Good afternoon ladies & gentleman, & welcome to transcontinental congressional airlines flight 113.  We have mixed & variable weather for our flight today, with both blue & red skies ahead.  We will be limping along at just a few feet above sea level, keeping our ears close to the ground.

You'll get to see many sights on our journey... The looming fiscal cliffs, valleys of despair, looming climate change (no, it's not a myth, your science steward will assist you in spotting it).  Behind you, you will see, stretching over the plains of history, the most amazing rainbow.  It is composed of your constituents, who are red & blue, but also ebony, ivory, mahogany & jasper, & pink, yellow, purple, green.  It is made up, in fact, of every color, creed, value & philosophy you can imagine... The term melting pot has been used to describe this amazing conglomeration... You may have forgotten.  It is comprised of hope & heroism, strength, ambition, energy, ideas & ideals. 

At this point, I would like to remind you, that the privilege of being on this flight is brought to you solely at the forbearance of this varied people, and that we insist that this flight be in no way diverted or delayed.  The seatbelt sign will be taken off, just as soon as the partisan bickering stops, and you all stop posturing in front of the media.  Once you all get to work, we can, in fact, reach cruising altitude.  Until then, do not leave your seats for any reason.

For each mile of your journey, do ask yourself if you are a part of the problem or a part of the solution.  Are you bringing options & solutions to the table?  Or are you bringing only obstacles & demands?  Are you willing to compromise, if needed, even your passions, if in the end it serves the greater good? 

Ladies & gentlemen, are you spending even one moment thinking about your reelection, political future, or media image?  If so, please disembark, now.  There is no shame in resigning, and you will not be needed on this flight.  Feel free to write a book, become a commentator, have a reality TV show, or even start your own business... there are plenty of other flights available. 

This flight is limited in seating, and only has room for thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable leaders, who are looking toward the future, & looking out for the Entire nation, not just the voters that elected them.  We hope that you enjoy a highly productive journey.  See you on the ground.

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Reindeer Pellets

Preparation:  20-40 minutes

Serves: Depends on how hungry you are.  Makes 2 to 3 dozen

Ingredients:

14 oz jar creamy peanut butter

14 oz powdered sugar 8-10 oz. Nestle Semi Sweet morsels

Directions:

1. Sift powdered sugar so there are no little snowballs
   
2. In a mixing bowl, mix equal parts (more or less) peanut butter and sugar until you have a dough like mixture.
   
3. Roll into little balls and place on wax paper
   
4. Melt chocolate chips in something wide enough to roll your little balls around in.  Easiest method?  1 minute in the microwave, then 10-30 seconds at a time until consistency is thin enough to roll a ball around in. 
   
5. Cover the ball in chocolate.  I use a spoon to kinda flick it around.  Dipping, pouring, and submerging all have less desirable effects.  The spoon is handy because boiling hot chocolate isnt pleasant on either tongues or fingers.  I'm just saying.

Other stuff you'll want to have around: 

• 
  
  Mixing bowl
• 
  
  Big spoon to mix
• 
  
  Smaller spoon to dip
• 
  
  wax paper
• 
  
  something to melt chocolate in, i.e. pot, pan, ceramic bowl, nuclear reactor.

Things I dont recommend using:

• 
  
  Plastic bowl or spoon for chocolate
• 
  
  Metal in the microwave
• 
  
  The aforementioned nuclear reactor

Variations:

• 
  
  Crunchy is not as smooth, but gives more of a corn kernel effect.
• 
  
  Dusting the reindeer pellets with powdered sugar gives them a proper, festive, snowy apppearance.

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The moment of maturity in any adult's life, is when they recognize that the governmental and social systems they were raised to believe in, are in fact, fantasies, pure fairy tales.

This time itself is painful, fraught with disappointment and disillusionment.

And yet, there is the potential to come through to the other side, far freer than one has ever been. One recognizes the crutch of society as the obstacle it is, and becomes free to make choices, based, not on expectation and fear, but on what one truly believes in.

