No, We Are Not Retarded.

What McCain and his camp don't realize is that contrary to what the last eight years of public support has implicated (in regards to the general intellect of the average american voter) the american public is not as idiotic as he and his campaign team would imagine. His attempts to hypnotize the public with speaking techniques such as dumbed down metaphors and hard hitting repetition are as effective as a flaccid penis flapping around in the heat of the moment. McCain, in a debate, often fastens himself to one phrase, like a broken record, proceeded by sitting there blankly like a duck expecting a golden egg (the presidency) to drop out of his ass. Fervently repeating the same imagery throughout the debate does not ensure that a) we will believe it, nor b) it is not infallibly apparent that being assaulted by various speech techniques merely serves as a grandiloquent smokescreen for a lack of substance. McCain would hope that his verbal Monets would hypnotize us into simply ingesting the bitter suppository that there is no one better for the job, without actually having to analyze the job there is to be done. Commencing his war on words with phrases such as, "What Mr. Obama doesn't understand is..." which clearly attempts to paint a portrait, and condescendingly so, of Obama as a naive and very clueless child, he ends the succession of debates with the infamous "Joe the plumber" solicitation, not to mention the constant harping on taxes and government spending which, although is slightly more to the point admittedly, somehow gets morphed from a discussion of valid and relevant issues into "politics as usual" mud slinging, but we will get to that later. It is evident that McCain would like to appeal to the "average joe" of America in this last debate, which is a smart and wholly necessary strategy at this point in the campaign; however, despite his desperate cries to the "average Joe's" out in America, it appears that he has absolutely nothing substantial to say when finally obtaining their prized attention. Bad move. It is rude and insulting to waste everyones time listening to you if you actually have nothing to say. And, if by some misguided PR stunt, he does have an inkling hidden beneath his brand new literary Houdini veil waiting to spring at the last minute, it is even more insulting to the voter that this candidate would play political games and not come straight out and explain his plan like a mature adult to a mature adult audience. His responses to debate questions transparently construct pretty paper mache promises without any visible knowledge of how he plans to execute them, a gaping void which he then attempts to conceal by switching the spotlight to the holes or negative effects of Obama's various proposals, and in turn careening subversive blows to the Obama camp, the latter occupying most of his response time. Doesn't he realize that simply pushing his history as a proponent for why he is the best man for the job, followed by rash negative generalizations about his opponent's plan does not equate to a plan in itself? Yes, we are aware that you are concerned about Joe, and thank you very much for that, but concern is not really the issue (we have enough of that), nor is your history in the armed forces. What is important is whether you know how to do anything about it, an issue which failed to be properly communicated to the public in these past debates.
Then there is the talk of taxes and government spending, which makes clear to us that merely touting phrases such as "no tax raises," "no government spending," and "reform" can seemingly masquerade as an actual plan. What is this so called "reform?" Could that please be elaborated on? Yes, throwing money at a problem does not alway solve it, but if we are going to talk about "reform" in terms of the dying economic beast that seems to have vigorously attached itself to everyones' minds like a barnacle, you are essentially talking about reforming the way our economy has been working since the dawn of our country, reforming our capitalist system, which, if this is the case, we'll need to see what you indeed plan to reform that to. This economic collapse is the natural progression of a capitalist laissez faire attitude that has, up until now, been working out quite well for our country's economy. Leaving the economy in the hands of companies eventually has it's price, and "reform" would signal changing the entire framework of that economy. Advertising that we won't have to spend an extra dime to pull America out of this financial sinking ship, should McCain win, sounds extremely appealing but even the most idiotic person alive knows that this notion is just pink balloon waiting to pop. We would rather hear about how our money is to be spent now, rather than later, which is an inevitability with McCain's so-called plan because believe me, money will be spent. However, for the present, latching onto the idea that illuminating the public to the fact that Obama does intend to use taxes and government spending in his plans to rescue a sinking America, only conversely illuminates the fact that McCain has no plan to rescue America at all. He seems to think that shouting out the words "taxes" and "spending" will have everyone reeling in the other direction before they can realize that there is nothing there. Newsflash: we're big kids now, and we live in the 21st century where we all took an econ course in high school and have a vague idea of how money is spent and gained. We know that it is going to take more than prayers and a strong belief in a higher power to create change, and we're not scared to hear about what exactly it takes to do that. In fact, we prefer to hear it...now, preferably. In berating Obama for using money in his rescue strategies, he wants to appear strong to the voters, "KOing" Obama, so to speak, but without any counter plan, he ends up looking like an angry and impotent child, name-calling on a playground.

