Darth_Hiram is a friend and an excellent writer, and he has worked his blog magic yet again on a subject that evoked way too much of a response for me to contain in the comments section of his blog. Consider this a long-winded comment to someone I like and respect. And to make myself clear, I am 100% NOT dissing DH! He raises good points that I happen to have different thoughts on...and I love to think.

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I'm not into unlimited power. I'm not into government domination. But I'm also not into pigeonholing pharmaceutical companies as part of the evil empire.

I am not nearly as up on politics or even current events as I should be lately. Day to day life has had a hand in that. But I am married to a pharmacist who has served on a(n) (American) national committee whose purpose is monitoring of pharmacies' adherence to government regulations. I know a very little bit about this subject...and what goes into those high prices for drugs that are paid in pharmacies.

For every new drug formula that reaches patients, drugs that improve and enhance the length and quality of our lives and without which many people would suffer and die much earlier than they do, countless hours of research and development are spent on the formulas that don't work and don't help. No one sees this. No one thinks about how many times something must be done wrong before it can be done right. Few acknowledge and recognize the education and expertise that is necessary to create just one dose of a potentially life-saving drug. That outrageous price my mother pays for her cancer drugs isn't simply about those little pills she takes; it's about everything that went into their creation.

Is there corruption in pharmaceutical companies? I'm sure there is. There is corruption everywhere...including in Hollywood where a filmmaker like Michael Moore can use the same smoke and mirrors he accuses our government of using to protect the rich and cripple the poor, to make his own millions filling people's heads and hearts with discontent. Sometimes discontent gives rise to real change. Sometimes.

I, too, see the parallels between our beloved saga and our current government (though I don't necessarily see things exactly the same way). I also know that real life isn't that simple. Destroying the Death Stars and toppling the evil emperor may have worked in the GFFA, but in real life, there is a much more intricate web of good and bad, right and wrong, triumph and tragedy that goes into the support system of such an "empire." As we read in the scroll at the beginning of ROTS, "There are heroes on both sides"...truly one of the most thought-provoking lines in the saga if you let yourself think about it.

Thank you, DH, for allowing me a forum in which to voice an opinion of something about which I feel strongly. There are many wrongs in this country, in this world, that I would like to have the power to correct. I also hope that I have the right facts to avoid doing more harm than good. Even Luke, Leia, Han, and co. knew the enemy they were fighting...knew it well...until they discovered that one of those enemies was Luke and Leia's own father.

Life is rarely black and white.