We Were Warned

"There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter: From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing."

-Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

You Have to Mean It

It's Christmas day and I'm sitting at home watching the kids play. "The Family Man" is on TV. This is the Nicolas Cage vehicle about a Wall Street whiz who gets a glimpse of what his life might have been had he stayed with his girlfriend instead of taking a prestigious internship in London.

I get it. Family is where it's at. And even though I've seen the movie before and I know where all the sappy parts are and I know what the message is I find myself stopping the kids for hugs practically every time they wander by.

The message is a good one. It gets a lot of lip service in movies and TV shows like this one. But when it comes down to it, you really have to mean it.

My kids drive me insane most of the time. When they aren't at their favorite pass time they fill me with more than enough joy to make it through the insanity. My wife never drives me insane. So my joy is all the more full.

So though my days are so often resets of the day before, the bright, bright moments carry me through. My family carries me through. Love carries me through.

And I mean it.

Life is Not Fair

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

-Aristotle