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DEPRESSION


LIMBAUGH: "But Rush, why would somebody want to harm America?" Because he doesn't like it. He thinks it's unjust and immoral and unfair. The people that have wealth in this country have come by it ways that he thinks they haven't deserved and been honest about. He wants to take the nation's wealth and return it to the people he thinks deserve it. He wants to redistribute money so people losing their jobs and the high-income people getting their taxes raised -- it's by design, and it's not to raise money for the treasury. It is not to raise money for the government. It's to remake the country in its very foundations. http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2009/08/03#0039

I should have played Wouldn't It Be Nice by the Beach boys for this comment. Once again I agree with almost every word issued from the mouth of rush hatemore. I mean if only this was my president's plan.

But with Health Insurance Proposals blowin up; birther's issuing fake certificates; paid protesters interrupting the speeches of our representatives; and ABC canceling THE UNUSUALS, I get depressed. But I guess a lot of us are getting depressed:

Americans just can't get enough of their pills. A new study finds that the number of Americans on antidepressants doubled from 1996 to 2005, sending the total number of people using the medications to 27 million. Interestingly, the percentage of people seeking psychotherapy while on antidepressants dropped over the same 10-year period--80 percent of antidepressant users were prescribed their pills by doctors other than psychiatrists. The study also finds that half of the users are taking the pills for reasons beyond their intended purpose, including "back pain, nerve pain, fatigue, sleep difficulties, or other problems." A major reason for the increase is that doctors are "more comfortable prescribing antidepressants," one expert told USA Today.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/?cid=hp:cheatsheet4#cheatrow_8105

I suppose I could play White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. I take a stupid pill once a day. I got mad and stopped for a month.  Turns out it is an appetite suppressant. So I went back on the rx. 

But as if the pill dumping is not bad enough, look at this gem:

Studies suggest doctors should be cautious about prescribing antidepressants to children. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration issued a "black box" warning that the medications could increase the risk of suicidal thoughts in children. Use of antidepressants by children fell nearly 10% the next year, according to Olfson's 2008 study of the subject. Antidepressant use had been rising so quickly in the years before the warning, however, that the rate of use in 2005 was still higher than in 1996.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-08-03-antidepressants_N.htm?csp=34

I don't know, I spent the fourth, fifth and sixth grades in the cloakroom.  I never got any pills. The best cure-all I ever got was Vicks Vaporub.  I shall end on this note:

The entire economy, it is exploding
Unemployment flarin, income tankin 
You're old enough to get ill, but not for healin
You cant believe your tv, but what's that remote you're totin'
And even the damn pc has spam afloatin'
 
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
The whole damn thing's
So depressin'.
 
I got a bumpersticker on my godamn forehead
Can't you understand what I'm tryin to say?
The narc just nabbed my pusher, so all I got is the pharmacy
There'll be no way to save, with the pill bills I pay
Take a look around ya boy, it's bound to scare ya boy]
 
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
The whole damn thing's
So depressing.
 
Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'
I'm takin these pills to make it start thinnin'
I can't twist off the cap cause of my arthritis.
Handful of capsules still cant cure my bowel obstruction
And walkin alone can't cure constipation
And my whole entire body is just disintegratin'
My whole crazy existence is just too frustratin'

But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
The whole damn thing's
So depressing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8SfiCnwF28









69 Comments

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Managed care, dd. It's destroying psychotherapy. They'd prefer people just get the pills from the primary docs. Even though the research shows that pills alone won't help.

There's no way you can "manage" compassion. There is no such thing as "managed" compassion. Health care should be compassionate.

Peace be with you. They're trying to wear people down. Just keep lighting candles. I have one at the top of my blog now - for health care.

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I caught that TheraP. The GP's hand out the pills. For most people all that is available is a self help group. Like AA.

All the talent that is out there, all the professionals who could really help a lot of people with their inner most turmoil.

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Dick D -- you are totally remiss! How did you leave this out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsKO_r76kfQ

See? Everything is just fine as long as you have the right pharmaceuticals.

PS: Please please always continue your substantive and excellent blogs; all of which have an actual message to send, as opposed to pap. Please don't ever stop! We all appreciate it, (but, speaking for myself) we think you should be a paid blogger!