Anaconda

I just had the strangest dream. As most of my nightmares begin, I was late for school and had an assignment due that day which had completely (and very inconveniently) escaped my mind. I was living in my father's old house, the epitome of childhood nostalgia to me, and was rifling through my books, which were sitting beneath the bedroom window, to figure out which class I had for that day, how I was going to get there, how long it would take me to ride there, etc. when I suddenly look up and, consequently, out of my second story abode onto our quaint back courtyard area. To my horror, I discover that not only does it appear that no one has set foot back there in ages (ivy vines and pools of collected rainfall had formed a swamp-like milieu behind our house) but there were at least twelve visible snakes of various sizes and colors inhabiting it. These snakes were right out of National Geographic, the biggest of them more likely to be right out of the 1997 blockbuster, Anaconda. They all possessed vivid hues, enabling them to look that much more scary, and were slithering and snaking around through the swamps and vines and broken brick pathways like they owned the joint. I screamed (obviously) and my father immediately came running up the stairs to my rescue.
"Dad... LOOK!" I yelped, pointing frantically at the window. He glanced out of the window in a very blasè manner, cool and collected, like he had somehow been aware of the snakes for some time.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" He joked, still gazing out the window as if it were overlooking green pastures and unicorns frolicking. He seemed to be under the notion that my asking him to do something about it was the most absurd thing in the world.
"We have to KILL them!!" I shot back, horrified at the idea of allowing them to permanently reside alongside me while I slept. At least he had my room as a buffer, but what security could I even fabricate? My drapes weren't even opaque.
"We'll do it later, I have to go to work now." And with that, he skipped off carelessly, followed by the sound of the door shutting effortlessly behind him. I knew what "later" meant, and decided that if he was going to brush this reptilian disaster off and simply go to work, I ought to do the same, because there was no way I was going to attempt to deal with the anaconda & co. myself.
I sneered at the big one, he looked like a cold blooded tiger with his saturated orange and jet black stripes. He had just ruined what would probably be the next two weeks of my life and then a residual six months in nightmares, at the very least. I envisioned myself armed with six foot bladed scissors, an anti venom suit, and some type of joint-covering kevlar body armor, hacking away at what had to be the now thirty snakes which had taken over our courtyard. And then there was him. I was scared to even imagine chopping him into two, the thrashing alone might level our house. He was massive...bastard. It was at this point that he spotted me shooting him the evil eye from my window. He lifted his head to face me dead on. With more than half his body still curled around the red brick courtyard and his head bobbing about my second story window about two feet away from my head, I could see that I had pissed off the wrong creature. His expression was so humanistic... it was also full of rage. How dare I enter his seeming "kingdom" and then have the audacity to sneer at him? Who the hell was I anyway? I felt myself slinking away from the window slowly. He followed me with his head, which at this point appeared to serve as a mere socket for the the glowing yellow balls of evil, or eyeballs, which may as well have been shooting lasers at me. "BINK," then a rattle. The glass pane had obstructed him from bobbing any closer to me. I ran into my father's room, reasoning that if I could only get out of the house unnoticed he might forget about me for a little while until I could call a...an anaconda exterminator?! What was I thinking?! Where do you even find these people?! This thing was out to get me and the only thing that was taking formation in my scared and witless little head was to get Steve Erwin at my house pronto, an obvious impossibility, seeing that he's dead! Why can't this type of thing be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where as soon as one slayer dies, another is born immediately so that the world is always in possession of at least one person to combat evil. I had nowhere to hide, I was a prisoner in my own house with a giant snake preying on me. I decided to hide on the other side of the giant television adjacent to the wall with the window so that he couldn't see me. I could see the reflection of the window on the mirror mounted to the opposing wall of the bedroom. The tiny window loomed orange. At least there was glass to barricade me in, and just as I decided to let myself take a certain comfort in that fact, I heard the glass shatter. My heart sank. Just as I was frantically pondering how I was going to escape my father's bedroom without being seen by the anaconda, who, for some reason had not already completely invaded the house with his bulbous scaly torso, I woke up.

