And what would you do?

I'm trying to enroll in an EMT course at LSU I need to obtain a job with the local EMS. Doesn't look like it is going to happen. I graduated high school in 1968 from a small church school. Last time I actually used the diploma was to confirm graduation for a job I was hired for in 1989. Just about the same time that my school closed it's doors forever.

Flash forward about 10 years. I tried to find said diploma for a new job and made a horrifying discovery. Squirrels (yes, those nasty rats with fuzzy tails and a good P.R. firm) had invaded the box those documents were kept in out in the garage and amused themselves while nesting by chewing everything in the box into confetti! I was fortunate the last time I had a job requiring confirmation I'd graduated as the boss accepted my word on it. Faceless bureaucracies. like a college admissions department, don't.

Hence the dilemma which prompts the question in the title. EVERY job I have looked at lately requires certified confirmation of HS graduation. All the colleges and EMT courses down here require the immunizations record (I think this is a federal law geared primarily to prevent children from engendering an epidemic -- not to keep us over-the-hill-and-twice-as-moldy types from taking a few college level courses). Heck, even the Coast Guard wants certified copies of HS diploma or an original. And of course, they want a record of every freaking immunization I have had since birth. Certified by an M.D. no less.

I'm so screwed...

WORD is VOTED

Leonard Cohen, a Canadian, says it best: DEMOCRACY IS COMING TO THE USA.

Congratulations to the Obama campaign. I do not envy him, and them, the task before them. Nor do I envy the brave men and women of the U.S. Secret Service who are charged with protecting President-elect Obama and his family. I suspect every hate-mongering wingnut in the country is preparing themselves for an assault upon the Obamas as I type this. The Secret Service knows that no protection detail is good enough to prevent an assassination by the truly determined.

I suspect we will get to experience the true meaning of the old Irish curse, "May you live in interesting times." In addition to racists, white-supremacists and other racially-motivated groups (including those who don't think Obama is 'black enough', by the way), there are the truly dangerous assassins to contemplate. Men and a few women, trained as sharpshooters by the military, extremely professional and practiced. They're all the stuff of a bodyguard's nightmares. For the new administration, I fear, they'll be a recurring dream.

Congratulations, too, to Senator John McCain who showed, too late to change the outcome, that he is a class act. Where in hell was that persona hiding, John? Why oh why did you allow the RNC and the neo-cons to hijack your campaign and foist Sarah Palin upon you? Have you been that exhausted, that weak, that distracted by other matters that you couldn't see the error of their advice? Too late now. What might have been shall never come to pass for you. Time to live out your days in your too many redoubts around the world (six? seven? Fuck it, who gives a flying fig these days, anyway?) Go imitate Barry Goldwater's post-presidential bid and fade into the woodwork.

To Sarah Palin, no congratulations but a hearty fare-thee-well in your icebound fortress up there in Wasilla. Good fishing; good fucking. Stay where you are welcome. Don't venture down here on another fool's errand again.

Ralph Nader, you arrogant ass - get lost. Likewise, Cynthia Ann McKinney, Jonathon Allen, Charles O. Baldwin, Robert L. Barr, Alan Keyes and the rest of the wingnuts - get lost as no one ever found you viable - not even the OB/GYN's that delivered you.

That's my election round-up. That and $5.00 might get you a cup of coffee inside the Beltway come this time next year...