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Well my goodness. hahahah This is kind of a cute song. I thought at first it was Smoochy.

Thank you for the kind words CVille. REally kind.

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A good parody is worth repeating occasionally:

http://panexa.com/

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hahahahaha. I have two separate feet so I have to take two..............

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OMG, OG

Panexa. Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.

Doesn't seem like a parody to me. :-)

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Depression is GOOD for you. Builds CHARACTER And if depression is good for you, how about a Great Depression?

I'd like to rebuild Limbaugh from the ground up. Remove arms, remove legs, add scales, add forked tongue, and sic St. Michael on him.

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Can I frame that comment and hang it on my wall?

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ITS ALIVE, ITS ALIVE. HAHAHHAAHHA

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Can't help but believe that they should have let the banks collapse. This country is asleep at the wheel. Without pain there is no healing.

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I am one of those people that take an anti-depression pill who isn't depressed. It was prescribed by my GP to handle a hellish symptom of one of my four pre-existing conditions. Works purty dang good. And in case anyone is curious, no, I'm not extra happy because I take an anti-depressant while not being depressed. :o) That's what pot is for. =D

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HHHAAA. Great comment Flower. Yeah, my pill keeps me from getting too down i guess; hard to tell. But for some reason I hurt less lately and like I said, I am not so hungry all the time.

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Great poem!

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Thanks forty-niner.

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I'm lucky not to be one of those people who is depressed all the time. It's only when I'm conscious:)

And I just heard Rachel Maddow report that critics of the house's health care plan have cited that "ObamaCare" would mandate free sex change operations. (I'm not kidding. She just reported on this. )

I am laughing so hard I'm crying. Or am I crying so hard I just have to laugh. I just don't know anymore.

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It will make us all gay and we all will be wearin our mama's clothes. Then they will kill us and bury us like that.

hahahahahahahahah

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..."ObamaCare" would mandate free sex change...

Whoa there! I'm all for free sex, but is that change you can believe in? I knew this commie socialism would bring us to this. I mean, mandating sex changes? I guess the numbers of men to women will come out about the same, but I still don't believe that man in Oregon had a baby. This is depressing- where's my pills?

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heehehheheheeeeeheeeeeeee. IS THAT CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN. hahahahahaha

I already gave my awards out. Wait a sec..Here I hereby render unto you the truly Dayly Snark Line of the Day Award, given to all of you from all of me at this here TPMCafe Site. hhahahahaha

And you can take this home with ya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ClbuVdhUpo

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Here, here the snark award is well deserved:)

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Thanks for the award, DD (it doesn't make my butt look big, does it?).

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Don, you don't EAT it. You SMOKE it. Goes straight to your head... woooooooooooooooooooo...

Kudos. highly lol'ed.

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And the republican party would be the party of angry old white women...no improvement there.

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:) I would say they already are, FDR, but I wouldn't want to insult women.

(Note: There are 17 Rep. women in the Senate (Google) and some of them are the only ones willing to compromise).

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I'm an old woman and I am allowed. Should have added old "ill-informed" women.

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The free sex-change operations is an effort to stop exporting jobs overseas. It's an economic stimulus measure.

Do you realize how much Americans spend on surgery - especially sex-change surgery - in Bangkok? When there are surgeons here in the 'states who are closing their doors? The Thai MD's are working so cheap that an $80,000 sex change operation goes for a mere $25,000. And the surgery is quality stuff because they get so much practice over there.

Just think of the boost the American GDP would get if all those sex-change operations were done here instead of in Thailand. We might even be able to open two or three new medical schools! Our graduating physician-surgeons could pay off their student loans! The Cadillac and Lexus dealers could heave a sigh of relief because of the bail-out!

It would be a significant stimulus to the American economy. And how many surgeons who got the new business would pressure the medical groups to support universal health care? It's an all-American proposal.

[Note: The above snark specifically avoids discussing the real need that many have for sex-change surgery. The avoidance is largely because this is not an appropriate forum. People who haven't investigated the subject are too likely to react out of fear and total lack of both understanding and empathy.

Besides, I have no idea whether such surgery has been included in the proposals, and if it were, politics would almost certainly remove it. Too damned many narrow-minded ideology-bound fundamentalists in American politics to look at such proposals based on whether they are really needed. Just look at how many politicians are involved in the C-Street cult.]

