The Political Machine

On health and the body politic: I was trying an experiment. For more than six months, I have refused to watch political commentary on TV, I have stopped reading the slanted, biased, inflammatory news briefs on any website, I removed myself from the 'ultra-awareness' I once valued so much.
Seriously, it was hard, I wanted to KNOW, I wanted to be 'in the know', I wanted badly to have thoughts and suppositions and ideas poured into my head to stir me, make me wonder, make me suspicious...
Politics or political ideals were coming between me and loved ones. I stopped expressing myself in any way on their Facebook pages so that my thoughts wouldn't have a chance to be misinterpreted as personal.
Stopping was the best thing I could possibly have done for my health. After about the third month, I became aware of a strange state of euphoria, happiness and well-being. I wasn't an automaton, I wasn't dense or stupid, I just wasn't MANIPULATED into anger and distrust. I thought that this feeling would be accompanied by shame that I was no longer pundit-worthy, the shame did not come, the happiness was real.
There are still images that can bring some of that old feeling back, certain people have a way of keeping their faces in the news to the point that you'd have to be a hermit to avoid them, those faces and the twisted ideals behind the facade always stirred a great deal of disgust in me.
Tragedies, all tragedies, pull me, my empathy level is extremely high and, unlike some of the crocodile tears and comments that have been 'issued' over the tragedy, many of us felt grief and remorse of a different kind. Remorse because we've let this happen to our society, remorse because we saw this coming...like a giant freight train barreling down well-laid tracks...we saw this and so much more to come. We don't know the shooter's motivation, but we are aware of the 'climate' that has been log-jammed over our nation. Before, during and after the Civil War, that same climate of 'my ideas are right, yours are wrong, there is no middle ground' caused similar tragedies.
Why can't gun owners realize that we aren't trying to take their guns away, we would like, however, to take away the chance to have insane people armed to the teeth with modern lethal equipment only needed by police forces and army personnel? The bullies can take over in this current, "Don't you touch our right to bear arms, missiles, long-range tank-piercing super-shells!" They can take over, wipe out an army of innocents and re-load to do it again. Where on earth do we draw the line?
Wish that I could say 'Heaven help us' and mean it, if there were a heaven, they, like Europe and other continents, would just look and shake their heads. We can't be helped when we absolutely and positively refuse to learn from our own history.

Driving in the fast lane of life

...or other aggressive, thoughtless pursuits by megalomaniacal sociopaths.

Most commutes to and from work allow me to gather my thoughts from the experiences around me. Sometimes I plan things I need to do at work, or when on the way home, plan my evening activities. A careful driver, I always remain aware of my surroundings, giving the road my fullest attention and attempting that recommended safe, assured clear distance between me and the car in front of me.

And then...

Some self-important someone decides that they need to cut directly in front of me to proceed even further ahead of the game, playing the road like it is their own personal videogame of "Get In Front At Any Cost" or "GETOUTAMYWAYYOU*#@#@*#IDIOT!"

What makes what may be mild-mannered polite people suddenly become slathering, wild-eyed monsters when they get behind the wheel and travel through the congested traffic of their daily commute?

The most irritating of these creatures is the "I need to travel in a faster lane to get inches from the exit and then cut into the exit line in front of those who've been waiting patiently in line for nearly and hour" ogre. What makes them so convinced that they deserve to exit immediately upon their arrival at the exit, avoiding any wait or inconvenience?

I can only hope that there is a special kind of Hell waiting for them where they are forced to wait and wait and wait eternally while they watch others like themselves cut them off from ever reaching their goal ahead of them. Let them have their fate taken completely out of their own control and given to the irritatingly patient person (who has been damned to Hell by those who fit the ABOVE profile anyway) who will let all of the OTHER ogres into the line.

Give me a futuristic ray gun that bypasses other traffic stuns only the rude and aggressive ogres, then deconstructs them AND their auto (often an SUV of immense magnitude) into an oblivion (or the aforementioned Hades). Of course, I'd also be using this stun gun against cell phone maniacs who discuss and discourse with one hand waving free, the cell trapped between the ear and the shoulder, paying little attention to the fact that the traffic around them is traveling at an unsafe seventy-five to eighty miles an hour around them.

But of course, I'm the best driver ever...(ahem)