Griper Blade: Choosing the News

I haven't posted in the past few days because I've been sick. Actually, it wasn't being sick that was the big problem, so much as having been medicated. I won't say what I took, but it left me scatterbrained and blocked -- I couldn't think. I guess I'll never be an Ernest Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson, using chemicals like alcohol and cocaine to spur my creativity. I can't think unless I'm sober. At least, not enough to write.

I used to take this stuff that worked great when I got sick. Alka-Seltzer Cold Formula worked great. It left you with a bone-dry and unmuddled head. I'd say that if the flu were 0% and healthy were 100%, it made you feel about 75% -- which is pretty damned good. It's been my experience that most over the counter medications don't really make you feel any better, they just break up the monotony by making you feel different.

The problem with Alka-Seltzer Cold Formula is that they changed it. They actually had to recall it because it did something terrible to pregnant teenage girls. It seems to me that this isn't a huge segment of the population and other medications are so specific that you could still market it to everyone else -- maybe call it Alka-Seltzer Cold Formula for People Who Aren't Pregnant Teenage Girls. We make special formulas for babies and the elderly, don't we?

Of course, there's a certain segment of the population who aren't extremely happy with pregnant teenage girls. Not just the average person who's concerned about teenage pregnancy, but crazy people who believe that every teenage pregnancy brings this once-great nation closer to its doom. That and gays and Muslims and Catholics and Mormons and feminists and people who believe in evolution.

While I was out, many things happened. Not the least of which was Barack Obama's "race speech." That would be the speech where Obama explained his relationship with his newly controversial pastor without dismissing him. The New York Times called "Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage." There was a lot there that needed to be aired, a lot of concerns that needed to be discussed, a lot of things that everyone knows -- but no one talks about.

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