Eveything Old is New Ag...wait, what?

I didn't watch the last State of the Union speech.

Nothing personal. These things are effectively worthless as actual politics, being more or less a sort of brag-session for the current Chief Executive. 

(Given his psychotic level of internal delusion Trump's were, unsurprisingly, appalling, but I had little or no interest in hearing his predecessors chest-thumping, either.)

So I missed, unfortunately, the nightclub-comic slapdown of Empty G and her public lies that her party hasn't had a hard-on for impoverishing old people since FDR got Social Security through Congress.

I mean...c'mon!

I get that the federal government is "an insurance company with an army". I get that a crap-ton of federal money goes to paying old people not to eat cat food and die in a ditch, and that irks the shit out of Republicans because if old people weren't meant not to eat cat food or die in ditches they'd have been born rich like God intended.

But you'd have to be pretty goddamn stupid not to know by now that if the GQP can, it will roll back U.S. society to 1929 or, better, 1899. The GQP has been the party of the Gilded Age as long as I've been alive. Their robber baron donors would stand for nothing less.

Which brings me to my friend Labrys, who writes "What the hell do these people want?"

And, yes, it seems genuinely weird and inexplicable that a fairly large chunk of the American public seems to be pining for...well, a bizarre congeries of generally unpleasant (for most sentient Americans) things that we've spent most of the 20th Century getting shut of because, frankly, they sucked for most people. 

Poverty in old age. Filthy air and water. Dangerous workplaces. Assholes with assault rifles.

I think one of the problems is that the answer is difficult. The answer is "Well...it depends..." because the divisions in these people are legion and they don't all want the same things. 

They're just willing to put up with the others' nonsense to get what they want.

But here's the general outline:

The Plutocrats: The beating (black and shriveled) heart of the GOP has always been the rich.

The fatcats were the rulers of both parties from the emergence of parties until the Nineteen Thirties, when FDR's actions to prevent a red or brown revolution meant nicking a tiny slice of their lucre and they more-or-less permanently moved to the Right. 

And from there to the GOP when the Democrats lost a real "right" in the form of the Dixiecrats.

Oh, sure; if they have no choice they'll buy what Democrats they can - and given the insanely expensive cost of our "republic" it's not all THAT hard to find someone notionally blue who's desperate for cash - but their natural instincts and fundamental worldview sits better with the red side of the aisle.

These malefactors of great wealth want what they've always wanted, wanted ever since they were armed predators lurking in fortifications across Europe and Asia; more money, more power, more fear (or respect, but they'll take fear), and the political influence to gain and maintain them.

Their primary concern in the United States is federal taxation and regulations.

They want the proles' grubby hands off their wallets - i.e. "low taxes", and

They want to freedom to do whatever the fuck they want to get and stay rich - i.e. no "burdensome regulations". 

Work you to death. Dump their shit in your air and water. Cheat you.

They want all that, and because of it any self-respecting 15th Century Raubritter would recognize the DeVoses and the Kochs and their ilk.

They don't give two shits about what the scum do to themselves or each other, so they could care less whether Cletus uses his AR-15 to shoot up his ex-wife and the daycare where she works, and they could care less whether some transgender gal gets murdered, and they could care less who has to hide their pregnancy to prevent the Baptist Taliban from turning them in for aborting the sprog.

Money. Power. That's it.

But...since we're still nominally a republic, their problem is that there's not enough of these bloated hyenas to win elections. 

That's why they need the others. Who are...

The Religious Nuts: of which there's 31 flavors but all of them are what my mother used to call "good haters". Right-wing God-pesterers come in Christian (both the ultramontaine Catholic and fundie Prot variety), Ultraorthodox Jewish, and possibly even some weirdo Muslim, Jain, Sikh...who the fuck can tell with these people.

Their basic problem is with the post-Griswold U.S. there are all these...other people...out there doing...other stuff...that these people don't like and they haaaaate that and those other people.

It's often sex - since there's all sorts of people with peculiar hangups about sex - or just ways of thinking that run counter to the ways these people want other people to think. 

So if you're squicky about men kissing men or girls getting naked with girls or people with genitals who don't think of themselves as that kind of person or - and since religions are strict hierarchies with God on top and everything descending from that - not acting like the God-pesterers think God (or, more specifically, THEY think God) wants those people to act then you want the power to make those fuckers behave.

So these people want the power of law to bind the people they hate - the homosexuals, the gender-fluid, the atheists - and they'll side with anyone who will give them that.

