Or is it just me...?

I have been beleaguered of late, by a disturbing trend that the world is exhibiting, and that is of, to put it briefly, going to hell in a hand basket. There is no good place to start. I could mention Haiti, and the horrific natural disaster, and of course that would trail into how can Pat Robertson be such a world class anus in its wake. Then after I am done ranting about the idiocy of uber conservatism, and Fox News, and how the Rev. Robertson makes me embarrassed to admit I'm a Christian, I could easily segue into how the most liberal state in the USA just elected a Republican Senator, and how obvious it is to everyone involved that the liberal agenda is dead and we should just go back to letting the big corporations have their way with the world, like it was meant to be in the first place. Obviously, the b.o.d's. of these mega-corps know that the best interest of humanity is served by a bottom line showing profits in the billions. Right, well the Supreme Court just said it was, and so now legal precedent has been thrown out and re-set, and the doors of New Tammany Hall, forged by the hammers of the Oligarchs, will boldly and expensively bar the way to equality and justice for the little guy. Probably for the next century or so, if we last that long.

So what? How does this affect me. Personally, it probably won't, at least not until the mid-term elections later this year, when TV will become practically unbearable to watch because of all the political ads, which will no longer be required to have truth in them, only truth as the person (oh come on, who are we kidding, it's going to be a corporation!) who's paid for the air time sees it. Truth is subjective, this is America after all, and facts are not legally required for truth.

Not that I'm in favor of the Democrats mind you, because I don't know that there's ever been a political party anywhere that was able to take such a mandate of the people and sling it into such a hash as they have. Never has anyone been handed a bushel of lemons and turned it into pith and peel without even giving us a taste of the lemonade before. They didn't even bother to zest it, or peel a few twists for martini's! I could collectively use that kind of stiff drink, and so could I.

The earthquake in Haiti doesn't personally effect me either, though I do feel affected by such monumental human suffering, and I have twelve or thirteen fewer dollars in my pocket because I put it in a relief donation basket. I know someone who was close, in the Dominican Republic at the time, but he didn't feel the shockwave, and is back in the USA safe and sound.

Why then, do I feel so bothered by everything going on lately (read: right now). I can look back at a time when my parents or grandparents were about my age. Life wasn't any better, or the world more stable. We have the War on Terror, my folks had Vietnam going on, my grandparents, WWII. My folks saw the Watergate scandal unfold, my grandparents, the whole McCarthyism debacle in the 50's. Those events had a profound destabilizing effect on the political and macro economic state of the world. Natural disasters have been striking the Earth for at least the last 6000 years, and if you believe what anyone with a Ph.D. in Geology says, a smitch longer than that.

So this Abyssal Hand Basketitis (A.H.B.) that I've been experiencing lately is an anxiety born of what? Am I turning into Woody Allen? (I hope not, I'm goofy looking enough on my own, and I let all my Hollywood connections expire fifteen years ago, so I'm not likely to have a film made of it.)

The best I can come up with is that I'm getting old, and the older you get, the more crotchety and staid you get. Not that I wasn't always, because it could be argued that I have been. Oh bother, I guess it doesn't really matter much... I'll hang about this week trying to relax, and then it'll be back to the workaday grind. Just be thankful I have a workaday to grind at, I should tell myself. Besides, no one is actually reading this anyway, and even if they were, they shouldn't take it seriously or even to heart, because after all, I am... a Compleat Nutter.