A Country on Pills

Everyday, at least once every commercial break, I see a commercial advertisement for some new drug that cures god knows what. These commercials are all, pretty much, the same. They show a field and someone dancing or some other gorgeously happy scenario that just doesn't exist and then they say the name of the drug, its four hundred side effects, which include: diarrhea, stomach bleeding, nausea, sexual side effects, death, and so on and so fourth. After that they say, "Ask you doctor if xxx is good for you." Then the commercial ends.

Well let's take this point by point. First and foremost, what is the drug for? The commercials never say what illness(s) the drug is for. So you could be watching a commercial about a drug that stops rectal bleeding and ask your doctor if it is alright for you, who has high blood pressure. Just say what the drug is for and maybe we'll understand what its purpose is.

Secondly, when you list the side effects, which will most likely occur on a daily basis, why do you continue to show the happy meadow and other similar scenes? These "side effects" include some of the most uncomfortable and miserable aliments to affect a person, you know diarrhea, nausea, death, anal leakage. Alright, if I have stomach aches, nausea, and diarrhea with anal leakage everyday because I am taking your drug then being in a meadow with flowers and butterflies won't really be a happy experience. I like what Robin Williams once said about all of these "side effects." He said that they weren't side effects, they were effects.

Thirdly, why do you always have to ask your doctor if the drug is alright for you? If you have to ask, wouldn't that be a clear sign that it isn't? Perhaps you say this because you aren't really sure what it does yourselves, since you never tell us.

Fourth and last, why don't you include that the drugs that people have to take will actually have to be taken for the rest of their natural lives. Cholesterol drugs, when you stop taking them, cause you heart attack. Former President Clinton had to go in for heart surgery because he stopped taking your "wonder drug." Now, him having a heart attack is not so bad in my book, considering the horrid things he did to this country, but come on. So this means if I stop taking your drug I will die but if I continue to take it, a side effect is death. This doesn't make sense to me.

All of these drugs, being advertised once every four minutes, are being taken by god knows how many people. There is a drug for this and that and this and that. You can take a drug to stop the pain in your toe that you experience once a year. You can take a drug to make you feel happy because you lack the capacity to make yourself happy. You can take a drug to lower your cholesterol because you eat foods you shouldn't eat. You can take a drug to make your finger move faster because you need to get that booger out of your nose quicker. The point is that you can take a drug for everything.

The problem therein lies with the fact that for every drug you take to get rid of said symptom(s), the drug you are taking creates more. Well, then you need to go take another drug to get rid of the symptom(s) that drug creates. Then that drug creates more symptoms and so on and so fourth. You do realize that by the time you are done you are taking 15 different drugs just to get rid of a daily migraine that you could avoid if you just relaxed a little bit and realized that although a job is a significant part of your life, so is your family and spending time with them.

Kids are taking these drugs too. They need help concentrating, they need help reading, or they need help eating. Why do they need all of this help? They need it because mommy and daddy are never home, they are raised by daycare, they don't get any attention at home so they have to start fires and sell drugs at school, they do poorly on their tests because that will get mommy and daddy's attention. Hell, I took Ritalin when I was a kid because I had ADD, now ADHD. That's basically attention deficit disorder. Taking that pill made me more miserable than my inability to sit still for 4 seconds. You lose your appetite, you lose your energy, and you just feel like crap. So I stopped taking it. Everything improved, even my ability to concentrate. Nothing improved until after I stopped taking the stupid drug. Sure my ADD came back in college but guess what, I learned to cope with it.

That is exactly what this country needs to learn. They need to learn to cope with their blasted problem(s). If people just learned to control their problems instead of running to some pill, which basically means they don't have to worry about a thing but taking a pill once a day, lazy bastards, then there would be a lot less problems.

My all time favorite, just as an aside, are the people who take anti-depressants because they're unhappy and depressed. So am I, I learn to cope, losers… Well these people take these drugs that cause all of these side effects. Now let's look at the scenario. You are depressed on a daily basis. I know what that is like, it sucks. Now you take this drug which adds to the mental anguish with physical anguish, diarrhea, anal leakage, nausea, headaches, sexual dysfunction, insomnia, and increased risk of suicide. Right, so you wake up everyday feeling like you want to kill yourself and you have to spend your waking hours running to the bathroom to take a crap, checking your underpants every hour just to see if you have a present, avoiding light and noise because your head hurts, taking aspiring to alleviate the headache, causing stomach bleeding, feeling nauseous because of the blood in your stomach and the side effects. Then you get home to your wife or girlfriend or nobody and find that you sexual organs don't want to work because of the drug so you can't even enjoy something that ought to really be enjoyable. You try to go to sleep and rest for the next day, as sleep can heal many bodily problems and illnesses, but find that you can't fall asleep. And then, on top of it all, the suicidal thoughts are amplified because you have all of these physical effects. Yes and remember folks, these are anti-depressants.

