Maybe she's right

This is something I wrote in April 2007. I don't think there has been much change.

My wife thinks that I'm turning into an angry old man. I hope that I am not, but sometimes I do get a tad irate. For example, the media furor over the sad events at Virginia Tech illustrate quite clearly that we are becoming a nation that prefers to live in a dream world where everything is or should be wonderful.

Fortunately, I've been away for the past few days and have had little access to the 'news', but from what I've seen, heard and read about the killings there is a subtext to this 'news': these events were preventable if - the college administration acted faster, guns were banned, immigrants were not allowed here,..... You name it; something bad like this does not happen in our world.

There is always a reason as to why bad things should not happen. But, son of a gun, bad things continue to happen. A child will die from cancer no matter what the doctors try; an old man will develop Alzheimer's; thousands of people will die in automobile accidents; someone will kill friends and strangers. These things have happened since man emerged from the slime and will continue to happen until he goes back. I am not saying that we should not use our brains and talents to try to prevent bad things from happening. However, we cannot always succeed.

This belief - if only something were different bad things would not happen to us - is predicated on the assumption that somehow we are entitled to live a dream, even though we reside on a planet that is riven with risk and difficulties.

The belief is manifested in many aspects of life. Everyone should get a college degree, not necessarily an education, but a degree. To me, this makes as much sense as everyone should be a top notch athlete. Not everyone needs or wants a college degree. Many of us can use our native talents fully without four years at an institution of higher learning.

In our world everyone should do whatever it takes to be beautiful - shorten your nose, puff up your lips, remove part of your digestive tract, spends thousands on personal trainers.

In our world, everyone should own a house. You can lie about your income and your assets but you can find some greedy mortgage broker who will get you into a house.

In our world, we can ignore our individual share, $144,000, of the national debt or the fact that we keep setting record trade deficits.

In our world, we can survive and prosper without considering the rising power of China and India.

My wife may be right. I'd better stop now.