barack obama touches my heart

I haven't experienced this with politicians before. Oh, I've heard rousing speeches and speeches that excited me or stirred some patriotic urge. But I haven't encountered a politician who reaches right into my soul and makes me feel . . . comforted. That's it, he comforts me. He speaks to me in ways no politician ever has. Maybe it's life experience and where I am at this point in George Bush's America. I don't know what it is, but when I hear his calm voice telling me his plans for this country (and I'm smart enough and informed enough to know that his plans could work), I feel better.

Watching what is widely known as Obama's Infomercial last evening, I found myself in tears from the waving wheat. Inside of me is still that child who recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before class at First Lutheran. The one who felt that the possibilities for my life were countless and that optimism and hard work would always be rewarded.

Hearing from the couple who'd planned a comfortable retirement, then had to refinance their home to pay for medical bills just wrecked me. When the 72 year old man put on the Wal-Mart cap to go to work for his wife's car, to save their home, I wept. Hard.

My house, too, was paid for. My retirement was secure and then Mike got sick. I'm a can-do all American gal, so I buckled down and started a business so I could take care of him. And I worked 100+ hours a week for four straight years. Forty hours for the health care we desperately needed and the rest to cover the copays and deductibles and "experimental" drugs that were the only cure for him. American dream turned nightmare.

It shouldn't be this hard. I have worked since I was 14 years old. I had a great retirement planned until the stock market bottomed out. I am still comfortable, relatively safe, safer than most I know. And I have health insurance ~ $1500 a month in health care costs ~ and I am fortunate.

My sweet friend Crixi van Cheek, who's had more than his share of health care nightmares to deal with, said this about the Infomercial, being billed by the right as just another slick marketing tool:

We watched sitting at the kitchen table. On the same day that the doctor told me I may need more surgery on the same day that Aetna denied coverage for more chemo and told me my co-pay would be over $4,000.00. And I watched that man on TV and I cried because despite the circumstances of my health, our finances and utter wreckage of the Bush years he provides hope.

Thats enough. Just give me hope.

And that's enough for me too. Give me hope. Barack Obama did that last night and I can only trust that he touched others as well. Hope. A little bit of help. It's all we need.

for you

For you, for all of us, I wish a new year of splendid things: love, laughter, joy and tears. Those are my top four wishes, heavy on the love and joy and laughter, of course, with just enough damp to add a piquancy to the others.

I am not happy about the state of the world and particularly of my country. 2007 was rife with disappointment in so many areas, foremost the new Democratic congress which never found its footing and was so inept, in so many ways, that I find myself suspicious of intent.

As of this very moment, there are 385 long and frightening days, 7 dangerous hours, 32 minutes and a variance of seconds left in the most destructive presidency in the history of this country. Since I've been sleeping better, I haven't been as openly enraged about politics, but in my heart there is a constant awareness of the urgency of this: we must have more Democrats in Congress come November and we must have a Democratic president. If we do not accomplish this one thing, the Supreme Court will turn against the vast majority of us and will become a tool for those who would use religion to control us.

Vote, vote Democrat, do not stay home, check your registration frequently, vote at the polls if at all possible, ensure your address is correct and that you're at the correct polling place. We face enormous challenges in fighting the corrupt thugs who would steal the last vestiges of democracy from us through caging and corruption. It will be an up hill battle to win this election and we must.

Resolutions will come and go and I'll make my own, mostly involving more time spent in silence, in the pursuit of spiritual connection. But the one resolution I will make and one I hope you will join me in and pass on is this: I will vote and I will urge others to and I will help register the unregistered and I will make noise about the corruption of the process. One thing, one act that can change the world and possibly save it: Vote.

sing it, everybody

In the midst of my recovery from the cyber-attack and trying to get caught up at work, I have checked HuffingtonPost a few times to keep up with the headlines now that Congress is back in session. The news is good this morning ~ New York Times editorial calling for bringing the troops home, Justice Department lawyer telling all, Rethuglican senators defecting. The news is great.

But in the middle of all of that, when I clicked on UNDER SIEGE!, joyfully emblazoned over a photo of the chimp-in-chief, I somehow found this. It was a God thing. Sing it, pumpkins!! "The idiot son of an aaaasshole!" Sweet! And funny and right on target. Now I'll be singing this all day, but what better thing on a Monday afternoon when the tides may be turning at last?

Crixi on a cure for AIDS

I posted Saturday about a promising technique developed by German researchers which actually snips the HIV virus from cells, thus curing the cells of infection. I connected to that research, from Deutsche Welle, here.

In response to that post, Mr. Crixi Van Cheek responded with a comment that touched me. I have fallen in love with Mr. Crixi over the last year as the result of his comments on Joe.My.God. When he writes, I listen up, so here is Crixi on what he might do when the cure for AIDS gets here.

My Dear Lynette...

At first we think how wonderful it will be. A sort of VE day over AIDS. What would we call it? In 1990 "Longtime Companion" an Oscar nominated film about AIDS, portrayed the end by having us re-united with all our loved ones on the beach on Fire Island. Sadly, nearly everyone in the film is now dead. Including my bright eyed friend Frankie.

