poorragmag3

Depending on how flippant you're being, how important you think you are to God and how far away from the work you thought sure God's going to get out of you you still are, you will feel many things at once--cut down a few notches, abandoned, useless, done, finito, nobody. Your plans not to let that happen, now impossible to fullfill. The total reality that you are you now is yours alone. Everyone else has "you are your future," too--they can asume they will be self-sufficient in the future, dream they have a good plan for being rich , that keeps their self-esteem up while they are struggling.Maybe they are due a nice inhertance when old. Or have lots in Roth IRAs.For whatever reasons, they can see themselves getting to buy the better quality of stuff someday--nicer purses, pricier clothing. I have working class friends stuck where the're at all over America who think they are going to visit Florida someday --and usually do, 10 years or more after first being hyped up about it. I just heard 2 different chaps who don't know each other say they want to get boats again .I heard a 19-year- old girl still finishing high school with a 4 year-old son say she was going to get him an ATV in a year at most because "God, I couldn't wait a second longer to get one --we have Nintendo and all that, he's going to have everything.We're going to have everything." TEE HEE...... Everyone has this hope in America but the dying, the terminally ill who are already dirt poor with nothing, not even a bed for thei r youngest child, and no bedsheets , nor clothes for growing kids, the shower curtain is 20 years old ( it is a map of the earth and has a lot of countries on it that don't exist and misses many that do), the washing machine broke down, the roof leaks worse and worse each tropical rainy season but there's no way to save money to repair the roof or get a new washer.Every penny of the government check goes to utilities and housing leaving nothing monthly left for anything else,Nothing. This is not hyperbole. Medicaid requires a $2 co-pay out of patients if the docotr thinks patient can afford it. All my docotrs waived the fee but one. His office just started the fee but wanted to go back 4 months and charge m $8 to see him last month. I balked and called Medicaid, who said they could not go backwards and charge me for fees they hadn't told me about but could charge a fee from now on "but usually if the others don't charge it, none of them do. You tell this Doctor Kadosa he needs to get on the same page as the rest of your doctors, get with them and discuss your case with each other.they should all be at the same place." I told the girl at Dr.Kadosa's office that and she got huffy and said the girl before her was suposed to charge us the last 4 months but didn't tell us like she was suposed to "and that's why she got fired and I got her job.I was just a patient here...now I run this whole office." She might have thought she was bragging but if her boss wasn't cringing and barfing in the john something's seriously wrong with him. Hopefully he fired the last "lady" becasue she was rude, spteful, used her position to settle personal scores she got into with total strangers everyday. For example knowing a crippled up old shy gentle couple was stuck at the pharmacy up the street until she called Medicaid to authorize something, she kept the pharmacist's call to herself (telling the pharmacist she'd make the call right away, but the pharmacist wassuspicious, because most doctor's ofices say "uh huh, um hmm," and even repeat the number back to you after they write it down. This doctor's desk clerk said nada as the pharmacist rattled off the phone numbers and address , making it hard enough for Margaret to believe she wrote it down that Margaret asked her point blank, "are you sure you have this right?" So the girl would read it back to her or break down and take it down. The receptionist next went to lunch for two-and-- a --half hours without telling anyone there was an elderly disabled couple , the man on portable oxygen, with no gas to come back from their house later,waiting at Albertson's for one of them to call Medicaid. Everytime Margaret the pharmacist called the doctor the receptionist was said to be at lunch. She didn't like the man, who stupidly thought he got preferential treatment or something because he came infor his 11 a.m. appointment at 10:50 and at 11 when the doctor opened the door, the old geezer smiled and got up and started entering his examining area. The girl behind the desk got distressed and told him to sit til he was called. He said shakily that his appointment was for now. She said he had forms toi fill out, don't get excited. but it usually took about two hours. Incredulous, the wife said,"To fill out forms? Oh dear." "No, to see the doctor," the girl said. "Oh dear, we've come a long way, and we have so much to do," the lady said fruitlessly. A lot of people blurted out their pardon, buts--to this doctors receptionists . They didn't mean to argue, and they weren't about to turn physically nasty. They just had trouble accepting that they were on the begininng of the train ride to Auswitz. They still confusedly thought reason Mattered.It just had to sink in that this was hardball being played, here, and hang onto your hat, y'know? Many doctors' office personnel skillfully handle angry patients who made a mistake but this one would have none of that. "Everyone here came a long way. We have people here from Lakeland, Sebring, Clearwater, Daytona Beach and Spring Hill today. Many ride the bus and have to be back in their home town before the last bus runs. That might be Ft. Myers. Let's see--you're from --Dunedin. Close but no cigar." Where does he get these people , I thought, sinking into my chair depressedly. This one had just told everyone there personal information about the elderly couple.The next one told why the other wasn't employed there , even why she'd been fired, although one hoped it wasn't the full truth, and she was also fired for abuse of power, unmerited condescending attitude, the Hitler in her coming out., as it did in that woman in the U.S. Army named England who posed in photos of tortured Iraqui prisoners. That same receptionist assumed becasue she told me the other was fired over not telling me there was a co-payment , I "got the message." SO as the doctor clled me, she says wait, youdidn't pay yet. You can't go in til you pay. That'll be $10. 'I don't have $10," I said."I never have $10. All my income goes to rent and utilities .".(I figured she didn't understand about property taxes.)Besides, I reiterated, Medicaid said they couldn't go backwards 4 months before they ever told me about it and make me pay back months, They said the fee would be $2 today, starting today but you need to get with all my other doctors , who don't charge me, because they can't all waive me but one.I gave them your name and number, do you wanttheirs?" "My name!" She said, hand to her lowcut black tight on her fake chest sweater. "Doctor Kadosa's name," I said , adding in my head,Stupid. "What is it?" she said." "What?" I said. "Dr. Kadosa's name," "Lee," I said. "Nope." Like I cared/ I'd seen it on the sherriff s website of people arrested. I knew it was some Hungarian version of Lee like LeHigh or somesuch, and then finally she tells me what she's saying in cryptogram-ese:;;;; I'm suposed to be writing a $2 check to the doctor. Lee Kadosa. If I can guess hi real name, I guess, This is crazy. I write the check and she laughs and blows bubbles and takes it to the other girl in records-desk- phones with her and says "Deanne Young wrote a check for her two dollar co-pay. Can she do that?" "Sure she can," the other hollered out so all of us could hear in the waiting room,"it's her money, she wants to pay $25 in bounced check fees to us and $30 to her bank !" This really irritates me as it was not as if I had a history of bounced checks. All my visits to him were free as are all my doctor visits and medications;; I've never been arrested , don't have a record of bouncing any check.Where did this Person get off insinuating snidely in front of an office with 20 customers in it that if I wrote a check for even $2, it would bounce? I too felt I had stepped onto the begininng of the trip to Auswichitz. Where we are less than no one. Where does this persecutorial mind come from? Governor Jeb Bush says,"I like to see a charge to Medicaid patients, I want them to dig into their pockets and pay something so they will realize 1, the value of earning and saving and 2, that you must and will use our resources and federal and state dollars wisely if you have to pay for everything you get, just like the rest of us." He is certain it will save us bundles of money and who does he care the least about? The festering stinkin poor. So he's not going to cut back his tax cuts for the rich ;;; he'll make up the revenue by teaching the state's poorest citizens to be responsible. Hey, Guv__I already was that. I ran a business 10 years, my husband worked 45 years, 52 weeks a year, He fought in Vietnam, won 3 Bronze Stars, we became terminally ill, now you want us to learn a little bit about giving our share to America. Why do you so readily pigeon-hole the poor as lifelong non-productive members of our society? Don't look at their faces as they get on the train. Don't listen as they tell you they're somebody and the world will have something to gain!