What helps is that very many of these sorts of religious nuts ignore or elide the parts of their religions that insist on squishy stuff like loving neighbors and giving away all your wealth to serve the poor and sick. So they're fine with the robber barons hoarding loot provided the robbers let the God-pesterers hate and kill some homos and women who like to fuck.

So you got fatcats + bible-bangers. Who else?

The Fascists: and by this I mean "people who want "law and order" meaning they want jackboots on the necks of "those people" and they'll vote for thems what'll give that".

This takes in a whole bunch of people.  

Ammosexuals want all the guns, and want the jackboots on the necks of the softies who are sick of mass murder. 

There's also the racists who want the jackboots on the necks of those dusky upstarts who think they should get a piece of the American pie. 

And what I still think of as the hardhats; the mostly-white guys who just reflexively hate the smelly hippies and their "peace and love" and weird clothes and sex and want the jackboots on those hippie necks.

Lots of cops fall in here, too. Plus all the standard freikorps; Threepers, Proud Boys, groypers...all the usual shitbirds.

These people, too, don't care whether the plutocrats are looting the public purse. They just want the liberty to fear-up those people they hate and strut around saying racial and sexual slurs without getting the hairy eyeball.

Notice something?

Yep. Everyone but the country club set is largely driven by stuff they hate.

That's why the richie-riches are using all this "culture war" shit to herd the others. Only the oligarchs have an actual positive goal in wanting money and power to ensure their comfort and influence (sure, it's disgusting, but at least it's moving towards something...).

These others?

They just want to be the boss of the people and things they hate. They all just want to be king shits of their own little Turd Hills.

That they're just soylent green for the oligarchs?

They don't care. 

Provided they don't have to see pictures of men kissing or know that some woman is out there having sex without remorse or that some black kid is getting food without having to beg for it, they will happily be the kapos of the American camps.

Their "freedom" is the freedom to dictate the lives of those they despise.

Like I said; any mook with a sword and a taste for mayhem could tell you about that.

So "what do they want", Labrys? 

They want to be the boss of you. 

They want you to sit down and shut up and (since you're a woman) be whatever some man wants you to be.

And if you won't?

They want you silent. 

Or dead.

These people are damn near 40% of the American public.

And I haven't the slightest fucking idea how you change that.

Waiting for Bob...

I've got a confession to make.

I an on an artificial testosterone medication.

Yeah, I know; sorry, TMI. But that little fact is fairly critical to the rest of this post, so I had to start with it. Try to scrub the image out of your brain. I'll wait.

OK, so, we good now?

Alrighty, then.

So, anyway, the bottom line is that as I headed into my forties I noticed that I was having some problems just dragging my ass out of bed in the morning. That and, well, the usual sort of problem associated with not being packed with robust man-juices, but we won't linger on that particular issue.

I went to see my internist, who ran the usual blood tests and pronounced me perfectly functional, 100% mission-capable.

Which left the issue of "Why the hell is my dead ass dragging so badly?" and I asked for a referral to a urologist. Since it didn't cost my GP a nickel she happily wrote out the referral and off I went.

The dick-doc then ran the same blood tests and proceeded to inform me that my natural testosterone levels were down there with those usually associated with very masculine women and pre-pubescent boys. I could creep up into the low three figures on a good day with a following wind and a strong current, but that was that.

So he prescribed me one of those artificial testosterone medicines that help professional bicycle racers win the Tour de France and off I went.

And the stuff works as advertised, let me tell you. In a couple of days I felt positively bursting with masculine energy; I wanted to seduce something or go start a war.

Kidding. But, seriously, the man-juice works. I felt "back to normal"; my energy levels in all respects returned to what I expected to feel given how active I was and how hard I worked to keep in shape and eat a healthy diet.

Well, OK, except for the whole pork-rind thing. But, damn, who can resist that crackly, greasy goodness? Seriously.

And because the urologist explained that this stuff was to restore my testosterone to natural levels as a matter of health and quality-of-life issues and not because I wanted to become some sort of mad harem-tester in my off-hours my insurance - after some initial suspicious sniffing - proceeded to cover the damn stuff.

Dick-stiffeners, though? Viagra? Cialis? Not a chance. Despite the usual whining about how all those boner pills are covered and female products aren't...they're actually not. That's just so you know the deal here.

Anyway, this was some ten years or so ago. I've been taking these testosterone supplements regularly ever since and, although the damn co-pays go up and up every year, paying just a portion of the actual price of the stuff.

