My wife is really sick.

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Friday January 29, 2010 · 8:52 PM PST

2010/01/29 · 20:52

A few of you know me as the young kid who occasionally complains complains complains about things here, like not being able to get health care for my wife when her kidneys started failing last April (we got help from Intermountain Health Care's nonprofit assistance program, then Utah Medicade, and both have really saved us, and a thousand thanks to all of you for your emotional support which was helpful in indescribable ways).

If you look at my recent diaries you'll see I've been complaining about other things. I do genuinely feel bad for making such a helpful community the platform for my complaining. And I feel sorry that I've not contributed more directly to the positive dialogues on here. This diary is not positive, but it is honest, and rather important.

My wife is really, really close to dying.

danceattakjg

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Tuesday January 19, 2010 · 10:19 PM PST

2010/01/19 · 22:19

I wouldn't have, and neither would have a lot of people like me. People who are about 24, who knocked on doors and made calls in 2009 not for an adrenaline rush or to fight the big bad republicans, but to elect leaders who would enact universal health care, raise taxes on the wealthy, destroy insurance companies to the greatest extent possible. And us sort of people, we're not stupid. We're not smart either, but we sure as fuck aren't as stupid as we'd have to be to believe that the democrats actually have our interests in mind, or that the republicans are genuinely worse.

danceattakjg

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Sunday December 20, 2009 · 2:18 AM PST

2009/12/20 · 02:18

Dear President Obama,

I wanted to personally thank you for helping me realize in such a quick manner that I cannot make a difference. I promise I'll never vote again. How naive were we all to think that knocking on doors and making calls and writing letters and leaving voice messages for senators could actually earn us the things we voted for — public option health care, recognition of gay rights, higher taxes on the rich, abortion rights?

Seriously, how very naive of us.

danceattakjg

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Sunday August 16, 2009 · 5:48 PM PDT

2009/08/16 · 17:48

This front page post by Darksyde discusses making a few dollars through your online writing.

I've never been able to generate any traffic to my blog, probably because I struggle with the fact that all of the people who I communicate with on facebook are horrified by my liberal views, and I don't promote my blog at all there, for fear of causing aunt so and so to have a stroke and die as a result of reading about my atheistic communist-fascist views.

Still, this week I made $70.92 for my writing. It's called corporate copywriting, or content creation, or giving away a little piece of your soul for a paycheck from the man.

danceattakjg

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Saturday August 01, 2009 · 10:48 PM PDT

2009/08/01 · 22:48

Diaries like this one and all the others have me spending a lot more time looking into how to best relocate out of the US and a lot less time following the increasingly depressing debate over health care reform in the US.

Am I a fair-weather fan? Am I wrong to feel that I really cannot make a difference? I just received my 6th (seriously 6th) response from Orrin Hatch via snail mail in which he told me, among other things (and this is verbatim):

Simply spending another trillion dollars of hard-earned tax-payer dollars especially when we as a nation are facing the worst financial crisis since the Great depression and major government-run programs like Medicare and Medicaid are on a path to fiscal insolvency.

Seriously, that's the full sentence. I'm no student of writing, but I think that's an incomplete sentence.

OK, I am a student of writing. But don't hold me to correct grammar please, because this is a blog (not an official correspondence from the US Senate).

And let me see if I can put into written words the sentiment echoing through my head for the past 6 months.

Poll

173 votes Show Results

if nothing really changes in US health care

173 votes Vote Now!

if nothing really changes in US health care

leaving the country would be reasonable

118 votes

leaving the country would be somehow dishonorable

6 votes

Rationally, it's anyone's individual choice, but it does sound a little cut-'n-run-y

37 votes

Make like a tree

12 votes

Phelps loses swim record, swimsuit tech faulted. Solution?

danceattakjg

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Tuesday July 28, 2009 · 11:21 AM PDT

2009/07/28 · 11:21

Michael Phelps lost his first major personal swim in 4 years at the World Championship in Rome.

Germany's Paul Biedermann broke phelps previous record by coming in at 1 minute 42 seconds. Phelps had set a world record of 1:42.96.

There is debate over the technology involved in new swim suits, including one with this Biedermann character wore, legally. But the suit has already been deemed illegal for future use, as of 2010.

The LA times article linked above ("debate") says "Swimmers set 11 world records in the first two days of the world championships," presumably because of the new suits.

No one is offering up the attractive and obvious solution.

danceattakjg

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Thursday July 23, 2009 · 1:39 AM PDT

2009/07/23 · 01:39

I took my intro from the 4th paragraph of my post:

To admit that we do not have control over our destinies is unpopular for a couple of reasons. I feel that both explain a lot of the contradiction inherent in conservative thinking today, particularly when the conservative thinker is not in the upper class, or when the conservative thinker is a sincerely generous person who desires to help others out but seems to continually fight against policies that would do so. In these cases, when conservative thinking seems blatantly self-defeating, I am reminded of the following....

danceattakjg

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Friday July 10, 2009 · 12:04 AM PDT

2009/07/10 · 00:04

As every knee begins to bow and every tongue begins to confess that the globe really is warming (or at least that gas prices are through the roof), it seems we're seeing more motorcycles and scooters on the road.

