My last post was on May 1st.  It is now July 12th.  Life has changed and so has the world.

Whole Lee Phuque, have things changed!

My soul sister Jude Bennett has now started a new blog called “All Things Homo… Well, Many Things” that you truly must check out and say hello.  It is ghetto fabulous, trust.

Let me start by asking one seemingly simple question: компютри втора употреба??????At what point will politicians begin to realize that We the People don’t give a happy horse shit about all the infighting between candidates?

Whether it is Barak Obama’s pastor or Hillary Clinton’s political advisors, somebody seems to be sitting in wait for every person who was ever related in any way to a candidate to say something that can possibly spark a debate. With that fact in mind, I want to share this open letter to this season’s candidates for President of the United States - or should I call it “Presidential Idol”?

Dear Candidates,

By all accounts, I’m a nobody. I live a rather quiet life in central Alabama with a partner and our pets. I drive a crappy car that gets half-way decent gas mileage and I am a freelance writer by profession. I don’t make a great deal of money but I don’t have it all that bad, to be honest. Just the sort that you want to get political advice from, I’m sure.

The thing is, I am an average joe who clears less money in a year than you make in a weekend.

I am the one who cringes every time I go to the gas pump because I realize that the $20 I am pouring into my tank is going to get me far fewer miles than it did a few years ago.

I am the one who picks up pennies in the supermarket parking lot - not because I am broke (though not far from it), but because that penny puts me one cent closer to having more than $25 in my savings account someday.

??????I am the one who scours the Internet on a daily basis for information on how to save money in every way humanly possible because my partner and I live in constant fear that we are on a collision course with a depression that is even greater than the one our Grandparents lived through.

I am the one feverishly working on home grown vegetable plants because I worry that the day I cannot afford to buy fresh produce isn’t as far off as I’d hoped it would be.

I am the one who turns on the television and wants to know what is going on in the world that affects me, instead of hour after ludicrous hour of “what do you think about what Obama’s pastor said in the aftermath of 9/11″. I lived in New York City before, during and after that tragedy and I can assureFalls Sie nicht Ihre Kreditkaten oder Bankdaten in der Email Korrespondenz beim Online Kasino poker angeben wünschen, haben Sie immer die Option, dem Kundenservice die Daten per Telefon gebuhrenfrei mitzuteilen. you that many people from all walks of life said and did much worse than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright did. To be honest, I said worse myself.

Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama, I am a citizen of your country and I for one am sick and tired of the sniping and back-stabbing politics that seem to have taken over this campaign season.

I am one of the citizens so graciously represented under the long-misunderstood phrase We, the People and I, the Person am ready to find out what You, the Candidate are going to do to turn the travesty of the last eight years around.

I, the Person want to know how you are going to attack the poverty and health care problems at home instead of how you plan to spend another few billion dollars fighting a war that cannot be won in another country.

I, the Person want more than some temporary relief from the insane prices at the gas pump, and I’m ready for you to grab the microphone and tell me exactly how you are going to decrease our dependence on oil - not just foreign oil, but petrochemical products across the board.

I, the Person am curious as to how you will repair the damage the current administration has caused to the reputation of the United States and begin to rebuild our relationships with our allies instead of shunning them at nearly every turn.

In the end, I, the Person want to know how You, the Candidate are going to govern this country. I don’t want to know how your great grandfather did things or what he taught you unless that lesson is going to put food on my table, gas in my car and money in my pocket. I don’t want to know who you think should be the next American Idol or what books are on your night stand.

The issues are what is important, but please make no mistake about what the issues actually are. You, the Candidates are politicians and We, the People are ready for you to do your jobs.

Sincerely,
Michael Nolan

To be something that was created to represent the people, the political system has certainly come to showcase the worst in society over the years. Eliot Spitzer - the hard nosed, no-holds-barred Governor of New York who has himself taken down several prostitution rings has been shown to have frequented one. Hypocrisy rears its ugly head once again.

I laughed about it just a little when I finished watching the movie Dave an switched to CNN to see what Lou Dobbs was saying about Spitzergate. The film I had just watched showed Washington corruption at its peak undone by an average citizen who just wanted to do what was right instead of what was popular. I have to wonder how many members of the voting public would vote for a man like “Dave”, or the Robin Williams character in Man of the Year in which a comedic talk show host ended up running for president on a platform of brutal and often humorous honesty.

Then I think about the outdated and inconsistent Electoral College and how it doesn’t actually represent the people’s wishes as it was designed to do. In truth, the delegates and super delegates (of which the now dethroned Eliot Spitzer was one) will decide the outcome of the upcoming election. When Al Gore was elected President by the popular vote in 2000 only to have it handed to George W. Bush by the Electoral College, the voting public became disenfranchised by the entire process. They realized that “one vote, one voice” was just a cool catchphrase with very little meaning.

