, "deliatheartist"! I thought you "artist-types" knew how to "interpret" things, but this is just sad.

First, lest you missed the history lesson because you were doodling in your notebook, most of the founding fathers you slander were also activists trying to end slavery at a time when that notion was very radical and there was no industrial revolution or technology to free us from the manual labor needed at that time to produce goods, so they were as perplexed about how to end slavery as we are when we talk about "getting away from oil". In 300 years future liberals will scoff at our generation for not "getting off petroleum" without understanding how difficult that task is.

So I guess you think it's a 'coincidence' that the Declaration of Independence stated that "All Men are Created Equal"? Why didn't they say "all white men"?

additionally, there is no indication in the quote that this was what he was thinking at all. What these protesters are saying is that there has been a steady expansion of government and federal powers for 100 years, to the detriment of states' rights and individual liberties.

This is one thing I would think Liberals would understand.

But I guess the attraction of nursing at the teat of Big Government is just too tempting to people who feel they should be able to pursue "arts" and not be able to provide for themselves, so the rest of us should chip in so they can weave baskets and tag buildings with graffiti and always know they have "free" healthcare provided.

But it ain't free, honey. We who have jobs have to PAY for their unproductive lifestyles.

Good thoughts curtisreed, but the ideas here are enough to make me cry => "In 300 years future liberals will scoff at our generation for not "getting off petroleum" without understanding how difficult that task is." #1, to be biting into the future to the tune of THREE HUNDRED YEARS goes beyond the pail. The rest just goes spiraling off as a new galaxy.

However, I understand your point of view. You are standing on the front line facing Brad Pitt with a sword and they're saying he has never been defeated, and the beast looks DAUNTING. The United States has the technology to break free of crude oil, probably in less than a year. The Gov won't use its ammo.

In 1989 I copyrighted a crude little work, sort of a mini-novel okay, and I showed exactly how to get a minimum of one-half the world's electricity from LIGHTNING. They refuse to implement it?, or did they not see it, being tiny and me an unknown author? Well, other ideas in my novel were seen and used (without payment to the inventor), giving me the distinct impression my work had been combed tighter than John Travolta's hair in the movie Grease.

Since that time I've invented even better engine systems and showed a few online yet even though in full World View the world's governments have all -apparently- agreed not to build them. And that sir is ignoring all the other energy source inventions of other inventors also, which my surfing has shown me reaches into the clouds.

All Americans are being dangled like cooked spaghetti thinking the future has to succeed 300 years from now and that is a flat out LIE. I proved it was happening by showing the lightning system OVER TWENTY YEARS AGO. There is a well of truth being hidden from Americans and the world too and I personally find it to be and declare it to be EVIL to withhold these many solutions when people are laying down on the ground starving all over the world.

In short, whereas you see it as a difficult task I know it could have been accomplished already and since we can't reclaim the calendar we remain stabbed in the shoulder just as surely as David melted a round stone through Goliath's metal helmet, except we all get to be Goliath. Every 24 hours that passes this atrocity continues and children breathe their last rib-starved breath.

And yeah, the Climate can also be fixed too.

Woodrow Riley, aka The CloudSeeder

Delia is one of the nicest, best-hearted people to post on this site. She is also easily among the half-dozen most intelligent, IMHO. How unfortunate and how unfair to her that some people can't simply disagree without being disagreeable.

As to the following passage -- talk about bizarre:

"the attraction of nursing at the teat of Big Government is just too tempting to people who feel they should be able to pursue "arts" and not be able to provide for themselves"

Money and The Arts, eh? Well, let's take a look:

THEATER: Broadway revenues were $937.5 million dollars and West End revenues were $845.5 million. Over 25 million people attended a theatre production on Broadway and in the West End during the 2007-2008 season." Source "Marquee Ventures" (theater investment site)

FINE ARTS (the kind in which Delia specializes, although she works in other media as well): "With turnover of $ 1,322 million for some 30,000 lots sold, the United States dominated the art market once again in 2004. US auction houses accounted for 46.5% of the global fine art market compared with 42% in 2003, and total turnover generated in the United States rose 45% in one year.
A number of factors contributed to this substantial rise: an increase in sales volume (+15%), a dramatic cumulative rise in prices (+18.5% on the New York market) and the
growing number of lots sold for over a million dollars (229 works in New York, compared with 132 in 2003)."

