Daily Pricks

I have diabetes.
Each morning when I awaken, I have to draw blood.
It's just a pin prick to my thumb (my index finger got calloused from nearly two years of bloodletting, so now it's the thumb's job) but it is an annoying daily ritual.
I have to take meds twice a day so my glucose levels don't get too high.
If they get too high, eventually they can cause blindness, limb amputation, strokes and/or heart attacks. None of those options bode for a pleasant old age, and I have started to accept that I will probably die earlier than I expected because of diabetes.
Right now, my average morning glucose level is around 104, well below the magic number 124, which is the number right before the dangerous diabetic level where degenerative problems start to occur.
In addition to having to face that morning prick, I am reminded almost daily that stem cell research that could one day lead to a cure for diabetes, and is being delayed for a few more months by a prick in the White House who'd rather curry favor with his radical fundamentalist Christian campaign contributors, who think stem cell research is tantamount to killing live babies.

I don't like any of Bush's policies, but this one feels just as personal to me as his vendetta against gays and lesbians.
We know by now that stem cell research might be science's strongest weapon against diabetes, but that's just one major disease that could be cured.
Imagine the progress that could have been made if Bush had approved substantial government grants to fund stem cell research four years ago.
Instead, he recently sent out his insipid wife Laura to bolster his nonsensical objections to stem cell research.
She said, "I know that embryonic stem cell research is very preliminary right now and the implication that cures for Alzheimer's are around the corner is just not right and it's really not fair to people who are watching a loved one suffer with this disease."
Nobody said cures are "around the corner."
But harpooning the research for four years sure as hell hasn't helped scientists round that corner.
All this talk about things turning corners, being around the corner, passing that corner, etc., with the Bush camp is just more of their partisan sloganeering. Empty phrases, designed to mollify the empty minded.
The only corner we need to get around is the last corner on this horrible Bush administration.
He and his cash-inspired, religious superstition designed to frighten people away from the advancement of science are effecting the future health and welfare of myself and millions of others in the world.
If we get rid of that prick in the White House, one day I may be able to get rid of that other prick I'm forced to endure on a daily basis.

Can I get an amen out there?