Regardless of what lobbyists or career politicians might believe, the people really do still have the power in this country. We elect officials from the smallest community, into our state legislatures and ultimately to Washington D.C. If we want to put a stop to the atrocities that are happening in the United States today under the protective umbrella of government, we need to start asking tough questions and insisting on definitive answers to those questions.

We need to stop accepting hypocrisy as the norm in government and demand more from our candidates. I’m not suggesting that candidates should be perfect - last I heard the Messiah wasn’t running - I am merely suggesting that long before music and art were taken out of schools across the country, the art of personal accountability was taken out of politics. And if that is ever going to change, it is up to We The People to make it happen.

I felt like udder death yesterday, certain that I had somehow come down with the flu - though I spend the vast majority of my time at home, only going out to eat on occasion or to visit the store. Thankfully whatever it was didn’t last and I am feeling much more myself today.

Shortly after waking, we caught the beginning of a film neither of us were familiar with and quickly became engrossed in Tea with Moussolini.  Good film if you need a recommendation.

Jay’s got Spring fever as much as I do and today’s To Do list included spreading the grass seed we bought last month now that it appears we are finally through with freezing temperatures at night. I have to admit the thrifty side of me rather enjoys opening the windows and turning the furnace down. We will probably shut it down altogether in the next few days.

Indoors, have started the vegetable seeds that will be going into the ground in a couple of weeks. So far we are off to a slow start with only Kentucky Blue green beans, squash, zucchini and cucumbers but when I have the time to get everything prepared outside, the onions, radishes, carrots and herbs will be on their way to green beauty.

According to CNN, a wide range of drugs - prescription and non-prescription - have been found in the drinking water of 41 million people in the United States. Everything from antibiotics to sex hormones, even anti-convulsants and mood stabilizers have been found in minute quantities in California, New Jersey, Michigan and Kentucky.

Granted, these trace amounts are so minuscule as to be barely traceable, but the fact that they are there at all should send up red flags from here to Paducah. What sort of long range effects are possible with hazards like this?

In Philadelphia, over 50 different drugs were found in the city’s treated drinking water supply, even more in the watershed.

What is important here is what you don’t know. These results are from barely more than two dozen areas around the country and what’s more, the Federal government doesn’t even require this sort of testing on drinking water!

In the early morning hours, my boyfriend and I have a way of getting ourselves into deep, intellectual conversations about life. The most recent was no exception. Well after 4:30 this morning we found ourselves sitting the in the darkness of our living room discussing the future.

Despite our many differences, one common bond we share is our dream of living in the country surrounded by trees and animals. As a writer, I can imagine no more idyllic a setting than the quite countryside and truth be told, it is something I have wanted for as long as I can remember.

Jay started a new job recently, and we were both surprised to learn that his new employer offers domestic partner benefits. For the past several weeks we have been jumping through the necessary hoops in order to prove our relationship and as of this morning I am quite happy to say that all requirements have been met and for the first time in over five years, my partner and I are going to have health, dental and vision care insurance. There was a time when being uninsured was not a terrible concern, but as I have learned over the years, the only thing reliable about my health is that my health is not reliable.

It is ironic that this is finally happening for us at a time when health care and health insurance are in the forefront of the news with the current political race well underway, and I have not forgotten that millions of men, women and children in this country are still doing without proper health and medical care because they cannot afford health insurance. It is my sincere hope that this political season might soon give way to some real changes in this and many other regards.

I am now in my mid-thirties. My shoulders ache every time it rains and my knees get sore when the temperatures plummet. My eyesight is dwindling, causing headaches when I spend too long at the keyboard.

In a few weeks I will probably be wearing new eyeglasses or contacts, and taking medication to alleviate the arthritis pains that I have dealt with in varying degrees for over twenty years. Jay’s RLS will no longer keep us up at night, and he will be back on the blood pressure medication that he should have been taking for the past year.

Those goals have been reached, and I can’t help but believe that one day we’ll be growing old on a few acres in the country where I’ll be wearing a tacky hat while I tend to my vegetable garden. Those early morning conversations will probably never stop, they’ll just move to an old rocking chair on the porch.

This has to be two of the best musical comedy bits to have hit television in years.

First, Sarah Silverman broke the news that she is f**king Matt Damon.

Then Jimmy Kimmel responded by telling the world that he is f**cking Ben Affleck.

This is pure, star-studded comedic genius, folks.

It breaks my heart and simultaneously infuriates me to know that not only are hate crimes still happening in this country, they are happening to children. In this excerpt from The Ellen Degeneres Show, Ellen talks about the recent murder of a 15 year old openly gay kid from California who was killed by one of his classmates:

 

That things like this are happening in the “land of the free” in 2008…