The Klingon Bed

For years I've deprived myself of simple pleasures and comforts that ordinary people take for granted and some might say even essentials for living. As a poor college student and a struggling medical student and then a poor resident, I've deprived myself mainly of material goods over the years such as fancy clothes, nice furniture, a TV, sometimes food, and even a bed. I've been heckled over the years by all my friends regarding these deprivation issues, and one friend even asked me why I lived like a pauper. The answer is simple: because I WAS a pauper. Granted there were many people out there less fortunate than I, but when I don't make any money for 8 years and then go in to a huge debt for school loans, and then start making a piddley 2K/month with rent taking half of that, that doesn't mean I've struck it rich. I've never understood how many of my other friends lived so well, and they never understood how I lived the way I did. But whatever.

So for the past 8 years, I've slept on everything except a bed: a foam mattress placed on the floor in college, a practice that I learned from Gah, actually; a 2-inch thick foam mat that cost 40 bucks from Costco during med school; the floor, when I went on rotations. And when residency started, I moved up when I bought a Coleman air mattress. Still my friends ridiculed and still I resisted shelling out at least half-a-month's income to buy a bed. Besides, it's not like I would use it that much, anyway.

But with marriage and graduation from residency came the end of an era. I would finally break down and buy not only a bed, but a super state-of-the art bed that cost a month's salary as a resident. After sleeping on this thing for 2 nights, I realised how achy I actually use to be after waking up on everything else. A far cry from the cold hard Klingon-type beds I was accustomed to.

Borders - A Wealth of Knowledge

Amazing, the information you can get at your local Border's bookstore. It's no wonder that when I was growing up contemplating a career path that Goh said it would be okay to work in a bookstore.

Today, I wandered all over Border's. One of my favorite sections is undoubtedly the politics section. That section hosts a variety of books that are either written by leftist extremists who blame the nation's international and economic problems on Religious Right Wing Republicans, or written by right wing fascists who blame the nation's moral decadence on left wing liberal Socialists.

A few interesting titles include:

The Architect: Karl Rove and The Master Plan for Absolute Power - One would figure if Rove's master plan was published in a book, it would be easily discovered and thwarted by his opponents. But hey, let's face it: abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, Creationism, and hosting prayer in schools are important issues that far outweigh trivial things like...being involved in a war in which the U.S. has no business being, political scandal for the purpose of financial gain, civil liberties violations, and violation of the Geneva Convention.

Stupid White Men, And other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation: Still White, Still Men, Still Stupid. Pretty funny title, and yet so very very sad. Because it's true. This reminds me of a discussion I had in my college English class. We were debating the glass ceiling, and some optimists predicted there would be a Black president within the next 20 years. That prediction was 15 years ago. To the one who made that prediction, dream on! The U.S. is becoming more conservative, not less. I predicted there wouldn't be a Black president for another 100-200 years and even that prediction might be optimistic.

The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader: The front cover shows Bush eating popcorn and watching a movie with Michael Moore. I thought that was funny, too. The book was confusing to read, but I heard the movie was good.

But the most interesting book that I've been eyeing for the past few months is My Life by Bill Clinton. So the guy had sex with a White House intern and lied about it. Big deal! At least he wasn't having sex with under-aged boys, lying about it, then preaching to others about sin and how others are so sinful. In any case, from the few pages that I read it appears that the book is very well-written and intelligent, unlike GWB's broken and non-sensical banter. It seemed to be a book that had a lot about hardships, how Clinton handled them, and how he overcame them. It was a political book with positive undertones, something quite different from all the other books that were blaming the other political party for the country's woes. I guess that's why I'm so eager to read it. However, on my "to read" list includes finishing Lord of the Rings, 3 DragonLance books, 3 Shanara books, the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, the Harry Potter books, that book Goh bought me about the Philippines, Critical Condition, and multiple medical texts that I'd like to read from cover to cover. Maybe I can get to them in between reading journals for CME's.

Just to backtrack, what are the odds that GWB will come out with an autobiography? And will the book be sold in the childrens section?

Timing is Everything - Food for thought

Ever wonder where Osama bin Laden disappeared to for the past 2 years? It's quite amazing that after 9-11, he disappeared for a while until he resurfaced around 2004. Just in time for the presidential elections. Hmm...that's quite odd. Then he disappeared for another 2 years until he's back on the map, again. Just in time for the Congressional mid-term elections; gosh, that's quite odd, too. Amazing how bin Laden seems to crop up just before major, presendential, and Congressional elections.

Another odd thing is the price of gas. They've been sky high for the past...3-4 years? There was always some fluctuations, but on the whole they've been climbing steadily higher and higher. Now that the Republican party in Congress is in jeopardy of losing power, gas prices are dropping. Again, they're still higher than last year, but it's trending downwards.

Golly gee-whiz, how odd is that?

The Fool or the Fool who Follows Him...

I recently watched a movie called "Water", a controversial foreign film set in India in 1939. It was about questioning the traditional and cultural practices of Indian society and it was really quite interesting. In the film, Gandhi made an appearance and made a short speech in which he said,

"I used to think that God was Truth, but then I learned that truth was God."

That blew me away. Such a simple concept and yet so profound. Apply that to today's politics and today's world and what do we get? Maybe the opposite of God.

For example, take our current president. Bush and his administration said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when intelligence reports did not show any proof of that. And the U.S. has yet to find any. Bush also said that there was a direct link between Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terrorists, which the entire world knows there is no connection. In fact, Saddam thought of Al Qaeda as a threat. Bush also assured Americans and the rest of the world that American secret torture prisons did not exist, and yet they have been discovered.

Now, from that previous saying "Truth is God", what does that say about Bush? He's done nothing but lie to billions of people, he's killed thousands in this "war", he's impoverished the poor and elderly by starting this war and putting a strain on oil prices and by fooling the elderly in to signing up with his new and "improved" medicare plan, he's trying to frighten his own citizens in to a state of paranoia to maintain political power, he's depriving public schools and programs of funding. All for what? Money and oil, which translates in to money and money.

If truth is God, and Bush lied, what does that make Bush?

Another famous quote is as follows: "Who is the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?" The point is, no matter how bad Bush is, Americans voted for him TWICE. And if he could run for office, again, he'd win again because people are more concerned about Bush's religious beliefs than his policies.