Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Sixteen in the House Care About McClellan Vets

...and the really amazing thing is that THREE, count them, Duncan Hunter, Walter B. Jones, Jr. and Tom Marino are actual REPUBLICANS! The first two I could tell by the pretentious names and the third I guessed because he was from Pennsylvania, where people imagine themselves to be free-thinking, but they're just the same bigots and idiots and racists in nicer digs with better credit....kind of like New Jersey meets the rural Southeast. (Politically speaking...not everyone of course!) Pennsylvania conservatives just get on the very last frayed edges of my rawest nerves because they're SO pretentious and so utterly ignorant at the same time. It literally drives me effing nuts. They listen to their little egg headed hate radio personality as if he's some kind of god and spit it all back verbatim as if it's all original thought, or some kind of Teaocratic gospel. They just need to get the hell over themselves.

If you're a redneck just BE a redneck. There's no shame in it. Take this guy for instance. He looks so much like a friend from my Army days at Fort Knox. Ahhh memories...

Once upon a time in Kentucky in a setting remarkably similar to this, my ex husband's very best buddy Douglas stood atop a hella-huge pile of wood and it was decided among the men folk that, 
"Sure, gas-O-line will work, now hold my beer, woman while the men git this done!"
 Said men had spent the day drinking and  pulling down an old barn on the property and it and its contents "needed burning" which was easier (and at that point more legal, despite the fire hazard) than hauling it all to the dump. More than one hillbil--I mean southern gentleman poured gasoline in addition to lighter fluid and I believe someone added turpentine too--"to get that sucker started with a BANG what'll knock yer socks off! 
YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAW!"  
Five grown (or mostly grown) men then stood in a circle around a two story high pile of wood and tires and holding Army surplus smoke grenades which they would use to ignite the behemoth they'd built. The plan was to use a simple 
1-2-3-THROW count, then turn and ...hope not to burn. Most men in Kentucky can do a one, two, three, GO count properly by adulthood, so all agreed it was a decent plan. 1-2-3-pull the pin, throw then turn around and haul ass the other way before you go airborne in a very unpleasant way. 3 really should have been a safe count even considering the alcohol involved, and they even practiced it several times with rocks, but of course the "most men in Kentucky can count to three" factor came into play when, after practicing correctly 3 times in a row, the youngest and drunkest of the men in the bunch got over-anxious with the real smoke grenade and pulled the pin on 2 and threw on not after 3!
This was verrrry not good because as large as this pile was, each man couldn't see the other, so only one turned and ran in time and the other guys didn't react until they finally saw him bookin' it full speed away from the pile! 
Needless to say, all "them good ol' boys" got a free flight that night, backward, most of 'em, with their legs and arms grabbing at a lot of nothing as that pile of former barn (complete with nails!) exploded with such a 
KA-WHOMP!
...it sounded like driving down range road at Fort Knox when the tanks are firing live rounds and looked like a small nuke had gone off complete with a mini mushroom cloud. My ears popped from a good 50-60 yards away.  
By some miracle the only loss was one really nice  beard and pretty much all of 5 sets of eyebrows...4 sets in the original blast and one set intentionally burnt off in the name of fair play and brotherhood and upon threat of an ass whoopin' if he didn't cooperate, since the whole thing was his fault in the first place! Gotta love southern justice. Quick and clean, except when it's wrong of course...and you can't bring back the dead. *shudders*. 
As for the environment, luckily there was a pond nearby for the volunteer Fire Department to use to put out some singed branches on a few nearby trees. They really did choose the spot well. Damp ground, next to a pond in spring, which is very wet in Kentucky. All that said though, we were all a lot more lucky than smart back then,
that's for sure. Don't mix moonshine and bonfires. Wait, what am I saying? Some of my happiest times involved both back then! Moderation, moderation is the key..
Anyway, when I saw the clip the above photo came from on Tosh it was a real trip down memory lane. 
Now back to the issue at hand...

Kentucky really is a charming place to visit and people really do know how to live down south. Say what you want about hillbillies and rednecks, but they pack more genuine life and feeling in their years than most "coasties" or most people freezing up in the northern tier of the U.S. too!

