Dec. 31, 2002 - 15:00 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Crystal Ball

Here is the brink, the edge it is. A whole new year ahead of us. My resolutions ? Make 'em and break 'em is the way it seems to go with me. But its certainly worth a try. Stay on my medications faithfully, been doing that but it is worth going for the gold and staying on them. Stay alcohol free, with help from above I am doing so and one day at a time I will continue on that path. Get more exercise - - whoa, just a dern minute ! I gotta do that ? Okay, I will try. What more than just raising a fork to my mouth ? Ice cream here I come.

'Tain't funny McGee, I know and truly I hope that in many ways I do a better job of being a human than I have in the past, which includes being fair to me, that guy in my skull who keeps nattering at me and whining for a break now and then. I guess mainly maybe my aim should be to be more commonsense in all things this coming year. Including not blowing my stack about items in the news, which even holding my breath won't probably happen. It is a good thought by not liking, to be meek and mild.

How will it go with our country now ? Are we going to continue to fight depression, scandal, drought and other troublesome things by making war ? I don't really think that is a way to run a railroad or a country but it appears that is the direction we are headed. I still can't see that it will help us keep from being hungry, cold, ill clad and sick by sending our men to some foreign land to die for the cause. Maybe I just don't know the whole story, could that be it ?

What other things are in store for us ? Funds for education keep getting cut back, Medicaid is being cut back, unemployment keeps growing and another 800,000 people have no job nor any kind of assistance from feds or states on top of the million whose bennies have run out. So is the solution for our ills to open up our country to more oil drilling in places not heretofore allowed ? Open up more land to cut trees ? Cut corporate taxes yet again ? Seemns that with tax cuts the greedy boys have taken our country to the cleaners. It doesn't seem that any one, any organization or arm of the law is doing anything constructive to get back the loot that has been wrested from working folks. How in the heck can these huge estates and imposing edifices built by the robber barons be sold in today's market to recover much for the people who got stiffed. I don't see that a heavy prison sentence is a complete solution. But get the money back, pull it in from off shore bank accounts, Swiss accounts, open this thing up and recover what can be had that is now hid.

A dreamer I am, who hopes to see people at peace, helping each other and biting the bullet when necessary - without complaint - as we did during the depression, as we did during World War Two. The thought of doing without the goodies of life is a grungy thing to consider, but maybe we will have to do some of that to get once more on an even keel. I don't have concrete solutions, but can readily see that there are already many biting the bullet so hard that their teeth are rapidly getting closer together.

I would like very much to go into 2003 with a joyous spirit, having serenity and equanimity, seeing that things are getting fixed up to run. But, you know even looking hard, squinting already, I can't see much good in my Crystal Ball . . . . . . . . . . .

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