You are in a club of you. No one else is here, thinking their life itself through the way you do. You don't sleep much. You feel such luck just to have another day when you wake up. I 'm sorry. Luv. I wasn't thinking of you, you don't wake up. Neither does Pooh. What did I do? I can't deal with it yet. I'd had those pets 15 and 20 years and could've kept both 10 years more--except for that wolf outside my door. Well Luvvie I can tell you about it. I got my computer brought back today and sothings are almost back in place almost and kind of ont. Whenever I look up from writing I think I'm somewhere else. Dan's or my bedroom or this old computer of Marina's which was always someplace else It's just these rugs and poor floorboards and the emptiness of the room itself with no knick knacks and junk and spills make me surprised to see me here I'm not at first sure where I am. Where I've been of course and when I came in.Straggling from place to place using a tent to keep our place figuring middle class familes can camp ; why can't the least the lowest and last? Sometimes sleeping in the van which has a bed--we did well when we had the opportunity and got a van that's good as a home to us after going through 19 states in it camping in 7 national state parks with a van with a bed and tv and vcr. It's our only tv when the electric goes off.But it's not mine-it belongs to my ex. I don't drive. he comes over for break fast or lunch or dinner or eggs.To be with his children and tease his poor pets.And give us BBC's version of current events. You forget. Where you are. After abandoning your home. You for get that there are things that you own. You've considered your bag all your things now so long. For us, 8 long weeks.It was back- breakingly hard. I found solace in emails from people , thank God for these friends to the end who won't leave. So good to see what they found a good read.Usually perfect to send other friends who don't know them and vv .

What do the three youngest members of our family tree need to learn, Governor? We , our people, have given to this country for hundreds of years. Asshole. We didn't all contribute to the extent your family did, We just want to stay alive. You don't ask God for direction, or you'd have direction, you big fake. All you have is a stupid, limited brain that thinks everybody worth talking to in this world hates the pathetic poor assholes as much as you do.

Grandfather, above.. His bamboo fly rods sell for thousands of dollars apiece. You probably used one. Ted Williams learned to fly fish from him.His people were in Civil, Revolutionary Wars . I qualify as DAR.

mom was Dad's secretary.

I made church windows

Mayors, college professors, bank founders, fly rod designers, doctors. postmaster general, stockbroker, secretaries, department store clerks, railroad engineers, stained glass artisans, Revolutionary war vet, Civil War vet, WW1 vet,WW2 bombadier , Vietnam vet with 3 Bronze Stars. At the end of this lineage, 3 bright young females living on Medicaid , forced by the terminal illness of the mother to rely on $890 a month in Social Security benefits and not entitled to medical care if they get even $20 more.Medical care Mom needs constantly. Maybe we didn't contribute the statesmen your family did, mr. Jeb, but we're what makes America go round-- the post office, the department store, the college, the bank, the physician's office, the churches filled with beautiful reverant stained glass. Even at the bottom, us three on Medicaid, we're not losers. We're not on Medicaid because we chase drugs, like your daughter , and Medicaid isn't welfare, in case you get them all mixed up. Medicaid is health care. It's not something bums go get on cuz they don't want to work. They have to be proven sick and broke. Often they were sick first and then broke because of it. I had to spend my life's savings first. I had to give Medicaid $5,000. have you, Jeb Bush, ever paid $5000 for medical? Why are you so confused that you think we will titter with you when you titter after saying it is time the people on Medicaid learned some responsibility? Medicaid is medicine for people who end up broke paying for an accident or expensive illness. Welfare is where the unemployed, physically healthy go. Get it straight! How are you so sure Governor Bush , that you even smirked as you said this, that because I'm on Medicaid, I was never responsible? I ran a business for a decade, and co-designed and painted the beautiful window behind the altar at Christ the King Catholic Church on Dale Mabry in Tampa, which the pastor said bordered on great, and was the singular most valuable piece of art in the whole diocese of St Petersburg. As soon as my husband and I installed it and got paid $24,000 for it they insured it and it was appraised at $250,000. The insurance firm said nobody could reproduce it for less. To unthinkingly, worse, wrong-thinkingly determine me ipso facto irresponsible because I am on Medicaid is uh quite uh irresponsible of you, Governor Bush. No other word will do . You are responsible for only what you know but you are responsible for knowing . Didn't you ever take a values or morals class in high school or are you guys the quasi-religious leaders? What did you take in high school--the fun classes? Never showed a sensitive side? A desire to learn about the marginalized, philosophy,even psychology? French films maybe?

