Sorry; I have officially lost patience -- with all of it. I'm having my Howard Beal moment. I'm so sick of the cr*p... "I'm mad as hell..." blah, blah, blah.

I have officially lost the ability to swallow the presidential candidates, the pontificators, the proponents, the parties themselves, the government were electing them to, American idol, advertising...You name it.

And on the news every night - I mean, boo-hoo-hoo, Americans are crying because gas is expensive, and it might get worse. Might?! Wake up. Our national premise has become structured on a recurring inexpensive energy commodity largely from abroad. And wait a minute! Other global regions are in growth stages? Numerous regions? Significant growth? And it's impacting us?! When did anyone tell us THAT might happen? Holy S**T, our nation is sleepwalking in a fantasy of desperate delusions.

And our "representatives" continue to promise to INFORM us of what we really need and want. NO ONE promises to listen, they ALL promise to DISCERN our needs more astutely than their competitor. And as we all know, once they arrive in their office, these "representatives" will dive into the cesspool of pork earmarks, tax-and-spend, shortsighted gains, pandering, partisan insanity, and D.C. branded socio-stupidity. It has been decades since anyone had the courage to challenge us, nor have we had the courage to be challenged. Of course it's our own fault, too; when will we vote smart and not popular? I'd say God help us, but it isn't necessary; the other ends of the earth are going to pound us into sanity. And we'll be lucky if we aren't struggling with our new national language of Spanish as we try to compete in a global economics where we are the most delusional and crippled. I guess that doesn't sound promising? Sorry, but the level of competition in the market places and competition for resources in our world of today is no joke.

I hate myself when I get to this stage -- because complaining is insufficient. So what's our course of action? I keep wrestling with some vision where tomorrow we somehow learn to vote more directly in our course of action as a nation and as states. We disinvest in DC and "representatives", and accomplish something like Neilson- rating referendums, or the ability to phone in and vote for our favorite American idol styled politics. Hell, our elections are by and large POLL DRIVEN; except the polls come from wherever and have an accuracy or legitimacy of...WHO KNOWS! I want to vote on referendums and legislation MYSELF. Directly. From my home! Our elected officials can earn their salaries by simply becoming salesmen who package the offerings and trying to convince me how I should vote. But then I vote! Not them. I don't want to HOPE that they'll feel the generosity to try and come to some distant conclusion about what I think this country needs, about what ANY of us think this country needs. We've become technological marvels; It's time to move into the future as a nation. No taxation without representation 2008! Sure, there's going to be an enormous task defeating the potential for fraud in such a system. I'm not sure that its necessarily much harder than defeating the potential for fraud in a system where I don't even need an ID to vote. I need my ID to buy cigarettes or a Budweiser, but not to vote. No there's no potential for fraud there. And then I vote and, WHAM, I'm done; I'm out of the picture and some career politition sells our country down the toilet for a kickback and an earmark. That's not fraud?!

And I fully appreciate how twisted and ridiculous much of the voting could be, when left to the frequently idiotic and selfish individuals of our nation; but if things are going to suck with a bleak disillusioned prospect for tomorrow -- it might as well be the citizens who are actually and directly responsible for the damage firsthand! I just can't believe we spend THIS much money and THIS much energy going through a process to get the "least damaging", tepid, distanced and disconnected leadership (thwarted and constrained by massive partisan selfishness). We have a population who are endlessly informed of their best interests as opposed to enjoying having anyone ever actually asking us! How obvious is this?! Oh the lobbyists have a great deal of influence, but need I point out, there is no formal lobbyist for the citizen of this nation. Great!

So anyway, gas has shot up. It's going to cost as a lot more for a lot of what we do and what we consume. And hell, we deserve it. And guess what? It's going to get worse. And anyone who didn't see it coming has been hypnotized. Sweet SUV, Ms. & Mr. Yuptoid. Very trendy shade of kiss-your-future-goodbye-silver. Don't worry though, you can just use this new breed of mercury containing light-bulb, or give Al Gore an Oscar - that'll undue the damages. Very hip. Myself, I want to keep sleeping, but somewhere some a**hole woke me up. So I'm wide awake now, and not liking the clouds on the horizon, NOR OVERHEAD. Things look screwed, and even American Idol's final episodes are sucking. Have another drink Paula.

Never mind that we can't do anything without global condemnation. If we are passive, were condemned for not taking the responsibilities of the world's issues on our shoulders. If we do take action on a global sphere, we are soundly condemned internally and externally by most of the world as unilateral, self-absorbed cowboys acting in only our own interests and exercising demonic imperialism. Jeez, we're GIVING away our own sovereign soil to border violators whilst simultaneously being accused of worldwide imperialism. And just for the record, it isn't our leadership that has the world despising us; it's Hollywood! It's been Hollywood!

Hollywood has endlessly painted the populace and government of the United States as selfish, overindulgent, decadent, cheating, ignorant, sexually obsessed, immoral, criminally bent, and endlessly violent. And then, Hollywood has the gall to get political and criticize our national leadership for pissing off the world. What amazing hypocrisy. These movies and television shows of the past 30 years are distributed aggressively throughout the world, promoting these negative stereotypes of our population in a way that is indelible; in a manner a newspaper headline in Jakarta could never hope to achieve. Truth takes a distant backseat to the gigantic and sly propaganda of the Hollywood machine.

And how about this uber-trendy, mantra-of-the-day-refrain, "...The work no Americans wants to do". That is a tidy way of describing a job market where employers would prefer not to pay well. On the opposite side of this quandary, we have the unambitious US worker, who in another country might be glad to have the job; but here are instead oriented toward riding and scamming the social programs -- cheating the system. Or turning to crime - because crime pays here; who are we kidding. How much money did Eliot Spitzer's whore make in one weekend? Help me out, I lost track. Of course, how many times have we heard, "the jails are filled...blah blah blah". Give me a break. The STREETS are filled with criminals. The jails are where practitioners of crime need to go. There's no way around it.

And you bet I'm proposing harder prisons. I also strongly recommend public hangings for elected officials unequivocally caught in corruption against the best interests of their constituencies. Death penalty. I'm not kidding. If you can't stand the heat, Senator, don't go in the kitchen. It would help a lot. And we need help bad.

I hope I feel better soon. It sucks to think our country is going down the crapper.