You know those pseudo-optimistic half-full cups, the ones where the water inside seems bubbly and thirst-quenching, even though you know it’s been sitting there for over an hour and is probably warm and filled with backwashed particles and more than likely has been left for someone to come throw in the trash? The latest US news reports are just like that cup.
Though I tend to trend cynical, there are some bad things going on in our country at present. To start, we have conflicting reports about the worst radiation leak in history approaching or reaching our Western border – so when you hear someone in LA say, “Wow, you have a glow about you,” you may be in deep shit. We have a President who flat out lied to the American people and no one seems to care. Our Congressional approval rating hovers around single digits and yet we still refer to them as Representatives – a notion, which suggests we don’t approve of ourselves? 50 million Americans live in poverty today. As a nation, we are almost 20 trillion dollars in debt – mostly to China – and there’s no chance in hell of ever paying that back. Lowering taxes down a trickle does not seem to trickle down, and raising taxes makes the richer poorer but doesn’t make the poorer richer. Approximately half our nation is more interested in bettering themselves than in bettering society as a whole, and while I have no judgment on which side is right, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to be able to move forward unless something changes.
Add to this, news reporting used to be based on facts, but scanning the nightly news channels, one can see the exact same story spun more than Marilyn Monroe’s bedroom doorknob. Take climate change. One source says humanity is causing the Earth to heat up and the science proves it. Another says humans have a negligible effect on the climate and the science proves it. A third says science cannot currently determine whether or not humans have an effect on the climate and the science proves it. The whole thing has a Gump-ish box of chocolate’s thing about it. Frankly, all I want is a proper weather forecast for tomorrow morning – but apparently that’s never going to happen either.
The whole NSA spying thing is bothersome. We are a government – of, by and for – and so when the government is spying, it means we the people are gathering information on ourselves, which is akin tostanding in a front of a restaurant window and checking your appearance while curious diners watch and giggle inside.
I’m driving at something here, but as usual, it’s along the side of the road where I can feel the guardrail scraping my sides. There are a lot of people saying things are getting better, that the economy is picking up, unemployment is less relevant, the housing market is on the uptick, and interest rates are rising. I’m not so sure though. A friend of mine recently told me a story about being thirsty and then getting water boarded – the horrible sense of drowning, the feeling of powerlessness, the belief that nothing he could do could change his circumstance. And here I am, staring at this glass with its water line at the midpoint…..
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