Hooray for Socks

Happy Birthday, Sig!

Today, I got up in the am hours and prepared for Brian to come over. We made arrangements to see a movie and then drove up to Walnut Creek.

After the movie, I made a slightly delerious call to Rohit, only to find that he was in the city. Brian and I went back to my place, first stopping at Whole Foods and getting some edamame and some tortilla chips and layered dip. We watched the Kruger video I put in tomorrow's post and ate edamame, chips and dip, and watched Project Runway. After dark, we realized that neither of us wanted to drive, so I theorized that we walk to Lilac Ridge Road or Drive or whatever, next to the golf course, and watch the firewords from there. What I did not anticipate is that they would be half behind a big hill. But we did see the fireworks. Afterwards, we walked back to my place, Brian went home, and I went to bed.

Happy Birthday America, Get Well Soon I don't want to be smarmy, patronizing, or an adjective that means to elicit emotion or annoyance. I was going to write something about how I am glad to have been born in America. After being reminded of a few things today, I'm less glad. Oh, sure, it isn't the worst place in the world, and I was very lucky to be born the person I am to the parents I have and in the location I was, but I think that has more to do with those circumstances than the country of origin. That is not to say that there are no advantages to being an American, and I stand strongly behind our ideals of equality before the law and personal freedom. I'm not a woman in Afghanistan, nor am I a child in Burkina Faso. I'm not a Chinese dissident, a plantation worker in South America, or a widow in India. But I can't really escape the innane propaganda, I need to argue with my doctor to get the care I need, and I have $90k in student loan debt. I also just paid about $1300 for an ER visit that insurance declined to cover because they refused to acknowledge that they recieved my paperwork. No, sorry, America is not the best country in the world. Not when our children die from toothaches and people bleed to death in hospital waiting rooms. Many will respond with my comments with, "well, why don't you just leave then?" and to them, I say, "yes, thats the way to fix things, drive the educated people out of the country." It did really work for Mozambique in the 1970s, it really worked for Idi Amin in Uganda, and it is really working for Iraq right now. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time, and those of us that won't be fooled are those you want to be here, working, and doing good. But if you are happy with 18,000 unecessary deaths per year, record home loan foreclosures, and a growing lower class, by all means, drive my educated ass out, promote the American Brain Drain, but do not crawl to us when things just get worse.