I came home this afternoon from running some errands and though I wasn’t in a bad mood, something was weighing on my stomach. I thought the problem was that I tried the new Mocha Malt Frappuccino at Starbucks, not very Atkins but couldn’t resist. That wasn’t it though, and when I was perusing the afternoon linkage from garret, I realized the problem. We’ve been chatting a bit about recent actions by the Bush Administration (sorry, g doesn’t provide easy permalinks to his discussion page) and that had me off a bit to start.
Then I read today’s SCOTUS Miranda ruling. My first thought after reading the linked article was, “This isn’t my America any more.” Hit me like a punch in the stomach. Of course, as my morning coffee partner would tell us, this never really was our America; the ones who do own it are simply no longer bothering to keep their machinations behind the curtain.
Conflicting actions and statements have confused me to the point where I just can’t understand any more. We invaded Iraq to clear Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, or something like that, the story keeps changing, but none of it was there. Now the more vocal Iraqis want us to leave–today!–except for those that want us to rebuild their power and water plants and then leave. Over in Africa, there’s so much war and misery but very little American attention and what there is of it mostly asks, validly I think, what can we do there to make a difference. And we can all wake up tomorrow sick and dying with SARS anyway, if a few superspreaders get past the thermal monitors at the airports in Asia.
All this is not even on the personal level, where I can’t help wondering what’s keeping me from getting a job. My honeymoon’s literally over, it was great, but now the fiscal reality is hitting me in the face. Networking, that’s the answer everyone says, but I guess I belong to the wrong network because the people I know who are getting jobs are changing industries or moving away from their families just to get a paycheck. But when I think outside the box, I get slapped down. Sure, for example, the biotech industry is growing, but even those companies want some relevant experience.
Enough! I wish I could just stop reading the front section of the newspaper but it seeps in around the edges anyway. Makes me unbelievably happy that I have Vivian for comfort and succor.
BillSaysThis 