I sometimes wonder myself, what would it be like? I got the virus on 11/26/89. I found out, and got sick April Fool's Day, 1991. Now, all these years later, after having watched way too many people breath their last I find I have very few tears left, but a reservoir of rage.

When I was in school I saw news reels from the end of WWII showing survivors of the Nazi Death Camps being liberated. I used to wonder why they just didn't run for the open gates the minute they were freed. They sort of scraggled towards their liberators.

They were wide eyed and skeptical as they were let out of that hell. Of course the cameras focused on the weakest, the rail thin "walking corpses". But in the background and to the sides were the people that had arrived at the camps later, who were still relatively healthy. What were they to feel? Are they less relieved since they have suffered for a shorter period of time? Do they stifle their joy in the presence of those who have suffered unimaginable pain and loss?

And so it may be when they announce a cure for AIDS. Will I be entitled to joy? Or will I feel too much guilt for having been one of the survivors? How many more accomplished people died before me? My first love, a handsome young doctor, such a waste they all said. But me, just a blue collar kind of guy, why me, why did I make it?

Yes, yes, the Mary Ann Williamson profiteers will all have reasons for me to 'embrace' my feelings and live in some spirit, some moment. But fuck them all, they just wrote books and got rich while our bowels rotted.

Will I walk out of the camp, or will I run? Do I have any run left in me? Will I want to go back and scoop up the ashes of my friends or will I not look back and wash that whole dirty virus off me in a marathon shower?

What will I do when there is a cure? Will the Glaxos and Squibbies mourn their lost protease profits as much as we mourn our dead? Or, will we meet at the corner of Gay St. and Christopher and as our friend Joe.My.God would say: "They tried to kill us, they didn't, let's dance"?

Can you imagine such a thing? And is it even possible to experience such a glorious breakthrough ~ a cure for this dreadful plague ~ without mourning loved ones lost? All of my Houston friends are dead, my band of sweet gay boys who introduced me to the bars, to their lives, who I loved absolutely and who loved me right back. I don't think I could revel in the joyful news of a cure without again mourning the loss of those precious men. We were just babies, all of us, so very young and innocent. To think of them older is impossible. I will always remember them on the dance floor, just as Crixi has said, in movement and life and joy and love. A cure will come. I know it.

my canadian immigration lawyer

says maybe there's hope for us. Stay tuned.

something to do to help stop this war

Cameron Penny, a 12 year old poet from Michigan, wrote this and then read it at a meet-up of Poets Against the War in New York City.

If you are lucky in this life
A window will appear on a battlefield between two armies
And when the soldiers look into the window
They don’t see their enemies
They see themselves as children
And they stop fighting
And go home and go to sleep
When they wake up, the land is well again.

What a beautiful dream that is. As another means of stopping the fighting, Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, writing for The Nation, suggest a monthly Iraq Moratorium Day, an adjunct to the periodic anti-war gatherings in this country where so many are opposed to what's happening in Iraq.

I remember the Vietnam War moratorium days when I was a baby activist. This is something we can all do, every 3d Thursday beginning September 21. Call congress, email the Whitehouse, rabblerouse, speak up, practice patriotism. Doing something is far better than doing nothing, and it just might help.

namenda + aricept = daddy

The Alzheimer's/Dementia drug Namenda in combination with Aricept has combined to give my Daddy back to me. Up until about a month ago, when I made this post about his having started Namenda alone, our conversations were extremely limited and repetitive, as he'd forget within moments that he'd already asked about the sister, husband, dogs. He'd call me 6-8 times a day, always to ask the same questions over and over and over. It was heartbreaking and tedious, but I could never skip his phone calls as my sisters have done (for their own sanity, no judgment, I just can't).

Friday night we had a lengthy conversation during which he gave me advice based on his experience. An hour or so later he called again and he said "just to reiterate what we discussed previously" and launched into more detail, reasons why I should not do the thing I was considering (have grandkids live in, sigh), possible outcomes and on and on and on. I appreciated the advice but the stunning thing was the nature of the conversation. After 10 minutes of this lucid, intelligent discussion with my father, I realized we have not talked that way with each other in 8-10 years. It was magic.

I know he'll never recover what he's lost, and it's only supposed to stop any further loss, but we have seen amazing things and it is a blessing beyond measure to have him back, if only for a while.

Namenda + Aricept = A Miracle

avaaz.org ~ we're all that's left

okay

From DailyKos . . .

Buck up. We still haven't completely lost this Iraq supplemental battle. And if we do, instead of crying and taking your ball home, resolve to fight even harder. We owe it to our troops in Iraq, to our families, to our neighbors, to ourselves.

We have a lot of deadwood to get rid of in DC -- both Democratic and Republican. We have to combat the lies of the right wing noise machine and its allies in the traditional media. We have to build an electoral machine that can go toe-to-toe against the GOP's machine and win -- even when Republicans aren't shooting themselves in the foot.

This movement is about fighting for what we believe in, doing the hard work to transform both our party and our nation. It won't happen at once. We'll have to do this incrementally one issue fight and one election cycle at a time.

Deep breath, shoulder shake, whap on the head. Okay. Onward.