If we're not careful when we're in our cars, we might kill somebody some Tuesday. I walked away with a sprained wrist from a bike-totaling wreck on the 4th of July, but the slightness of my injuries were probably a less likely scenario than my death, given being thrown over a vehicle on a highway.

I know I'VE been in that spot while driving my car: I look left, look right, start rolling into the intersection as I look left again, then, like an apparition, a motorcycle appears 20 yards away and closing in. I stop, and get that little helmet turn — his cold eyes burning holes through his faceshield as I try to pretend my front end isn't 8 feet into his lane.

How can we limit our risk of hitting a motorcycle rider?

Poll

67 votes Show Results

I

67 votes Vote Now!

I

've hit a motorcylce

2 votes

've been in a motorcylce wreck that wasn't my fault

19 votes

've nearly hit motorcycles

10 votes

've thrown a burrito out my window

7 votes

lost a friend or family member in a motorcycle accident

29 votes

Got hit, my motorcycle's totaled, need advice: Update

danceattakjg

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Saturday July 04, 2009 · 4:33 AM PDT

2009/07/04 · 04:33

So, one day, when my wife's kidney's aren't failing, when she's not getting bit by poisonous spiders, and when I'm not doing frontflips over cars after having them pull out in front my motorcycle, I'll give something back to this community.

But for the time being, I just need your advice again...

Poll

78 votes Show Results

What do you think?

78 votes Vote Now!

What do you think?

God was definitely looking out for you.

5 votes

Did God start 'looking out' before or after - or during - the front flip?

4 votes

God was looking out for you as much as that infant they found face down in the mud in the south after a tornado killed her entire family and left her mother dead 100 yards away. Wow, God is a funnly looker outer.

11 votes

You atheists are sure arrogant.

2 votes

Shit happens.

56 votes

Floridians, Go and Learn of Marco Rubio's Religosity

danceattakjg

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Thursday July 02, 2009 · 1:09 PM PDT

2009/07/02 · 13:09

This video showed up on my wife's facebook page. It's made by a man who was the music Pastor of her childhood church (a super conservative Baptist Church in Tampa) whom she knows personally, although she doesn't know him well, as no one in her youth church really knew her well.

Apparently the group he's heading, "Faith and Family Values Republican Club of Pasco County," has successfully attracted Rubio to their July 23 club meeting.

They want to hear from candidates:

on their beliefs about our faith in God, and our conservative family values ... we want to find out where candidates stand on ... religious liberty, sanctity of life, traditional marriage and family, protecting the innocencey of children, separation of church and state, how about morality and integrity in our political leaders, and quality education in our public schools.

link and comments below

Poll

71 votes Show Results

What's your favorite republican value?

71 votes Vote Now!

What's your favorite republican value?

Just good old family values, Appalachian trail style

29 votes

Religious liberty

11 votes

Innocencey of children

14 votes

the right to spank

10 votes

quality education in our public schools

7 votes

My Republican mother says she doesn't deserve healthcare

danceattakjg

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday June 29, 2009 · 1:47 AM PDT

2009/06/29 · 01:47

I was raised by an incredible mother. My mom is an active Mormon, mother of 8, grandmother of 5, stayed at home instead of working, never said an abusive thing to me in my life, never once made the sort of major errors that every normal mother does, those errors we have a hard time forgiving as a teenager and quickly get over a few years later.

She didn't make those mistakes.

My mom is open minded, laid back, smart, absolutely genuinely kind, and leads a group of people in the area who get together to practice a cognitive therapy called "Recovery" (started by Dr. Abraham Low)

My mom in not manipulative, she never once put me on a guilt trip as a teenager. You think I'm lying. I'm not. My mother washed my mouth out with soap when I said "shut up" or "suck," but she hated doing it. She taught me it wasn't ok to call people "idiots" or even "stupid." And my family of 10, we get along fantastically, even though half of us are super conservative Mormons and the other half (led by my older sister and I) are on the spectrum from new-age hippy to militant atheist.

And my mom, she told me yesterday, doesn't feel OK about thinking that she personally aught to have a right to health care. Why?

danceattakjg

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday June 26, 2009 · 11:17 PM PDT

2009/06/26 · 23:17

If it wasn't so horrendous, it would be comical.

The "health care provider" turned her away, referencing the BOLD printed sign reading "PAYMENT DUE BEFORE RECEIVING SERVICE."

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My wife is really sick.

I wouldn't have voted in MA today

Thank You, Obama

About "doing it" for money (writing)

Call me a quitter, but I just want to move to Europe

Phelps loses swim record, swimsuit tech faulted. Solution?

Control.

How to Not Kill Motorcyclists

Got hit, my motorcycle's totaled, need advice: Update

Floridians, Go and Learn of Marco Rubio's Religosity

My Republican mother says she doesn't deserve healthcare

W/out insurance, we hope it's not a hobo spider bite