May 5, 2004 This just in the Tampa Tribune today:

a woman was arrested for child neglect after living with her children for nearly a week without running water. Her children, ages 12, 15, and 17, were placed with a family friend and a dog and 2 cats taken by the ASPCA.

MY remarks: Today, it's child neglect. In 3 months, when he turns 18, he can die for his country. He can go five months without a shower and at the end take a bath in a mud puddle. Did people used to have brains, i wonder. No one uses sense anymore. is this a consequence of too many minds? Ugh! I'm GLAD I'm dying.

------And you wonder why I wear my nightgown all day long? No I'm not looking for a john

I haven't bought clothes since the maternity ones

every cent they give me goes to keep the water and the power on

so they can't take my kids from me and put our pets in the pound.

DOES ANYBODY GET THIS? THEY DON'T GIVE US ENOUGH TO BOTH EAT AND KEEP OUR LIGHTS AND WATER ON

AND THEN SAY WE NOT THEM NEGLECTED OURSELVES AND NEGLECTED OUR YOUNG!

It's up to me, the terminally ill , the sick one ,

to find the alternative creative solution ,

without a phone or a car or bus fare or strong enough heart to get to the bus stop to take any part

but they don't care.

it's time I learn that life's not fair

and things cost money

like the rest of you did.

What is this ---? (rhymes with "it ")

My 16-year-old did not like the poem below.. She said say it over with imagery and chuck the rhyme. I decided it would have to be a screenplay then, or --what pays without charging a fee? A short story to Glimmer Train.(But I'd lose Medicaid for 3 months or more, plus my SSI for 3 months, making the new additional income way negligeable. You think they 'd only attack a like amount you earned, --in this case, $1000 to pay my back taxes--but they warn that Medicaid is a diff Federal program with its own rules and that your income (it would be $1560 the month I got the check for the story) makes you ineligible for Medicaid for 3 months . Aside that, that would pay my property tax and let me apply for a city program to give me free house repairs.

That would reduce my electric bill by $300 a month , giving us $300 a month for food and toilet paper and to do laundry .We'd almost get on something like feet.).

I have to be careful--it has to be good because Jeb Bush has to accidently read it, thinking he's reading an example of Florida literacy. Like, my 10 year old could memorize it and put it on her FCAT test, the writing part, next year. Ha ha.

Maybe he could read it out loud, a modern day Emperor's New Clothes, only person not aware what is really going on. .. He already IS the only person not aware what is really going on. This poem might be stupid but the info in it is heaven or hell for Jeb Bush when he takes that last drive toward the sunset.

It is from a person who never gets to taste orange juice and lives in the orange state. There is nothing free for me.What is free-the medicine--just prolongs a life of total abject misery. I don't want it--let me leave

a world so dumb

all minds believe

anything a Bush concieves.

The march I'm afraid of the lemmings--------.

Who Do You Trust It's All Business Fair in Love and War So Much of Business Goofer Dust So Much Love Remote So Much Disapproval , Ignorance. Mama got sick she needed a new heart she couldn't work any more at the auto parts shop They gave her just enough sock security to keep on our water or electricity. Every day of every week she had to beg for our food, money to do our laundry or buy gas to bathe at someone's house cuz we couldn't pay the gas bill. We weren't allowed to make a cent or Mama would lose her Medicaid, so she stayed sick and sorry she kept us so poor asking us over and over would we be more happy living with other families. The pictures we took at Christmas , they couldn't be developed cuz we couldn't pay the cost to get them til the end of May. GovernorBush what did you say "it's time the people on Medicaid knew everything isn't free? " Have you got a lame brain? What do we get free? Our photos developed? Cable tv? Laundry done and a choice of ice cream or jello? My high schooler's yearbook? The class picture of my little girl they took that she wanted so bad but money couldn't be had Deoderant, t.P., soap, shampoo? Bathing suits when the kids' are too tight on them cuz they're growing, and where's their shoes? You're such a man Jeb Bush teach these little ones their lesson! Go on, you're not dumb you know half the people on Medicaid are young. Children. many others in nursing homes but you pretend you know they are scofflaws and stoned. And you say as you puff up , better than them, what you wanted to say when you met the young men your daughter hung with, perhaps, but kept it all in "you people disgust me--you act like children!" But you're wrong to think ALL poor people are them you've zero respect for the Floridian who faces terminal illness while raising children. You're going to , you vow, make her reach deeper in her pockets for what she gets free now just so she "can learn that everything's not free, Like we all had to do,"says Jeb, the clue less one who leads. Who people commonly buy meals for, and I bet you if he walked in a store they'd give him their shirt and any wares that they had as a gift, the perks of being a famous sort of a pers on who's always welcome at anyone's bar-b-que I mean he's the governor, I'd let him eat, too. But he knows much more about free things than I'll ever see so why does he hitch up his old pants and say we have to teach them a lesson, that nothing comes free, they gotta learn it, like we did, hee hee? Is that called a sound bite , I noticed that he had a brother who once gave a speech to get his self elected to the Presidency in which he said he'd leave the Florida coast free of offshore drilling and after this creep became leader he backstabbed us and caught, said that he "didn't say that I'd do that, I just read a speech." Trouble with these unverified things that the Brothers in Power say is the tendancy by Americans to believe it , like sheep..

