I just had knee surgery. I didn't want to, but I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, and it was getting so bad that I was really worried that I would get my state supplied health insurance yanked if Willard got into the White House. I did one knee, waited two months, Obamacare passed, I breathed a sigh of relief, but went ahead and did the other one, just in case, and have been following all of Romney's idiotic nonsense during my recovery (Don't do two knees in two months...it is brutal). I turned off my TV about three years ago, and have read SO many wonderful books, and even re-read Atlas Shrugged, which I read back in high school, was one of them. All of this recovery time, gave me a lot of time to think, about our country, about my daughter, just turned 21, and about what is actually important...to me, to my little family, to this country I love. I think our country has lost the vision of what is really important, not only for things in this country, but for the world. Peace, is so very important, but has become a cliche. A clean planet, one that is not going to melt itself into nothingness is vitally important. New cleaner forms of fuel have been critical for forty years, and we have done NOTHING. Our country's infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes and that is critical. I live in Minneapolis, and was listening to the radio when the bridge here collapsed. It was a boondoggle, but it was a bridge being fixed, just had too many big huge machines on it during rush hour. Nobody stopped to think. It is time to stop to think about a lot of things.
What is REALLY important to us? I believe we got into the disaster we are in because somehow it became more necessary to have a 52 inch plasma TV than to pay down your credit card bill, and to save for your children's college educations. I remember getting by just fine with a 13 inch black and white tv with 5 channels and NO REMOTE as I grew up. We kids thought it was cool to have any tv at all. Mom let us have one hour per night to watch tv, and with four kids, it was a big argument every night to decide what we would watch. Some nights were easy, some were hard. Laugh In, an easy night. Monkees or Gilligan's Island, hard. My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Genie, Mayberry RFD, all great shows, but we couldn't watch them all. Somehow, we have decided that we HAVE to watch them all. We don't. We can get by with an hour, and no new tv. Now, the typical Mom & Dad would just charge a tv on an already pretty maxed out card, but one where we have to keep up with the latest. We don't need to do that either. I for one, would be fine with my old black and white tv, but I am sadly in a very small minority.
So, using that though as the basis to decide on what we could do to fix some of the problems of this nation, I made this list of things that could fix a few things. Feel free to argue with me, change things and add to it. It is just my starting point. I care so very much about this country and I want us to come back stronger and more principled and way more intellectual, less worried about THINGS and more worried about our planet.
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