Five or six years ago I went to a neurologist about blasting migraines that never went away. They'd last for weeks. So he prescribed Effexor, telling me headache relief was a common off-label use of this drug. I took it that night and within an hour I felt awful, practically suicidal. I couldn't even go to work the next day, and I ended up sobbing incoherently on the phone to my boss. It was a miserable experience, and I threw them away. They weren't cheap, either.

In the 90s, I was prescribed Xanax for dealing with the pain of tendinitis. It was supposed to make me not feel the pain or something, I don't know. And I was told to take them twice a day. Took one the first morning and was a total zombie. Do people actually work while taking these things? After that, it was nighttime only for me.

A little OT but in response to another post (flavius88, I think)... due to a noisy neighbor situation a few years ago, I found myself unable to sleep. My doctor prescribed Ambien, and I took one (5mg). Ten minutes later, I felt paralyzed and helpless. It was a scary, hallucinatory experience. The next night, on the advice of my dcotor, I took just half of one. Not much better, still felt like a prisoner in my own body. I've never taken LSD, but if it's anything like this stuff, no wonder it's illegal.

Anyway, after taking a few of these things over the years (there were several more I can't remember), I came to wonder how anyone could possibly feel *better* by taking them. They made me feel like crap... even when I was emotionally fine. I can only imagine how bad it would have been if I'd already felt like crap emotionally. I probably would have jumped off a bridge.

Our man Tim Hollinger, the 19 year old who skipped a day of skiiing to come hear Hillary and is trying to decide whether to vote for her, Obama or McCain, pronounces himself "impressed" by Hillary's 50-minute appearance. He's still undecided, but says "she's definitely more of a consideration for me now" although he was disappointed with Hillary's failure to clearly define torture. Hollinger wants to know why Hillary didn't clearly define waterboarding as torture, according to the Geneva Convention. At that point, Hillary overhears our conversation and, pointing at Hollinger, answers his question about waterboarding: "It is," she says. With that, she's gone.

--Newsweek.com, 1/5/08

The only living Kennedy who truly matters to me, Bobby Jr., has endorsed Hillary. How much an endorsement means is relative to how any particular voter feels about the endorser. So if you prefer Bobby to Uncle Ted, RFK to JFK (as I do), Bobby's endorsement will seem more valuable. And vice-versa.

To follow on what someone else said, I too have never understood or been impressed by the melodramatic, basically Pavlovian exclamation of "Oh, but it was Camelot!" that invariably follows any mention of JFK, even though I find the utterer rarely even knows what he or she actually means by it. They just know they're supposed to say it. (And yes, I was alive when JFK was shot... sorry, but not everyone buys into everything. Make it your friend.)

You wrote:

"The lame folks who call Clinton our first black president are nothing but sad-ass liberals, who couldn't stand an actual black person running. Where were these people when Jesse Jackson ran?"

I'm not quite sure I get your point. Sounds like you're saying unless I would support *any* black candidate for president, I'm a racist. As if all black people are the same, and there's no difference between Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama because they're both black. Sorry, there's a *world* of difference. I can easily "stand" Obama (who, last I checked, was an "actual black person") running. Jackson... notsomuch.

Maybe those "lame folks" (of which I was one) simply didn't think Jesse Jackson was a qualified, viable candidate to run the free world, no matter what his race. To assume that any white person who didn't support Jackson is a racist is akin to saying the same about black people who didn't support Kucinich. It's about viability, not race.

The idea of demanding that I either support *any* "actual black person" put in front of me or I'm a racist is ludicrous, and pretty insulting to black people.

It's like you're all so married to your chosen complaint, that even when proof that you're MISTAKEN is put right in front of you, you stubbornly stick to it anyway. I can understand the human element at play--who likes to admit that their perception of something is actually very different from reality?--but come on. It's staring you right in the face.

Joe Conason has been pretty hard on Hillary at times. Way harder than on Obama. Perhaps your misperception of this is colored by his having written a best-selling book about the Clinton years, that's all I can think of. Because the facts DO NOT bear out your insistence that he's given her a free ride (as a Hillary supporter, I've often wanted to smack him for how hard he's been on her).

Go back and actually read his past columns. You'll find that perception is not, in fact, reality.

You should really read up more on Wesley Clark. He is HARDLY pro-war. He supports war ONLY as a last resort, and did not support this one.

Not everyone with a military background is a warmonger. That's a lazy and simplistic conclusion to jump to. Wes Clark is an honorable, intelligent, accomplished and peace-loving man. And this is coming from a card-carrying member of the Socialist loony left.

Oh, how I wish I did not agree with you... but I do.