My d let me apply for a city program to give me free house repairs. That would reduce my electric bill by $300 a month , giving us $300 a month for food and toilet paper and to do laundry .We'd almost get on something like feet.). I have to be careful--it has to be good because Jeb Bush has to accidently read it, thinking he's reading an example of Florida literacy. Like, my 10 year old could memorize it and put it on her FCAT test, the writing part, next year. Ha ha. Maybe he could read it out loud, a modern day Emperor's New Clothes, only person not aware what is really going on. .. He already IS the only person not aware what is really going on. This poem might be stupid but the info in it is heaven or hell for Jeb Bush when he takes that last drive toward the sunset. It is from a person who never gets to taste orange juice and lives in the orange state. There is nothing free for me.What is free-the medicine--just prolongs a life of total abject misery. I don't want it--let me leave a world so dumb all minds believe anything a Bush concieves. The march I'm afraid of the lemmings--------.

May 5, 2004 This just in the Tampa Tribune today: a woman was arrested for child neglect after living with her children for nearly a week without running water. Her children, ages 12, 15, and 17, were placed with a family friend and a dog and 2 cats taken by the ASPCA. MY remarks: Today, it's child neglect. In 3 months, when he turns 18, he can die for his country. He can go five months without a shower and at the end take a bath in a mud puddle. Did people used to have brains, i wonder. No one uses sense anymore. is this a consequence of too many minds? Ugh! I'm GLAD I'm dying. ------And you wonder why I wear my nightgown all day long? No I'm not looking for a john I haven't bought clothes since the maternity ones every cent they give me goes to keep the water and the power on so they can't take my kids from me and put our pets in the pound. DOES ANYBODY GET THIS? THEY DON'T GIVE US ENOUGH TO BOTH EAT AND KEEP OUR LIGHTS AND WATER ON AND THEN SAY WE NOT THEM NEGLECTED OURSELVES AND NEGLECTED OUR YOUNG! It's up to me, the terminally ill , the sick one , to find the alternative creative solution , without a phone or a car or bus fare or strong enough heart to get to the bus stop to take any part but they don't care. it's time I learn that life's not fair and things cost money like the rest of you did. What is this ---? (rhymes with "it ")

Ok that's the gist and now imagery? As kids who watch tv and movies for kids do, we wanted there to be a haunted house or a wizard's school or a witch or a kid kept in an attic in our neighborhood, on our street, after new kids move in next door, lots of fun kids, kids real neat to know , to share the adventure with when summer came we day dreamed so. The perfect lady for the witch came out once a day to get her Meals on Wheels from a black lady in a cherry-red Corvette who wouldn't get out of her car she was so scared of the neighborhood. She made that woman walk to the road every day and she was alwys wearing this pink housecoat with white flowers on it, the kind that snaps up the front that you get at KMart for less than ten bucks .it was all worn thin and had a burn hole in it and both pockets were torn, with threads hanging off. She had long brown hair in a ponytail and her mouth looked squashed in, like she had no teeth.The summer i was sixteen, she had a big lump on her forehead with a red dot in the middle. It looked like more than a zit--it looked like a big infection. One of her eyelids was puffed up into three folds more than the other had. Luckily she kept her mouth closed so I didn't have to smell her breathe, when I took the tray anfd plastic bag from the black lady and carried it to the white one carefully.it's not that I'm a Girl Scout--I just happened to be in betweent he two and not in my skates so I had no excuse not to, You know, be helpful. The witch'es eyes met mine and I saw this intelligence I never expected, like Gregory Peck in " I Walk the Line" or Richard Burton in "Beckett." Burt Lancaster in "The Bidman of Alcatrez "and Paul Newman in "Cool Hand Luke."Like, if she'd ever had pain, I wasn't big enough to show it to.She scrutinized me. She smelled of a fragrant mosquito dope, like Skin-So-Soft or something.her feet were black around the edges, under the nais. But i wanted her respect , those eyes assured me. And then they smiled a warm crinkly smile, all joy and I saw that lady on" Playing for Time", Jane Alexander, only all happy. It was what totally warmed me to her--her Jane Alexanderness. She kind of couldn't get back up the curb because of account of the city made it so funky. it goes up about a foot at her yardline, with the cement just poured on in a hill. Car doors that open there get stuck there until the person on that side of the car gets out so the door can lift off the pavement. The witch kept patting around with her feet for a grip, a gentler slope, but she couldn't get up any of it. I reached out to help her just as she got up it and fell straight on her face at the top, hot corn mush and a naked hotdog flying onto the sidewalk and grass in front of her smelly garbage cans. Then I had to help her, but I pulled my hair back , running my hand along my ponytail, which goes past my butt and i'm 5'10 and a half (they always tell you it goes half way past some girl's butt, but not how tall she is), and something bit me. it really stung bad. Like, beware the witch,____.(well, I don't curse so you won't hear anything like you just expected from me. But it was rude, like that.) She got on her own bony two feet, clumsily, and a black cat had already run up to the corn, and she was saying, no stupid, the meat, and then she said "Maybe he knows best," with a look at me that was like a wink,even with her eyelid all screwed up, I could see then, with another swollen boil-like thingy with a reddish spot in the center, like the one on her forehead.The red car goes speeding off right then. I mean, it ticked me off royal. She could have tried to find her another hotdog. i thought it was awful. I said so and the witch was like, no, you can just wash them off. I picked up her baggie, which had a pint carton of milk in it, and a hotdog bun, and mustard and ketchup packages, and a jello .The jello was like beet-colored with funny-shaped darker blobs in it like candied cockroaches I mean they had sticking out, hairy-looking parts like cockroaches do. The witch opened her door and all these cats came bouncing out. I mean it was definitely a race. She was saying oh no, oh she'll get killed, get back in, so I grabbed 2 kittens, a Siamese and a black one, and followed her in her door because she had her food and 2 other bigger cats. You're not going to believe the place I walked into, and I'll tell you ahead of time that the house across the street from hers turned out to be samo samo; where these folks come from, I don't know. oh that's right, Michigan, both of them. Her name was or is, I can't tell you which cuz that's in the story, Shiela Sylvia de Silvio. It was pronounced Sheela like the Indian name and was spelled odd because her mother " was kind of dumb," she said. She said her grandmother was French and called her seel-VEE, that that's how they pronounce (or mangle, she said ) names there. Stephanie is pronouced Stay -fa-NEE; Tristan is trees-TAWN, Valerie is Va-lay-REE. She was from Detroit but only as a baby in the 1950's.. Then she lived in a forest that covers a lot of northern Michigan.She said (SHE said) it was enchanted. The body across the street from her is /was a man in his 70's (you know, born in the 1930's) from Lansing, Michigan, the state capitol. The thing about the two was, they both collected odd items and had front rooms looking like antique stores. Other than that, they both were old people with slender frames and shy personalities and both were missing a tooth in the front of their mouths--he on top and her on the bottom. Did that sound funny! His name was Udo Volker.