Reality, what'a concept! - Robin Williams

Anti-Terrorism Without Anti-Terrorist

On July 7, 2005, four explosions ripped through three subway trains and a double-decker bus. The four homicide* attacks were carried out by terrorists using small explosives hidden inside backpacks. The explosion wound up killing 52 people, 56 including the terrorists, but whoever said that they were people, and injured another 700. It was the worst terrorist attack that the United Kingdom saw since the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie in 1988.

On July 21, 2005, two weeks later, four more homicide bombers attempted to recreate the previous attack to the tee, three trains and a bus. A fifth bomb would be found later on. The bombs only partially detonated. This time the bombs were filled with nails, meant for serious injury to be caused. Within a week, all four suspects were nabbed in Birmingham, London, and Rome. Nobody died from this attack. both attacks, the suspects happened to be Muslim, male extremists, usually ranging between the ages of 17 and 40. You'll find this to be the pattern.

Shortly after these attacks, the New York City MTA established back checks for the subway. This would make sense. We learned the hard way on September 11, 2001 that cockpit doors and plastic weapons can turn an aircraft into a 400,000 pound cruise missile with a warhead of 24,000 gallons of jet fuel. Therefore, back checks make perfect sense, why learn the hard way again with millions of lives at stake.

Now, the New York Civil Liberties Union and multiple other "Civil Liberties" groups have challenged the bag checks, have challenged racial profiling, and are calling for the cessation of said act. These groups are demanding that police stop searching for bombs that police stop protecting us New Yorkers that police allow terrorists to carry out their acts.

Their reasoning is racial profiling. So, let's look at the actors involved. We do not need to go back too far, to the 1970s. (The following information is quoted from Red White & Blue Hens I did add a few questions though).

1. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
(a)Olga Corbutt
(b)Sitting Bull
(c)Arnold Schwarzenegger
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
(a)Lost Norwegians
(b)Elvis
(c)A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

3. During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
(a)John Dillinger
(b)The King of Sweden
(c)The Boy Scouts
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
(a)A pizza delivery boy
(b)Pee Wee Herman
(c)Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by:
(a)The Smurfs
(b)Davy Jones
(c)The Little Mermaid
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

6. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by:
(a)Captain Kid
(b)Charles Lindbergh
(c)Mother Teresa
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

7. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
(a)Scooby Doo
(b)The Tooth Fairy
(c)Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

8. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
(a)Richard Simmons
(b)Grandma Moses
(c)Michael Jordan
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1995, the Oklahoma City Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed by:
(a)Batman
(b)President Clinton
(c)A white supremacist extremist 27 years old
(d)The Boogey Man

10. In 1998, the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
(a)Mr. Rogers
(b)Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
(c)The World Wrestling Federation to promote "Mustapha the Merciless"
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. In 2000, the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen by:
(a)Tom Cruise
(b)Al Gore
(c)Jack and Jill
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and used to destroy the World Trade Center, a section of the Pentagon, and thousands of people by:
(a)Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd
(b)The Supreme Court of Florida
(c)Mr. Bean
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2003, ten explosions killed 191 people in Madrid, set off by:
(a)Helmut Kohl
(b)Saddam Hussein
(c)Igor
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

14. In 2005, London was struck twice by bombings committed by:
(a)Louis Armstrong
(b)Howard Johnson
(c)Ted Turner
(d)Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

If you answered (d) to all of these questions, except #9, you found that the answer was Muslim, male extremists, mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. If you answered (c) to #9, you found that the answer was a white, supremacist extremist 27 years old. So, since 1972, only 1 major terrorist attack was not committed by Muslim, male extremists, mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

So now I want you to ask yourself: If the guilty all fit a profile and we just happen to be fighting a War on Terror, mostly against terrorists of the Islamic faith, extremists, and between 17 and 40, then WHY ON THIS EARTH WOULD WE NOT BE ALLOWED TO SEARCH THE OBVIOUS SUSPECT!!!

In a murder investigation, a profile is drawn up. In serial killing cases, a profile is drawn up. Crimes are overall, generally committed by the same type of person fitting the same profile.

But remember one thing, we cannot profile Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 40 and search their bag, along with John Doe, a 48 year old stock broker, because it isn't fair. We can't hurt anyone's feelings and god forbid we actually find a Muslim, male extremist between the age of 17 and 40 with a bomb, then what? Can we say, "I told you so"? Or will the liberals simply blame Western influence on the Middle East?

Does anyone else find not searching bags on the subway, especially carried by Muslim, male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40 ridiculous? As a New Yorker, a person who does travel on the subway, a person who lives in the most hated city in the world by these extremists, I am not only appalled at the suit of the NYCLU and its buddy groups but rather outraged. The liberals cry PATRIOT ACT, Big Brother, Republican agenda, New World Order, left and right with these cases. Do you know what we should cry back? "DUMBASS!" That ought to work eventually.

When a bomb goes off on the NYC subway, set by a Muslim, male extremist between the age of 17 and 40 then what apology are the liberals and the NYCLU going to give us? "We're sorry but you shouldn't have chopped up the Middle East 100s of years ago." How much more American blood has to be spilled for this country to wake the hell up and realize that the road we are traveling on is a road that is finite. Eventually you're going to come to the Grand Canyon and go off the edge, crashing in flames.

