"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."
-H.L. Mencken

Do you ever wonder why we, as a country, are so cynical? We see evidence of it every day in our newspapers and on television. We, the citizens, find people like Kobe Bryant guilty every day before we even know 1/10th of the story. We, as a society, are so quick in jumping to conclusions and passing judgment that we often don't even realize we're doing it.

Take, for instance, the constant accusations laid at the feet of the Bush Administration in regards to the war in Iraq. One of the accusations I'm hearing a lot about right now is how Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, has been getting a lot of the reconstruction contracts over in Iraq. Every time I see it mentioned there's always an insinuation that Halliburton is getting these contracts because Cheney is simply handing them over.

Granted, just hearing it raises a red flag in my mind, but never once has any of these articles offered any sort of evidence that anything fraudulent is going on. I've never heard anything about other companies being denied contracts. The only thing I ever here is about Halliburton and Cheney.

You would think that in order for a news outlet to make an insinuation like that, veiled though it may be, they would have to offer up more proof then the Vice President being a former company employee. They never do. There's no break down of the bids, no testimony from other companies about Halliburton unfairly receiving the contracts. Nothing. Do you really think that companies large enough to rebuild Iraq would let the U.S. Government fraudulently hand over billion-dollar contracts to Halliburton without raising a fuss? I don't.



This topic was brought to my attention again recently when I read Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men. This guy is an idiot. He went down a list of every member of Bush's administration and made the same sort of accusations that I just talked about. The allegations were chock full of connections between administration members and large companies who had benefited from government contracts or tax breaks. But never once did he offer a smoking gun. He didn't offer a counterpoint showing what other companies who weren't associated with administrations got in regards to tax breaks, etc.

Remember, this was the same guy who went on a tirade against the President at the Oscars. Some of the other people on that stage, who Mr. Moore said were standing with him against the President, told Michael Savage that they had no idea Moore was going to say those things. He used them to further his point without even bothering to find out if they agreed with him. What a schmuck.

But I digress...

When the negativity on TV gets to be too much for me, I remember something my father told me a long time ago: "Nobody can solve the problems of the whole world, so just try to solve the problems in your little slice of the world."

So that's what I do. I look around my neighborhood, my city, my county and my state and I see what needs to be done to make it better. If we all take care of our little pieces, we can make the whole world a better place.