POPULAR MUSIC: "US recording industry revenue by year-end 2006 had reached $11 billion." Source: Yankee Group

CINEMA: "According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hollywood’s revenue was up 2% for the year to a record $9.76 billion."

BOOKS/FICTION: "Worldwide sales estimated at $4.5 billion in 2008" Source: Amazon

...and of course I am leaving out the enormous revenues generated by art and artists in advertizing, fashion, photography, poetry, etc, etc. Art -- whether it be the stories written for television or the paintings hanging the Louvre -- is a HUGE portion of the American and Global economies. The bit of cash we sprinkle around to help artists get started or get estblished is an investment that has paid off many, many times over.

Thank you for your contributions, Delia...

Thanks cztheday!!! You just explained why the elite has let all (or much) of the factory jobs leave the country. They haven't gotten over the loss of Marilyn Monroe. This is their way of pushing the Make More Artists button. Plus the Gov knows keeping wages low keeps the "volunteer army" quota busting at the seams. Dang CZ, you just wiped out the rest of my questions.

Um...you're welcome?

I have put about 15 minutes into trying to decode your post...but I must admit that you have lost me and my very small brain.

I was referring to a completely gratuitous attack on Delia's status as an artist -- the attack was unprovoked, unnecessary and completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. It was done, I gather, in a rather lame attempt to attack Delia's credibility...under the theory that an artist is somehow by definition someone who lives on the generosity of the taxpayer...and that kind of person could not have a legitimate opinion.

Delia is, of course, more than capable of defending herself. Her eloquence leaves me fumbling in her wake.

But I felt compelled to observe that only a very tiny portion of the art world relies on public taxpayer largesse. "Art," whether we are talking about the so-called "Fine Arts" like painting and sculpture, or the myriad other arts from acting, directing, graphic design, animation, etc. to ballet, opera, poetry, and the like are HUGE businesses.

Are they sufficient to carry the economy? Of course not...I never argued anything of the sort. I was simply responding to a rather dim-witted aspersion to the effect that art exists only as a result of the sufferance of taxpayer charity.

I agree with you. I myself was once regarded as an artist, or perhaps artisan? I was more than a donut baker "bench man" for Dunkin' Donuts. I was trained by a real baker who taught me stuff outside of Dunkin's limitations (using just a fryer). The man showed me how to make coffee cake shaped like ropes, twists, even starfish.

Whenever I would switch jobs and return to Dunkin' the shop would begin seeing a very acceptable rise in sales, especially on the weekends, because they all knew they were respected by the baker. When I worked for the Midlothian store they began calling me the superbaker.

Top pay was $45.00 a night, and no hospitalization benefits for my family. Forget dental. Hmm, forget buying a home too. Yep. yepyepyepyepyep, those were the Good Ol' Days, 1978. Dunkin' Donuts paid me under the table, didn't want to pay any stupid American taxes. Started by oops better not say that.

High respect for American workers there. Keep the baker poor and down so he can never open his own doughtnut shop, a great policy. So cztheday, I'm well versed in the Black Man's Plight. When they were given equality all it did was lower me even further to join them.

I never went to all these functions you guys are talking about, plays and such. I think my owners did though.

GravityMan,

Your post is interesting...but I remain puzzled. I didn't say anything about the Black Man's Plight. I too grew up in poverty. My first job was bussing tables for $1.15 per hour when I was 13 at a "greasy spoon" cafe (the fruit plate came deep fried) on the wrong side of the tracks (in other words the same side on which I grew up). They gave me one meal and my single Mom welcomed the paycheck, small as it was. Just about any job has an "art" to it if you care enough to do it well. Same with bussing tables.

When I was 15, some smart-dressed guy came in for a late Saturday morning breakfast and suffering from a wicked hangover. He stared at me while I worked for so long that I was getting nervous that he might get "affectionate." Instead, it turned out that he was the owner of the ritziest restaurant in my hometown. He offered to double my hourly rate if I would come to work for him -- and guaranteed that my tips would triple. Taught me one of life's most valuable lessons. Always do your best and keep your eyes open. You never know when opportunity may be watching...

I'm happy for you CZ but we're talking apples and oranges your life vs mine. I started at 10 cents an hour 2 years before I was legally allowed to work in any restaurant, and no magical (intelligent) mentor came swooping in to teach me valuable lessons.

