I pause for a moment to think about all the thousands of people working about their many jobs throughout the days and weeks. We go about our lives and do the best we can. Do they, do we, really have time to dwell on the economic hell that rages around us all?  We are like the animals in the neighboring forest to a fire.  We sense impending doom, but what do you do? Run? Leave your home, leave what dignity you have left?  How much longer can we take the economic beating? Like the boiling of a live frog, apparently until we die. 

    Every day something else is taken away from us economically; and, every day we adapt. We go from a good paying job to a poor paying job; the poor paying job cuts benefits; we go from a poor paying job to a part-time job; the part-time job cuts hours; we get laid off; we live on unemployment; our unemployment runs out; we loose our car; we loose our house; we move in with relatives and friends like in a Third World country; we are put in jail because we can not pay child support; we get out of jail and live in a shelter; we.....What the hell is this, a Frank Capra movie?

    We loose a bit of the game a little at a time.  But like the frog, at some point we will die, either spiritually, socially, or...physically. Don't the apologists for this mess realize when our lives are wreaked, their play house is also in jeopardy of collapse?  We after all, prop it up with our overwhelming fees and taxes. I published a posting, " We are coming to get you... " It is a caveat about how the impoverished threaten the last safe economic oases.  

    I suppose by next year, the pundits will be screaming that, "The rabble is dragging us down with them."  

    I hope that if the economy does not change in the next few months, which seems most likely, that I am around to say, "Told you idiots so."  

    I surf the radio while I drive, I surf the news on television at home.  The same talking head apologist pundits squawk from the radio speaker and carp on the TV screen. The mantra is pretty much the same day after day: "The economic recovery is just around the corner; we know'd it, 'cause us smart pundit fellers says so."

    They remind me of Fire Ants.  When I lived in Texas, I became quickly familiar with the killer critters. An old pet or a small child can be literally eaten alive if they sit on a Fire Ant mound.  The mounds are usually hidden in grass.  The creatures wait until the intruder is set and then they boil up the leg or body.  They wait to bit until they have covered half the intruder - then they strike in chorus like a chain saw.  A small child can be bitten thousands of times before they are rescued. Some often die. 

    A rascal friend of mine - a cynical chap - used to like to take a razor blade and tweezers and lop off the head of a Fire Ant.  The bodiless little beasts will continue to chomp their fierce little jaws for some time. The little heads are left rolling around still trying to reek havoc in a lost cause. 

    The beleaguered working masses boil like live frogs, while their detractor overlords chomp away with useless false rhetoric like headless Fire Ants, killing air. In the end we all economically die.

                           Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
          (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan) 

    This week's Wisconsin's military service person to remember is Marine Reservist Private First Class Brent T. Vroman, 21, of Oshkosh. Vroman was a riflemen on a foot patrol when attacked by an improvised explosive device fired from a vehicle in Babil Province, Iraq. Brent was in 1st Platoon, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment Expeditionary Unit, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve. His company consists of about 185 Marines and were based in Yusufiya, Iraq. The unit includes Golf Company from Madison. The 2nd battalion was activated in May of 2004 and then deployed to Camp Pendleton, California. They arrived in Iraq in September for a tentative seven month tour of duty. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Vroman was a 2001 graduate of Omro High School just west of Oshkosh. He joined the Marines in 2003. Brian had a twin brother, Brian. Brent was an accomplished wrestler and he was a four-year letter winner and conference champion in his senior year. At the time of his death Brian was survived by a step-father Bill DeGroot, and brothers Bob and Brian. Private First Class Vroman was Wisconsin's 31st Wisconsin military service person killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003. 

                                                As of this blog entry's posting date:

    94,768 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,316 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,372 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    931 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    599 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    31,582 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    4,640 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    16 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    139 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    17 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org. 

 

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