To Hell in a Handbasket......

That's where the world is going right now. Why do people feel the need to go into a school and kill innocent people? Why are elected officials allowed to inappropriately pursue young boys for years without being held accountable? Why can politicians lie, steal, and cheat with seemingly no repercussions? And then why is a young boy in Boulder, Colorado slapped with a $250 fine for playing hackiesack (sp?) in the Pearl Street Mall? C'mon, guys! According to the police officer he was "releasing a projectile". A hackiesack, for crying out loud. A small bag filled with beans!!! That's not a projectile.

So, this is where our hard-earned tax dollars go? I am paying the salary of police officers who are too busy harassing hackiesack players to focus on the real issue at hand. Being a foreigner in this country, it is sometimes hard to understand how things work here. One of my favorite sayings is this: "America is the land of unlimited possibilities and impossible limitations". I can pay taxes, but I can't help decide what happens with the money I pay to Uncle Sam. I guess I could renounce my dutch citizenship and become an american, but with the current animosity towards americans in the world I am a little hesitant to relinquish my dutch passport. It makes me feel a little safer when I'm travelling abroad. To parafrase a line from the Austin Powers movie "Goldmember"; "nobody hates the dutch".

I'm climbing on my soapbox again. Here's why. I came to this country the legal way. The legal way involves jumping through a lot of legal hoops. It takes years, several trees were sacrificed for the copious paper trail, lawyers were paid sums big enough to send 3 kids to college, and I was subjected to medical tests, background checks, etc. That's fine with me. However, it irks me to no end that so many people are not doing it the legal way. I end up paying for their health care, I put their kids through school, I am SOoL if they crash into my car and carry no insurance. Don't get me wrong, I understand their need to better their lives. I know where they come from. I have travelled extensively in central and south america, and in the far east, and africa. I even got married in Guatemala. My mom used to live in Guatemala, Colombia, Hong Kong, and Suriname (former Dutch Guyana). I have seen extreme poverty, and my heart hurts for the people there. I am so incredibly blessed to have been born where I was born, into a life of plenty. That said, I think we are going about the problem in the wrong way. We need to help improve the situation for millions of people in their homeland, thereby eliminating the need for them to tear themselves away from their loved ones to make ends meet in a land far away. Having illegal aliens eeking out a meager existence in the fringes of our society is nothing more than a bandaid solution if it can be called a solution at all. Building a 700 mile long wall along our 2,000 mile border with Mexico is a spectacular waste of taxpayer money.

Election time is upon us. Nobody with a tv set can doubt that. We are inundated with negative campaign ads touting the various character flaws of the opposing candidates. How this practice can be allowed is an enigma to me. I just hope all you legal voters are dedicated to get to the core of the issues at hand and select the right candidate, being it left or right. Most of all; let your voice be heard. Get informed, and vote.