I was working with a broken back (busted vertebrae) from a fall I took when I was 11YO, my thyroid wasn't working so I didn't fight off diseases and I didn't repair much from accidents. I started out with a completely different deck of cards than you had dealt you.

When I went to work for Dunkin' I wasn't treated like an artist or an experienced and valuable Employee. I worked for people who made war against me on the monetary level. When I worked at the Richmond store on Midlothian the Night baker was getting off and I reckon he was tired, but he also had a bad ticker too, so in his poor health he slipped and told me the owner was paying him a full 40% higher wage than me.

I admire your success in your adversities. Apparently you have little compassion towards my wandering into a Upper Class snake pit where the game was to stomp me like white trash, and my family. But then again, in the long run God saw what was being done to us, and my family, has the rich blessings of my many zero pollution inventions as well my recent health tonic that were showered on me by the Almighty God.

Things have a way of evening out sometimes. The other day I decided to look up one of my former captors and his wife. She's still a highly respected school system official and he's a scurvy real estate agent because he was scurvy then too. So I e-mailed them about the health tonic that would help them, as they are a bit older than me, and faxed them too in case some underling trashes e-mails.

I haven't heard back from them. The reason? Because to them I'm trash and will always have to stay trash. Just like when I tell people about my tornado-like engine system uses no fuel, just spin cycles around compressing air by the body weight of a moving car (inertia) and heating * re-heating the water into steam to form a Low Pressure area (semi-vacuum) in the engine cylinder for the liquid air to EXPLODE into instead of just expanding, tremendously bumping up the engine horsepower.

People don't want it because I'm a JW now. You see CZ, I've run into the snotty bunch and for them to feel like higher ups they have to look down on somebody. I filled that spot in their lives a long time til one day God started lifting me up high above them, and they simply can't stand it, so I tell people about all these many blessings that should be theirs for the taking.

And they have to choose not to.Every time they choose not to just gives me more validation, something I never had in my illness of a life where I wasn't a lot of use to my family. I fully expect a lot greater blessings to come while those people bite their lips til they bleed in anguish I guess.

You're the second person today who has gone out of his way to be insulting toward me. hehehe, saying you can't decipher plain English come on... Whatever you need, Kemo Sabe. You need victories that bad, you take em any way you can, but in the end your government is keeping my many fantastic engine systems out of your reach.

BTW, CZ. The seafood restaurant I worked at WAS the ritziest one in town. Everybody get paid dirt for wages. Then Holiday Inn opened its first motel next door and they took advantage of all the dirt cheap labor pool to amass their fortune ($7 billion when the Krisch brothers died). Very few people around here in this neck of the woods succeeds. Even today the illiteracy rate and dropout rate would blow you away. So it isn't just me. There is a spirit of hatred here. Dunkin', another Jewish-owned business, same thing. Exploit the slaves.

And the "slaves" aren't just Blacks any more they're every American, every color, except of course bow-on-the-ground new immigrants.

Gravity,

Obviously I can't force you to believe me when I tell you I didn't understand your posts -- still have NO idea what you meant by Marilyn Monroe or the Black Man's Plight. Sorry, I am sure you have something clearly in mind, but I haven't the foggiest notion what that might be.

You have my sympathies with respect to the tough breaks you have had physically. Mine don't compare: I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis 13 years ago and take 20 mg. of prednisone to control the pain, swelling and cramping in my hands and feet so I can walk and type (not necessarily at the same time). I refuse to take narcotic pain medication, but nearly a decade of the prednisone has resulted in chronic anemia, type 2 diabetes, pulmonory obstructive disorder, sleep apnea (I have to use a bipap air machine to force air into my lungs inhaling AND exhaling AND sleep sitting up in a chair), acid reflux and chronic ulcers. My immune system has been compromised, so I take antibiotics for four weeks, then two weeks off, then four weeks on a different antibiotic, two weeks off, etc -- to try to keep the bugs out of my lungs. Despite these efforts I have had pneumonia four times in five years, nearly dying twice (last January -- 2009 -- I was hospitalized while we were on vacation and the docs told my wife she should go ahead and look into the arrangements necessary to fly my body back to our hometown).