Anyway, you can't just laugh off the poorest human beings in the state you run as irresponsible losers who need to hurt a little in the pocket book "like the rest of us." And generate a few laughs of agreement from the most closed-minded, egotistical, dumb--they, too, think Medicaid is welfare--rich gentlemen around you ; and even worse, actually hit the people on Medicaid in the pocketbook mean-spiritedly, without answering to the Lord God for the mortal sin that it is. You can't say, "I didn't know--I thought it was welfare and everybody thinks they're all bums there--it was just a joke.." You can't say,"OK, I admit it was said in a mean-spirited mood ; it wasn't so much a joke as a nasty rotten attitude and yes I did impose costs on those people after that and not really because I worried that they'd never learn responsibility; I mean, I hope by then somebody had set me straight that thse were'nt the type that er needed to learn how to hold a job, these were the people too disabled or sick to work at all and never would again and in all likely hood were dying, except the half that were under 12. And these sick dying Floridians had held jobs for decades before that or been housewives and very responsible, good American citizens like we like you to be,."

And God says,"No. You didn't."

And you Jeb goes,"Oh well, I didn't know. I was worried the ones who won't pull their weight never would without a little push, a little reason to work for a living instad of going for the free ride. I meant well. Seventy thousand died prematurely, you say?" leaning over to look at a paper God's angel holds."60,000 children went to foster homes and orphanages who would have lived to adulthood with their moms if i hadn't cut their medical to shreds? "(Moves away, disinterested.)"Wasn't my fault. I didn't know all that--that shi--stuff you got there on that paper! How could I know?"

God:"Ever hear of praying to me for direction?"

Bush:"Oh, yeah, we said that all the time, said we were doing that. Unhuh. I certainly heard--uh, wait, let me check on that. Cancel that--I'm not sure I heard that one. No, I didn't know. So I'm innocent!"

God:"Ever hear, whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for me?"

Jeb:"I heard that explained very well on the am radio in Oklahoma once. Jesus Christ, who said it, meant the children. He said they had to welcome the little children or they couldn't--we couldn't--anyhoo, the children were the smallest, or least beefy, get it, of the people, the Israelis. You know, He didn't mean biker dudes in black leather and beards with food in them. Or those--hussler people who sleep in dumpsters and demand cash from everyone in the parking lot of the gas station so they can get a beer. Or potheads. Of course. Talk to one of them, your head will be bashed in. You can't be trusting them . That's an idiot. You reform them. Cut the hair and beard put them in suits and ties ,make them go to work, They'll thank you for it. Now can I get past? I want to beat my brother in here."

God: You mean "the religious President?" Not to worry.

Bush: what's that suposed to mean? Why aren't you letting me in? Where am I going?

God: You know when you cut the medical to the poor to keep your poorly thought tax break for the rich , you hurt a lot of families. Families sometimes with pets.

Bush: See what I mean about needing to take responsibility. How irresponsible is it to have a pet when you can't buy your kids food? That's exactly why they are on food stamps--because they buy that much pet food --it's irresponsible!

God:Who's on foodstamps?

Bush : Those medicaid people! They all are!

God :You need to know they are not.

Bush:Well they can't afford a vet if the pet gets hurt, and stick it on those of us who DO work..

God: If they can't pay the bill, the pet dies.

Bush: You mean there's no welfare for dogs? I'm amazed. Still, there are food bills, flea sprays, the unwanted pet population by irresponsible, I'm sorry but they are always poor, these ones in the paper with too many pets..

God: Don't be sorry. You don't think you are talking about people on Medicaid do you? You're talking about the poor. Perhaps semi-poor, perhaps mentally ill, but there's no connection between these people with too many animals in their homes and people on Medicaid.

Bush: Oh. I'll get this someday. Anyway I still must say if they have a pet while we pay for all their medical they are irresponsible.

God:A family has a dog for 10 years when the parent gets cancer and is dying. When do they, who of them, the 5 year old, the 12 year old, decides they must get rid of their family member Rocky? Rocky might be a great , unjudgemental comfort to a crying child adjusting to a dying parent. Mom's not going to have him put to sleep about then. And if there's a chance the chemo will work, they expect to get their normal lives back again, and afford the dog again. How do they know different? Everyone has to have hope to go on at all. They hope they will get back on their feet soon. They don't expect it to last 5 years and people to then judge them harshly because they hung onto their dog. Who protected the children while home alone in a bad neighborhood a lot while Mom underwent chemo.

Bush : Why are you telling me this anyway?

God: we're starting with the very least of them--their pets. Who died of neglect. You're going to be each one of them.

