Yes, I know it has been forever.

"As you get older, it is harder to have heroes."

Ernest Hemingway said that. One of the few things he's ever said that I like, because I feel it is a truth which everyone experiences but few realize in such simple words. I saw it on the bus.

I was also thinking about American medicine. This is a place where people take their children to the ER because of a nosebleed. Don't. Stuff some Kleenex in there and make him sit still for five minutes, but don't tip his head back because he will start digesting his own blood and die a horrible useless death. Point #1. Point #2: There are places in the world where people shit themselves to death. The water is poorly sanitized (if at all), they drink the stuff, get diarrhea, poop constantly, and expire due to dehydration, which would be okay -- save for the fact that all of the diarrhea went back into the water supply.

In America you might choke on a paper clip and die. You might slip on a dock and break your arm. You might smash your car into other cars -- But you will never shit yourself to death. Could this be what the 'land of opportunity' really means? Our water won't make you deathly ill?

At times it really seems as though there are no real problems here. I once saw a study which stated that most people who live at or below the imaginary 'poverty line' in the United States have cable television. CABLE! AND TELEVISION! What kind of country is this? We don't even know what poverty IS. Money is a made-up thing that will only make you worry about not having any (when is the last time that you saw any amount of real money? As opposed to smaller-than-you'd-hoped numbers printed on an ATM receipt?). Our nation is ludicrous, terrifying, and capitalistic -- and I'm sick of it.

Maybe this Obama fellow will get something done (do you actually think McOldliar has a chance?) and maybe he won't. One thing I do believe he will do is make a lot of intelligent speeches and have a lot of followers who don't know the first thing about the guy.

Oh, and he makes me proud to live here again.