But I won't be beaten. I exercise every day and study tae kwon do -- plan out every meal and snack well in advance to keep the fat off and blood sugar in check. But most importantly, I try to take a Zen approach to a principled life. My life may or may not be shortened by illness (then again none of us gets a guarantee) but I want it to stand for the kind of ideals my kids can draw from when they face their own challenges.

My criticism was of the post (before you even joined the thread) that ridiculed the role of artists in our society, tarring Delia in the process. If you choose to feel insulted by a response that wasnt' even directed at you...fine. I have no problem with JWs. I don't like being disturbed in my home by recruiters, but I don't answer the door to anyone over the age of 18 (I ALWAYS buy from scouts, even if I have to weep as I toss the thin mints because they don't fit the plan.)

For most of us, just getting from one end of life to the other and trying to do the right thing, instilling good values in our children and striving to leave the world in some small measure a better place for our having passed through it is a challenge of darned near (but not quite) insurmountable proportions. The only people toward whom I bear ill will on this site or anywhere else are those who can't seem to get through the day without making that challenge even harder for the rest of us. I hope you are not that kind of a person...

II have no need to tar you or Delia, even when you slur my religion by degrading a comment calling us recruiters. We do a Bible-ordained preaching work commanded by Christ Jesus for his true followers to do. We stand out because most the other so-called followers are pew sitters and Reverend worshippers. In our Meetings we have no such person.

I've had my shots at being brought home in a body bag. You obviously have doctors who actually do their job but here where I live they turned away from me and it didn't just start yesterday, so you have proper diagnoses in your hand I do not but that doesn't mean my situation has been less critical. I inherited my thyroid gland from the wrong parent like having a the most important gland in your body from an incompatible donor.

I'll stack that up against everything you got because I've likely had everything you've had. But one thing I never had was a hand up like you had so these people who keep hammering on & on about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps can jump into the river Styx. If that's your attitude then you can too because life for me has been a string of hypothermic near death episodes.

But here finally after having every circulatory disease there is plus several cancers I had to fight off on my own w/out doctors and w/out antibiotics I do know one thing for certain, I have no right to be alive. The only reason my life has been extended was to testify to God's ability to keep raising me back from death, as my heart has completely come to a Halt several times.

One thing I have not had is rheumatoid arthritis, but when I was 20-something my chest would ache if I took my shirt off to a summer breeze clear through to my back. I got a much earlier start on pain than you did but, that isn't to discount your problems now. However, some of what is going on with you is likely being made worse by the meds I was deprived.

Meds taken 24/7 impose a burden on the body's Immune System and the system fights with them as if they are invaders, which begins to burn up so much oxygen doing all that infighting that having doctors at some point becomes more the problem than the cure.

All that Zen and pushups and mantras isn't going to survive you from doctors. They darn near killed me. In fact, I had two separate doctors each telling me "if you quit these medicines you will surely die". I quit one in August 2002 and the other 3+ years ago, after which I discovered my body had been REJECTING OF THEM FOR DECADES.

My blood pressure reached 245/140+ that lasted from 2003-2006 and the doctors I would go to they would say "Gee Mr. Riley we need to keep an eye on that." and that was exactly what they did for 3 years while the capillaries in my eyes, lungs and penis were exploding, and brain.

You've had bad, but you haven't been killed by them yet and I have. You're in the lineup though. But the last time my heart stopped, the air gushed from my lungs a dead man's lungs as my head hit the pillow, and I knew this time I was gone. I was ready for a rest anyway so I didn't mind. In fact, I welcomed it. Suddenly a surge of power I've never felt the like was in me and I jumped off the bed and went right back to writing about my fantastic engine systems for a straight nother 8 hours. I dared death to come at me again.

It was not of my own power. I was exhausted and quite frankly, after living through two Lyme's Disease attacks the last one lasted 4 months with my spine and brain (and fluids) permeated with billions of coiled spirocheates called Borelli, I wanted to stay dead. I wanted to stay on that pillow but it was denied me. I continue working on even more engine systems this country refuses to use but... they honor God so it isn't a waste.

I like honoring the one Person I know who can raise a dead person back to being alive & I didn't summon him up with mantras or Zen or Yoga. If you used my tonic you'd get better. It feeds the muscles and your Immune System, cleanses the blood and organs.

CZ, I probably feel more compassion for you than anybody because I've had a lot of them. I had sleep apnea ever since 1989 when my chest took a slamming into the ground. After about a year had passed strands called endometriosis formed all criss-crossed between my heart and lungs and spine. Every organ that slammed against another organ formed a strand and they began to draw up.

