Funny The Way Things Are

• During my 64 years, there have been few that a war of one type or another was not going on. Korea (50-53), the cold war (45-91), Vietnam (61-73), Grenada (83), Bosnia (94-95), Kosovo (91), Desert Storm (91), Iraq (03-12), Afghanistan (01-present). Surges, drones, land mines. Torture, Blackwater, civilian casualties, lies. Nowadays we don't even have the guts to call them wars, what with marketing experts and all. We accept the killings as though it were a backyard squabble.
• When did health-care become a commodity? Who would have ever thought that you could go bankrupt due to your health? Today, if you can pay for it, you'll get it. If you can't, you'll also "get it", only in a slightly different way. When is it exactly that the people in the insurance, managed care, and health-care professions will be satisfied with the amount of money they are making? When does a doctor say enough is enough? When will we say enough is enough?
• It was said if you worked hard, you could eventually retire. The way it ended up, you are expected to work hard until the company no longer sees you as an asset. Then you are supposed to go away, most often with no retirement benefits.
• We either are one bad people, or we got way too many prisons. Locking someone up is not the only form of punishment. Rehabilitation is a thing of the past. today it is considered too costly. We don't seem to want to solve the problem that lead a crime. We just want to lock it away. We bat things around the courtroom forever, helping way too many lawyers make a living. today we put the mentally ill and drug users in prison, who both should e receiving treatment, not punishment. Funny how we've turned out so many bad apples. And what's really amazing is how few of them are white and how may of them are poor.
• It's funny how we've ended up so far away from where it is we would like to be. From where it is we dream about. How lackadaisical we are about what we want to leave for our children, and their children, and their children. Look in a mirror. The change starts there.