Prep Day One-

I haven’t had any soda today and I have tried to think carefully about everything that I put into my mouth.  No radical changes yet, just noticing things more.  I’m getting ready for the fast already.  If it has sugar or a long list of ingredients perhaps I just don’t need it.

I also tried to drink salt water for the first time today. Pretty gross, yo.  Several of the fasting plans suggest that you drink a quart of room temp water with 2 teaspoons of non-iodinized sea salt mixed in either as needed or every other day.  This helps move everything through if you know what I mean. I think I am going to be an “as needed person.”

A lot of people said they couldn’t force themselves to drink the salt water, or if they could they threw it back up.  I was curious what my reaction would be so I tried.  I made it about 3/4 of the way through before I’d had enough.  I think by not pushing that last bit I managed to hold it down with no problem.  It is that gross though.  Seems to be working, there’s some rumblin’ in my tummy.

I have been doing a lot of reading and doctors do not recommend doing this often (esp not while fasting) as it can pull water out of your system too quickly and deplete your electrolites.  Fair enough.  I might stock Gatoraid for the days I feel I need to do this.  But if I am uncomfortable at any point and having a hard time going to the bathroom because their just isn’t a lot of food going in I think I would rather have this as a backup than become dependent on laxatives.  Something about laxatives really creeps me out.

The point of this entire exercise for me is to think more seriously about what I put into my mouth and clean out my system.  I have tried “cleansers” from health food stores.  I usually just feel sick while I take them and constipated after my body flushes them out.  At the end I feel just as heavy (in a gastronomical sense) as I need before I took anything.  I am going to give myself a chance this time to do go it alone this time.  No crazy drugs or pills…if that means a little nasty salt water now and then, so be it.

I think I am going to fast next month.

I have never fasted before, I am a little nervous.  No, I am a lot nervous.

This is a major commitment.  I had to pull out my calendar and really do some planning to even come up with a way that I could potentially do this.  Between house guests, friends coming into town who will need to be taken out for meals, conventions to attend, and summer life in general you would be surprised how hard it is to commit to radically changing your eating habits for 21 (+) days. (To be safe you have to spend several days before and several days after the fast with moderated eating habits as well.)

I am going to go on a juice fast.  It seems healthier to me than water fasting.  I believe you should always have calories going into your system, even if the amount is greatly reduced.  And juice fasts are easier to come out of because you haven’t completely flushed out the microbes in your digestive track.

I haven’t felt right for a long time now.  I feel heavy (internally), I am fatter than I want to be and it seems no matter how I change my diet nothing is making me feel any better or lose weight.  I think I need a “reset” of sorts.  Plus I am interested to know if I have the mental fortitude to do this.

Fasting is one of those mental challenges that I have always admired slash shook my head at.  Sort of the, “Why the hell would you bother?’ mentality on my part.  I find myself wanting all of the sudden to prove that I do have that level of mastery over myself.  Too many times a Big Mac has called my name and I have given in, not enjoyed it as much as my brain said I would and then wondered, “Just who’s in control here?”

In preparation for the fast I just said goodbye to my last can of soda.  I am trying to kick caffeine and refined sugar well before my fast begins to help fight the cravings.

Starting the 12th of next month (the 10th is the last day for anything but fruit),  I will begin figuring out just exactly who is in control here.  Expect daily posts of bitching and maybe some triumphs.  This isn’t exactly something I am advertizing to my friends and family that I am doing so I will be turning to the internet.  I don’t know if I can make it 21 days through my own negativity much less the doubt of people I know.

Where is the Flaw in My Thought Process?

I have been mulling this over for a while and I still can’t figure out why no one has attacked the problem from this angle yet.

Gay Marriage. Like it, hate it, your personal opinion on the issue doesn’t matter to me.  I know what I am comfortable with and I don’t care to convert you to either side of the issue.  All I care about are the following questions:

Why does our government even issue marriage licenses not civil unions to everyone? Why has this not been one of the main focal points of the gay rights movement?

I have been informed that many in the Gay/Lesbian community view civil unions as demeaning. I see their point.  To have 3/4′s of the rights of a “married” person is not the same thing and should not be thrown to them as a bone to make the issue go away.  If the states wish to make a decision on this issue they should fully commit or fully deny equal rights, in for a penny in for a pound.  None of this sort-of equal baloney that just makes everyone angry.

