Well, I'm proud of my country, too. I could write reams of reasons why I'm proud of the USA. It's a great place to live and I don't think I would want to live anywhere else for any great length of time. Right now, with gasoline over $2 a gallon, you might say it's a great place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit here. Yes, I know there are places where it is much more expensive, but maybe that isn't related to price gouging.

Well, I already wandered off subject.

I really started this because I wanted to complain about some of the irritating little things my government does. The latest issue of National Geographic has an article about Puerto Rico. Great place to visit. There is a small island about half way to the US Virgin Islands that is not a great place to visit. The US government has been using it for target practice for decades. The shelling and bombing have stopped now, but I am sure the ground there is full of unexploded bombs and shells. You wouldn't want to plow or dig there. What a crummy thing to do to a beautiful tropical island.

Isolated incident? No. Just ask Hawaii.

I shouldn't say anything about the upcoming war, because I am not party to all the information that I would need to decide about that. But my gut feeling is that we should avoid that war like the plague. We beat Germany and Japan sometime back and then spent tons of money on their recovery. We did a good job, too, but I'm afraid that would never work with Iraq. I never really believed that the Germans and the Japanese were solidly behind their whacky leaders, but I'm not so sure about the people in Iraq. Recovery operations following a war with them might be met by suicide bombers. But if it starts, I hope this time it will be finished.

Another thing that bugs me about our government is their attitude about health care. In this country, it seems, the rich deserve better health care, and people only deserve treatment for a condition one time. If you get it again, it's a pre-existing condition, and therefore you don't deserve treatment. Sure, blame it on the insurance companies, but they operate under laws made by state and federal govenerments.

Speaking of insurance, why do your rates go up just because somebody else had an accident? If you are 18 and driving, you pay high rates because someone else your age had an accident. Never mind that you have been driving two years without a ticket, a scratch or a dent. You are guilty of being 18, and insurance companies, operating under existing laws, are going to make you pay for that.

When you get older, and can afford a Corvette, you will find that sports cars are involved in more accidents than bland, gray, 4-door sedans, so your Corvette's insurance rate will sail over the moon. You don't have to even hit anything with it.

And when you hit 70, you are in a group of people with slowed reflexes, weak eyes, and generally less than perfect health. You don't have to be in that condition yourself, you just have to be the same age as those other people, and your car insurance rates will go up. I'm only 69.5, myself, so I can't say for sure that this will happen, but I have friends who are past 70 and I hear their stories.

The federal government has less to do with traffic laws than the states, but don't you just hate the way they make laws and then don't enforce them uniformly? Speed limits are only one example.

But I'm proud of my country. We have a great highway system. I wonder why the good old U.S. of A. has never heard of passenger trains? Yes, I know about Amtrak, but try to get on one of their trains in Tennessee.
How"pause to get my breath"ard