Which is pretty ridiculous, mind you, given that the drug is decades old and is manufactured at some sort of drug-maquiladora in Mexico for probably pennies a dose. I mean, we're talking hundreds of dollars for a little pump-bottle that lasts about a month; well over $3,000 a year at full price.

Three. Thousand. Dollars.

But the damn insurance has been paying for this, so for the cost of $500/month or so in premiums I get a reliable supply of man-juice.

Until yesterday.

When my Bride returned from the grocery pharmacy without the testosterone bottle, explaining that the pharmacist had input the prescription and it had spit out that the drug was no longer covered by my Blue Cross/Blue Shield formulary.

So.

Now I am faced with the unlovely prospect of having to call my goddamn insurance company and 1) find out why the hell they are no longer covering my drug after ten years of doing so and 2) figure out how the hell I can get the goddamn insurance company to stop dicking around (if you'll excuse the expression) and cover the goddamn drug again. This will undoubtedly involved repeated conversations with unpleasant insurance company phone-bots whose purpose will be to find reasons not to spend the money I have been ladling into the goddamn insurance company's bank account on my health care.

And to make it as difficult and unpleasant for me to find a way to jerk that money out of their ass a nickel at a time.

And as I'm staring at my phone with a sense of deep loathing for this entire process, I keep thinking: remind me - this is that "best healthcare system in the world" we keep hearing about, right? Because we don't have some faceless bureaucrat deciding what and how we will get for our health care. Right?

Because right now I'm about ready to shove every goddamn insurance company up the gigantic bung-hole of the Universe and replace them with a single faceless government health care organization just like the one I had when I was a GI that paid for whatever my docs said I needed without so much as a whimper.

That, or go score some fucking Enzyte.

What a goddamn disaster.

Revenge of the Sith

Tonight my hip is playing up again.

I think I've mentioned it before? Have I?

If not, the short story is that my right hip has degenerated into what yours will look and feel like when you're (or probably does look like if you are already) about ninety-six.

Both the condyle of my femur and the acetabulum of my pelvis are rotten with arthritic buildup and jagged with bone loss. I've lost so much bone that my right leg is about 3/8-inch shorter than my left.

You can imagine how that affects my gait.

In order to keep from going in circles like a defective wind-up toy I have a heel lift in my shoes and boots. I can't wear any sort of sandal or open-heel footgear like slippers without listing and staggering like a British cruiser at the Coronel (sorry, I'm still reading Massie's Castles of Steel...).

The sonofabitch hurts, too.

Mostly it's just a low-grade sort of hurt, a dull ache or even a sort of hard pressure at the top of my leg, along with a lot of muscle soreness from compensating for the short leg length.

But every once in a while it decides to really attack. I had a very active day yesterday, clambering up and down a steep site on Sylvan Hill, and it got a lot of hard use. Ten years ago I'd have taken a hot shower and gotten a good sleep and been fine. Last night I lay down at 7:30 and woke up at 3am aching and too sore to go back to sleep.

That's not all that unusual. It's hard to sleep on the bastard; I can't lie on my right side or stomach, there's no comfortable position for it. Even on my left side the unsupported right hip eventually starts to spike at me. And on my back is usually okay, but even then the pressure on the hip joint does bad things after a while.

I'm not saying this to complain.

I got myself here, between hard use and outright abuse, and I'm gonna play the cards I've been dealt. There are a lot of people out there dealing with worse. But there are times when it gets a little tiring, knowing that the sonofabitch is always there, always poking me in the ass and reminding me that nothing will get better until I get a cybernetic implant, like this guy:

That's right. My destiny is to be fucking Darth Maul.

Oh, well.

I suppose it could have been worse.

Oh, yeah. That.

Work and Worry

If I seem downcast in my posting lately it's partly because the Rains have arrived in force. I always have a tough couple of weeks getting used to the cold, wet, and dark.

If there's another thing it's because I have a job that is going very badly on me, and one that involves a great deal of walking around on my bad hip. So I get up very early to drive a long way, then walk a mile or two with my hip aching like a Congressman for a lobbyist's wallet, and then everything at the job goes wrong and everyone is pissed off at everyone else.

Don't get me wrong; walking a mile through the beautiful Northwest woods is still better than a kick in the face and a toxic waste dump in downtown Gresham. But don't tell me that when my ass is aching and not just because the client took another bit out of it.

What a fuckin' fuckstory, as my old pal James used to say.

Cold Iron

I spent the better part of the daylight hours of the past Thursday and Friday doing soil exploration using hand tools; hand auger drills of various sizes as well as a pipe and slide hammer contraption known as a "drive probe".

