“Santino, come're. Whattsa matter with you? I think your brain is going soft from all that comedy your playing with that young girl.
Never tell anybody outside the family what you're thinking again!”
Yes, words of wisdom from Vito Corleone.
America’s brain has gone soft. Soft from all the comedy it’s playing with it’s culture of consumption and gratification. From the overweight kids playing their Playstations, to the parents over-leveraged with consumer debt (spent on stuff that the debt will outlast) to the politicians who pander to the self-indulgent.
Thanks to our Incontinental Congress, and their Media enablers, everyone in the world knows what we’re thinking (or that we’re not), and knows the limits of our fortitude.
Everyone now knows that 2.500 dead troops will make our people squeamish and our politicians start looking for something white to wave. Everyone now knows that if a force can keep us tied up for more than a year or two, we’ll throw in the towel. Everyone now knows that if they can bloody our nose, they can expect an apology FROM US for making them angry.
What’s now to stop China from taking Taiwan?! Or is Chuck Hagel (or any in the Yellow GOP) thinking beyond the next election? Don’t pander to the American people, as they’ve become too soft-headed from a couple generations of affluence without sacrifice.
4 comments:
Fortunately for us, Fred Thompson is thinking ahead.
He's already on record as stating that "Red China is the 'Day After' Iraq."
Fred gets it.
Funny you mention this, Jimbob, because the other night I was telling my husband during an evening walk about a client who reported that his divorce was causing him "a major breakdown." The issues in his case are really minor, and we both agreed that running for your life on the 78th floor of Tower 2 on 9/11, or trapped under AK-47 fire from Shi'ite rebels is really the stuff that should trigger a "major breakdown."
In my local pub, The Olde Ship of Santa Ana, the walls of the women's rom are done with WWII-era advertisements and news clippings. Many deal with "how to" recipes for meatless dinners or how to stretch your sugar ration, black humor concerning the nightly blitz on London, and one advert that shows serviceman, nurses and civlians, giggling and smiling, with the caption, "Laugh it off!" I am afraid that if we had to undergo the same conditions today, we simply could not do it.
Eh, digi, if you're running for your life, it's wonderfully focussed. You'll either make it to safety or you won't, but there's no time to get distracted enough for any sort of breakdown.
But a divorce is a long, drawn-out, (usually) self-imposed agony during which you're still supposed to live your life "normally". You can't put everything else on hold while you take care of it.
No one blames you for missing a day of work while you're escaping from a burning building.
Wars are long and drawn-out, like divorce, but at least you have the comradery of all your neighbors suffering the same things.
Great post, Jimbob.
Paul, true. Divorces are like everything else in life - they come on a spectrum. I have seen particularly nasty ones that indeed could cause a "breakdown" (and I won't discount that there are sensitive litigants out there who are not so much emotionally affected by the divorce, but have emotional issues to begin with and so the divorce or new job or wayward teenage child triggers their upset), but I have also seen a lot where - and I think I speak for many attorneys in my profession - your client is making it all the so much harder because they refuse to grow up. Or accept the fact that they made poor decisions in the past that result in current consequences. I note you say, "(usually) self imposed." Unfortunately, that is very true.
I am not saying that everyone has to face a divorce as a stern-faced stoic. The parties should feel remorse and grief because it is the death of a marriage. But too often I see someone falling apart over an issue like who gets the wide-screen TV, which consequently runs up attorney fees - and that is NOT how I want to make my money.
Good news, though - collaborative divorce is becoming popular and I for one endorse it. I think I will do a posting on that. It really promotes divorce without the venom . . . and the high financial cost.
Post a Comment