I don't think it is news to anyone who reads Daily Kos that the majority of Americans have been shafted by the economy over the last seven years. Stagnating wages and increasing prices for food and fuel have the tendency to do that. However, I am not writing tonight about most of the people, I am writing about a few I know that are truly looking up from the bottom of that very deep shaft we are all in.

I wish I had never gotten involved in politics. I'm not even very involved except for reading several political blogs and voting. However, I made the mistake of signing online petitions for a couple of netroots organizations. Now my phone is ringing off the hook.

My Dad called yesterday, as he does a couple times a month, just to see if I'm still alive I guess. I love the old geezer, but that doesn't mean I don't sometimes want to pound some sense in him with at 2X4. I diaried here about our discussion of Muslims after the shootings at the Jewish Federation in Seattle. And after listening to him and my brother spout Faux News talking points when I went out to Colorado for his 88th birthday, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Follow me over the fold.

I stumbled across this video at Freakonomicsand thought it might be interesting to some of you. It certainly explains a lot to me.

Earlier today in Cheers and Jeers, Bill in Portand ME linked to an article about the TSA and monkey helpers. If you clicked through to the article, you would have seen that it was not only about monkey helpers, but all service animals. Y'all had fun with it in C&J, because that's what you do there, and it's OK there I guess, but to those of us who need service animals, it was as funny as a crutch. Mostly because our animals are a crutch for us.

After reading this excellent diary I decided to put in my two cents on Medicare. My qualifications to pontificate on this are thus: I have a Master's in Nursing Administration, and spent thirty years in nursing, most of them in nursing homes with elderly patients. In addition, I am now disabled and receiving SSDI, so Medicare is my health care plan. I have experience on both sides of the bed, so to speak.

I have just realized that my 87 year old father has drunk deeply of the koolaid. I had no idea he had such fossilized ideas about Muslims. And it hurts that I can't talk to him about it.

I have recently begun to receive SSDI, and therefore, Medicare. The change from Medicaid has been stressful, and made more stressful by the stupid rules around Medicare D. The following is my adventure so far.

I had kind of forgotten that there is a corner of Seattle Center, right opposite the Space Needle, that is called the Peace Garden. I ride by it on my scooter nearly every day, but often don't go in as I am on my way somewhere. Today is a lovely day in Seattle, nearly 70 degrees, and I didn't have an agenda other than being out in the fresh air and sunshine. I live three blocks from Seattle Center, and it is a kind of home away from home for me.
Today, while I was just doodling around, I rode by the Peace Garden, and something I hadn't seen before caught my eye.

In two diaries yesterday, here and here, details of dirty tricks by the GOP in King County, Washington (Seattle and environs) were recounted, and it was shown that they had disenfranchised at least 140 voters by having a GOP official swear under threat of perjury that she knew for a fact that the registered voters did not live at that address.  I think the story is worse.