So accept my apologies for any "jumping" around or indeed the shortness of the blog this week.
All forms of media are now completely saturated with either fond/bitter/nice/mean/nasty/hopeful remembrances of the year quickly ending and while I am not in the same league as those blatantly overpaid self centered news experts/pundits (heck, my blog is free!) I will put forth some thoughts.
Death is a part of life for humanity and we lost a number of folks this year. I will only mention two. One made an impact on mankind that hopefully with endure and grow through time - Nelson Mandela. Another was a man that was everything to his family and the people he touched in his life. Not a world famous personage, no, not he, but in his own way, just as important as Mr. Mandela, and that was my uncle Karl K.
Both heroes left us better for knowing them.
What next for the world?
America stares at the consequences of the drastic changes to its health care system both in terms of the impact on citizens and the very real, apparently incorrectly figured out fiscal impact. It seems a rule of governing that all programs are over hyped and inversely low balled as to cost. Sadly politicians all over the world assume the voter is stupid and cannot figure out the truth as to cost vs promise. What happens now to the USA economy? Anybody who says they know, well, I think they are just guessing and hoping. Will further budget cuts (and they are coming) hurt the economy? What about the military? For every spokesman that says a cut will destroy the functioning capability to respond to outside threats, a reports emerges about abandoned,never used multi million dollar facilities in countries like Afghanistan alongside newly delivered airplanes and armoured vehicles being mothballed in the American desert lands and never having ever been used. America needs (as does the world it protects) a strong healthy military but it also has to have a cost effective one and that should be a focus for the coming years.
For the rest of the world?
Does any person see changes for the better in the Middle East? North Korea? Europe?
Anywhere?
Sadly, probably not my friends.
One can only hope for so much and instead strive to improve the life they live and the impact that they have on others and the part of the world they live in. That includes the environment. I was taught that each persons responsibility to the land was to leave a place they stayed at or used - better than they found it. And I have always tried to do so. Maybe a promise each can make to the world is to try and do the same. That being said, blind hatred of change and a myopic fairy tale view of a world that can not exist harms all good causes. Too many folks for example decry oil usage but cannot or are incapable of understanding the role oil based products play in their lives. They boycott big oil - while talking on their plastic based cellphones. They cry about forced labour but refuse to but local produced clothing because they do want to pay that much money. They scream about high taxes but want safe streets and cheap almost free electricity - because they are of the generation that seems to have a birth right to deserve everything for almost nothing. Their elders and great grandparents that struggled to live during the Depression of the 1930's would be dismayed.
You know what though?
Now that I am a self proclaimed grizzled old geezer, I still am an optimist.
I still enjoy a golden sunrise.
I still enjoy the look of joy on kids faces at playtime.
I still believe this world can and will get better.
Let's see if WE can make 2014 be a good year for you and for the world.......
A hui hou
flatlander52
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