How It's Playin In Peoria

 Putin and Russia are a mess. The entire Ukrainian war is a meat-grinder of a mess. And we (the US) seem intent on keeping it going, like paying for another season of a show you like watching. It's all hideous. I see nothing right being done from any country involved in this. Nothing. Everyone is doing the wrong thing, and telling the world it's the right thing.

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Hey, I'm all for saving the planet, but I'll wait on my electric vehicle until we get all the battery-production problems sorted out and it's safe to bring these bikes and cars into the home.  You can't press ahead as a team on this planet, while leaving so many human lives behind...

Some of y'all have enough -- you can't carry the weight of your blessings, can't maintain what you got, but you're still greedily grabbing for more.  When is enough enough?  When will you stop gathering your grains and eat only today's bread with grace for what you've been given?

Soon I hope.  Some of y'alls expansive globe-trotting and consumption habits are killing us.  You too, but you just won't acknowledge what your bodies are telling you, it seems.  Have to dominate even the capsule carrying you around.  Because you always know better.  

ok.  keep grabbing for the rainbows then... God won't smite ya. but maybe nature in time will...

(that's what the Youngs coming up today understand, and will scold you for in time, I suspect.  They'd be content with a lot less, you know. They haven't acquired adult tastes and habits until the Elders drill that stuff into (some of) them.))

Live Simply That Others Might Simply Live.  

Honestly, the best thing some of you could do right now is start spending your money on honest products and people.  Transfer the wealth yourself -- your could start now, purchasing and employing modestly that which would help you, and nont accumulating so much that you struggle to care for.  "Give it away, give it away, give it away now..."  Except by buying, and spending -- everywhere you can like flea markets and craft sales and baked goods and rummage sales and "chance" raffles and non-wealthy kids' lemonade stands, etc, etc, etc: put it directly into the hands of people, not into contributions craftily summarized at tax-avoidance time.  You don't have to be Christian to understand the practical implications of the Christian gospel:  give not just to the needy, but to the working souls who struggle and do not qualify as victims or those in need of a handout with minor children, abusive spouses, controling boyfriends/roommates/landlords, etc.   

Reward initiative.  Pay the providers (not the swipers).  Encourage good habits not by tilting the field (this is why the Hunter Biden saga makes suckers of everyone trying to play an honest game...) but by letting those who game the system lose when their bets and strategies, instincts and initiatives fail.

Maybe that's what the Titan tragedy made clear so satisfyingly:  Nature doesn't reward the Losers like capitalism does.  Rich men still can pay the price for their mistakes.  Sometimes, not everybody can be bailed out, and maybe they too will be nudged toward making... Better Choices when their failures cost them the way they do those who can't always buy their way out of their mistakes.  (see the Hunter Biden story, again.  We do.  He's our age, he's pulled all that, and he gets to fly in Daddy's plane -- the presidential plane that rightly belongs to the American people?  Nuts to that.  Nick Kristof couldn't garner a majority to vote for his preferred p.o.v. out here, I don't think.  ie/love your kid(s) sure, but Nobody is So Special -- even a motherless son -- that he doesn't have to grow up and work for it on his own eventually... Can't he dig a ditch at least? Labor for child support or rent?  Nobody bought that "hey dad and jill:  look at me, I'm a painter!" anymore than we believe he was hired for his specialized knowledge of intricate Ukrainian business deals either...  it's the connections, baby.  Hold on and ride em as long as you can, I guess, but don't mistake your connections for real-world skills and talents just because you've got a platform, today, kids...  Hth.)