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Ah Richard. Snark aint half bad sometimes. I do think it does little damage. And think of whom it is aimed at!!!

The free sex-change operations is an effort to stop exporting jobs overseas. It's an economic stimulus measure.

I mean, Gary had me laughing. I cannot even control myself right now. Your avatar is so serious. hahahahah

Sex change operations along with a plan to kill all the old people. hahahahahaha

IS THAT THE BEST THEY GOT??? FRICKIN IDIOTS

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Thanks. You and I get the snark, but as I reread it, I wondered if someone who desperately needs a sex-change operation would.

That's one of those compulsions that takes you over and puts blinders on you so that all you can feel is the way society is constantly attacking you. There's a reason why someone would be so obsessed about the mismatch between the gender they know is correct, the body they live in, and to have it compounded by the atrocities society attacks you with.

All the above I have heard of, but I also suspect that we humans have an inborn need to build a coherent identity, and the various mismatches I described in the above paragraph sabotage that need. Both Buddhism and modern psychology/sociology recognize the identity as being a social creation. Any social concept is created through social interaction between people. But gender itself appears to have some innate elements that structure the identity that is created. The kind of mismatch that exists in people with gender identity disorder can create the kinds of obsessions that would lead some people to do things to their bodies that you and I would consider mutilation.

I think this is the pattern involved when the outcome is sometimes sex-change surgery, but I won't swear to it. There's a lot I still need to confirm and perhaps revise.

And no, the subject I am aware of is not me. I doubt that I could be as objective as I am if it were.

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The media will focus sometimes, though not enough, on frogs with five legs, but will really not touch the issue of human genetic tragedies...

Those born with two different genetelia. There are more and more of course, related to mutations caused by the environment, drugs,life saving measures in hospitals etc....

Yeah its not funny when you are there. For sure.

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The twin genitalia bit is one thing. It's called intersexed today, previously hermaphrodite. Best information recently is that it is developmental rather than genetic. More puzzling - or perhaps just a different puzzle - is the source of a clear identity of one gender in the body of the other. That's transgender.

The discussion I have seen recently suggests that we are all conceived female, but that somehow hormones change the development of roughly half of us to male. I haven't looked at any comprehensive data and theory on the subject, though. Still, that certainly suggests that there is an interesting dance between genes, hormones and the environment throughout the nine months of development. And sex is just one aspect of the dance.

Then, since gender is a social construction rather than a biological one as sex is, I wonder how soon gender development starts? I never thought of that before just now.

Question. Does the fact that we all start out female make women the superior sex? Or does it just make a mockery of the entire idea of "superiority?"

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It's a serious subject, presented in lunacy and outlandish form by those desperate to kill health care reform. I just had to laugh at the attempt to frighten people with something so far-fetched and absurd as "mandatory sex change".

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How about a Frankenstein clause? A mandatory brain implant for birthers.

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You're forgetting the influence of the full moon on a pregnant woman's naked belly. That also contributes to the successful production of a manly man.

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Ah I remember those days.

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Great words in the poem, DD and thank you for another great blog. I am on antidepressants through my shrink and also anti anxiety, both for my bi-polar - couldn't exist without but unbelievable statistics for those on pills. Wow.

Love ya, DD!!! and HATE rush - he sounds good in
AMike's description of his makeover....LOL

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Yes Maggie, thank you. But Amike is a genius unto himself, for sure.

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Hang in there Dick. It's gonna be a bumpy ride but we'll get there. Continuing on with my pointless war analogy that probably turns off more people than not, the end of July was D-Day. We landed successfully on 4 out of 5 beaches by getting 4 out of 5 bills passed out of committees in both the house and the senate. That's never been done before, not by by Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Clinton or anyone else who ever tried.

Now just like our boys in June 1944 we're in bocage country, fighting in the hedgerows where the enemy has dug in. Our intelligence wasn't as good as it should have been and they ambushed us a few times. No big deal. We still out man (and woman) and out gun them.

It took a few days but we figured out what they're up to, just as those boys in Normandy figured out if you took the German tank traps off the beach that looked like giant tiddly winks and cut 'em up with blow torches and welded them like cow catchers to the front of Sherman tanks you could plow through those centuries old hedges and run right over those Wehrmacht punks before they could sight their guns and punch a hole in your armor plate.