Both of these gadgets required human muscle to work, and since as it happened the soils that the human muscle - my muscle - were required to work on were either composed of fucking great lumps of rock, or end-of-summer-dry silt soil that had the fixed opinion that it was just like rock said muscles were sternly reminded that it was nearly fifty-five years ago that they formed from their primordial protoplasm.

In plain terms, I am no longer young, and for the past two days required my body to do something that was too demanding for its remaining strength and endurance.

I am tired, and sore. The big muscles in my shoulders, arms, and thighs ache and cramp, and the now-familiar deep burn of pain in my right hip has flickered up like a fire fed fresh coals. I have taken several painkillers to tamp down this fire, but the result has been to deny me sleep, an oddly common side-effect of this particular medication. So when the second big lag-cramp twisted me up from our bed I limped out here to sit and stretch and think and write a little, since I am outside the room of sleep, my nose pressed against the warm night-glass but my eyes still wide open, my mind still spinning, unable to open that casement and enter into the silent room to lie down and sleep.

Surely I cannot be the only one who, aging, begins to feel the body's fraying, the steady, sullen failing of the parts that once worked so well, the weakness of once-strong muscles and the grinding of once-smooth joints that remind me that I am a long way down the road towards my body's inevitable failure?

And I am surely luckier than many. My body was stronger, for a longer time, at a higher level than many of the sorts of people I see daily; young people whose obesity makes them look and move like old men or old women. People who seem to sit rather than walk, walk rather than run. People who decades younger than I whose bodies, or minds, bear the obvious marks of serious illness, or violent injury.

And I am lucky in having been gifted with the endurance of pain. Pain and I are old...well, not friends but, perhaps, two old enemies who have crafted a sort of familiarity with one another. He is not a stranger to me, this daily thief who robs me of the back that was strong and straight, the stride that was long - as long as the stride of a man with legs less than three feet from sole to crotch could be - and fierce.

Every morning we rise within moments of each other, my companion and I; often he pokes me in the shoulder or in the hip before I have straightened up from my night's rest to remind me that he has never left me, that I will never be alone so long as my joints continue to deteriorate and my bones continue their hobby of collecting stray bits of calcite like gingerbread on the eaves of an old house.

--------

So I sit in the quiet room, the only light the phosphors of the white screen before me, trying to let my body settle into a quiet hum that will give me time to think, and write.

From the rental house at the corner to the west comes the noise of the University students enjoying a Friday night's socializing. I am suddenly seized by the strong desire to dress and walk down the dark street to show them my herky step like a marionette with a tangled string, and tell them to dance, and run, to leap and skylark, to arch and bend and enjoy the young strength and suppleness of their bodies now, whilst they may, while they enjoy the fullness of youth, and power, and grace so that they may have those memories to pull about them when the ache and stiffness of age and hard use lays its cold iron on their limbs and bends their backs like the brittle stalks of the autumn grass.

Morning comes too early

We really did have a lovely Sunday evening, and Mojo and I had a nice time together after the kiddos went to bed early (finally!) so I was on track for a pretty damn good weekend when some time around 1:20 a.m. I must have rolled the wrong way and managed to yank on the big nerve that's caught up in my arthritic left hipjoint.

Here's the thing; I've lost about 20-30 pounds - I'm as lean and fit as I've been in years - but that doesn't seem to make a lick of difference. My hips, both hips, now, are utterly wrecked, and they both contribute a degree of discomfort unlike anything I've ever experienced.

Doc Le has provided some pretty effective pain pills, but whatever this sciatic nerve thing is that is going on in my left leg cuts through them effortlessly. I rolled out of the bed and took one at 1:20 and then spent the rest of the night trying to get back to sleep without success. There was just no way to lie or sit without pain.

Finally at 5:30 I went out to the couch and got about an hour of sleep in a sort of semi-sitting position. But had to get up to go to work, so to say I'm working on some pretty decent sleep-debt is putting it mildly.

And the thing is all the sources I've read suggest that this - if it is some sort of sciatic-nerve compression related to the arthritic degeneration of my lower back and hip - has very poor resolution regardless of the type of intervention. Apparently surgery has better results in the short run but by 3-5 years is no better than PT, chiro, massage, or just drugging yourself stupid.

Again, I'm trying not to whine. But it's hellishly frustrating to have depended on my body to do what I told it to for fifty years and have it suddenly quit on me.

I think I'll go have a drink now, thanks.