The world: A lament

Nothing exacerbates my disgust with the world like a jaw problem.

Pop, click. Pain. A nice, searing headache that echoes through the layers of skin and bone on my right temple.

News networks that try to outdo each other covering the crazy astronaut lady, then Anna Nicole Smith's death. A system that forced taxpayers to pay more than $1 billion last year to keep "criminals" in jail due to marijuana-related charges. A president who thinks U.S. troops are an expendable, renewable resource.

The headache just grows.

A nation where you can trust comedy news-show parodies more than you can trust the major networks. A nation where the man behind the most "fair and balanced" network on TV admits his channel tried to shape Iraq war policy. A world where I can't figure out how I'm going to afford health insurance while the health insurance CEOs can't figure out which continent they'd like to visit for vacation.

Muscle relaxers stopped helping.

The people who think we ought to pray in schools to prevent violence are the same ones who advocate less strict gun laws. When I invoke the First Amendment, they balk and tell me I shouldn't say those kindsa things down South, if you know'amean. I'd burn their flags. I'd force one of them into a tiny room with a gay man and make them talk until it is painfully apparent that the gay man is as human as the straight. But it does no good.

I tried politics. It made my head positively THROB, the intensity of fighting so hard for something you believe and the complete disillusionment that's revealed when, for the umpteenth time, your voice hasn't been heard. I wished I could use up the votes of all the people who never did an iota of research, the people who just echoed the opinions of their mothers and fathers without the tiniest bit of logic or convincing reason.

I tried journalism, the watch dog of the government, and watched my beliefs sift themselves out of my forced objectivity. I couldn't sway anyone without being biased, and I respected the institution of journalism too much to allow myself to be biased. The last time I quoted a politician's lies, I rolled my eyes and gave up. Soundbites. It's so hard to see the Real.

So now I guess I'll just tell myself (as I assume I make up at least half the readership of Anything but the Weather) stories about what I see happening around me.

Hasn't helped that headache yet, though.