Saturday July 21, 2007 How much is enough?

I've already had enough of that, maybe even too much of that - but I haven't had nearly enough of this. So, it depends on whether you're talking about this or that when you say you've had enough.

Some people say enough is enough - but they really don't know what they are talking about. You don't know whether they are talking about this or that. That's enough of that but not nearly enough of this. I'll take a little bit more of this, but no more of that.

So think about this today, but not about that.

Saturday July 14, 2007 Looking for someone.

It's hard not to write about some of the events of the day when they are plastered on the news hour after hour - war, global warming, destroyed environment, terrorism, the fall of the dollar, the deficit, etc, etc, etc.

I long for the simpler days when all we worried about were the sexual escapades of our president. We were at peace and everybody liked us and the budget was balanced and everything seemed to be falling into place. The future seemed bright and rosy. We had come through Y2K without falling apart and we were looking ahead to better days.

Things change.

Hopefully, they will change again in the future and we will get back on track. It feels right now that we have been derailed and somehow have lost the trail that leads to a brighter future. We need somone, who cares about all of us, to come to the forefront and lead us out of this mess.

Monday July 2, 2007 It's a shame

My retired sister and brother-in-law have a golden eagle pass which allows them to visit all national parks and national monuments without paying entrance fees. That is what has been the situation for years and years. Apparently things have changed under President Bush. In his efforts to privatize many public jobs (have private enterprise handle them instead of government employees, supposedly to save the government money), Mount Rushmore is now handled by a private company and the golden eagle pass doesn't allow them to visit free any more. Now they have to pay whatever the private company dictates just like everyone else. They were disappointed after driving clear across South Dakota to see the monument. I want to know where the savings from privatizing all these jobs is being placed. I have a hunch that if there is any savings from situations like this that it was passed along in the tax cuts that mainly benefitted the wealthy while the rest of us have to spend a bit more here and a bit more there or do without. It's nice to know that the wealthy will easily be able to afford to visit sites such as this. I know that the entrance fee isn't huge, but it's the principle of the thing that bothers me. The whole idea of golden eagle passes was to help retired people on fixed income just a bit and let them enjoy the public facilities that belong to all of us. Somewhere along the line, that idea got forgotten. It's a shame.