We will come out in the numbers we need, we will make those phonecalls and send those faxes and by the end of the month we'll be charging across France so to speak. Come September the Republicans will be caught in their own Falaise Gap. That's where Montgomery and Patton all but surrounded them and the US Army Air Corp bombed the living hell out of them. They lost most of their soldiers and armor in the West.

By September this year Republicans too will have spent their wad. They'll be swilling anti-depressents and a few more of their senators will be bedding aides or whores because it's the only thing they have left that makes them feel successful, powerful. I figure that 9/15 deadline Baucus laid down for a Finance Committee bill will be their Battle of the Bulge. Sturm and drang, much ado about nothing.

And we may see a setback or two the media will pounce on. A blog at Kos or somewhere calling for violence or Republican tactics. A shaky Blue Dog bolting. But the drive to a good healthcare bill is written in the poll numbers, is written in the hearts, minds and pleas of the vast majority of the American people who know we're paying twice what the rest of the world pays and get the 37th best health care in the world.

So Dick hang in there, just as we got to Berlin we're gonna get a good health care bill. And we'll get it this year as long as everybody plays their part. Even the teabaggers who are going to look like those Germans who didn't shave their Hitler mustaches in 1945 pretty soon to the rest of us.

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Great rant Mark. I sent it to our chatroom. hahaha

Swilling anti-depressents. And I want them depressed

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Where the hell is the chat room Dick? Is this some private club I can't get into? C'mon, I shower every morning.

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Mark we are done now, but Lisb advertises our room all the time:

http://www.mibbit.com/chat/

Nothin there now but it is

tpm-aholics

The best I can do is put tpm-aholics in the brower after I put a name

Then seven tpms show up and I hit aholics.

the end

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Great analogy Mark, but that may be because I was born in '42 and grew up knowing WW II and Korean vets. I recently realized that all my heroes were members of military organizations like the 442d Regimental Combat Team, Merrill's Marauders, Rudder's Rangers and the 2nd Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team, both at Chosin. (And more recently I'm damned proud of the Rangers in Mogadishu, too.)

Americans didn't know D-Day was coming until it hit the newspapers. That's analogous to what I think Obama is doing to the Republicans. There is a strategy, and no one is telegraphing it, just as there was when Obama amazingly defeated Hillary Clinton for the nomination. On D-Day the Allies could have been kicked back off the beaches, and during the Battle of the Bulge while it was too late for the Germans to really win, that wasn't obvious to observers either.

Americans didn't know that the war was already won by 1944, and they mostly don't realize even today that WW II in Europe was won on Germany's eastern front after Stalingrad. That's where the real war for Europe was fought, between the Germans and the Russians. Again, the analogy is that outside observers simply don't know what is happening until long after the bombs cease to be dropped.

I think the Republicans deep down understand that the health care bill will probably pass, though. Otherwise they would not be acting so crazy. Trapped rats are famous for being extremely vicious, but that's because they already know they are trapped and don't see a way out. I can see no other reason for the utter idiocy of the Republican leaders trying to play off the Birthers or to even push the Deathers. They are going down this time. They are just trying to save some scraps along the way.

And if the Democrats get over-confident and let the Republican desperation tactics work, then the Democratic Party itself is dead from that time forward. I think Obama, Reid and Pelosi all know that.

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You hit me again. Mark is able to react on his own much better than I.

But I think you are exactly right. I think My President and Rahm have a chess game goin. And they do not advertise it. They just move when necessary.

Oh mistakes are made, but they have this figured out.

WE SHALL SEE.

LET US PRAY.

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You got it. As a fan of CBS show "Numbers" I suspect that Chalie Epps would describe what is happening in terms of game theory. Only in this case Obama/Emmanuel/Reid/Pelosi know the math and the Republicans are flying blind.

Of course, the Republicans have also painted themselves into a corner that as long as the economy appeared to be working reasonably well, didn't limit them much. They could use short-term tactics to win elections, and with no major hiccups in the economy they didn't get called on it.

Then the long-term effects of their political crap came due when Greenspan screwed up both the money supply and the interest rates, without regulating how the banks used the extra money he pumped into the economy. As things started down right after the 2004 election, all the idiocies the conservatives have been shouting since Reagan began to catch up to them.

