Helmets and Life

In my lifetime we have decided that it is necessary to wear helmets if you ride a motorcycle, work in construction, ride a bicycle, ski, snowboard, or climb mountains.  If the pioneers came west today, their covered wagons would come with seat belts and they would be wearing ear protection, eye protection, knee pads, elbow pads, helmets, face masks and carrying insurance against Indian attacks and a life vest for river crossings.

Has anybody stopped to think where this is all heading?  Life is extremely risky.  It is a mixture of good and bad.  By insulating ourselves against all risk, we are losing what we are trying to secure - life.  Love and heartbreak are two sides of the same coin.  You cannot experience one without the risk of the other.  Death and injury are certainly unpleasant experiences, but they are part of life.  Without the unpleasant parts of life, we have only lived a half-life.  A short full life is infinitely better than a long empty life protected from all harm. 

Take the Damn helmets off.  Unbuckle your seat belts.  Feel the wind in your hair.  Live for a few seconds before you die.

The Enemy Within

Much is being made in the media and by certain politicians about the fact that more than 3000 service men have died in Iraq, since the war began, nearly 4 years ago.  That is longer than WWII, which killed 300,000 US Service men.  Since the beginning of the Iraq war, 62,000 people were murdered and in 2005, alone 43,200 were killed in traffic accidents in the US.  What is important to the media is apparently not people dying, but how they die. 

This myopic view of world events that is focusing on this issue is encouraging the terrorists and helping their cause, while endangering the lives of our forces over seas.  It takes no great intellect to understand that if you want the US out of Iraq, focus on killing the military and the US media will see that the troops are withdrawn.  As a result, of this media blitz more US soldiers have been killed in the last year than any year previous.  The media is painting targets on the backs of our young men and women in Iraq.  Buy a paper and kill a son or daughter of our country.