What a difference a year makes...

Well, it's now mid-September and so much has changed in a year... Monday was the one year anniversary of the day my dad passed away, and I can't believe it's been a year already. I wonder how I got through it without him, I miss him so much. And then I think about all the changes in this country in just a year and I'm astounded. We have a black president, and although I'm a conservative and a Republican so that apparently makes me racist, I think it's pretty cool that our country finally voted in a black man for President of the United States. But that's as far as it goes. Although I pray a lot that God will change his heart, I can find very little to agree on with our current president. And with each passing day, and another news story about something that's coming up, I have to say I'm more than a little worried about the way things are going. I'm dumbfounded that so many people can be up in arms about healthcare, and government spending, and what's being done about terrorism, and to our president and the Dems in Congress, it's NO BIG DEAL? I can't believe how it's just brushed aside, made to be the issues of the ignorant, the naive, and yeah, RACIST people. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist, but I can't believe that every little thing that is not in lock step with this administration is written off as being the opinions of stupid racist people. I can't believe people in the highest places in government in this country think they know better than those that hired them (although I have to say I'm really glad that my congressman and state senator are republicans...) All the problems with the CIA are troubling too. I'm not saying that they probably always did the right thing, but we haven't been hit in 8 years since 9-11 and I'll take a couple uncomfortable terrorists over that any day. I sat and watched a special on 9-11 Friday that had the footage from that day and I felt it all over again. The shock and horror as that plane crashed into the second tower, the disbelief over the towers falling... All the people killed. I'm still mad that it happened, but I would never think for one minute that the Bush Administration was ever responsible for it. Like Glenn Beck says, we need to remember how we all felt on 9-12. When all Americans rallied together to show terrorists that they may have hurt us, but we don't go down. We need to remember that, we need this administration to remember that, but it seems like they are more worried about what the terrorists think of us, what other countries think of us. Like we are in some global popularity contest that we have to win. What's the grand prize? Woo Hoo, Iran likes us now, but they'll still blow us off the face of the earth if they get the chance. Who cares if other countries like us? I just can't imagine it's smart to let the world know about our intelligence services, and that our house speaker wants to tear them apart to save face. Why must we tell all the CIA secrets, but can't be transparent when it comes to the legislation that is or may be passed by our Congress! I understand why we have elderly people and soccer moms that never spoke up about anything going on in the country, making themselves be heard because we are all be branded as giant idiots that can't take care of ourselves. I can't say I'm totally satisfied with where I am in life, but I cannot say that I'm not proud that I earned most of what I have. Yeah, it might be nice not to pay for something, but you always pay for it in the end. So I wonder a lot about what my dad would think if he had been around this last year. He was 70 when he died, fought the cancer that took him for 5 years and didn't stop fighting it until the very very end. He was a farmer and worked for Kennametal and was a proud man that wouldn't take a handout. When he retired we told him he was doing more work in retirement than when he had a full-time job! If something needed done, he did it. He was a good guy that had no enemies, everyone liked him. He was a man's man, loved to hunt, fish, raced cars... What would he think? Lehman Bros went down the day he died... Our lives seemed to crumble when he died, and the rest of the country started going downhill too. The stock market dived, people lost their retirement money, the car market tanked and then the government took it over. We passed a stimulus bill that didn't seem to do a darn thing. Unemployment keeps going up. What would he think? It's amazing how much can change in a year...