My spine was pulled both to the left and the right, my neck became twisted down as I was being pulled into a pretzel. My heartbeat grew fainter & fainter as it was being tightened on, and the lungs were taking in and exhaling less & less air each day. So before I bought the farm I went to a chiropractor my wife knew about and it took him 10 months 2-3 visits a week to prevent my death.

And then Worker's Compensation of Virginia refused to pay for his services based on a technicality, that I had not asked permission first.

hahahahahaha

You don't ever want to walk my path.

I feel utmost compassion for your being low on oxygen because there has been many months where I really should have had an oxygen tank myself but didn't, because I gave up asking Roanoke Virginia doctors for help. Once they discovered after the accident that I was carrying the bipolar gene every issue I asked help with, even simply needing antibiotics, they turned it into a "he's mental and making it up" issue.

Several times near death I have had to literally beg & plead for an antibiotic. No one should ever have to walk in my shoes... but it sort of appears that that is indeed about to happen by official decree of the King.

I first realized my doctors were not trying to help me in 2002 and when that realization hit me it caused me to black out into brain death. All my senses stopped, no input, and it was very dark. Even though I have acute hearing I heard nothing. I had been going to this doctor for 1 1/2 YEARS and thought he was trying to help me return to work but it was all a big act. When I faced that fact I was sitting on the exam room gurnie and dropped into a catatonic (frozen) state because this man was deliberately preventing me from reutning to Work and helping my still-growing family who all needed me.

Now they don't. One died of leukemia, 28 years old.

The meds they had prescribed me since 1990 degraded my Immune System partly because my immune system had been demolished while I was still growing in the womb. Mom's doctor allowed her that she didn't have to stop smoking and drinking while pregnant because back in those days they thought the placental barrier stopped everything. I was literally strangled in the womb for oxygen.

I know your every feeling friend.

My fingers under the nails turn purple as in cadaver purple not happy purple. My lips are usually dark purple too, almost like wearing purple lipstick. I got some heart valve damage in 1999 taking some weightloss stuff from GNC... and the reason I was even taking weightloss stuff (which was btw recalled recently this year) is because Medicare thinks being overweight always has to be a cosmetic issue therefore totally Elective.

They don't give a damn so they put a damnation on me.

Jesus. Anyway, when I died I really did die and it wasn't a surge of adrenalin brought me back. I know that because when I turned 12-13 and grew bigger I found myself short of energy. To have energy I found I could "make myself angry" all the time. I replaced the missing thyroid chemicals with adrenalin. So you could say I am an authority on adrenalin and what raised me off the bed was not that.

An adrenalin surge has a limited duration. I was completely exhausted and died and then whatever time passed I don't know but pow, I was up writing for 8 straight hours hard as I could go, and long after adrenalin would have worn down.

What cellular energy you still have is being spent fighting with the drugs while losing O2. Your belief in doctors is misplaced. Wen you die they punch out & go home.

I never had "youth" CZ. With my broken vertebrae I started life with a nothing thyroid putting out gobs of incompatible hormone into my bloodstream. I take it you did have a period there where you were able to function as a man? I did not. I was a cold-blooded reptile who looked like a man, and everyone in my life expected me to achieve like a man but I could not. I went from being a cold teen freezing to death pumping gas for my uncle to being an old man. I estimate my real age and health to be more on the order of around 90 years old.

All this crap about the United States of America having the "best healthcare in the world", where th' hell is it? I've never seen it.

Virginia was and still is the State that loves Slavery. Virginia doctors fought with every lobbyist muscle they could muster to stop chiropractry. After they lost that one they fought against acupuncture. Va doctors fight against any new treatment because they know it would expose them to malpractice claims so they simply don't do it.

They will sit there protecting their job while holding your hand & watching your loved ones die. They even fight against good nutrition as a therapy. Scum of the earth is too good a name for them. And God wants me here in the middle of em to put them on notice of all these sins.

When I get ill even yet as I sometimes do, like several days ago, for a minute I entertained the idea of returning to them my tail tucked between my legs asking for their crummy help and then I said no, if I die today I will die a man with dignity. Not a few minutes after that I felt some energy coming into me. God rewarded me for staying true to my vow of not going to the doctors here ever again, and He picked me up.

