A long time has passed since I last posted to this blog. While I wish I could say the reason is that I have been busy as a beaver on a tree farm, the truth is I'm just worn out by all that has happened in the news. Let's face it, this has not been the best of times. The economy is in shambles. The world stage is a horror show. And future prospects look bleak.
If we had confidence in our leaders to make the right choices, brighter days would surely follow. Unfortunately, the governments of today are run by ideologues instead of managers. Everybody has a grand plan for the future. They're all trying to get their names in the history book, get into heaven, or change the world. Why can't anyone be satisfied with steering the ship in a straight line and keeping it off the rocks?
So, I'm frustrated. In part because all my commercial charters have dried up, in part because my savings has dwindled to practically nothing, in part because commercial operators like myself are left to face the current hardships head on while others in the industry get special financial assistance, and in part because I don't see things getting better.
One of the problems we face is that our new government is doing all it can to re-institute a level of growth and prosperity it has told us for months is wrong for the country and the planet. I don't get it. If it was the wrong direction for the country and the world a year ago, why do we want to have it all come back? Is it simply that our legislators are worried about their own portfolios? Because we all know there are too many houses, and too many condos, and too many boats and ships, and too many cars and trucks, and too many freaking people buying shit they don't use and then throwing it away and turning the whole planet into a garbage dump. Prosperity and security should not have to be a consequence of wasteful production and spending and gross exploitation of resource. Growth does not need to come at such a high cost. Nor does it need a government hell bent on rewarding loss and celebrating mediocrity.
A new direction should mean INNOVATION!!!!!!!!!! CLEAN, RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION!!!! It means looking at the way we manufacture things, the way we move things, and they way we communicate, and CHANGING THESE THINGS FROM THE FOUNDATION UP!!!
You want real change. Here are some ideas:
1. Get rid of every brochure, catalog, newspaper and magazine in places where there is both TV and Internet. Why do we need all of it? It's wasteful and redundant. Pick one form of media and ban the other. "This is a paper-free zone." Or, "This is a broadcast-free zone." Better yet: "This is a media-free zone." Besides, look at all the newspapers and magazines going out of business. WHat does that tell us?
2. The news media around the world is broken. Fix it! There should be a law prohibiting opinions and commentary in the news. People need straight, hard facts, not biased, partisan reports and propaganda. Leave the commentary for other media outlets and different types of shows. As Sgt. Friday says: "Just the facts."
3. Stop building new roads and bridges. We have enough freakin' roads. Besides, the way things are going, there won't be anybody left who can afford to drive on them.
4. You want health care? Here's a tip: Let people die when they get old. Stop trying to scrape every single second out of life. When your time is up it is up. You know what terminal cancer is? It's God's way of telling you your time is up. Sorry to be so cold-hearted, but do you know how much money is spent trying to squeak a few more moments of life into somebody? It's absolutely ridiculous, as well as being morally and ethically questionable.
5. Put an end to clone research. There's only one place for this research to take us: Organ banks that keep the very wealthiest members of the human race alive indefinitely. This research is morally, ethically and socially wasteful. Go back and read number 4.
6. Build bigger atom smashers and fund more inner space and particle research. The future of mankind is dependent on radically new concepts in physics, not clone research, wind energy, or a cure for cancer. Speaking of which, let's understand one thing: THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN ENERGY! No matter what we do, whether it's take energy from the wind, the tides, or geothermal, none of it comes for free. Take enough of it out of the planet and we will pay an environmental price. We just don't know what it is yet. If you really think anything comes free, especially energy, you are living in the proverbial fantasy world. Instead of trying to harness the good (tides, heat from the earth, prevailing winds), we should be trying to take the sting out of the harmful phenomenon, i.e., tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and lightening. We get twice the bang for our buck harnessing destructive energy. Hurricane Katrina alone destroyed 300 million trees, not to mention all the human-related damage.
7. Legalize drugs. Put an end to the cartels and the terror networks that fund their campaigns with drug money. Reserve our penal system for anti-social criminal elements, not self-medicating hedonists.
8. Fix our legal system. Put an end to ridiculous malpractice, libel and personal injury lawsuits, limit professional compensation, and get settlements under control.
9. Fix our government. Our legislators are not above the law when it comes to their taxes or indiscretions. In the past, they were kicked out of office. Some even went to jail. Now they don't even lose their jobs.
10. Put our kids in school at 1 year of age. Stop treating them like babies and teach them languages and math and exercise them. Make them laugh and show them how to enjoy a life of learning. By the time they're 6 years old they'll be multi lingual, math smart and on their way to greatness. Nobody will complain about everyone in the country being English-speaking-only because we'll all be adept at three or four languages. Furthermore, math is the universal language. Some day we'll meet creatures from other planets. When this day comes, we'll have to be a lot smarter than we are now.
OK, that's enough of a morning rant for now.
-seabgb
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