But then again, we all know the answer to that one.

* = When a bomber only kills himself it is a suicide. When a bomber kills others it is an act of homicide. It burns my bubble when the media calls them suicide bombers. It sounds as if they just killed themselves. Try telling the father who just lost his daughter and wife, the mother who lost her child, the child who lost their parent, their brother, their friend that the bomber was a suicide bomber. It's called premeditate homicide. Call them homicide bombers, which they are. I mean I know we can't call them murderers because hurting peoples' feelings isn't PC but this has gotten ridiculously out of hand.

We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend. - Margaret Thatcher

¿Habla Español?

When I was in school, from pre-k throughout high school, there has been one course that I have been mandated to take each and every year. That course is English. I was required to take a language from 6th to 8th and the only one offered was Spanish. In high school, they offered Spanish, French, or Latin. I kept with Spanish and took it for three years, having been placed into advanced Spanish right off the bat because of my prior three years. In college, I had to take two semesters of a language (Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and many others) and three English courses. For the language, I chose Italian, having gone through Spanish for six years. The English courses were: Advanced Writing (one course higher tha the standard intro course because of my advanced English scores on the SAT and my writing abilities), and two literature courses.

Now I work at Home Depot and we have a vast Latino customer base, namely installers and contractors. For the most part they all speak English, some not too great, some very well. For the most part, they all try to speak English. Occasionally, I'll get the standard "¿Habla Español?" to which I will respond, "No."

Of course, I can probably help them a little. My Spanish isn't conversational level but I can probably help out in a basic way. Why don't I? I don't because here, in the United States of America, where English is the native language, I believe that those in our country should speak our language. Now, apparently, I am wrong.

If you go to Spain, you speak Spanish. If you go to France, you speak French. Whilst it is true that you can generally speak English anywhere and so will they, it would be disrespectful to go up to an Italian or a Frenchman, in their country, and speak to them in English, without effort to their own, native language. After all, you are in their country. That same rule should, in theory, apply to the United States of America.

I find this to be less and less the case as time goes on. When I first started working at Home Depot, in March of 2004, I found nothing to be in English and Spanish except maybe the internal instructions to a product, but that was it. Occasionally a box or two for a product or two would include Spanish but not very many of them. We went through a remodel in fall of 2004 and the entire look of the store changed and with it, the rape of America. They've done a lot of good things, numbering the isles, having more signs, making the store less orange. However, every sign is in English and Spanish. That was the first step and it angered me. You can be sure as hell that I said something but it fell onto deaf ears. Who cares after all? In America, we have to cater to every minority that exists.

Now, companies are changing the look of their products, giving them new bags, new containers, a new look. This is normal. What is included in this new look, Spanish and English writing on the bags and containers. I put Spanish first, as sometimes it seems there is more in Spanish than in English. This is further insulting. Now I have to turn the product around to FIND the English writing and to read it myself. No longer can I just look at it and find my native language, the language I was mandated to take each and every year of school until I was 18.

There's no more effort necessary anymore. People come off the boat and everything is in their language too. Example? When I took that 6-hour course for my driver's license in fall of 2003, the instructor asked, "What language do you want the test in: English or Spanish?" You don't even have to speak English to get a driver's license. The proof comes at my first fender-bender, so minor no filing necessary. I stopped too late on the light and the person was over the line, turning towards me, so my driver's front tapped their driver's rear panel. Person got out, you know the usual thing that happens, and asks, "¿Habla Español?" You have to be kidding me! The person didn't speak a word of English. How did this woman ever get a driver's license? Was she even legal in this country? I mean come on!

I know America is a nation of immigrants. My ancestors came here from Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Scotland. Those that didn't speak English learned English. They weren't wealthy, they weren't to do, they came through Ellis Island with the rest of the poor slobs that made up our country in the late 19th and early 20th century. They were here in the late 1800s to early 1900s. They got jobs doing what they could, survived, grew, mingled, and became the middle class family that we are today. They all learned English. They served. My great-grandfather served on a minesweeper in World War I, my two grandfathers in World War II in North Africa and as part of the invasion of Japan, and my father in Vietnam. My grandfather and my father served as firemen, volunteer firemen.

These are the people that made our country great, immigrants who worked their asses off, as many hours of the week as they were allowed by their bosses, who worked overtime when they got it, who went to work everyday, rain or shine, cold or heat, hurricane or calm. They volunteered to save others, gave their allegiance to the country that they chose, and defended her when they were asked. They put their lives on the line so that this country could continue. Part of what they were protecting was our language, English, which could have become Japanese or German, depending on the situation. Now what has become of it? When is the day that I will be required to know Spanish in order to get groceries or to call 9-1-1. When is the day that I will be required to shred the language I was forced to learn throughout my life because immigrants who come here now aren't required to learn the language, because it isn't PC. If you want to speak Spanish do it in your own household, do it amongst your friends.

So I ask you, "¿Habla Español?"

Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language. - William Bennett