Before I get started and despite the negative tone of yesterday and today, I truly wish my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays of their faith and culture. This will be the last post before Christmas. I anticipate one more between Christmas and New Year’s day.

Today is the fictitious Festivus holiday of Seinfeld fame which has five distinctive components.

  1. Decorations – A bare aluminum pole as a Christmas tree substitute
  2. Dinner – Some sort of semi-formal, family style dinner with the invited Festivus guests
  3. Airing of Grievances – Bring up issues that have happened all year long with the guests present. This will occur before dinner.
  4. Feats of Strength – Two chosen participants will duke it out to determine the year’s winner
  5. Miracles – Anything that would lighten it up out of the ordinary. It is just fun to say.

Today, I am going to write about concerns that I have from the year and moving forward. This is not intended to be a downer list but rather a stimulating and thought provoking post. I don’t know if I have said in the past on this blog or not, but I truly believe the situation is what you make of it. Without discussion or awareness, things only maintain status quo at best.

  • Working for an hourly wage may sound good on paper, but it doesn’t pay what you would think. In my case, the expectation was that I was going to work four, ten hour days in a week. The reality has been that it has been 3-4, six to eight hour days. My time stubs are averaging 30 hours a week. I don’t think that it is enough to justify the time output.
  • Creativity is dead in entertainment. The brilliance of Seinfeld as an example. It was funny, witty and edgy without being over the top. I feel like the last sitcom to hold the ‘best’ title recently, Big Bang Theory was none of those things and I have a chemistry degree. I get nerd humor. Streaming is now the best way to get close but even so I can’t keep up with the volumes of choices and seasonal release schedules.
  • The difference between the ‘free’ states and the quasi-totalitarian states has been exploited this year. The west coast has gone full jack boot on some industries like fitness gyms, movie theaters and restaurants. Who the hell is going to eat outside in Oregon winter? My position remains that vulnerable people need to take appropriate precautions, everyone else should live as they see fit.
  • Logic and Reason is completely absent from the majority of the population. We have the group that still thinks Trump will keep the office of President. We have the group that thinks quarantine and masks will ‘slow the curve’. We have the group that thinks rioting helps the image of Black Lives Matter. We have ‘camping bans’ as a policy for reduced homelessness. It feels like it is a school district ‘snow day’ when it snowed for fifteen minutes at three AM.
  • Media of almost any form is in the tank for one side or the other. It doesn’t matter which side. And by the way, the major social media platforms are the worst at censorship. They are imploring politically correct only messages. The fact that they have successfully polarized the population means that they win. Control has been surrendered. If you are accepting any argument where ‘the science has been settled’ or you are opposed to any argument because that is the argument, then you are being controlled as well.
  • Convenience over privacy rules the day and people just don’t care. If you have ever uttered or agreed with the phrase, ‘it is a good first step’ then it works on you too. Bills such as the Patriot Act have fueled the collection of data on you. Granted, most people don’t have much to hide (yet). But, I am sure that most people have things, do things that they would rather not share, myself included. I fear that it is too late at this point. We do not have enough technology for complete monitoring but the path is set. Let me put it this way, our laws limit surveillance to telephone wire tapping only, not e-mail, not text messaging, not private forum posts.

That is probably enough. Remember, we are probably more alike than we are different. I believe that God created us in his image, and that cannot be a mistake.