Bush:Meaning--oh, no--

God: First you'll live out the life and agonizing death of a cat who's blood was literally sucked out of it because the owner's reduced medical benefits cost her what she spent on cat food each month in co-pays .Suddenly, while you laughed that she needed to learn things weren't free like the rest of us learned. Her electric was cut off due to other reduced programs for the poor you were behind and inducements and licenses to utility monopolies to raise fees that you initiated and she couldn't vacuum up the fleas and eggs for 8 weeks and there was a population explosion. Homeless, she could not take the cat with her to sleep at a nursing home she sneaked into with her children, and a car, and a tent in their yard, the places she lived with her children when the house became illegal for them to reside at because it had no electrcity.She thought she was doing the best thing for her cat, locking her inside the houswe where cars couldn't hit her or dogs get her. But the fleas ate it alive in 2 days while the owner didn't have gas money to make it home to feed her because a $2 co-pay check she'd been forced to write to be seen by an important doctor had bounced, taking $30 out of her next Social Security check as soon as it arrived and making her owe the doctor $35 more for his bounced check fees before she could see him again, as needed, that month, a total cost of $67 to her , who earned exactly enough to pay her utilty bills, so she could not get her electric on for a second month.

And after you suffer with the pet you will suffer with the owner, that extra month in Florida without air-conditioning or a fan, sweat running off your face all day long , no place to bathe, no clean clothes, nothing to drink or eat, infections and other problems of dying raging....

and we'll go on from there. Your brother has a lot of military life when he expires from his George Bush body.Just so you feel better.

Bush: Really. God. There is the preemptive assumption that a Governor of a people as large as Florida-- more populated than many countries--has so much on his table he cannot be expected to understand everything that comes before him and must rely on his advisors and staff. Never had there been so many people in the world ! See my problem.

God: So ..many..people...in the ...world. What ...does that have to do with the populace of the community you governed , Florida? The number of people under your care there?

Jeb:It's not like I governed a community, uh, Father, ok, but a section of the United States. The southeastern nited States. A very crucial sensitive military uh base. Futuristically-looking, I mean. You can't hide anything under that sand , unfortunately!(Laughs weakly) Right. I mean, we were going to--we had to have the whole world, you know, thinking what we had to have them uh think. I mean to fight terroism the world as we had known it could no longer exist , There had to be a new layer, an impenetrable top layer of world leaders that stayed the same, it was crazy to change leaders in the middle of the game--war--we planned to have certain individuals recognized as the world's leaders, not America, but Americans, specific ones.We did not think of our states as our uh jurisdictional limits. I mean ,Monopoly , the game, right? You might buy Park Square and you have no affinity to Park Square and no affiliates there--oh, you buy the hotels after you buy the land, don't you..But you get my drift. I'm known , as a governor, I have exposure, look political, am I guess I mean was trying to look politically savvy--my brother had worse jokes about the bums, the winos--the crazy cat ladies on welfare---I mean they didn't offend the black guy. I mean, sometimes, coming in from driving a ways in the bright sun, I mean the windows are tinted but when you get out in the parking lot, I mean bright, wow, --right? You must see everything--the asphalt's white, got glittery seashell specks all through it because this is a state that really uses it's own natural resources, let me tell you , and you go into the lounge and you can't see a thing at first, you know? And you can't say so because --you can't give someone the advantage over you, so you don't say you can't see. You say a --you know, a joke where it doesn't have a punchline if you can't call a coon a coon, you know what I mean, I'm sure it's how they come up with that phrase about calling a spade a spade---anyway, then you get to where your eyes can focus and there's one sitting there. And he's a Democrat Congressman from Tampa. And the blonde jokes? I don't get it, since 99.9% of blondes dye it, right, but you can get sued for telling a blonde joke, this thing like where the auto repair shop has to take down its pinup calendar , there's a broad on board now-- it's like the same trip like we're doing with the inferiors, I mean --jesus what's the word--

Jesus: Unfortunately I think you meant min--

Bush: (Giving him the evil stare) As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by whoever that was, the --other less populous races--minorities! , that's the word, along with the feminists---you can't tell those sort of jokes. See you don't understand how friends sway you i can tell you that right off. My friends--any group of gentlemen I'm in --would have already made a joke about how you can't make a joke about a lawyer soon--- and someone else woulda said how they heard today the Democrats were trying to pass a padded bill --the "Easter egg" is you can't say anything against them--see, you'd have to be there. They throw it out so fast, intelligent good old American brains, you think it's the truth for a moment, that they've switched to another topic. (Whimsically) I suppose I'll get to see quite a few of them in this detention I'm serving before I get the rewards of heaven. They all laughed, too.

God:I think they were a little kinder than you. I notice you didn't hear the one about the lady who wrote on her job application that one of her assets was her minnowy-teeth , which she had to ask the receptionist how to spell, which everyone else in the room heard and wondered what position she was applying for. When the receptionist told her she was hired , some of that wondering went up in volume a little enough for her to hear. The lady looked around at the sea of African-American and pasty white faces and blond -- Flaxen-- braids ! and she said "All I eat is fish ones." Then they look around, make sure you're dumbly sucking up to a Playboy Bunny somebody grabbed and put some clothes on and dragged along as his "secretary", planning to offer her to you at the end of the evening show, and satisfy themselves that that's your big ears over there far enough away and they say ," She answered an ad for a taco bender!"

Bush: Huh? Say. What? Hey? Who did this?

God:"Said this. Those same men making you snort your screwdriver with their wit with the lawyer and Democrat digs.

Bush:Well it's got to be one of the dumbest jokes if you can call it that, that I ever heard. more importantly they did it behind my back. That's pretty--they were back stabbing me. Cold. mean-spirited I mean the joke was ruthless all it did was provide a framework in which they could allude to my wife and daughter as --rascist names! To laugh!

God: They didn't know any better because they know you appreciate a good joke about addicts, losers,Muslims, Jews, Catholics, bums, the pothead, the prisoner, the Southerner, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Hilary, reporters--and they were keeping this one from you of consideration.They think it got them closer to heaven.

Bush:It sure didn't! Not ifI have anything to say about it.

God: But, you don't.