The down side to that is that politics isn't taken as seriously as it should be. It's more like a big ol' stupid game to them. Even the colors work out, because it's always a battle of blue vs red down there. You're either a U of K (blue) Wildcats fan (that would be me) or you're a Louisville Cardinals fan (red) ...and the symbolism almost kind of works too, because it's the big city/big money preening Cardinals who are born and fly safely above everyone all their lives (red/republicans) vs the true blue state school that represents equal opportunity--the American ideal that everyone should have a chance to claw their way to the top, like the Wildcats (blue/democrats).

For some, sadly, it does still come down to race though. "I don't want that there O-bomber feller." So they vote for some "so stuck up he's gotta clean the bird s#i+ out'a his nose-Mormon" ...someone they'd usually accuse of being the next worst thing to the Anti-Christ himself, well aside from the Pope of course; Southern Baptists are not fond of the Pope, no sir. He's almost s bad as women who drink alcohol and/or don't stay in the kitchen where they belong at social events!

Oh yeah. HR 411 has been referred down to the Subcommittee on Health...whatever that means. What I found really rather odd, and actually got to TELL the Library of Congress when I was researching for this little note (because they asked me to take a poll, the poor unsuspecting fools) is that they now list legislators alphabetically rather than in the order in which they sign on to co-sponsor, which the LoC the flimsy as HELL excuse to put a NUMBER (the order in which they signed on) where they USED to put the legislator's political party! NO FAIR!

As for "our" legislation, HR 411 shares the same name as HR 2052, and has, I think, already gone one step farther than it did, though I'm not sure if it's a positive step or not. The wording is different I think too. It says nothing about identifying and informing us of exposure any longer, just keeping track of veterans (and their family members and survivors) who make VA claims. My memory is shot, so maybe HR 2052 never said anything about informing those who have no idea they've been exposed either. I guess that's always been up to us. I don't know. What I do know for a fact is that the VA is just playing a waiting game...waiting for us all to DIE so even if they do pay for a few of us, it will be very damned few by the time any meaningful legislation comes around. In that way they are eerily similar to disability insurance providers who stall and stall before finally providing benefits (and no, they don't pay you interest on what they've withheld during the "approval process" either). Both are holding on to OUR money and hoping and praying for our DEATH in the meantime. What a great thank you for our honorable service, hm?

I didn't let the disability insurer wear me down, even though they made me HOMELESS for a while, and I won't let Uncle Sam wear me down either. I REFUSE! I'm going to stay alive just to spite them. I'm not  giving up. I may be driving my Facebook and other social networking and "real life" friends crazy but so be it. By the way isn't it funny how the sicker you get the less dependable your "real life" friends are than the online ones? Amazing how a little thing like a major disability will close up your social circle, isn't it?

Well that's really all for today. Just had to share the absurd news about how only THREE members of the self proclaimed "pro-military" party is for us and the rest of them are dead set against us, or maybe just too busy counting lobby money to notice we're dying out here. Eh, they always are too busy for us unless there's blood money to be made off us.

How they can look at their own reflections in the mirror each day is just beyond my comprehension. It truly, seriously is. Meanwhile, we who serve are supposedly the ones who "loathe the military" even though we have far more Blue than Red members of Congress (oh the irony just never ends, does it?). Still, we soldier on year after year, congress after congress, waiting for our chance to get back in charge and get things done again.

(The following is sardonic humor, which I am told, frequently does not come across well on the internet, so I just wanted you to know...  I s'pose I should have put this disclaimer up sooner, but my eyeballs are about to fall out of my head.)

I don't know why we didn't manage to do all those things we planned in the few magical months Obama had between health crises and shootings of members and other members dying or leaving for other reasons. They would have Americans believing we had this GREAT super-majority for at least Obama's first four years, and if not that, the first two...but they forget Kennedy's health and death and the tragic shooting that took Gabby Giffords away from us and other issues that kept things topsy turvy and kept everyone from being present and able to work and vote in the House and Senate. Besides, it's like there was, like, a war or two going on or people were out to get him or something...just weird, right? Sha... I know....