Nobody know the trouble I've seen, nobody knows but the fleaflies!

Because now everyday feels like Ash Wednesday.  I mean, why not?

So, the Supreme Court wants another chance to gut Obamacare.

I don't care anymore.  If Obamacare dies, it might mean I get some work back.  A little, but even a little is good.  Otherwise, Obamacare did nothing for me, and it's such a Rube Goldberg machine I'd almost be glad to see it dissolved.  And while the GOP will dance on its bones and howl at the moon in victory, I don't care about that, either.  Will the vast majority who don't bother to vote decide this is the issue upon which they will stand up and be counted?

Nope.  And unlike the characters in The Stars My Destination, I've never felt compelled to lead those people, and I don't feel compelled to feel anything for their refusal to take up the challenge of democracy and lead themselves.

I'm tired.  And I'm tired of politics.

Oh, I say that every two or four years, but I'm beginning to feel like I mean it.  Dispirited Democrats stayed home because Democrats across the nation decided their best recourse was to be GOP-lite, in the mold of their President whom nobody loves anymore.  It was a stroke of political genius.  Battleground Texas came to the state and apparently decided Wendy Davis should campaign like Ann Richards did:  i.e., hiding the very thing that made her famous and popular.  Ann Richards won the governorship once, because she was fortunate in her opponent the first time around.  She won in spite of hiding the character that made her a media darling at the Democratic convention when she skewered Bush pere, left him pinned and wriggling on the wall.  She never tried that again, not in her campaign, not as Governor.

But mostly never in her campaigns.  So I'm tired of political consultants who only know how to advise candidates to lose, and the money that backs them wanting only a choice between Tweeldedum and Tweedledumber.  That's the real scandal of money on politics; that we get a choice between McDonald's and Burger King, because that's the only choice the money will allow.

This is not because I've been writing about death lately.  I have not death wish, myself; none that I am aware of.  My death is just as unimaginable as it has ever been.  I despair of the glibness that responds to the Catholic church on the issues with jeers and raspberries and outright anti-Papist statements that would have shamed hard-core Protestants in 19th century America.  I despair of the shallowness that treats the question of death and suicide as simple issues best left to individuals to sort out.  It's the same kind of materialist thinking that makes Christmas a season when the poorest among us must go shopping in Thanksgiving because unless the tree is piled with stuff taller than the oldest child in the house, the holiday is ruined, its only point being to reinforce how important stuff is to human existence (and how important suicide is to how "I" keep my "mind" (dualism runs deep) in "my" control).

Advent is coming.  Xmas decorations are already out around town.  I expect to hear non-stop carols soon.  Maybe that'll life my spirits.

Yeah; right.