Top Of The Morning!

As a person born in May, my world tends to revolve around things that feel, taste or look good. I love what one can do with money when one has it. I haven't, lately, but I like to pay attention to the way other people spend their's. Seems they weren't spending much more than I did and they waited until the last minute. The only lines I had to stand in were in Costco and the numbers reflect that.

If you disregard the car bombings, lack of electricity, suicide bombings, poor food and water, the more than occasional kidnapping and torture in the neighborhood and throw in poor access to healthcare, life is pretty good if you're a midwife in Iraq. If you are a doctor, not so good, you are taking your life in your hands. Which is why over 12,000 have left the country voluntarily. Two thousand of the them have been killed in what looks like a coordinated effort to return Iraq to the Middle Ages. Maybe they shouldn't have greeted us with oranges and flowers.

I had to go to Social Security to replace mom's card and then we went to Social Services to sign her up for Medi-Cal. Let me say that I have been to other countries where there were more "Americans" in the train station than there were in these two agencies. I was the only black person for hours. Just an observation.

The WSJ has a long and extremely boring article on the business ramifications of the incoming Congress. Blah, blah. There is going to be a raise in the minimum wage and Big Oil is going to launch an ad campaing trying to explain why they deserve to gouge the little man. Because it's a global market, hands down the one of the worst justifications for thievery I've ever heard. My parents taught me that just because everyone else was doing it, was not a valid excuse.

Bush is contemplating a bump, not a surge. Isn't that nice? We have passed the three thousand mark in Iraq without a serious discussion of what it means to survive. The armor protects the large vital organs (brain not included) from most of the effects of bullets and explosions but at what cost? If you've lost two legs, an arm, have severe brain injuries and then they have to amputate your penis, what kind of life is that? Are we so desperate for bullet stoppers that commanders are willing to have people who might snap at any moment, in their unit? It looks like it.