What a country II

In the last couple of days there have been three news stories that have made me think that from the bottom to the top we have lost our bearings.

Story 1: A 70 year old woman in Orem, Utah was hand-cuffed and arrested because she didn't tell police who were on her property who she was and resisted arrest for..........................................
NOT WATERING HER LAWN! C'mon, arrested for having a brown lawn? What were these people thinking? And I want to know why she had any duty at all to answer any questions? Uh, maybe they had an arrest warrant already? A well-known attorney is now representing the lady. This should be on Court TV.

Story 2: Security guards at a college event where our Senator, John Kerry, was speaking, found it necessary to TASER a young man who wouldn't give up the microphone fast enough. They tasered him after about 4 security guards had him on the ground and he was crying out, "Bro', don't Taser me, don't Taser me." No one in the audience seemed the least bit outraged by this. Kerry didn't move and said (prior to the Taser jolt), something like, "I'll answer his question. It's ok." Gee, how forceful, what clout. This whole fiasco made my heart hurt. It seems this young man has pulled "pranks" before, but so what? There has to be a better way of dealing with someone like this than inflicting an electrical shock. If college students don't react to this, I know we are now a nation of sheep. Educated sheep, perhaps, but sheep all the same. It wasn't Kent State to be sure, but back then the student body as a whole had conviction and passion and were willing to stand up for something. Apparently not any more....baaaaa

Story 3: When did we come to be ho-hum about our country out-sourcing our military? Blackwater is a private "security" company working, in among other hot spots, Iraq. Or at least they were until yesterday when the Iraqi government banned them after a firefight that killed 8 civilians. I always knew Blackwater was there, but I thought they were protecting the private contractors (not that I thought that was a good idea). Boy, was I jolted to read that Blackwater was protecting our Ambassador. I thought that was the job of the Marines and the Diplomatic Security Services. Those are the guys and gals I would trust with my life, not the folks from Blackwater who could be from any country in the world. It is completely shocking to me that we can't even provide protection for our own diplomats. If anything would send a signal showing weakness, this would be it. Soldiers of fortune types have always been linked to thug dictators in my mind. Just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, I now guess George Bush can be added to the list...