Both of my cats have a bad habit of retrieving things from the trash. Andy in particular lets me know he’s ready for supper by knocking over a wastepaper basket in the dining room. Bad kitty!
Dougy prefers another wastepaper basket, the one across from my computer desk.
I keep tossing a mailer from my US Congressman, Adrian Smith. Dougy keeps retrieving it from the trash. He wrestles on it. He chews it. He claws it. He wiggles in delight at being a cat on it. He sits on Adrians’s face with his poochy-cute buttocks. He defends it against Andy who wants to sit on Adrian’s mailer, too!
It is a good, sturdy piece of printing on heavy varnished stock. Must have cost you and me a nice chunk of cash from Adrian’s office expenses account to produce and mail with his franking privilege.
I could run it through my cross-cutting paper shredder and be done with it. Or I could leave it out for the boys to fight over, no harm done. Best of all, it gets some use, if not the use Adrian intended.
I confess: As someone with granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA or Wegener’s granulomatosis, a form of vasculitis, the disease that recently killed Harold Ramis), I am biased against the Republican position on the Affordable Care Act. Because I have this horrific precondition — thank God, in remission since 2005! — I went five years without adequate insurance, then without any insurance. I came too early to benefit from ACA.
As someone with a precondition, I look at the Republicans and their anal attacks on ACA and ask over and over, “Why don’t they want all Americans to have affordable health care? What are they doing to make the ACA workable? What is their plan? Why haven’t we heard their plan since before the ACA passed? What special interest stuffs bucks in their pockets and why?”
Finally, I ask, “How many people like me with our potentially fatal preconditions and hassles getting affordable health care, if any were available, changed their registration from Republican to Democrat or — in my instance — Independent?”
π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π
May is Vasculitis Awareness Month. I am a weggie, someone who has the form of vasculitis formerly known as Wegener’s granulomatosis. I don’t yank underwear as some people interpret my user name to mean. Frankly, had I been an underwear yanker, I’d have known not to use that user name when I set up this account!
As a weggie, I have a disease that may kill me directly or indirectly in time. As sure as the sun rises, though, I will die because of the disease and its effects on my kidneys and lungs, vascular system, any and every part of my body. I may never have a flare (a return to an active state). Or I may have a flare today. I may live to be a 100. Or I could be dead within a few months. That’s the kind of disease this is.
Congressman Adrian Smith of Nebraska’s 3rd District
As a weggie, I can whine about my fate. Or chose to live as full a life as I can. I’ve chosen the latter. To that end, I revile the Republican opposition to some form of affordable health care.
Selfish I know, to want to live. Read Paul Ryan’s hero Ayn Rand. She saw selfishness as a virtue, but perhaps preferred euthanizing people like me, wasting less money keeping the weak “takers” alive, thus making more money available to the billionaire plutocrats.
π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π
A good source of information on vasculitis: https://www.vasculitisfoundation.org/β π
Weggie …
You and I appear to be of a similar mind. There really isn’t anything I could add. (Buying you a virtual beer and/or scotch, assuming that you are a virtual drinker)
I have made a conscientious effort to avoid as much of the right-wing brouhaha as possible this year. My stress level had been high enough due to my own circumstances. I can’t compete with the Koch brothers and now that the “Supremes” have sanctioned the outright purchase of political campaigns it is obvious that any illusions to living in a democracy are just that … illusions.
Yep, that we are! Scotch — I don’t have any of the virtual variety on hand, but have three partial bottles of different single malt scotch in my cabinet…for emergency use!
The stress wiped me out in 2012. I spent most of October through the middle of December of that year ill as a consequence. I’m trying to desensitize myself, too, but still want to grab a dittohead and pop that big pimple off its neck…! (Oh! That’s its head! Same deal: Pop it!)
Joe Scarborough on “Morning Joe” yesterday thinks this will make the process of buying off our government more transparent. Of course, he’s right. Far right.
That ruling makes voting this time even more seriously necessary than ever.
Urg! Must. Reduce. Stress. Level!
Now that adorable boy does”t have to fake innocent.
Who would”t believe he is innocent with that sweet face.
I so agree with you about the repubs. and I think they all have their heads up their butt.
Ali has a box on the end of the bed and it is full of walmart fliers which she loves to sleep on.
Ty for the information and link to more info on your condition.
Even with hubbys preexisting conditions, he is illegible for affordable care but with our income we can not afford the monthly payments.
They do not take into consideration the cost of keeping him home and our copays for inhome care givers and nurse.
Oh well welcome to the problems most Americans are having.
Maddening. I do not understand their rationale or understand how anyone could not be exposed to others (if not themselves) who either benefited by the ACA or would have had they lived in a state without a Republican governor. I wonder if a good case worker at H&HS couldn’t find a way for you to qualify. Or VA. Either way, it’s hard to imagine you are caught in this situation…!
As for faking it, the boys do “cute” but they also do “naughty” with great ease!
Ah, a good use for campaign promotional materials! Thank you for the information on your condition. I always keep you thought for good health and continued remission! Woof! Love, Maggie
That was the equivalent of a letter to his constituency to let us know how things were going in Washington, his place in the whole mess. Oh yeah, maybe a big campaign propaganda piece paid for by the taxpayer, too!
Mom, too, considers herself, “Independent” – let the best person do the job who can do the job. Unfortunately, politics is such a cash-infused, fudged-up mess that the best person usually doesn’t get hired…IL politics get particularly nasty, with a lot of mud-slinging and name-calling. Grrrrr….
The latest Supreme Court decision assures more money will flow. What assholes! Lapdogs of special interests! (Sorry for the lapdog reference…!) I hope they live to see the destruction of democracy in America so they can say, “We built that!” Woof-woof!
Oh, so true. (Raises hackles)