WHO CARES ?

Everything bombards us at a million miles an hour every waking moment. It seems like just yesterday that everyone with a computer and internet access was becoming a billionaire. Now the whole world is broke beyond poverty and/or redemption.

The political climate in every city, county, state and region of the country is sinking into a deeper malaise than at any time during the Carter administration. Every single thing we were brought up to believe as industrious Americans has blown up in our faces and burned our buildings down. Literally burned them to the ground. Our banks are failing, our homes are foreclosed upon, and our leading industries are in bankruptcy.

The loudest and most foolish of us make the most ridiculous noise. That would be the extremists on all sides in all media who stand to profit the more we fail. Peace, tranquility, and prosperity are not good for ratings. Appealing loudly and repeatedly to the lowest common denominator of easily manipulated morons pays tens of millions of dollars a year in broadcast contracts.

Our easily manipulated emotions and non-existent attention spans make it easy for us to be controlled by those who are sucking us dry. Our 20% obesity rate among our children and frightening rise in the rates of adult onset diabetes speaks to our fat, lazy sloth. Young teens are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in frightening numbers. We are resembling the fat useless blobs of humanity in the movie "Wall-E" every day.

Meanwhile, wars of our making burn down entire regions of the world while we barely pay attention. We click the remote to watch Oprah cry about Michael Jackson's demise. We reminisce about a love song to a killer rat while the death toll of American soldiers flitters by our glazed eyes unnoticed.

We wonder if those were real live bugs in Patti Blago's martinis in the jungle while we never question our own shallowness & stupidity. We obsess about what outfits Sarah Palin wears while never questioning our congressmen about the pork they attached to education bills.

What have we turned in to? How did this happen? How did we allow this to happen? How did we set off on a mission to be the city on the hill, the beacon of light for the whole world, and turn into sideshow clowns? Is there anything we can do to right the ship before it capsizes?

If there was ever a time to seek the answers to these questions, it's now. We have spent every cent of our goodwill capital on every imaginable front and have borrowed 25x beyond that. We have shown no intention of ever slowing down our consumption or dealing with our creditors honestly. Our fat, wobbly, numb, gout-ridden legs don't even know they're about to collapse. The feeling is gone, and we'd barely notice anyway.

We're contributing to our collective suicide while barely paying attention.

Who cares?