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I try not to watch the national news anymore. It's not that I dont want to be an informed citizen. It's not that I do not wish to keep abreast of national and world events. I very much do. I keep headline feeds on my google home page and glance through them every day, reading those that catch my interest or eye. I read the Chico News and Review religiously, and hit the Paradise Post and Chico ER websites whenever something significant is happening locally.

It's just that watching the national news completely depresses me. Within 15 minutes I'm usually convinced that our state, our country, or sometimes our planet is going to hell in a handbasket.

The scenes of devastation, loss, need, and pain and suffering in Haiti, for instance, are deeply depressing, and I know that no amount of money I can offer will greatly change things so long as the infrastructure itself is so badly crippled.

In time, things will get better, but meanwhile people will die, and if I submit myself to watching hours of it, I will grieve to a degree that will affect my ability to function.

When I read or listen to what Pat Robinson or Rush Limbaugh has to say about it, I find myself filled with anger that borders on rage and hate. And yet, that anger does me no good, and them no good, and them no harm, either. It only shortens my life, and disturbs the quality of it while I'm around.

And when I watch the Today show for any length of time, which, I must admit I adore, or at least I adore the cast of the today show (the early part of it, anyway), I walk away convinced that the world is unjust, that I am creating emotional damage to my child, my partner and myself, and that I am physically a ticking time bomb that will disintegrate into a disease and cancer ridden heart attack/stroke/embulism/anarism at the next intersection, but that's okay because with the way I manage my finances, Id've been on the streets next week, anyway. And I never get anything "useful" out of the tips and tricks on these programs...it's always common sense knowledge and conventional wisdom.

Having said all that, I got "stuck" watching the news the other day, and fairly intensely. And as usual, it convinced me that the country is going to hell in a handbasket. What's got me all fired up is the supreme court ruling regarding campaign finances.

For decades, we, via our legislature and various propositions, have, as a voting populace, tried to get special interests out of politics, or, at the very least, severely limit them and mitigate the damage they can cause.

And now our own Supreme Court strikes down the wishes of the people in how they want to be ruled. Basically all elections are now for sale in the United States. How? Well, the Supreme Court has ruled that their can be no limits on corporations or unions spend in political campaigns. And political campaigns, already ugly and misleading with their attack ads and downright laws, will now be for sale to the highest bidder. And once elected, that elected official will generally be looking to get relected, so they are not going to want to disenfranchise their new corporate sponsors.

That's right folks...our new president, Joe the Plumber, brought to you by General Electric. Your congressmen and women brought to you by Nike and Wheaties. I'm not saying money didnt matter before...it did, too much. But now it matters even more, and that means less representation by the people, for the people.

The most frustrating part of this argument to me, is the concept that regulating the amount that corporations and unions can spend in elections somehow violates free speech. Say again?

One: A corporation is a legal entity, not a citizen.  Created for business purposes only, it was never meant to vote, or be elected to public office. Will that be next? Will Viacom vote in the next election? Will Fox be elected President?

Two: How does money equate to speech? Money, or currency, is an exchange of legal tender or it's facsimile in the form of a check, credit charge, etc. for goods and services, or in the repayment of debt.

The legal defintion of freedom of speech definition is the right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, to communicate ideas and opinions without government intervention.

Noone was preventing corporations or unions from expressing their thoughts or opinions, not that corporations or unions, as legal entities, are capable of forming opinions or ideas, since they are not, in fact, CITIZENS, but they've certainly made their thoughts and opinions known, in every election I've ever seen.

So what now? Well, for now, we're stuck with the ruling, and this increases our responsibilities as voters. I will, and encourage anyone I know, do the following:

1. Refuse to read, watch, or listen to campaign ads of any kind. There's no truth but twisted truth to be found there, no matter the candidate. 
2. Watch debates, and read opionions and ideas published by the candidates themselves. 
3. Educate myself on the issues at stake, and on the backgrounds, reputation, and previous voting history of all candidates. 
4. Be cautious in the sources I accept. Since I will have to turn to online sources more and more, I will first consider the likelihood of the information to be reliable, and then the likelihood of it's being slanted. 
5. Where I cannot find unbiased and reliable information, which is becoming harder to do all the time, I will review the information received from both sides of the slant, ensure that I seek out both sides of the slant, consider how the slant affects the information I am reviewing, and come to my own decision. If possible, I will ask the candidate themselves about positions I feel are cloudy.

