99 to 1, And How that Occupy’s My Thinking Lately

Protesting is a part of our heritage.  It’s how we started, and frankly, if we are honest, we taught most of the 2nd and 1st worlds how to do it.  In fact, while we didn’t create the protest, America pretty much branded it, applied for and got the patent and owns the rights.  So I am not shocked that a protest has been ebbing toward the shores of our nightly news, I mean, what is it competing with:  Republican’s dissing the economy, Democrat’s dissing Republicans, NBA trillionaires upset about the economics of bad business deals and canceling, hopefully, a couple of seasons.

Time on our Hands

This protest is actually a montage of protests.  The truth is, well, all over the place.  Animal Farm Takes on The Farm Family, might be one headline.  But my need to write on this has little to do with the conglomeration of issues being vetted by these orphaned idealists.  In a mix of angst, they rant against pot legalization, wealth distribution, ecology issues, 3rd world poverty and any number of things a nation might pitch a fit over when banks quit lending and jobs are as scarce as an Alabama dentist.

But to me, just me mind you, the irony of this organized effort is so obviously baffling as to really make me wonder exactly how far America has fallen.  We used to be a nation that really knew how to galvanize around a core, build a throng, grab a torch and storm the castle.  What’s wrong with us?  We have been reduced to pandering and loitering in camps that get excited when they close a museum, as happened in Washington D.C. recently.  Give me a break.

Are you telling me that I am to believe that 99% of the people in the richest country on earth actually believe they have been victimized by this Democratic Government? Seriously.  Not buying it.  Here is what I do know.  If you are willing to work, someone will hire you.  Our issue is not there are haves and have-nots- that IS history.  Our issue is that we built an economy based on ingenuity, productivity and progress, an economy that suffers from a severe case of entitlement, consumption (of all classes), and a deep desire to get something for nothing.  Work effort is nominal.  Play effort is exertion.

We used to make things, build things and help countries do the same.  Now we eat $5 meals that clog our arteries, pad our waistlines, and slow our thinking.  We give more thought to eating than to the work needed to pay for it.  Everything is cheap, easily consumed and without the value it once had, when it really took effort to produce it.  While I agree that the 1% of America’s wealthy could contribute more, the 99% of which I am one (I think), should stop trying polarize the tallest pigmy and realize that in comparison to every nation on earth- we are all the 1%.  And if this nation doesn’t really take seriously our personal responsibility of what that means, we could become as irrelevant as the protests we are seeing.

What should the NBA fallout be called:  the bottom third 1% to the top tenth of 1%?  Now that is a victim.

The World Is Changing and The Ice Cream Truck Just Passes By

Somewhere my grandmother is rotating beneath the Georgia earth, knowing that I am repeating her quips with more frequency, when I used to just roll my eyes. She used to tell me the world was always changing, and her implication was not always for the better.  She survived the Great Depression, and then seemed to take a little bit with her the rest of her life.

Summer and the Ice Cream Truck

The Day the Gulf Stood Still

As the comedian Brian Regan points out, “We can put a man on the moon, but we couldn’t keep a phone cord from getting tangled.”  As a comedian, he rocks.  Cause his point is simple, ‘if we hadn’t put a man on the moon- would phone cords getting looped really bother us at all?’  We invested a lot of money in the space programs over the years, that outside of giving us some bragging rights, funded research that has made us smarter, and created a number of useful products.

The Tar Ball Rolls Ashore

5 Things I Am Learning As A New Parent- Again

Several times over the last 20 years of raising kids, I have found that the art of communication is an on-going, persistent- sometimes numbing exercise in words embedded with inflections, hand maneuvers complex enough to be studied by linguists, and ultimately enough repetitions to generate jet propulsion.  And it’s not like that ever changes as the kids grow up, until they actually do.

A Thought on Rainy Days and Living ‘Inside’

Today it is raining hard all around Atlanta, and today, I am so thankful for the rain.  But as I look out the gray windows watching the silver drops drenching our new green carpet around my yard, I am thinking not of necessary things, but of my childhood; and how I can reach back into that deep well and remember with passion how torturous a rainy day used to be.

Rainy Day 'Outside'