So much for that

Did you miss me? Did you even realize I didn't post anything last week? Did you care?
For the first time since I started this blog five months ago, I decided not to write anything. I didn't want to write a word and frankly I didn't care about the repercussions. My decision partially stemmed from the fact that I'd run out of creative energy -- but mostly from the fact that I was really, really, really angry.
Fresh from a one-week stay in Serbia -- a country where the government frowned upon freedom of speech for years, I returned to the good 'ole U.S. of A to find our duly elected representatives embroiled in the petty bickering, mudslinging, muck raking and gridlock that ultimately resulted in the partial government shutdown the remains in effect.
I vented my own frustration about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare in a poem. In it, I took a few pokes at the Left and a jab at the Right for good measure.
I sent it off to a few newspapers, hoping they'd run it as a letter to the editor. To date, no one has done so. The editors of one website said they liked it. It was funny -- and right on target, they said. But they didn't want to run it. It was too controversial they said. It might offend people... It was too risky.
Whatever happened to freedom of speech? I thought. This is the United States of America. It's not Serbia. It's not China, or North Korea, or Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan... I'm not screaming fire in a crowded theater. I'm exercising my Constitutional right to self-expression.
As Americans and more importantly, as writers, we cannot take our freedom and our Constitutional rights for granted. We shouldn't be so afraid of offending someone that we censor ourselves, or worse let the government censor us.
Vladimir Putin recently said that Americans aren't really free -- that it's all an illusion. Of course we reacted angrily. But if we take a good, hard look in the mirror and are brutally honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that he's got a point.
That being stated, here's my take on Obamacare....
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Although it's neither here nor there,
I do not want Obamacare.
So I won't enroll a few weeks from now,
I can't afford it anyhow.
I suppose I'll just pay the fines in my taxes.
I'm sick of politicians grinding axes.
I know our healthcare system's broken,
But Obamacare is a foolish notion.
Alas, there's no way to defund it.
Just ask any White House pundit!
Senator Cruz -- he's so full of bluster.
But please God, no more filibusters!
They'll never heed the people's voice,
In Obamacare we have no choice.
Now I rest my case, so simply stated.
Obamacare is over rated!

Until next time, "That's life..."