Bush: I wouldn't be so sure. I mean my dad, some guys you don't know about--well, I guess you do ---my brothers, my mother, we all have this planned,I mean the world kind of ended on 9-11, any kind of free world, we had to grab the bull by the horns and be victors --to save the world from evil we had to believe that nothing can be safe. Everything has to be suspect and we can't trust the other nations to --do as we say--as we would want, the right thing--so we would have to have a new relationship, where they'd understand us, because. And we have to be able to like guarentee our sheep I meant flock that we have control. Even to the point where we can say with certainty that John Kerry will go to hell and anyone who votes for him--oh the Pope said that so well, at least it's the idea we're planting in the American mind. See, the American mind is already ours. See,---Hey, why do I have to pee so bad? I mean, no physical plane, et cetera?

God:Misery. For the sheer misery.

Jeb:Well where's the little boy's room?

Bush: Where?

God: Tomorrow.

Bush:What?

God: You'll feel lik going bad, more as the night wears on, but you won't feel like you did until 24 hours from now.

Bush: I can't go on like this for 24 hours.

God:But you will.

Bush: You don't look partcularly razzed about it, like it excites you or anything. how about having some compassion for me? You sound like a fair and wise man. You know we're all of us part good part bad in us.

God: The cat wasn't particularly razzed about it either.

Bush: oh, the cat went through this?

God: Too weak to make it off the bed to use the litter box and not wanting to urinate on her beloved owner of 20 years' pillow, she held it in --

Bush:Oh God.

God: You are using my name in vain.

Bush:How?

God:Because I'm not going to respond to you.

Bush:Well, just remember my office ok my staff my liutenant governor whatever I have they read up on these issues and infomed me in er simple language. Synopseses. So if I thought it was necessary and not irresponsible to reduce benefits that somebody not working to support their family were breaking the backs of the workers to achieve...it was on advice I am not responsible for. I am not solely responsible for serving and protecting your poor, you know. I have constituents. I have businesses, people who worked hard to get rich and don't want to give it away to those who --for whatever reason, don't pull their own weight here. I mean, I'd love to work something out with you , you can be responsible for your poor and me my constituents .But I guess my time down there is over, eh? (Hopeful, then sad, little smile.)

God: I 'm wonder ing how you're going to pull your own weight here.

Bush:Oh I pull my own sled. Everyone'll tell you tha--you know anyway.I'll service you , ha ha, like you're the celebrity, how many governors do THAT? Since everything changed 9-11? I mean in all aspects my positions and powers changed except in the American psche--we have to be very careful how we introduce the new concepts. We're thinking fake air raid to fool the people into thinking there was a clear and present danger. We have to lie to them because we've changed government so muuch they'd freek out just at the --there's a whole new government to learn, the old checks and balances and other ways of doing things that sufficed in 1694 or is it 1776? , aren't useful anymore, don't apply to life as we know it. For example, somebody clear-headed and George could trust had to have Florida, see it's a long finger-shaped penninsula that gives us a huge base, once the people are out of there, I can't say too much but when it's declassed, you'll see --is that how you do it?--- Along with the first person who sees it you know when the dust has cleared. Wev'e got the largest storage facility for anhydronous ammonia in the world in Tampa , Port Tampa, tricky shit, right by the hq for Central Command. And we've been passing on bad communications--I know they can't tap me here hee hee!-like that Central moved to the field or somewhere else, that we know they know is deliberate lying to steer them wrong, so they'll think CC is really something important. That ammonia--they won't be able tro pass this one up. You know, one small jet--jet, but small--could fly into one of them those there tanks and take out the million whatever people there is in Tampa, south Pasco, Plant City, Seffner, Brando, Bedroom communities along the east-west and north-south corridors. Hopefully we'll have some sort of say over survivorship. I mean, we'd be able, in the most ideal conditions, to evacuate some hours ahead, but too late for them to turn back, something like that, get a majority out of there and into Cypress County--

God:Excuse me? Cypress County? Brando?

Jeb: Whatever. Some might get up far as Gainesville.

God:And you're going---?

Jeb: It isn't something you can --regulate tightly--to tell the truth, the whole state could fall off. I won't be there.

God: Your daughter?

Jeb:Ok now you know how willfull and hard headed----you know I care for her. When she was 4, 3--- you know what she meant to me. Then she changed. She wasn't the little girl I needed anymore. She was saying, the same period , that I wasn't the daddy she wanted so I said fuck you --under my breath--and I just couldn't care less I mean she threw herself away made a total fool of herself .Aint nobody gonna believe she's different than all the rest--we've all had them, in our youth--girls who will quote do anything. And it's the ones with the wild reputations--the ones who do drugs, forge prescriptions for prescription drugs, who take the knock-out dope like my daughter was going after, the stuff that makes you all rubber and you can't push off any untoward advances, you don't even know it's happening, she (spits) showed the whole world that she goes about whoring in that condition. You knew the type in school. Do they just get tanked and go home to bed alone and stay celibate? Not on your life. They're tanked to begin with because they're out trawling for it.She showed everybody, alright. Daddy's girl 's looks like she's had a lot of bratwurst sausage in her mouth. Yuck. I couldn't bear to be kissed by that --sinful --mouth.She went off her mind. We can't live with her. i couldn't be in the same shelter as her. She'd be cozy with anyone , right in front of us.

God:Where do you get these ideas?

Bush: I knew this type of girl.

God: Was she the Governor's daughter?

Bush:No. I don't think there was a pa. Another one, her pa was just an old wino.

God: SO you already know your daughter is not the same type of girl. Maybe what compelled her to do drugs dangerously was a totally different motivation than what propelled the girls you knew. Maybe she's the classic virginal Puritan-Victorian geekiest girl in school with horn-rimmed glasses type and in fact so uptight she really needed the valium but you got involved without praying for guidance or studying the issue and got her off them like needing to not panic was a selfish attitude . Valium is used to control panic attacks, nervousness, anxiety --it's not a sedative, a tranquilizor or a liquor.

Bush: well I'm learning! Is my culpability going down any yet? All those other people condensing the issues and initiatives for me, remember? I had no clue!

