Everyone Has an Opinion

My friend (a liberal unfortunately) sent me something from the Opinion section of cbsnews.com entitled, "An Iranian Misadventure" by Matthew Yglesias (The American Prospect). In this article, he rants and raves about how the current administration should have done this and should have done that. He, like all liberals, claim that all has gone wrong and no good has come of it and that all the decisions were incorrect. He tries to tell us that the Iranians could have been negotiated with right after 9-11, a treaty or some sort of agreement.

It seems that liberals have very few effective weapons in their political arsenals, but one of their best is hindsight and of course to discredit their opponents through character assassination. As I recall, there were very few if any constructive suggestions on how to deal with the Iranians or anyone else for that matter shortly after 9-11. All the blowhards and their opinions were rendered silent. Where was he? Where was all this great advise?

I would venture to say that they were hiding in dark places and under the floor boards as usual, awaiting the first scent of garbage or dirty laundry so that the insect-like creatures could then scurry out from their unatural hiding places to once again attack with reckless abandon.

Last weekend, I happened to gaze across the field next to where I had taken my family ice skating and what I saw was a most telling vision: 5 Democrats with outstretched wings trying to soak in a little warmth from the winter sun, and perhaps 10 others circling over a carcass not too far away. I believe that the great symbol of that party, the Jackass, should be upgraded to include a vulture riding atop the Ass's ass.

I saw some grafitti the other day. The "writer" quoted a famous talk show host, "liberalism is a mental disorder". To which an obvious liberal sympathizer wrote, "at least we have a mind of our own". My reply, "Yes, you have a mind of your own. One. And it's name is Ted Kennedy."

When I continue I'll also explain why a treaty or agreement at the time would not have worked anyway.

Crisis of Faith

In the wake of a death in the family, a crisis of faith looms...

To be continued...

Dealing with Grief by Bryan Gueri

For those of you who have experienced a loss, getting a grip on "reality" can be a most difficult process especially if the loss was sudden and the loved one relatively young.

For me, it's been a tough road even after a year and a half. "Experts" estimate that the grieving time is about a year, but even today our loss seems so surreal.

I lost my mother on June 2, 2004. It's been a nightmare. She was only 64. She had Lupus and up until a couple weeks prior to her death, she was vibrant, active with her granddaughters' school activities and preparing to make the trip from the west coast to the east coast to visit us.

I received a phone call Thursday, the 27th that she had been admitted to the hospital, released and two days later back in with poor prognosis. My wife and I packed hurredly, bundled our daughter up and were out of the house whithin a few hours of the horrifying news. I drove the 3000 miles from east to west virtually non-stop leaving Thursday night and arriving Saturday morning, May 29. She was gone Wednesay, June 2 at approx. 10:00 a.m. Thinking back to those days, it is very surprising how much the mind and body can indure during an emergency like that.

"Surviving," if you can call it that, are her three children (2 daughters and her son, me), her husband, two grandchildren and her daughter-in-law, mom's three sisters, and just a huge number of people (family and friends) who loved her so much.

In the wake of that event, even after all this time, I find myself distraught over the fact that I can't be closer (geographically) to the rest of my family. Who knows, I might be able to find employment in California easily enough (since I am also a software developer), but the cost of moving from coast-to-coast is beyond our reach right now. I'm afraid everyone's going to get too old too fast or we'll lose someone else before we get a chance to show them how much we really do appreciate them and to spend the time with them that we didn't spend with mom... never having given it a thought that she wouldn't live forever.

This is still difficult to talk about. The story will continue... it gets worse before it gets better.

I learned a hard lesson about life... I guess in the back of my mind I always thought my parents would live forever.