It looks a lot like Naomi Klein's Disaster Capitalism works for both sides, and Obama can play the game very effectively. But he really has shoved his entire stash into the pot and is risking it all on one hand. That hand is Universal Health Care.

Obama'd better have five aces in his hand and two more in his boot, while having protection from the Republican derringer and knives. And we'll just have to wait until the betting is over before we know.

(That's a fun image to play with. Not to far off the mark, either. Anyone besides me old enough to remember "Maverick?")

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Honestly, when I'm not succombing to dispair that democracy died under Bush and it's not coming back, I think we're actually past Normandy and at the Bulge. They've gathered their dwindling resources for one last bloody, but doomed, counterattack. If we treat it as an opportunity and grind 'em back, we'll break them.

And then the dispair that democracy died under Bush and we can't get it back comes rolling aback in until I can rally and fight it off again . . .

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Check out Political Animal today where Benen does a
good job explaining CNN's poll released this morning. They say 50% support Obama's plan (ignoring that there's 3 plans none of them technically his) and 45% against. In the face of the onslaught that's down from the 51% for and 45% against in late June.

While the overwhelming number of those currently insured are happy with their plans (80+ I think) even 77% of those realize we need to overhaul the system.

Oh and Gallup says there's now 37 blue states and 5 red. Even Tx is 42% blue and 40% red. Those screams you hear at health care townhalls? Those are the Republicans in their last throes. ;)

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Watched Longest Day today.

I think this push back comes from the bottom up. The repubs see and feel the blood boiling of the 20% nutsos that have always been the core of this party, and they think: Hey, let it erupt.

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"He's dead. I'm crippled. You're lost. Do you suppose it's always like that? I mean war."

Movie's worth watching for that one line alone.

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Great song DD! I do self-medicate with TPM.
You always raise my spirits!

The study also finds that half of the users are taking the pills for reasons beyond their intended purpose,...

Maybe they didn't ask the right questions. The depression statistics seem to
correlate somewhat with the Monica-Bushco years.

I still don't get the rush.


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Great line. I still dont get the rush. Ok Strato you are hereby awarded the Knightly Line of the Day Award for this here TPMCafe Site given to all of you from all of me. hhahahaha

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Thanks so much DD!
I had to draw the line somewhere.

Cheer up. It's only the whole fraakin country's pain you're feelin!


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DD I know there are a lot of people out there giving us a lot of reasons to be depressed. So, if you're down just come here and remember your friends. Make a point of having a good laugh or go for a walk... excercise and fresh air can always give you a lift. Love you all...

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True story. My whole life changed Sync. Every day a new adventure....see all I have are cliches.

But they are fun cliches to experience.

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A glass of wine helps, too. Speaking of which...

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I LIKE being depressed. Gray suits me. That's my nature.

Read your post, got a chuckle. You cheered me up. I curse you for that!

---s

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hahahahahah. Hey Fingers, there is solace in being angry...........

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Love the song. Hate Rush.

As usual, we're in agreement, dd!

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hahahah. Did ya see Strato's comment? she had me laughin. The rush is gone. hahahahaha

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Mothers little helper. I am so old I remember when this came out. I played it three times today. hahahah

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You mean there are people so young they don’t remember when it was new? Shocking. Impossible. No, can’t be. That was just yesterday, wasn't it?

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Like the Eve of Destruction rewrite. It was one of my very favoritest songs. Hmmm - “handful of senators can’t pass legislation” - plu ca change plus c’est la meme chose.

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Sorry, comment above in wrong place - meant this one:

First song I thought of while reading - wondered if anybody else would think of it.

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ARE YOU STONED?

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AND I LIKE YOUR COLOR

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Not only that, Dick, but now they have determined that vaporub is good for fungal toenails

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My nails turned black, but my toes quit talking to me!!!

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Maybe you should get checked for frostbite/gangrene? I hear winters are cold up in your neck of the woods. :)

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Like the Eve of Destruction rewrite. It was one of my very favoritest songs. Hmmm - “handful of senators can’t pass legislation” - plu ca change plus c’est la meme chose.

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Oh LL, play it all the time. I remember when it first came out...Barry McGuire.

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