Dylan Ratigan Got Me Thinking

I sometimes find Dylan Ratigan difficult to watch but this link is worth watching and he accurately sums up the frustrations I have with politics. This frustration may be the ultimate reason I have had it with politics.

There is no one willing to make the hard choices that need to be made.

This includes the American people.

Are we really willing to sacrifice? Are we really willing to do the right thing? Are we really willing to find common ground? Are we willing to give something of ourselves for the greater good? There is little evidence that we are.

After 9/11 President Bush and Congress asked us to give up some of our civil liberties and we said OK.

A universal military draft would force all mother's and father's to sacrifice their son's. How fast would we have been out of Afghanistan & Iraq if these wars had been fought by every one's sons.

President Bush did not ask us to pay for his wars, instead he took out loans from the Chinese and the Saudis. He did not include the cost of the wars in his budgets instead he created a separate accounting line so that the cost would not be counted as part of the budget deficit he was running up. Did we complain? Did way say "What can we do to help?" No, we just went about our business and pretended it was not happening. Of course the Republican opportunists are now ignoring their own culpability and blaming it all on Barack Obama.

We are a nation on the edge of fiscal ruin and no one is really doing anything about it. The Republicans only cared about this once the people elected the black guy President. They do not want the wealthy to chip in and help. They seem quite happy to sacrifice our nation's commitment to the least of us and to ask they expect the middle class to foot the nations bills.

The Democrats big chant "Tax the Rich" is so strident and so loud it seems as if the world oldest organized political party hates success.

Whenever I hear a Congressional leader say "The American People do not..." it makes my skin crawl. Does anyone in Washington really know what the American people want? We know that they know what the K Street People want.

I have slowly come to the realization that the only solution to our nations problems may be a do over.

I would have said revolution but that may bring the FBI to my door.

Here is the Dylan Ratigan link

http://binged.it/vZnVnJ

Whats Goin On

I have posted about bullying in the past. I think the “It Gets Better Campaign” sends a great message. The key to this campaign’s success is that these kids have got to be able to hang in there a few more years before they see any improvement in their lives. Life does and will get better but you have to be alive in order to see it happen.

I have attached a YouTube posting from a young man named Jonah. His life to be blunt has been shit. This video has gone viral and thousands of people have seen it. What happens when someone from his school sees it? Will the school administrators support and protect him? Will the adults in the community be there to ensure he is able to make it to and from school safely? Are there some students who will step up and say enough?

Please follow this link- “Whats goin on” http://bit.ly/uwTawG

For more information about how we all can help:

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

http://www.hrc.org/

http://www.lambdalegal.org/

It's My Life - Looking at Lights

I don’t always notice things.

I am not very observant about stuff. People I notice things not so much.

For example:

When we were kids my parents would always take us for rides around the area to look at Christmas lights. We would start with a tour of the Easton area and then head up William Penn Highway to see the lights of Bethlehem with the highlight being the Star of Bethlehem. In those days The Star was only lit during the Christmas season, so it was a little more special. Sometimes we would stop in to tour the Moravian Putz.

These evenings would be very stressful for your humble blogger I would invariably not see what everyone else saw. The entire car load would see Santa on the roof of some house in Bethlehem Twp, I could not locate it. My Mother would notice a house decorated in all blue lights and I would not see it. My sister would notice a lights that would flash in a pattern I would be unable to find them.

These trips would be frustrating and often involved tears, mine. We could be driving right under The Star of Bethlehem and I would not see it until someone else in the car would grab my head and point it in the direction of The Star; even then there was only a 40/60 chance of me actually seeing it.

After years of frustration, humiliation and silent sobbing in the back of the car I came up with a solution. Lie. I would pretend to see what everyone else saw even if I was looking out the back window and they were looking front and to the left. “Did you see that Elf flying across the front of the blue house?” “Yep, it cool mom.” “Look at how tacky those bushes look.” “They look like Helen Keller decorated them?” It went on like that throughout the evening even if I was looking at something completely different from the rest of the family. But it made the trip around the Lehigh Valley looking at the lights just that more pleasant for all the parties involved.

Needless to say I have no desire to drive through the “Lights in the Parkway” in Allentown.