policy, politics, poetry, and pop culture

Take Your Eyes Off The Prize

You are an easily distracted bunch I know, but people, please, take your eyes off the prize.

Eighty percent of my feed reader, and that doesn’t include my homepages on Google, contain posts about the Nobel Prize. I don’t think I’ve seen much else, so overwhelmed has my reader been by all this foolish Nobel frenzy. From the time Obama woke up, heard the news, muttered a few expletives, showered, dressed, and accepted a prize for a path he has yet to walk, I’ve read nothing else.

This is distracting us from things we need to discuss, most notably health care reform, the unnecessary health insurance industry, the much watered down, and practically unrecognizable, compromise for National Health Care called the Public Option. An option that, despite it all, the majority of Americans want.

Enough of the melodrama being played out in the inept theater of the media.

I’d settle for reading anything else this weekend really, your experience drinking beer at ten in the morning at the local Fall Festival beer garden, your quest for the great pumpkin, or your search for a women’s Halloween costume that doesn’t scream “I’m the object of your sexual desire take me”, the story of your sad lonely hours as a researcher in the uni library, or the secret crush you have on the guy who serves you your every two hour Latte.

I hope to answer previous post comments and read a ton of blog posts tomorrow. Tonight, I’m exhausted from drinking beers at ten in the morning at the local Fall Festival beer garden, my quest for the great pumpkin, searching for a women’s Halloween costume that doesn’t scream “I’m the object of your sexual desire take me”, my lonely hours as a researcher in the uni library, and thinking about the secret crush I have on the guy who serves me your every two hour nonfat Latte.

peace

23 Thoughts on “Take Your Eyes Off The Prize

  1. Cool but true post. I’m currently basking in the glow of the US qualifying for the world cup in South Africa.

    What prize?
    .-= john´s last blog ..U.S. Advances to World Cup =-.

  2. Yeah, I hear you, although I’m not sure a distraction isn’t a fine thing. I can’t tell if much of the civil discourse over national healthcare has been civil, discourse or helpful.
    .-= Doug´s last blog ..The Reformation of Wolfshausen =-.

    • I don’t suggest discourse, I suggest letting representatives know what they are expected to do, beside fall asleep in committee meetings that is.

  3. I think we need to share readers–mine is covered with the “secret crush,” “too much beer” posts. I need more of the “Obama didn’t deserve it” posts.
    .-= Tristan || the almost right word´s last blog ..Twitter and the potential for truth =-.

  4. I don’t know if it will cheer you up much, but there are at least a few men in the world who get it and are trying to raise awareness regarding the enduring commercial sexism of Halloween costumes.

    My spousal unit is from Sweden, and while she says health care there isn’t perfect, nobody in Scandinavia would trade what they have, higher taxes and all, for the broken mess we have here. A ~ $20 co-pay and that’s it, for whatever ails you. Combined with a minimum of 5 weeks of paid vacation (true for most Western European countries), no wonder their quality of life is better, and they live longer and healthier lives than we do. “At least we have something to show for our taxes” is the general consensus. Including free college tuition. Can you imagine graduating from Med school debt-free? True, doctors in Sweden don’t get paid quite as much, but then again, they don’t need to be, since they don’t start out $200K in debt. And nobody in Sweden goes to bed at night fearfully wondering if they will lose their home or life savings because of a chronic illness.

  5. Perfect example of why my feedreader contains few blogs, and only a select group of news sources. Too much distraction, and too many “too much beer and “secret crush posts”, especially from people our age – it’s upsetting anf futhers my conviction that the world will end earlier than it needs to.
    .-= G´s last blog ..Game Day =-.

  6. The media does seem to be going a little crazy at the moment (attempting to stir the unwashed masses).

    It’s called “wagging the dog” isn’t it – when the media creates controversy from a minor story, and then feeds the furore.
    .-= Jonathan´s last blog ..Rainy Days and Playparks =-.

  7. Yours is the first and only post I’ve read that even references Obama and the Nobel Prize.

    Most of my daily reading pertains to The Pennsylvania Highlands, migratory birds and Bernstein’s Wedding of the Waters .

    It’s also great weather for hiking. While I am more than happy to have the South and Cactoctin Mountains in my backyard, I’m hoping to spend some time on the other side of the great valley on Tuscarora State Forest trails.
    .-= sauerkraut´s last blog ..Death caught on webcam =-.

    • It’s not that colorful in the Catoctin mtns yet, probably next weekend.

      I have a jam full reader, it woudl be better I suppose if it were less jammed. My nerves would not be so frayed.

  8. We are used to wagging the dog journalism, that is for sure.

  9. You’d think they’d be less obsessed with things he has no control over and start focusing on the things he has a modicum of control over.

    The media is a much a mess as the country.
    .-= jacob´s last blog ..What In The World Was This Guy Thinking? =-.

  10. Fox news now claims he’s called them his enemy. Which while might be true–I don’t think he’s spending his days and nights plotting how to get back at Fox

    I went to a pharmacy here for the first time. When I told them anybody who can afford health insurance can buy it in NY they looked at me as if I were telling a fairy tale. Of course I freaked at the prices here–so so much less, but….
    .-= pia´s last blog ..By the end of boot camp =-.

    • Yea it varies by state. Sadly so many can’t afford it.
      Maryland, if you have any preexisting condition, even an under control one and you are young and never been hospitalized you can’t buy it, they will deny you or exclude that one condition and charge you three times as much anyway – usually they just deny you, but you can get it of you are a employed, and your employer offers it – and at the same rate as everyone else. Which at this point in time is about 300 dollars for a consumer driven plan with a 1400 dollar deductible ad another 75 dollars a month for dental and eye care. For a good plan it about 675 a month.

  11. he sec­ret crush you have on the guy who ser­ves you your every two hour Latte

    Hey! How’d you know about that? Besides, that was years ago. And it was just a man crush.
    .-= Bone´s last blog ..As autumn stirs =-.

  12. Even the 5th graders are talking about it. Yikes.
    .-= kait´s last blog ..Reasonable Priced Option in White and Black =-.