self diagnosed clinical depression

I am sitting here at this greyhound station after lugging all my shit from bus to BART and then to greyhound station, only to find that (just my luck) the bus to FRESNO is sold out. sold out? really? how many people need to go to fresno, shithole of the world, on a wednesday night? all befuddlement aside, this implicates that I am now forced to lug all my shit back to the oakland hills for another night and then lug it back to this fucking rehab ward tomorrow, and by "shit" i mean pounds and pounds of luggage strapped to, hanging from, and nearly ripping off every limb of my swaying and bumbling person. so here I am, buried under the luggage at the rehab ward, out of cigarettes, my plan to escape my life completely foiled, and in the process of mustering up the strength to negotiate the four bulging bags of hell back on onto the various parts of my body but first, i have to get something off my chest.
It seems as if the holidays are approaching and of course, "coupling" has ensued full force around me. i, contrarily, have decided in the spirit of the holidays, to sabotage a completely healthy and wonderful relationship, and partake in an emotional land-mine with an already taken boy. I guess I can't really be surprised with myself. All my actions up until this point have been completely impulsive and lacking regard for the future and anyone around me; this simply fits my erratic and unpredictable mold. On the other hand, I don't quite feel myself, and I have to wonder at how interesting it is that for me, self sabotage is the product of a quickly severe drop in self confidence. I now understand what it means to be self destructive and masochistic because I don't believe I deserve anything better. What happened? And why the plunge into sudden self hatred? Well, apparently i do have some semblance of a moral code remaining, despite all previous efforts to annihilate it. Though this deviation from my moral code - let's call it infidelity - has seized me up and pretty much knocked any love that I had for myself right out of me, I quite oddly don't regret it. The fact that I have no wish to take it back but feel so awful as a result of it puzzles and eludes me. And with this hanging over my head like the stench of a dutch-oven fart, I feel unequipped and uninclined to proceed with any real certainty onto the next step of my life. What does this all mean? And why do I feel so paralyzed because of it? If I locked myself up like this in a cell of self loathing every time I made a mistake, surely you would find a 24 year old preschool student still vacuuming her thumb with her mouth right now. But what is so peculiar about this instance? I suppose that deep down, I always considered myself somewhat a person of moral integrity. I might have let people down as a result of my repeated flakyness before, but there was never so irrevocable a break in my moral code committed up until now. I always knew that I was a good person, and now that is questionable at best. I've never felt so empty before...because if you know that you've lost your integrity, then you have nothing...really, nothing. And now I have to figure out how to forgive myself, which, I can't possibly foresee happening anytime soon because I have no idea how a person who has lost their integrity gains it back if they don't truly regret committing whatever it was they committed in the first place.
Truthfully, I almost feel as if I had to do it. I had to, if for nothing else, to play out what had been occurring in my head constantly for months and months. But what would happen to the world if everyone did everything they really wanted to do? Would we really be any happier? Is it worth it? Letting desire eat you until you are completely ensconced by it, or losing something so much more important than a satisfaction to a carnal curiosity (i.e. your self respect). In this case it was much more than carnal curiosity though, it was love, for my part at least. And I suppose that is why I don't regret it. But that doesn't mean that I feel justified, I just know I would do it again if I were in the same position. So where the fuck does that leave me? Oh that's right, nowhere. Still hating myself, yet still not regretting my blunders, and as a result, still condemned to feeling completely empty and paralyzed for the time being until...well, I don't know.