My New Year's Wish . . .

That somebody would care. That our country would heed this wake up call . . . because things are not getting better but worse, because the unemployment rate is still rising, because companies are turning their back on service. Instead we have come to rely on mechanics still needing to be defined. Our lives rely on robotics.

Static telephone lines repeat the same message until they say please call again and then hang-up.We push buttons online and our packages arrive at amazing speed although not by the US Post Office, which is soon to be a dying entity, the same goes for our local newspapers, the same goes for the local video store. Even Walmart has gotten into the act. The once over-powering retailer has thinned their once bulging rows of merchandise, so much, that a shopper can actually move through aisles without knocking off half a clothing fixture or tumbling packages to the ground.

Of course there is the last of a dying breed, gone forever, the last tobacco state in America to enforce no smoking in restaurants. The home of RJR  - though the once tall and foreboding landmark where fortunes were made will soon see a new owner. Perhaps turned into a retail, office and loft complex, or maybe a hospital for former tobacco users. Maybe Chantix will set up new headquarters and let those who were once taken in by smoking benefit from some of those dollars that government fined over.

There are more changes in store for us, but this too is life. For me, I am grateful just to be alive, to be living in a country that is not a battlefield.

With the exception of litter, of trash, and ignorant people why don’t care and who toss their garbage outside their moving vehicle, down highways, byways, quiet streets, and newly mowed lawns. At least it’s not bombs, or does anyone care?