Common Sense

When I was a kid I thought the world was basically a fairly decent, civilized, orderly place. My parents were outstanding, and actually I think my neighborhood was pretty good too. And my school too--of usually about 13 kids in as many of the eight grades they comprised, and, yes, we walked 1 1/2 miles in the snow.
And what do I think now? I don't have the words to describe my feelings. Yeah, I'm okay, more than okay personally, but the country isn't. I can scarcely believe what we're going through; I must be making it up. But our president says he will veto a bill if an anit-torture amendment is attached to it, while at the same time he is saying America does not torture people, and he appointed an Attorney General who found it okay for America to torture prisoners, and he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Europe to tell people that we don't torture or do rendition, even though it was all over the news a while back that we took a Canadian citizen off a plane in NY and sent him to--was it Syria?--where he says he was tortured. And there are camps all over the world where we send people to be tortured.
Just one more thing: what I was initially going to write about. People are mad if we wish anyone a Merry Christmas and other people are mad if we wish anyone Happy Holidays. But for a change I haven't heard an argument about a manger scene in front of the City and County Building, which is beautifully decorated for Christmas. Yeah, they say it's corny, and others say it's too Christian, but I like it. There's lots more, but I'll just say, get a life. And some common sense.