Would you rather a program for the government to issue entitlement wheel chairs to polio victims...or caring people in the medical field to provide a retro active cure??

Not in any way comparable.

GoofuS, if you think you can get to me by dragging in a reference to the fact that I had polio when I was two-years-old and currently need to use a wheelchair to get around, then you are a lower form of protozoan than I thought even YOU were capable of.

I have worked my whole life, mostly as a singer of traditional folk songs and ballads and as a music teacher, but also as an engineering illustrator for the Boeing company, a radio announcer and newscaster, I clerked in a music store for a short period of time, and I worked for the Bonneville Power Administration as a technical writer. I have also written—and had published—about thirty magazine articles.

I spent six years at the University of Washington taking a whole variety of subjects, but mostly Music and English Literature. Included were courses in Philosophy, Psychology, Political Science, and Astronomy. I also spent two years at the Cornish College of the Arts, studying Music intensively.

And I PAID for it all myself.

I hauled myself all over two campuses and to and from various jobs walking on a pair of aluminum forearm crutches. I also walked out on stage on a pair of crutches, having put my guitar on stage ahead of time, sitting on a stand beside a chair.

I've been told that a few people who had heard of me were surprised to see me using crutches, because no one had considered it important enough to mention, but they thought no more about it once I started singing. After all, internationally known concert violinist Itshak Perlman also walks on stage on crutches, much as I did.

When my shoulders simply wore out some twenty-three years ago, I had to take to a wheelchair. I bought the wheelchair—and a couple of wheelchairs since then (they don't last forever)—with my own money, even though I qualify for Medicare. And Medicare does pay something for what they refer to as "durable medical equipment."

So if you're trying to imply that, because I have had polio and currently use a wheelchair to get around, I'm living off the system, then first, let it be known that I am NOT. I have always earned my own living and paid my own way.

And second—that makes you a slimier piece of offal than I even believed was possible.

And it has nothing whatever to do with this discussion, so why did you even bring it up!??

Don Firth