I've been feeling kind of existential lately, so I've been thinking about things like my future, my relationship with my girlfriend, going to a new school in my junior year, and other potentially frightening things. While doing so, I thought I'd make a quick list of things I should do to live life to the fullest. On that note, I hereby present the aforementioned list:

Things To Do Before I Die


(In no specific order)

I think my day really started at 3:33 am. I remember that time, because it was the number I stared at as I slowly realized I had been rolling around for 4 hours. The sun has been up for a while now, I still am not tired so I mine as well drink a cup of coffee and wait until tonight.

The night before last night was...strange and possibly had something to do with this insomnia. That night I really didn't feel like any bullshit so I took a fair amount of benadryl, more than reccomended but not enough to hallucinate or anything crazy like that...I just wanted to sleep. After an hour it seemed like everything was in slow motion and I felt pretty good so I took some more...a bunch more (stupid, but I wasn't thinking clearly). Within another hour and I was extremely confused and drowsy so I tried going to bed. I kept wandering off, doing things like getting a drink of water or watching tv, only to realise I had just been laying on the bed the whole time (like a daydream I thought was real).
Then things got really weird. I heard an airplane flying along (which is pretty normal) but then I heard a low whistling sound that got lower and lower and I believed it to be the sound of the airplane falling out of the sky. Crash! Ok, that wasn't real, but it shocked me because it sounded completely realistic. Then I heard bees flying around my ears, getting louder and louder; And people whispering. I didn't dare open my eyes for fear of what I might see in the dark. Somehow I did manage to fall asleep and actually slept a solid 8 hours. But I wouldn't do it again.

Well, silly me, I must be some kind of a dolt. You see, when Barack Obama was elected, I thought perhaps we’d emerged from our long nightmare, and that reason and civility might return to the public discourse. I hoped I might be able to cease apologizing for being an American, and that my country and government and fellow citizens might no longer be the laughing stock of the known universe.

What was I thinking? For example, the recent debates over health care reform have proven me wrong, so wrong. That alone would be enough to dash my hopes, but there’s something else (and I’m not referring to “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” Gov. Mark Sanford).

I’m talking about the so-called “Birther Movement”. You know, the wingnuts that are convinced that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, but in Kenya, and is therefore disqualified from the Presidency. At last count, 53% of voters in Virginia and 54% in North Carolina believe this.

How this nonsense can even be attempted to dignify with the word ‘movement’ astounds me; it’s the sort of ‘movement’ I’d think only comes out of a person’s backside. It’s apparently being led/propounded by a lawyer from Orange County, California (no surprise there), Orly Taitz. Check her out – she’s the sort of personality that’s normally only encountered in fantasy writing, where the author would be accused of creating a person that couldn’t possibly exist.

If you ask me, this “Birther” idiocy has, at its heart, nothing more than plain old racism. These fanatics can’t stand the thought of a black man occupying their White House. And, having nothing else on which to hammer the President, they’re going for the lowest of the low. They’re seizing on his heritage, and in so doing casting horrible slurs on the memories of two dead women – Obama’s mother and grandmother. Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead?

As if that wasn’t enough, a purported birth certificate showing Obama was born in Kenya made the rounds of the Internet, and was denounced by no less than Karl Rove.

You might be able to tell all this outrages me. We have serious issues to contend with here (there’s health care again), and these people are injecting sheer insanity into the public discourse. These people are testing my solid belief in free speech and taking away resources needed to solve our problems.

I guess I’ll go back to making excuses …

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http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/08/12/310350.aspx
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/blogs-birthers-doc-fake/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orly_taitz

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