May You Live In Interesting Times

We are definitely living in interesting times right now. The US economy is in turmoil. Corporate greed and shady business practices have finally caught up with capitalism...witness the meltdown on Wall Street right now. Also, people trying to live the American dream without the means to pay for it (which is 95% of the people in this country) are finally having their bills come due. Declining home prices, a falling stock market, and piles of debt are leaving people in the dust. Maybe we did not need that giant house, the four gas-guzzling cars and the big screen TV with surround sound. Maybe we should not buy things that we cannot afford. Yet we see the government operate in debt each and every day. How can this country run on debt?

The environment is in peril. The arctic is going to be ice-free in the spring by 2012. This is years ahead of what scientists thought only a short while ago. Increasingly frightening predictions are made by the day and yet we do nothing. Tornadoes in Atlanta anyone? Drought-ridden Georgia trying to redraw its border with Tennessee in order to lay claim to the Tennessee river. With an exponentially increasing population, along with an ever increasing threat to our resources, what magnitude catastrophe has to hit before people take real notice that we are not playing a game.

Increasing world tensions. Witness the protests over Chinese rule in Tibet. Tibetans are traditionally a peaceful people, steeped in the Buddhist tradition. But you can only step on a people for so long before they grow weary and start fighting back. The fighting in the Middle East. The genocide in Darfur. The United States bullying and telling everyone what to do. When will it end? Things are only going to get worse as resources grow more scarce. I personally do not want to live in interesting times, do you?