basric | LJIDOL prompt FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

I admit I had no idea what "FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS" meant. My life is submersed in health care. So I turned to the internet "Problems from living in a wealthy industrialized nation that third world countries would probably roll their eyes at." DebacleAwaits. Oh.

I have traveled extensively around the world. Some for pleasure, some for work. While traveling for pleasure I 'endured' not being able to use my hair dryer because the wattage could blow the entire hotels lighting system. Traveling through Italy from Venice to Capri finding a bathroom was an ordeal, then they didn't have seats and finally you had to spend five minutes figuring out how to flush it. And ice, just ask for ice and you are looked at like you are crazy. Insisting--you might get a few cubes in a glass that melt at the first breath of warm coke. In Germany we spent an evening in a beer-garden and all night I listened to the men in the tour complain about not being able to have a cold beer. Don't misunderstand, I LOVE Italy. I loved Europe. I love the history, trudging through ruins, eating gelato, dodging motorbikes in Rome, the Mediterranean Sea around Capri, the Alps.

But I AM, as most Americans are, spoiled. We expect when we turn on the tap to have safe clean water, we assume our food is safe to eat, our roads are maintained, decent teachers for our children, all the electricity we wish to pay for to use as we wish, ice-cold drinks. Cell phone reception, and when we hit the enter key we expect our site to pop up on our screen immediately.

I am SO guilty of the last one. I have no patience with the internet at all. I, more than most Americans, am one of the few (compared to our entire population) who should not take these privileges for granted. I have been to those third world countries, true it was usually after one of mother nature's temper tantrums--hurricanes, mudslides, tsunamis, earthquakes. I was angry at the computer not ten minutes ago; AND I was was in Haiti only a year ago. Now that place is HELL on Earth

I am horrified to discover I am more like the Americans today whose motto is 'What have you done for me lately.'

So I take a minute to think of something besides trauma, like our government, our economy, our schools, our children's future. And I realize how easily our great country is on a slide backwards and instead of being a world leader is becoming a second world power. Our money is de-valued all over the world. America is reviled.

We de-regulate oil so every oil company had billions...BILLIONS of dollars for their shareholders. We reward those on Wall Street and the banking industry for kicking the legs out of our economy, we give huge incentives for companies to help third world countries by firing American workers and destroying entire city economies.

It seems to me, my opinion now, that we need to get those seventy and eighty year old Representatives and Senators, some who don't show up for HALF the votes during their term, out of office and put some young warrior blood in their place. It's time for Americans to get off their collective, complacent asses and get out to find out what our government is doing AND vote. It's time for change or in ten or twenty years, we will find our country owned by China. We're paying relief to other countries but borrowing billions from China. Sooner or later they will call the loan. What then?