This is Not Better

Honestly, I can't keep up with the news.  There is the IRS scandal involving selective treatment of those applying for non profit status based on ideology. We have Animal Farm and 1984 going on at the same time.  Some charities are more equal than others.  Pro-choice good. Pro-life bad.  --cue sheep for the chorus.

We have Eric Holder shall investigate himself and I'm sure find nothing wrong.

There is the hey, we have a sequester and still no budget to speak of anywhere in sight but no matter, onward!

Gitmo remains open with no end for those imprisoned save death. Hunger strike continues and no one notices.

There is the fast and furious long forgotten.

There is the no call at 3 A.M. except to create a cover story involving a pathetic Youtube video about the killing of our ambassador and three others from Benghazi.

But all of that is old news, it's 2013 for crying out loud, those happened last year and before! Why would we worry about the past?

Okay, if we just stay in the moment: There is the seizing of phone records for the AP and other members of the press, the government investigating journalists for being journalists as a means of silencing those who do not properly show due respect to the White House spin of all things.

Or how about the epic fail of Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA to track two kids in Boston who had been radicalized and who the Russian government warned about being a threat, and the mysterious non story of the death in custody of a person of interest by the FBI? How bad a guy do you have to be to get outed by the Russian government as a baddie?

What exactly will tip off our government to action?  Does Homeland security need the villains to dress like Snidely Whiplash and have bombs with long wicks like in cartoons to recognize that if multiple alarms go off about a guy they should probably investigate?  Wasn't Homeland Security INVENTED to connect the dots between the intel of the FBI and CIA to address these sorts of scenarios?  But I digress. Again, these are old things. That happened in April. It's June.

What's new today?

Last week we learned about the massive data grab with Verizon, the latest indication that this government thinks as long it thinks there is no problem, there is no problem with recording everything said and done by everyone. Yeah we grabbed phone records and could see who you called for how long and how often but hey...we didn't listen in or anything.   Well, then everything's just hunky dory. So glad to know the government is on the job, making sure they know I call my mom almost every day.

Little noted was the fact that our government now photographs every piece of mail it processes.  Why?

IRS spends lavish amounts on line dancing and star trek videos, loses receipts.  It also pretends that the targeting of Tea parties was due to a "rogue agent." Not even a pure sycophant like the New York Times believes that line.

I forgot that the EPA also outed American Farmers in multiple states in public records when they should have been kept confidential, and that there was an imaginary employee that received awards for being an Ethical Employee, a fabrication created by a former head of the EPA who now works as a consultant for Apple.

But the steaming fresh stuff is Prism, a top-secret system at NSA to collect emails, documents, photos and materials for agents to review. Pesky judges can be so cumbersome what with their hang ups about following the law and all that, this way, there's no guess work. You know you've got a thumbs up all the way for everything, no chance of a Simon Cowell type member of the judiciary sending you home empty handed.  What does Prism mean and what can we do about it?  It means no correspondence is free of government scrutiny, so free speech is being "monitored" even if nothing is being done.

Do I sound like a tin foil hat person yet?

I've tried in recent years to get my information from multiple sources, right and left and center, and as close to original sources as possible, but if this many instances smell, from right, left and center, doesn't it mean the whole thing stinks?

Doesn't it mean there is something really wrong when a government has no process of checks and balances of power and no balancing of its check book in the process?   Doesn't anyone think a government that has unlimited authority to tax, spend, audit, spy, to use drones, investigate, and imprison without end (oops and I forgot kill if deemed a threat) might be I don't know...out of control?

To those who say, you should have been screaming then...lots of us did.  But, if today someone is just waking up and sees this is bad, don't you who already knew this was bad think, good, I'm glad you finally woke up now help me tell them to stop this instead of go back to sleep, we don't want you to notice because you didn't see it then and now, we're going to not see it instead?

For those who say, Bush did it first?  So what? It's clear it's been expanded. If it was wrong then, it is wrong now. If you knew it was wrong then, why aren't you furious now? That someone else did it first is a defense I don't take from my kids, why in heaven's name would I tolerate such a lame excuse from the federal government.

Whatever your political stripe, one thing is clear, this is not better.

Tipping Points

 There are moments when you simply must say "No mas."  Not "No Mass." "No Mas." 

My children volunteer to serve mass.  We used to be the go to people for the seven.  When we reached having seven, we bowed out and opted for the 8:30. (We like to go before all of them are fully roused and capable of resistance).

 Around that time, there was the proposal that the servers' families wash  the albs as part of their service.  I'm normally a go to home team kind of gal but this was not a burden I could manage.  Phoning the woman in charge, I explained that only if the church did not mind if the albs were never returned or came back pink should I be kept on the list for this duty.   My house remains alb free even if the washing machine never is.  

I learned something in that exchange, that sometimes, just because my tipping point is radically skewed, does not mean I cannot occasionally ply on other people's threshold for stress.  So when snow days wiped the schedule clean for the week, I applied my newfound wisdom over the phone in rescheduling.   

The receptionist at the doctor's for my daughter was indifferent as she languidly explained she couldn't possibly see me until two weeks from today.   Two weeks would mean I'd be on my own, I didn't want that but said, "Well, that's fine as long as you don't mind if I come with five children including a newborn." There was a brief pause on the phone.  Suddenly, there was a slot open next week when it would just be the one daughter and the newborn and me. 

At the car dealership where I get the 12 passenger serviced for free, showing up with a five, three and two year old plus being pregnant gets extra mechanics hopping on my machine.  Apparently hanging out with the happy meals and the kiddos in the waiting room makes the menfolk nervous and what would probably take an hour in normal circumstances gets done in doubletime.  I'm considering renting my offspring out for those who want to expedite cumbersome errands that no one, not even the people being paid to do the labor, enjoy doing sufficiently to do with great urgency.

So when the doctors speculated that the reason my mouth broke out in blisters after delivering my daughter was stress induced, I had to wonder, what about number ten was so much moreso than anything else that one might call stressful in my life these past few years. Then I realized, I would have had this infection three children ago, if only I'd agreed to wash the albs.