But He isn't picking me above others because I'm a better man, because I never have been one. I've never been a real human, not really. All I ever was was a biological cripple. I sure haven't had a life as one. I'm assuming you once did and that gives you strength to draw on those good memories.

God is magnified when He chooses the weak and lifts them up. I showed how to make a great health tonic and see what happened? They issued a change of dosage and they did it REALLY QUICK. They were double dosing people too much flu vaccine and actually, they were giving people Swine Flu! But as soon as my tonic was on the Internet JUST ONE WEEK they withdrew their sharpened claws.

I, the weak and poisoned, turned them around on their heels. That my friend is not my power but the power of God, and they know it. They know they are being examined. And while you and millions of others have +/- bought their atheist brainwashing via the schoolbooks they do believe. They just now showed their belief. Faced with my tonic they broke and ran.

Faced with my tonic they broke and ran like English soldiers.
Faced with my tonic they broke and ran like English soldiers.
Faced with my tonic they broke and ran like English soldiers.

No, my situation is simply nowhere near as dire as yours...OK, with the possible exception of the immunity thing. My wife is just FRANTIC about the swine flu epidemic...convinced that my lack of an immune system is going to be like some kind of cosmic homing device, making me the new Mother Ship for the virus. I think she has been sitting a little too close to her glue gun down in her craft room...but hey, I am going to feel PRETTY SILLY SAYING SO if I turn up dead this winter...

I continue to be fully functioning as a man, as you put it -- or at least as fully functioning as one gets at 48 years of age. I just have to be a bit more careful about my eating habits than most folks...and I can't afford to get lazy about workouts...and I have to take a few meds that I find aggravating...but otherwise I acutally feel pretty strong (and virile...don't want to forget the virile...there IS more to life than James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon and snarking on conservatives over the 'Net, after all...).

BTW, I did NOT say the JWs were a bunch of recruiters...I simply included them among the whole spectrum of folks who show up on my doorstep...and who by so doing already have two strikes against them in my book: 1) They have invaded my privacy, whether they think so or not, and 2) I work from 6 am to 6 pm with a half-hour for lunch every weekday. If I am at home, I am by definition relaxing and spending time with my wife and children. Someone who takes even five minutes of that precious time from me had better darned well show up with my engraved invitation to the after life IN HAND...and maybe toss in a back rub...

Over a span of 6 years I was beset with growths in my right nostril, so I did like everybody else & went to Ear Nose and Throat specialist here in Roanoke. My breathing was obstructed ON TOP OF sleep apnea so my days and nights were a distressing experience. I drowned as a child so when my breathing is obstructed it causes flashbacks of that.

They all to a man each one said they couldn't see anything because none of them were really professionals but, they $$$$ me the rate of professionals. They got paid good from Medicare + sent me extra above that for looking up my nose with a flashlight. That was the level of their being specialists. Two growths were under the skin, in the flesh, and I recalled reading about such things that they were a form of cancer.

The swelled flesh were raised bumps but they were not directly opposite each other so when I breathed in or out they caused a ripple in the air stream that set up a waterboarding vibration. I lived with being waterboarded like this that went on for 3 years. In September 2007 the one on the inside side suddenly raised up enough to where I could GRAB THE SON OF A B*TCH with needlenose pliers and rip it out.

Surrounding flesh and blood was also pulled out and it never grows back. So whether your immune system is worse or better than mine is overpowered by that bare spot on the bone because whenever I'm out and breathe in people's germs -or H1Ni+Swine+Flu- it gets a quick ride inside the bone.

But, this is just another example the difference between you having people helping you and me having a nest of filth calling themselves "doctors" here in Roanoke Virginia who whether meaning to or not have been instrumental in bringing me into the funeral parlor way too many times to view my dead body.

Being waterboarded for over 3 years nonstop every inhale & every exhale goes beyond what is normal but it's what my life has been meted out by doctors. It is like having a death rattle with obstructed breathing, like being in a death roll under the water's surface fighting a gator like Tarzan... except it never stops hehehe... til you start taking your medical care into your own hands as I learned to do and yanked the cancer out of my nostril.

Where is this thing called "best healthcare in the world"? I have yet to find it.
Where is this thing called "best healthcare in the world"? I have yet to find it.
Where is this thing called "best healthcare in the world"? I have yet to find it.

