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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
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FIBROMYALGIA, GLOBAL WARMING AND BIRD FLU PANDEMIC; THE THREE THINGS IN 2006 THAT DON'T EXIST The human race is really a very simple species. We basically just repeat the exact same patterns, across the globe, over and over again. Nothing changes except, maybe, for the specific targets of our foibles, but the basic principles remain the same. You see it in something as mundane as fashion or as serious as bigotry. In fashion, everything is cyclical. Whatever is passé today (facial hair on men, big hair on women, low slung jeans) will be hip again tomorrow. Bell Bottom, flared pants were hot in the late 60s, early 70s and then again in the late 90s, early 2000's and now, not so much. Leather jackets come and go with denim jackets and on and on it goes. The specifics change, but the premise is the same; we are a simple species with no new ideas. When it comes to bigotry, we pretend to show progress, but the premise is still that we are uncomfortable with people that are different than ourselves. Right now, it is hip and almost acceptable to hate and deride overweight people (ironic in a nation that is 66% fat, but understandable in a society that worships the "beautiful people"). Conversely, no one looks down upon the lazy in our society, like grown adults still living at home until they are 30. Twenty years ago, this would have been unacceptable and it will be again in another 10 years, but for now, it's all good. The specifics change, but the premise is the same; we are a simple species with a propensity to hate what we don't understand or like. The theory works across the world and across the calendar. We overreact and under react to the things that do and don't bother us at the time, but in the end we don't do a damn thing to change a damn thing. In the 70's, kids smoked a ton of pot. In the 80's it was alcohol, and in the 90s it was ecstasy. Here we are in 2006 and kids are drinking less, smoking more pot and loving again on heroine. God Bless America. We also like to create bogus things we should all be worried about, while also finding ways to pump up our own arrogance and simultaneously pandering to the weak in our society. Welcome to 2006, the year of Bird Flu, the apex of the Global Warming lie and our newest way to make weaklings feel good... Fibromyalgia. None of these things are new, of course, but 2006 is the year that we're really going to ram them down your throat, so sit back and enjoy. On the global warming front, Hollywood and the far left whacko loonies have begun a full-court press, seeing what they believe is a legitimate opportunity to finally exert their arrogance on the rest of us. Bravo to the global warming crowd, who have done a bang up job of spreading disinformation for the past 3 decades. Those of us who use simple logic, fact and the reality that we, the human race could never destroy something as great as the Earth are now the ones who are viewed as crazy and extreme, and the truth of the matter is that truth doesn't matter in politics. By marginalizing the facts, the GW crowd has almost won, and will soon destroy our economy with their asinine regulations. Hell, even former Vice-President Al Gore's new movie on global warming is brashly called "An Inconvenient TRUTH." My God, imagine the outcry if I made a movie of the same title, but the subject was all of the overwhelming "evidence" that Asian people are poor drivers. There would be a legitimate outcry… but when it comes to the Earth, our future and lies we've been told for 30 years, we all accept it as truth. God Bless America. Bird Flu is of course, this year's Y2K. Or "Mad Cow," Hantavirus, Killer Bee invasion, SARS, West Nile Disease, and/or asteroid that's going to collide with the Earth. Every few years we have to get the American and world public so paranoid about something that barely exists that people go out and stock up on duct tape and saran wrap, and this year Bird Flue is the winner. This disease has killed 124 people worldwide in 3 years in a bunch of countries where medical science, hygiene and honesty are all areas that time forgot. Last year, we needed to spend $1000 gazillion on a Tsunami warning system to protect California, this year we need to spend $1 more than that to keep us all from turning into roosters. The specifics change, but the premise is the same; people like to have things to worry about, no matter how unreal a threat they are. Fibromyalgia is the latest "syndrome" that the medical world has created for patients whose physical symptoms of excruciating pain simply can't be explained. Originally it was for people who had every possible test done on them, with no answer to be found. Now, it is the diagnoses for anyone who claims chronic pain that has no real origin. (The truth, that no one is willing to tell, is that it's all in their heads, a belief widely documented by a number of physicians who are scoffed at, much like the non-global warming believers. If you every have the audacity to present an opinion that is not widely held by the lemmings, particularly an opinion based in logic and reason, look out!). "What's that, Mrs. Johnson, you wake up feeling achy all over? We call that Fibromyalgia because it's all in your head and by creating a big word to explain away your inability to deal with the stresses of your life, past or present, we absolve you of all responsibility for that pain. The treatment is simple, ma'am. I, as your doctor, am going to get you hooked on opiates like Vicodin, which over time, your body will crave more and more of and will then begin the process of creating new phantom pain so that we have to up your dosage. The good news is that the increased dosages of Vicodin should numb you to the point of being able to function while still having your built in excuse to share with all of your friends. The bad news is that liver damage should kill you in about 30 years. Bye now." Sound familiar? Perhaps you're reminded of the depression explosion that began in the late 1980s and continues today as we sedate people into zombie like states on drugs like Prozac simply because they can't confront the reality of their lives. Maybe you're thinking of ADD, the wonderful made up name we gave to 5 year olds beginning in the 1990s who had the audacity to be hyper and didn't want to stay still in school at the age of 5, so we numbed them into oblivion on drugs like Ritalin simply because their parents wouldn't confront the reality of having to actually raise a child. To be fair, you might be thinking of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or any of the other 49 quadrillion names we've come up with for things that are not symptoms or diseases at all, they are simply reminders that many people can't overcome the adversities that are thrown at them. Worry not, though, because regardless of what it is that challenges you in your life we either have, or will have a name for it that will take away your role in creating the pain. The specifics change, but the premise will always remain the same; a few of us refuse to let life defeat us, the rest of you were defeated a long time ago.
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