Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I'm generally optimistic about things...and a little cynical, I guess. But, given the way 2012 went I can't be too excited about what's in store for 2013. Here we are waiting for Congress to begin acting like adults and work out an agreement on the tax hike/fiscal cliff problem that they created some time ago...maybe last year? Of course they missed the deadline even though they had months to work out an agreement. They are incapable of behaving like responsible adults. Hey guys...in case you didn't hear the news, the election is over and people are tired of this crap.
They are not the only ones. We also have the ever-present menace of the NRA. I was once a member of the NRA back when they were concerned with hunter safety. Those days are gone. They are now primarily so immersed in the gun rights insanity that they can't make sense out of the daily tragedies of gun violence. Their solution to mass killings in schools is to place more guns in schools. Yeah, arm the teachers. I can't recall a single teacher I had that I would want to be part of a teacher swat team.
I lived next to a gun club for over 25 years and during that time the "sportsmen" went from weekend skeet shooting and dog training to "enthusiasts" firing automatic assault weapons at all hours of the day. It was common to have people shooting automatic rifles at 7 AM and on occasion it sounded like machine gun firing. The situation seemed to get more pronounced as guys came home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
We have had several mass killings this year but the Newtown school shootings seemed like it may have pushed us over the edge and we may stagger forward to some kind of assault weapon ban debate. Yeah, probably just a debate, sorry to say. I don't think anyone is talking about repealing the second amendment but we need to be rational and restrict the access and sale of assault weapons. We went to war over weapons of mass destruction but can't seem to get control of what is killing hundreds of people in this country. The news has been reporting sky-high sales of assault weapons since the latest school massacre. I doubt that these are sales to new gun owners but are more likely to be people who already own an arsenal of weapons who want to stock up before the party is over...like last call at the local bar, the drunks need one more for the road.
Another disturbing development in the last month are the two instances of people being pushed into the path of subway trains. We have managed to be civilized, more or less, when using public transportation for generations but now we have to be worried about someone pushing people on to the tracks.
Oh don't forget Mother Nature. She is really pissed off and is making things very difficult. We had a devastating drought for almost half the year. The damage probably won't be fully recognized for a while but when we have trees dying in the forests and crops burned to a crisp it can't be good. This was, once again, the hottest year on record. I think we say that every year lately. The drought was bad enough but then we have the super storm Sandy. Sandy seemed to be a new type of disaster...a hurricane that morphed into something altogether different...and worse. And still people claim that climate change and global warming are some kind of liberal pipe dream.
I could go on but it's too depressing. Farewell 2012. I hope we don't someday see you as the "good old days".
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