Thursday, May 6, 2010

Day 142

It's been quite a while since I've been to Greece, but I still have fond memories of the time I spent there. The people in Greece are warm and friendly. The countryside is spectacular. I can't imagine a writer anywhere who wouldn't enjoy sitting outside with their typewriter and a glass of wine on a warm Santorini morning and looking out toward the Aegean Sea for inspiration. If I was working on my next novel, that's where I'd want to be anyway.

All week long, I've been watching the riots and protests in Greece on the TV news. I'd be mad too if I were living in Greece. The Greek people did nothing wrong. They were promised something that their government can no longer deliver and they don't understand why. I'm afraid the same thing could happen here if we aren't careful. Some future government might just decide to eliminate Social Security and Medicare when there is no more money to pay for it. With my luck, this probably won't happen until I'm old enough to actually need Social Security or Medicare. For my entire working life, something has been deducted from my paycheck every month to pay for these programs. They'd better not eliminate them. I've already paid. It's not my fault the government is in debt. If they'd ever asked me how they should spend all the money I've sent them in taxes over the years, I don't think we'd be trillions of dollars in the red right now. They never asked though, and I doubt they ever will.

I wonder what the world will be like in twenty years from now. Will today's turmoil be remembered as a minor blip on the radar screen, or does it foreshadow even greater unrest in the years ahead. When I was growing up in the 1960's I thought that it was probably the best time to be alive in the history of the earth. I was optimistic then and truly believed that anything was possible. I still think the 60's were a great time to be alive, but I'm not nearly as optimistic as I used to be. Who knows? Maybe the glass actually is still half full. All I know is that it's going to take a lot of Dalmatians to offset a day were the Dow goes down a thousand points and then "recovers" to only lose 348 points. How am I ever going to be able to retire?

Dalmatian of the Day

    Watch of the Day