Hell In A Handbasket

Okay, I know everyone is thinking that I've evolved from some sort of liberal into an old man who is sitting on his front porch, smoking a pipe, and telling all of the kids that the country is going straight to hell in a handbasket because they don't have to walk twenty miles to school, uphill, during the worst blizzard of the Twentieth Century because of the odd title of this particular blog.

Guess what? That's exactly what this blog is going to be about. When one pulls out the paper today, one is stuck reading all sorts off odd news. In case you're anything like President Bush and don't read the newspaper, let me give you the highlights of this week's news:

• According to the Evansville Courier & Press Opinion page many women are going to vote for Brad Ellsworth for Congress because he looks better than Representative Hostettler. Granted, Hostettler's so dumb that he probably wouldn't pass a competency hearing on his firearms charge, but, nonetheless, appearance counts more than substance. Go figure.
• According to the Washington Post, New York Times, and just about every other major news outlet, the Taliban has reconstituted such a serious threat in Southern Afghanistan that NATO is needing reinforcements. Remember that guy Bin Laden, you know the one who is the head of those morons who brought down the World Trade Center. NATO needs reinforcement to fight his Islamic Fascists, to quote the President. Wait, all our troops are in Iraq. Sorry, our bad.
• The weirdest story has to be out of Milwaukee, where even the International Herald Tribune is reporting this very vulgar crime story. Apparently, an eleven year old girl, who was born with HIV, was sexually assaulted by twenty boys as a sixteen year old girl told the boys what to do during the assault. If that wasn't bad enough, apparently, the guardian, a forty-year old uncle, will probably also be charged, as he has had sex with the eleven-year old girl.

Does anyone need anymore proof that the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Well, if you can brush aside this week's news, and these are just the easily identifiable fruitcake stories, than you're a better person than I.

Seriously though, the way this country is going, something has to be done, and there are no easy answers. Americans face Muslim extremists who want to destroy our very way of life, and to a degree, they're succeeding, as the President has to end our liberties to "make us safe." Our military is stretched so thin that if the military were a person, it would be Calista Flockhart.

Meanwhile, our schools cannot compete with graduates from other industrialized countries, our wages are stagnant, our country is becoming increasingly owned by overseas conglomerates, there is no guarantee that Americans can retire, and our debt is so much and owned by so many foreign investors that if the debt were ever called in, America would revert to a third world nation.

All the while, we just kick back, keep leading our lives as though nothing were wrong. Well, I'm sick and tired of just of picking out a few pieces of what's wrong, inserting a witty little remark, such as "that car was designed when Patton was slapping soldiers," and moving along to the next day in the hopes that hey, somebody might actually pick up on what I'm talking about.

So, I'm going to do something weird, as though the fact that I know all these obscure facts isn't weird enough. From this point forward, I'm going to write a quick little solution to each of the problems that face us, from a more economic point of view. Let's face it, the only thing that greases the wheels in this country is the green stuff with Benjamin's portrait on it. Hopefully, it won't be too boring.