The ear nose & throat specialist Dr. Geoffrey T. Harter is one I do not forget. I had all the symptoms of Meniere's, went in to see him and showed him a handwritten list of my symptoms instead of blurting out I HAVE MENIERE'S, right, he leaves the room, comes back and says "I don't see anything wrong with you" then they sent me a bill. So I started working on a formulation of healthful herbs and nutrition products to reduce my double-swelled right mastoid and cheekbone, but I didn't succeed, til I made this tonic and now it's almost reduced to normal.

Your wife is correct to be concerned. Your army of doctors have medicated you so much your immune system has been drowned by medicines and you're suffering oxygen deprivation i.e. a reduced immune system energy. You would benefit from my health tonic.

But, you prefer staying where you are, just like you can't work up the intelligent telephone call to the nearby Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses and tell them you need to stop all door knockers from visiting your place. It's easier to d^mn the messengers.

If you called the elders they would mark the cards that have your address as do not visit, but that would take away what you love to have, a hammer of hate that pummels JW's down under your feet.

dear curtisreed , Do you have any idea of what makes the sometimes great suffering of life bearable ? I think you greatly misunderstand the power of creation . Creative problem solving is the great survival skill of humanity . The ability to create a complex system that has never before existed . A song , a painting , a story/myth , a dwelling , a community structure , a form of government , a country , a school . This is the function of an artist . We train our gift all our lives to do it . It is this human speciality that creates community , forms rituals in religions , social myths that bind us and guide us all our lives . With the use of symbols (the flag), music (whatever you listen to ), architecture (the palladium ,cemeteries ), literature (the constitution ,ancient greek plays ), art brings people together . Do you think woodstock wasn't important to those who were there ? Just imagine life without one single art . Music . Try going through one day , one hour without it . No happy birthday song . Christmas carols , anthems . Without some song just popping into your head . Without hearing the song of birds . The sigh of the wind . Why are you even here , if not to feel what beauty evokes ? I think you miss the point of being human . What do you do when you suffer ? Watch a comedian ? A movie , perhaps ? Listen to rock and roll ? It's all art . The benefits are intangible and priceless . Kind like life . We are surrounded by it and might easily take it for granted . Every artist I know works with all their soul thrown in . For me it requires a zen concentration for hours on end , to exhaustion , so as to keep the whole ,yet uncreated concept in mind without breaking your train of thought in process . Personally , I do a lot of local charity work , and rarely get paid a decent hourly wage . The economy is hard so I am understanding about that . When I paint a mural , it may be enjoyed for 10 , 20 years . Does what I get paid last that long ? No . A working artist is expected to do about 4 works a month , just to get by . How many rich artist do you know ? I have often asked myself why I work so hard . Every 20 years or so , the arts are quite dismissed by persons such as your self . My self respect tells me I have no choice but to do the best I can , integrity demands it . It requires constance and an iron will , and unwavering nerves . When you decide to belittle something , it is a good idea to know , exactly what you are talking about . There is no reason to disrespect anyone for their profession .

If you don't like progressives go hang out at red state. We have all the right wing garbage we need here.

@nodon,
but it's alot funner to catch peckerheads like u in your lies. You leave

that "liar" thing i sooo last week

but you're not catching anyone. you are just yelling BS! but not saying why. You come off merely sounding grumpy and ignorant.

As it happens I also think the story is weak. it's conspicuously short of numbers and long on pejoratives.

'less than"? How much less? 10%? 50%? What were the raw numbers? (actually pretty high I understand) The million man march didn't draw a million men but it drew a heck of a lot of folks

Here's' the Huffington post coverage which one must admit is not a conservative propaganda organ.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/12/taxpayer-march-on-washing_n_284477.html

@ slarabee,
i would appreciate it if you stayed away from my ass. i really don't care about your sexual preference but i am married with 3 fantastic sons. I am sorry but i am sure there is someone out there for you. Try the rest areas in VT

Negative, its YOUUU...

good one clown

Because you didn't see them at the Halliburton picnic?

Well, since an acorn is way larger than what you have between either your ears or your legs, clownpuncher...

As insult trolls go I'm giving it 3.5 out of five bridges.
It's pithy and short, but not sufficiently topical.

it would have gotten 2.5 but it's obviously pulling commentary so well it has to get a point for that.