Very Brief History Note-

The US court system, or Common Law, is based upon the British system of common law, but despite what many Americans believe it is not the highest form of law in the land.  In America there are actually 5 ways in which a law can be created, Constitutional Law, Statutory Law, Case Law/Common Law, Administrative Law, and Executive Law. Although we are closely connected by heritage and combined shared tradition with England, the British government is NOT very similar to American government beyond the our shared fundamental principles of democracy.

Relevant to this situation (and the traditions we inherited from them) the British do not employ the same separation of Church and State that we hold fundamental.  Although there is now freedom of religion in that nation, the Bishops of the Church of England still hold voting seats in the House of Lords and the Sovereign is the head of their State Religion (and is still restricted by law as to the religion of the person they wish to marry).  It makes sense for the government of that nation to issue marriage licenses as an administrative arm of the church. It does not make the same sense in America.

HERE we HAVE a separation of church and state.  If I were an attorney employed by any of the groups seeking equal marriage rights this is where I would attack.  I think that this holdover of British common law is in violation of the First Amendment and as such can be struck down no matter how long it has been on the books.

Before you start frothing at the mouths, let me be clear. I think the government ought to regulate which consenting adults can legally bind themselves into a contract together.  I think they should be able to collect all relevant dues from this contract, keep the contract on record and use it just as they always have – with one exception, the government is not a religious institution. What it deems to be an acceptable, legally-binding contract for one set of consenting adults, should apply to all consenting adults deemed fit to enter such a contract. (At that point the government may bring forward its evidence, based on something other than religious tradition, concerning whose union is deemed harmful to society, ex. family members within certain degrees of relation, etc.)

Marriages, on the other hand, should be left up to religious institutions who should be ABSOLUTELY free to decide for themselves if the union falls within the framework of their faith.  If it does not, they should have the right to decline to marry any couple in the eyes of that religion.  This would have ZERO effect on the couple’s civil status or their rights in American society.

In America it is clear, at least to me, we should enter into a contract with each other in the eyes of the government, we should enter a marriage in the eyes of whatever lord we choose to bless us.  They are not the same thing in.  At least not according to the First Amendment.

While I do appreciate the point of view of the gay/lesbian community on the  distasteful or demeaning nature of the civil union issue, I can help but think that emotions have clouded reason on an issue that may be critical.  It is not deeming to ask for a level playing field.  You may say this is just semantics…marriage – union, what’s the difference, when speaking of the law, words their specific meaning and semantics is everything.  Never underestimate how a little word can make a HUGE difference. (Go ahead, try to find “privacy” in the constitution, yet it has caused more legal heartache than almost any other word in the English language.)

I say this as a straight, personally religious, person, it has ALWAYS bothered me that I had to obtain a marriage license from the government. I never thought they had the right to issue such a document to me, only my church had that right.

So I am curious, other than an issue of distaste (which attornies are paid enough to overlook), where is the gaping flaw in my logic? If it were this easy I have to believe this would be a major strategy already.

Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

Hey there Washington, it’s me, one lowly American tax payer.

I am formally firing you as my financial planner.

We don’t talk as often as we should. I mean, yeah, I vote the least pathetic choice I can into office (when I’m lucky enough to have two people running to choose from) and every now and then I call you to nag about issues that are important to me. But lately I feel like you’ve been messing with my money and setting me up for long-term failure faster than I can even respond via letters and phone calls, and gosh-darn-it if that doesn’t just piss me right off.

See here’s the thing…and I know, I sure am naive…I was working under the delusion that I lived in a capitalist society. My bad. Turns out I live in a Happietalistic society, we are only free-market when everyone is happy and the markets are going up. There is no such thing as a healthy down for the market, corrections and bubble bursts are impossible or the nation will implode.  Doomsday is nigh.  Noted. I will adjust my long-term investment strategies accordingly.

I raged when the housing market was blocked from falling out of its bubble by the government. It did no good. I, being only one person, could do nothing to stop you on that front. Even though I think you have made serious errors in preventing the markets from self-correcting and have propped up a broken system.
Sure, we still have a continuing “easy” flow of credit for lending thanks to government funding expected to be up to 200 billion for EACH of the seized mortgage-financing giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, however we also still have a system in which the initial lending institution has ZERO fiscal responsibility once they sell your note and the attached mortgage. They still have the ability to sell these papers at the final closing of the property. Nothing has changed. Institutions still do not insist on 20% down, they sell notes immediately and make their money on the volume of loans made and the subsequent sale of those home notes to speculators not the interest collected on those loans. (We now own the institutions that are buying and insuring these notes. Sound investments on our behalf wouldn’t you say?)

