Hindsight 2020

America, you've become a stranger to me I thought I knew you but I was mistaken Liberty and justice are now forsaken America, you've become a danger to me Belligerent children pulling away from reason To follow a tyrant who's guilty of treason America, you've become an embarrassment to me Viewed by the world as a pathetic joke Forgetting the words that our forefathers spoke Entitled and spoiled, ignorant and vain Believing a liar who loves hatred and pain United no longer, just a left and a right An abyss in between, devoid of all light Again you ignore all that history has taught To follow a man that billionaires bought My heart is broken, my hope is dim America, I long to find you again

 If it's one thing humans are incredibly good at, it's killing their fellow human beings. We don't need much of a reason most times and there's certainly not much forethought, logic, or reasoning involved before we start firing bullets and missiles, dropping bombs, and deploying deadly drones. Whether it's a lone gunman pissed off at someone or something or an entire nation pissed off at another nation or group of people; rest assured, heads will roll and bodies will drop. And when it's all said and done and there are dead and wounded everywhere, absolutely nothing will be resolved. In fact, it will only lead to more anger, misunderstanding, kneejerk reactions and, yes, more killing. Our history books are full of these accounts of man killing man whether it's revenge, holy war, or self-preservation. You'd think after seeing these killings repeated century after century after century for the same old weak and tired reasons, we'd be able to learn to st

 I've been thinking a lot about the end. My end. I'm currently over in Sweden with my wife. The purpose of this visit was supposed to be to celebrate 20 years of marital bliss and see some of her family. A chance to take it easy for a while. That was the purpose until my wife's stepmother, Monica, suddenly passed away at the beginning of August. We had already purchased our plane tickets for the end of September and it would've been expensive to try to change the flights. Plus, I couldn't take off of work any earlier than we had already planned for. So, with my wife's halfsister's help, we arranged to have Monica cremated and then planned for the funeral to take place when we got to Sweden.  Monica had no children, but my wife considers her more of a mom than her biological mom. Monica had cancer and we all knew she would never be cured of it, but she had been responding very well to treatments and we were both looking forward to spending some quality time w

Hopefully, enough time has passed now. Out of respect, I've been holding off on posting this particular blog. It's always (almost always) sad when someone dies. People die every day. Unless the dearly departed people are close family or friends, most of us don't spend an extended amount of time or emotion mourning their loss. I don't, anyway. That's not to say that I don't empathize with those around me who have lost loved ones because I do. I've been in that situation. I've lost close friends and family members. It's a loss that can be very difficult to come to terms with. I get it. What I don't get is why millions and millions of people are so fixated with the passing of Queen Elizabeth. She obviously led a full life.  96 years.  Can you imagine? She also led a life of privilege and prestige because, well, she was  royal .  Royalty . In this modern day and age, we still have kings, queens, princes, and princesses who are revered and honored bec

To explain the title of this blog, I'm actually not going to talk about voting at all. Instead, I will use two hypothetical scenarios. As you read them though, the parallels to voting here in the United States should be pretty obvious. If they're not, no amount of words in a blog would probably get through to you.  SCENARIO 1 Imagine you have this black box with three buttons on the top; a red button, a blue button, and a white button. In order to improve your life, you are encouraged to choose one of the buttons and press it. You do. Nothing happens though. Your life doesn't get any better. Things just kind of stay the same for you. You have a random mix of good days and bad days, successes and failures, pleasant surprises and bitter disappointments. You think back to the black box with the three buttons and how you were told how very important it was to press a button. Some told you pressing the red button was the best option and would provide greatest improvement to your

 I sat in awe as I watched Cassidy Hutchinson testify before the January 6th Committee yesterday and paint a vividly clear picture of what was going on in Trump World before, during, and after January 6, 2021. Ms. Hutchinson was the proverbial fly on the wall throughout this entire saga and provided first-hand accounts of what was said and what was done -or rather not done- during this tragic day in America's history. She was physically there when all of it unfolded. I can't imagine the soul-searching it must have taken for her to finally come to terms with the fact that she was playing for the wrong team and then  courageously decide to share the truth so the entire country could understand how dangerously close our democracy came to collapsing. After witnessing the grotesque spectacle of a human being that is Donald Trump for way too many years, I was sure that nothing would shock or surprise me when it came to Trump and his enablers and supporters. I was sure of this because