God: I told you. You had a big important job, son. You weren't just a person on Social Security Disability, living off $700 a month.Yet such persons found the time and wherewithal to look up things at libraries and online and understand who was entitled to Medicaid how much it paid and how much it didn't let them earn extra for home repairs and that high quality national heath care was the only viable way to continue and until the government recognised this important fact all the Medicare plans and your plan to stop Medicaid in Florida are just messes we need to forget because in the long run they have to be chucked and why put this off? People will die that wouldn't.These are people who understand that they would have a negative quality of life and a negative impact on the lives they touched if forced to live long on just enough to pay their utility bills and never, not in any single month, any money left for food for themselves and their children, any supplies, repairs, clothes, any entertainment or leisure activities, even the so-called free ones like going to the beach, because theres' no money for gas and or no car and no one's bathing suit fits her three years after she got it , one kid going from a size 6 to a size 12 in those 3 years.The government of the United States is certainly not going to, in her lifetime, raise her disability check to $200 more a month --they raise it by $2 to $6 more a month in any given year ---how can she go on? A well-meaning church secretary gives her bags of used clothes and bedsheets and cookies and cocoa mix at Christmas and someone anonymously calls Social Security and reports she's recieving unreported income. Then she gets a letter asking did anyone help her by giving her any food in the last 3 years?How much a month? Who? Did anyone help her by giving her clothes ? if she lies, it says, she will automatically lose her Social Security and Medicaid for 3 years.Trouble is, she has to get a heart transplant before 3 years or she'll be dead. She can't lose her Medicaid--she has to not take any help from anyone, to make sure she doesn't lose Medicaid. Because the form says when she admits it, she will be docked from both SS and Medicaid depending on what she got free.And if ten days have already gone by since she got the help --they are asking her to think back 3 years --she gets jail or /and kicked off for 3 years, so she can't admit to help she got a year ago, even if she didn't know at the time it had to be reported, and now sees that it does. people can't buy her kids Christmas presents? Not clothes. Can't throw her $40 toward her electric bill? Not legitimately. She not only can't earn a penny, but no one else can help them make it , either! is this draconian, or what ? Is she in debtor's prison? No--owes no debts. Never had a credit card. Never had her debts discharged. No criminal record. Then why can't her governor , who's taken it upon himself to make her more responsible by removing her federal entitlement to free heath care and prescriptions, make a distinction in his little brain and also on paper, in his regulations and rules for punishing Florida's sickest for being broke, between persons who have criminal records and histories of maxing out credit cards and then filing bankruptcy and having the debt wiped out , have no dependants, and aren't dying , and those who were responsible, have youngsters and ARE dying , and stop treating the latter as if they are the former!

You say you didn't have time, too much on your plate. But this isn't streetcars or an Altzheimers center. You were going after Florida's poorest sick and disabled and dying people, punitively. While easing taxes greatly on Floridians with incomes most like yours, garnering their favor, and laughing that who needs the backwards slobs on Medicaid on their side? The answer was, you, for every one of these was me.But you too should have stood up for those who could not stand up for themselves.That would have shown you for a gutsier man, and a bigger man, than anything else you did.

But you are not that man, and could not be him. You can not surprise and shock your brother, delight your daughter by proclaiming suddenly compassion for the weakest entrusted to you .And an all-out goal of better meeting their needs and increasing their quality of life.And a series of chats to the people of Florida to help them understand how bad the poverty was and how the changes have helped all and why they had to be done--and here you could use that spirituality that you like to think you subscribe to---

AW, Jeb Bush. You could've taken the path least taken, the one overgrown with thorns that few take but anyone who wants to see me in Heaven must. Justice for all should have been your battle cry, not stick it to the poor and enrichen the rich.You and your brothers Neil and George have set a dangerously low new standard for "everyone does it." Those inclined to mischief if it will make them richer will run with your example, serving it up to suit themselves.It's like we're in a bad school, where everyone knows you can cheat for grades, look sexy and seem interested for grades, skip, lie, smoke, not do the homework and get no repercussions--so they all do it. None of them sit there trying to learn.No one cares. The people you normally look to for their respect, for their awareness of your good qualities, are , in this school , not even self-respecting . They mock the slow and retarded and act as if rules are for everyone but them. The place is a big mess. The bar has seriously been lowered. That's the Bush Regime. Did you know, Jebbacaneezer, baby, that the Republican White House told a big lie when the Clinton Administration left: they said the Democrats had trashed the Oval Office and removed or Super-glued every "W" key from every computer keyboard.It was totally made up. They just put it out there, to see if they could keep on lying all the time. Sure enough, so many Republicans believd it, especially those over 70 who were used to truth in government, that many still think it true today, several years after the lie was fully and nationally debunked. The Bushes. like Hitler, accidentally caught on to something in the wind they could use . Hitler caught a fragile, pussy-whipped, debrided male ego in the German male. used to being henpecked by the strong German female. Ripe for a fresh face on the subject of if they were man enough.

The Bushes caught a society in mid-move. Everyone is on the way to someplace on the way from someplace else. All they have time to give current events is the tv running in the background as they dress for work ; they hear a Bush say "It's time these people learned that not everything's free, like the rest of us learned " , probably expecting a standing ovation, maybe even recieving a standing ovation.It's a sound bite. Sounds like a sound bite. Like "Never to go to war with one another again" and, "Ask not what your country can do for you.."You believe him. Your'e sure he knows what he's talking about. Why else would he get up there on that microphone in front of all those people , expensive sound equipment, expensive banquet, lots of money into this meal, and say something stupid, about something about which he is totally ignorant? That just doesn't happen--the speakers have all this computer presentation software , they're experts on their subjects---Jeb must be talking intelligently, they just don't slander a whole people without good reason and lots of facts backing their claims! These Bushes aren't in a stage presentation of the Emperor's New Clothes---they're wearing clothes, aren't they? No time to look up, gotta run---

BUT I SEE YOU, SON.