Crabs in a pot…
It amazes me every time. Not sure why, but each time a celebrity has a fall from grace I am blow away by the fascination. Do these falls make us feel better about our own miserable existences?
Who cares?
Why do they care?
Is it really worth caring about?
Really?
Recent transgressions like those of Tiger Woods and Jesse James have become fodder for the masses, gracing the front pages of legitimate newspapers, no longer as a "page 6" highlight, but as the papers’ featured stories.
These fancy people are human, fallible as you and I. Maybe a little better off, maybe not. They feel pain, they feel joy. They entertain us on screen or tube (or diode). Does this give us the right to intrude into their private lives?
I think not. Leave these people alone. They have families and friends. They are all hurting just like any of us would. Celebrity does not excuse them from feeling. They need to find their own way the heal.
Let them fall away from the limelight for a while. If and when they’re ready, they’ll come back and if they are so disposed they might share the story with you, and you can hang all of your hopes and dreams on their accomplishments once again.
Politics
Why in the world does it take extremes in politics to make everyday people take notice?
On the left you have a bunch of arrogant, screaming, rude, misinformed, self-loathing, elitists that believe everything that happens on the planet is a result of mankind’s existence.
On the right a bunch of arrogant, bible thumping, gun toting, narrow-minded oafs who believe theirs is the only way as it comes from God.
The far left wraps themselves in the righteous indignation of racism and global warming, while perpetuating both conditions.
The far right wraps themselves in the banner of patriotism and the right to property at all cost whilst alienating his brethren through intrusion and abusive accumulation.
Somewhere in the middle of these kooks is the rest of us, the everyday average citizen, patriotic, compassionate, and consistent in our effort to improve our own lives. Oblivious to the manipulations of the right or left until we have the carpet ripped out from under us.
Enron? Terror attacks? War? Economic collapse?
Those are the things that get our attention. We respond to specific behavior and once satisfied we settle back into our own little clueless lives, until the "Next Big Thing" shows up.
There is a constant in all of this mess however, there are more of us than them. They just do a better job in the pursuit of their zealous mission to correct the errors of their polar opposites.
We need to wake up and take away their playground so that we can keep our lives just the we like them, on cruise control.
We need to shrink government, even if it just to shrink the kooks’ playground a bit will have a profound and empowering effect on the rest of us.
We need to shrink union intrusion, limiting their power to their original mandate of negotiating basic civil rights with our employer, not put them out of business.
We need create a flat tax that applies to every individual and business and not mess with it. As taxes apply directly to government services we need to approve budgets that tie directly to the use of said taxes. If we don’t have the money we get rid of services. If we don’t use the money we send it back to the tax payer.
We need to regulate trade so that we can compete globally.
We need to insure our safety.
We need to insure that our future generations have the same opportunities we enjoy and teach them how to pass it along.
Stop messing with the constitution. If you can’t pass a law without bending the rules, you can’t pass a law.
Sometimes we’ll like the way things go and sometimes we won’t, that’s the power of the vote, but it has to be exercised, and as we look around we don’t seem to exercise much of anything anymore.
Get involved! Exercise something! Your life depends on it.
Why not start with that vote?