Frightening...I'll be turning off the news for the rest of the week.  Reading is an underrated pursuit.  Here's a few you might want to take a turn through:

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I remember having perfect vision.  As a child, I was sharp eyed enough to be the one to find our pet bullfrog, Jeremiah, hiding in the bushes. 
Round about junior high, something changed, and the chalk boards became blurry.  Mom took me in for a vision exam, and the results were catastrophic…I was diagnosed with a need for glasses.
I remember the day I got my first pair of glasses, too.  Another catastrophic day…I discovered things I hadnt known for some time.  Brown leaves on trees, mold, bugs in grass.  I was horrified.  Even more horrifying was returning to school, and having to WEAR THE THINGS in front of my peers.  Teasing began.  “Four eyes”, “geek”.  Backhanded compliments began.  “I dont usually like glasses, but they look GOOD on YOU.”  I resigned myself to never ever being the pretty one.  Because I was a GATE student, I also resigned myself to never being popular, and to the concept of potentially getting beaten up often.

Luckily, I didnt get beaten up OFTEN, but by high school I had taken to being the “cool kid” to compensate.  I adopted a tough denim and leather rocker persona to compensate for this and other perceived failures (being smart, wanting to learn, being gay), complete with ditching, drug and alcohol use and smoking.  I still had to wear glasses if I wanted to see what the fuck was going on around me.
Throughout junior high, high school and college, I would try to not use my glasses wherever possible, but it seemed like I was always missing something…and for a hyper observant, slightly paranoid, human sponge of a young brain, this was even worse than sacrificing vanity.  Besides, I was tough enough and smart enough that I didnt need to be pretty.
Something odd happened in my perception over this period of time.  Because I hated having to wear glasses,  the world stratified for me into those blessed with perfect vision and those not.  That, in itself, is not particularly odd.  As I got older, contact lenses became an option and I considered them.  However, I am such a freak that it requires an entire family to wrestle a single eye drop into my eyes, so they didnt seem worth the hassle.  And I guess a part of me had grown stubbornly attached to the hated accessory.  There was one other little secret.  Whenever the world gets too hideously ugly for me, all I have to do is whip my glasses off, and the world becomes pleasantly blurred. 
But through this process, I divided people up once again.  Those vain and brave souls who wear contacts to repair their vision, and those geeky outcasts who either cant or wont.  I decided against vanity (or possibly courage) and simply became a glasses wearer, then never thought about it much again.  I knew that sometimes contacts people wore glasses, to give their eyes a break, or because they were out of contacts or had lost one or something, but it never occurred to me one had all that much of a choice.  One simply wore one or the other.  One was simply one or the other.
Many people have asked me why I dont try contacts and I tell them I have no time or energy for all that hassle.  Robyn has all but begged me to try them, and I have stubbornly refused.  Until now.
I had a casual conversation with Mark the Younger one day that opened my eyes, pun potentially intended.  Most of the time I see Mark, he has on his glasses.  He wasnt wearing his glasses and I asked him where they were.  He indicated he was wearing contacts.  I said I didnt know he wore contacts.  He said he did sometimes for some things.  It suddenly occurred to me that there were choices.  One wasnt locked into one or the other.
Today I went for an eye exam and tried contacts for the first time.  It was a totally different world.  I dont know if I can master this getting them in and out thing, and my eyes are pretty irritated because I’ve officially touched them more today than, oh, say, in my entire life.  But having them on was AMAZING.  I had true peripheral vision for the first time since childhood.  I didnt see the world through a frame.  I didnt have to strain my eyes to see, (my glasses are pretty scratched up right now, and nearly always get smudged), and sometimes had to gently remind myself to just change my focus, not move my head or eyes to “center them” in the lense. 
It was like the other part of the first day I got glasses…the part I didnt mention above.  The joyful feeling of being able to SEE what was happening around me.  I was so distracted by my new found sight I passed my house on the way home.  Looks different when you have peripheral vision.

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