All for Nothing

My cousin Ronnie was 19 years old when he died in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. He arrived there in August 1969. Forty five days later he was dead, drowned in a rushing river while trying to cross it with a heavy pack on his back.

Recently I checked for Ronnie's name on www.VIRTUALWALL.org, where names and basic information are available through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It shows, for example, that he was in the 11th Infantry, his body was recovered, he was a ground casualty, he received a posthumous promotion, and where his name can be found on the Wall in Washington, D.C. All of this is informative, but it doesn't help to bring back the cheerful, intelligent boy I remember so well from the many times we visited him and his family on their Wisconsin farm.

I ask anyone to tell me why he died so far away from home. Does anyone remember why the U.S. went to Vietnam? Why we stayed there? Why we allowed the years to go by as young men died and were maimed by the many thousands? When anyone can answer those questions truthfully, I ask why we went to Afghanistan and Iraq, why we stay there, and why we allow the years to go by as young men and women die and are maimed by the many thousands.

Ronnie would have been 60 years old this year. He did not die to defend our country. He did not die to protect his family. He did not die working on the family farm like his uncle Jerry did. He did die to protect the military industrial complex. He did die to protect politicians. He did die to protect oil interests. He did die to satisfy old men's fantasies. My cousin's death, all for nothing.

Ronnie's mother died a few years after her son, at age 48, a heart attack, they said. We all said she died from a broken heart.

Have I Got A Deal For You

The wild ride the stock market took this past week was reported by major news outlets with some anchors and reporters asking if 401(k)s are at risk. Duh.

The stock market is gambling, pure and simple. People put their money in the market because they want and expect a greater return on it than what they can get at an FDIC-protected bank. They gamble that over the long run they'll get more out of the market than in a CD, for example. They gamble that they are too uninformed to make good judgments about their own money. They gamble that others are so very smart and will keep their own best interests in mind when handling their money.

Personally, I don't like giving over my money to someone else to decide where they want to place it. I did at one time, just like so many, many others. But these days there are too many variables, too much uncertainty, too many crooks, too many liars. If I want to gamble, I'd have a lot more fun going to the casinos where they offer great buffets and free drinks. At least there I'd have the fun of pulling the slots myself and not giving over everything to Wall Street and Main Street charlatans to play around with, making themselves rich. Cowardly, maybe. Able to sleep soundly each night, for certain.

The Devil Is in the Details

To those idiots who want the federal government to run healthcare and health insurance, energy, the economy, housing, banking, employment and labor, retirement income, education, urban planning, domestic and international trade, and just about every other human activity under the sun, I say wake up and smell the coffee.

I pull a mailer from the U.S. Postal Service out of the mailbox telling me that Saturday, May 8, is the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, run by the National Association of Letter Carriers and the USPS. What is this, I ask myself. I read that the USPS letter carriers will be collecting non-perishable foods to help hungry and poor families in the community. The mailer asks us to put our food donations next to our mailboxes on Saturday, May 8, before our letter carriers arrive with the day's mail. The carriers will take the food to the Post Office, where it will be sorted and then delivered to local food banks and pantries.

What a nice idea, I say to myself. I figure that I have a bunch of canned food I can donate, and head in to bag it up.

And then it hits me.

What day do you suppose I get this mailer delivered to my mailbox?

Drill, Baby, Drill

The recent oil rig explosion and resulting spill were and are very unfortunate. Lives were tragically lost and the environment has been at least temporarily harmed. Today's oil drilling industry takes numerous precautions to safeguard the drilling "footprint." No system is foolproof; accidents will always happen. The pertinent question is, How often? In the case of offshore explosions and spills, not often at all.

But listening to the uproar over drilling offshore, one would think those critics never bought gasoline, ink, crayons, bubble gum, dishwashing liquid, deodorant, eyeglasses, CDs, DVDs, tires, ammonia, or even heart valves.

Cleaner energies should be developed, and they will be. That is the direction in which the developed world is moving. But before these newer, cleaner, more efficient energies are implemented, we can't just stop using oil, willy-nilly.

Today, here and now, we need oil, and so we have to continue looking for it and drilling -- and buying it from other countries. Sensible people would rather not have to buy oil from other countries, especially since most of those countries are not very friendly to us otherwise. So let's keep drilling for oil, while doing our best to safeguard our refinery crews and our landscapes.