viewfromthecurb

I am saddened.

A National Park Ranger lost her life on New Years Day at Mt. Rainier because some half wit with a gun lost contact with the real world, where we humans dwell.

A husband has lost his life’s love.

Two little girls lost their mother.

Why?

Because some moron politician thought it would be a good idea to allow loaded weapons into our National Parks.  And some attorney felt that our right to be packin’ heat was being infringed on where we needed firearms on a day hike.  Lord knows I feel vulnerable when I see a marmot on the trail and I don’t have a fucking Mac 10 handy to blast it into oblivion.

The ranger was trying to stop this Neanderthal to tell him to chain his vehicle up.  Really, folks?  This required gunfire?  She was trying to keep this idiot from sliding off the road and killing himself.  She was thinking only of his welfare.

They think they have found this jerks body.

Good.  This needs to be over.

Two families need to mourn being torn asunder by the idiocy of this one individual.

We need to take note of how off-track society can be from what is “right” for the public welfare.  Too often, the public will relinquish responsibility for  the ramifications of the impacts of decisions like this.  Using “…this one instance…” or “…special circumstances…” as a means to explain away occurrences like this are not acceptable, and should not be…ever.  I liken it to the early discussion of the “Star Wars” missile defense system.  At best, the design for this protective shield for our country would yield 99% efficiency – meaning that, out of 100 nuclear missiles launched at us, one would get through.  And that was – and is – simply not acceptable.

In this sad case, the people who put this rule into effect for our National Parks system need to be held fully accountable.  Would a law keeping guns out of the parks have prevented this?  Probably not.  And then there is the old argument that “guns don’t kill people – people kill people” that really demonstrates a complete disconnection with accountability for one’s actions.  This idiot’s actions cost this Ranger her life.  Murder is murder, no matter how you look at it.

We will never know everything about what happened.  We are just left with…

Why?

(Thanks for letting me vent…)

It was one year ago today that my Mom passed away.

I really miss her.

My father had passed in 2004, so my siblings and I are on our own.  By our ages, we should be able to take care of ourselves, right?  One has to think so.

But it’s not so easy when you have the relationships we have within our family.  In leaving the nest in our youth, we have been working to establish our own lives in the world – like completing an assigned task.  Not exactly a “warm and fuzzy” environment, I guess.  Probably explains a lot.

I go around whining about the lack of human connection in today’s society, with e-mails, tweeting, texting and all.  It’s obvious that I am looking to connect with people on a human level to make up for the lack of connection I felt with my family during my formative years.  Could I have made more of an effort back then?  Of course I could have – but I just didn’t know how to.

Well, now I feel like I do.  And I have a lot of catching up to do with humanity.  And, my siblings.  But I’ve missed out on my parents – and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my days.

I’m sorry, Mom and Dad.

I miss you both.

I’m doing fine.

Happy 2012.

November 5, 2011

What do YOU do to keep the negativity out of your daily life?

I have been looking for another job for quite a while (it seems.)  And given this is the first time I had ever been laid off from a job, I have looked upon this as a positive episode in my life.  And that surprising response has sustained me – until now.

Now, I am not saying I have “crashed” and am ready to take a long walk off of a short pier – no.  It’s just that my level of frustration with how our society has “evolved” creeps into my soul and tears at it more deeply.  And the toll it’s taking on my reserves of good feeling energy is growing.

Look at the evening news – a cacophony of negative images, words, deeds and sounds that erupt from your large, flat-screen in digital stereo surround sound, all in the name of being “informed.”  And, have you ever noticed that when you look at the screen, how much you can lose track of time?  The larger the screen (it seems) the deeper the trance-like state you fall into.  Think of that the next time you sit down in front of the screen – you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, you are sitting there, in your self-induced video trance, being bombarded by messages to “do this,” “buy this,” “go there,” “vote for me,” etc.  That’s called marketing.  And so, you end your day with mental pictures of death, war, poverty, confrontation, starvation, American Idol…you name it.  No wonder we are so “down” on things.  We get a head full of that stuff and our own minds take it from there – filling in all of the unknown facts, playing out the worst-case scenarios, whispering unspoken thoughts, and (basically) lying to us.

THAT is what has been sapping my positive resources – the constant flow of drivel put out by corporate “people” who don’t care one whit about me or my well-being, that want only my money, my vote…or both.

What kind of society lets that happen?

Comments?  Thoughts?  I’d like to hear them…

“It is appallingly obvious our technology has exceeded our humanity” – Albert Einstein

P.S.

I had more to this post – but when I tried to save the draft, the WordPress software lost it.  It will come back to me, though not in the way I originally wrote it (I was in the groove.)  But, when it does, it will be worthy of sharing with you.

In the past couple of days, our state’s governor is directing more cuts to an already lacking state budget, citing:

“These choices were made out of necessity due to a drop in consumer confidence brought on by actions on Wall Street, inaction by Congress and the European debt crisis. The list of options I’ve presented hurts,” she said. “This is not what I signed up for when I started as a caseworker 40 years ago. But it’s what the world economy handed our state and our country.”

We all know that Wall Street and the banks put us in this mess.  But, to date, none of the people responsible are being pursued as the criminals they are.

I want to ask you this – if you had one name to add to a list of those responsible for this mess, who would that be?  I am not talking about political ideologies here – I am talking about pure, 100%, undiluted, Gordon Gekko-ish GREED.  The bottom-feeders that have taken the American dream from the 10% of the population that helped them gain their staggering wealth.  Even include those that, by their silence and feigned ignorance of this issue allow it to happen.  Such complacency is not acceptable here.

And when this list grows, it will be a place everyone can come to and see who these people are and what they stand for.  Then we can show them our true feelings – write them letters and e-mails, boycott their businesses, spit on their shoes, whatever.  Because their kind does not reflect the qualities our founding fathers sought to instill on the citizens of this country.

So what say you?

Who’s on “the list?”