I raged when we bailed out AIG from failing and I frothed at the mouth at the notion of a company “too big to fail.” Do your job Congress and we will not have companies too big to fail.  Why were financial insurance and aggressive lending institutions allowed to be merged into the same corporations? it is a clear conflict of interest and needed government approval to occur. Or the irresponsible bank investments that even the banks did not understand, could never explain and were not regulated properly. (Ummm, Glass-Steagall Act anyone…?  You have the authority to stop these shenanigans.)

I raged when the billions (can we finally admit trillion) in knee-jerk stimulus passed with no clear plan or justification, other than, It’s the worst Recession since the Great Depression.” Yup, it’s a Recession alright.

However, let’s retreat from hyperbole for a moment if we may.  In this recession I don’t know a single person who has dispersed their family because they could not feed their children. My family and in-laws did just that during the depression. They were so poor, they sent their children away. Not because they were over-leveraged in credit debt ,or living in a house they should never have bought, or forced to stop eating out so many times each week.    They. Sent. Their. Children. Away.     We are soooo not there, and I don’t think we were close. I think we were close to very, very uncomfortable. A true collapse of an economic bubble and a painful, but needed, market correction. I think my government stopped this natural correction with almost a trillion in stimulus and almost another trillion in brand new currency created. Inflation is coming and we will deal with this in our old age, our children will face the brunt of the storm we could not weather. I am ashamed of our response.

Here is something I do not have to just rage against. I can do something about my principles. Without my permission I am now a controlling owner of GM for the foreseeable future. As an informed an investor I would not have made this purchase, but thank goodness I have the government to think for me and use my money without my consent. I don’t believe you, Washington, when you say you want out as quickly as possible of the car business. My government is not good at the business of getting out of businesses. You sure do like having a saying in things.

I will never buy a GM vehicle while the US Government owns any portion of the company shares. As soon as we are out of the business of owning GM I will consider purchasing one again.

I do not ride Amtrak for similar reasons. I avoid the MBTA as much as possible. (Although I love the concept of public transportation I cannot justify a mismanaged, heavily unionized, government-run program that is operating at a permanent deficit due to what I believe to be illegal transfer of Big Dig debt which would never have occurred if the system were in private hands.

I think the government subsidies to the airlines should be illegal and free market conditions should apply there as well. I am well aware that this would raise the costs of airline travel. I think it should cost more. It is an extraordinarily inefficient system that the government is propping up with 155 billion of my tax dollars without my permission. Force them to adjust, and if it cost more maybe Americans would find alternatives and we might finally develop a rail system worth a damn.

With this latest foray into cars my government is now the controlling interest in EVERY sector of transportation. (I don’t even have the mental fortitude to talk about farm or energy intrusions and how angry they make me.)

I reserve my right as a concerned American citizen to say as politely as possible, screw you Washington.

I can and will still work to fight large government and control spending. One little tax payer’s actions at a time.

There will be no GM’s or Chevy’s in this family for a while.

There is a difference between government and private sector working together to improve transportation and overstepping your bounds. It’s a subtle line so I am not surprised you missed it Washington. Subtlety’s not your thing, is it? You’re still missing the fact that nearly 35-40% of Americans are in the political center and not truly part of either party. Good luck keeping us election to election as you run rough-shod with your “mandates”…It worked well for the last administration…It should work well for this one too.

(p.s. the Republicans did their best to lay claim to those “tea parties” but they had nothing to do with the Republican party. It was the beginning sparks of an anti-big government movement that has no religious right social context.  They were pseudo-Libertarian in nature and really pissed at the way BOTH parties have increased the size of government with no signs of stopping. Democrats, you have a potentially serious centrist grass-roots movement on your hands that you ignore or marginalize at your own peril.)

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In case you missed it, I am a FIRM believer in capitalism and American resilience. Let these two mighty forces do their work, they will not fail us. Yes, to let it do so would require sacrifices…nothing ever comes easy I am afraid, and therein rests the crux of the problem.  If it ain’t easy…