Just How Bad Is It?

Are things really as bad as people are saying they are?

Have you given any thought to what would happen to your neighborhood if things get to the point where law enforcement will not even respond when called?

How long would you continue to live in such an environment? Worse, what if your options were such that, because of unemployment, or other life circumstances, you had no choice but to stay there, living your life in fear?

Think about it..from moment to moment, night and day..nothing but fear, and despair.

There are people who think that that kind of thing just doesn't happen, that it won't happen. Not here. Not in this country. But it does, and whether you want to believe it or not, it is going to become a more common occurrence as time goes by.

This particular neighborhood is in Detroit, and I'm sure there are other neighborhoods, in other cities, where the same thing is happening.

I don't know how we have allowed things to come to this, but worse, now we have allowed ourselves to become even more vulnerable.

It's a sad day in America..with many more to come. I hope it's not too late to turn things around.

At least, do all that you can do, to be prepared.

Another Deranged Rant

I'm doing something that I've never done before on this blog, but I'd like for you to see why I have seriously considered not blogging anymore.

Usually, I get these deranged rants in emails, with phony screen names, and no way to reply, but this was posted this evening in comments of a post that I did months ago, and was sent from a computer at California Polytechnic State University

It is full of vitriolic hatred, and outrage..at me, and all Americans who don't believe the same deluded lies that they believe. In fact, this person said: Seriously, you're either stupid or just evil! It's people like you that are destroying our country, and it's people like you that make me ashamed to be an American.

I can't include the sentences preceding that statement, because this person has a filthy mouth, but you can read the rest of the rant in comments after this post: You Ain't Gonna Like Losing

I can't tell if the commenter is male or female--with a cute little name like "Jade" it is hard to tell--but it's easy to see that Jade is the one with his/her head in the sand.

It really is a dangerous world we live in, in more ways than one.

Life Is Short...

An elderly man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite pierogi with fried onions wafting up the stairs.

He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed. Gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs.

Downstairs, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen, where if not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were hundreds of his favorite pierogi.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of love from his wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

He threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a crumpled posture. His parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the pierogi was already in his mouth. With a trembling hand he reached up to the edge of the table, when suddenly he was smacked with a wooden spoon by his wife.

"Back off!" she said. "Those are for the funeral."

We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.
~John Updike