Here's an Email From My Brother in Iraq. This is in response to the media over-reporting Tiller's murder, but under-reporting William Long's murder.

I love my country.

I was on vacation in Hawaii last week, walking through a mall will my family, when a band started playing the Star Spangled Banner. I, and my family, immediately turned to face the music, and put our hands over our hearts. Two people, walking behind me, slammed into me, almost knocking me down. They cursed at me and said things like, "watch where you are going" and "dumbass." Then they walked on, shaking their heads.

As the band played, I looked out the corner of my eye. We were the youngest people in the whole crowd that actually did the right thing. Most everyone standing up and paying respect were in their '60s or older. One man, probably a veteran, actually struggled to support himself with his arms on his wheelchair. He couldn't stand on his own feet, yet he still tried to rise.

Everyone else, from the age of about fifty on down, did not move a muscle. They talked on their cell-phones, sat in their chairs, and sipped their Starbucks. No one removed their hats.

I can't believe I've spent fifteen years of my life defending these assholes.

Kurt Scholz

___________________________________________________________________

Now this is your Intrepid Blogger talking:

Present-day Americans are idiots. There, I said it.

Americans are so accustomed to their life of affluence and leisure that they think it is owed to them. History and wisdom assure us that is not the case.

Nearly every day I'm blessed with the thought that I live in the greatest country in the world. I own my house. I own the land it sits on. I own the truck I drive to work, and I work at a company that is able to pay me well. I am truly blessed, I realize it, and in that realization is yet another blessing.

I buy fresh food at any of several grocery stores. I have money for gasoline, so I don't have to walk. I have money for my guitars, guns, and other recreation. I hunt managed populations of game species. I worship my God in the church that I choose, and in a way that I believe is right. I watch one of my televisions, and hear editorial comments openly critical of government policies. I read newspapers without having the "Glorious Workers' Revolution" style propaganda shoved down my throat. I'm secure in the knowledge that if a policeman beats or kills me, I probably had it coming. I'm comforted by the fact that the state is restrained from throwing me into prison or taking my property unless they can convince 12 people to agree that I broke some law that we all know about. I listen to country music one day, and classic rock the next because our economy is robust enough to support the cost of advertisment, and I'm never subjected to patriotic marching music interspersed with a government spokesman telling me lies. I'm not afraid to tell people who my ancestors are, what God I worship, where I live, or what country I'm from.

All of these things are my everday reality because I am an American living in the U.S. of A.

God COULD'VE decided to make me a 13 year-0ld prostitute in Calcutta, HIV postive, orphaned with 8 younger siblings. I don't have to make the choice of turning out my even-younger sister (which would surely be a death-sentence for her) because I don't bring in enough money to feed my family.

He COULD'VE decided that I should be a child-soldier in west Africa. Or maybe a mutilated beggar in the UAE. Possibly a horny and gullible young Muslim in Jordan with enough driving hatred for infidels to wear a "suicide vest" into a cafe and push the button. He might've decided that it suited his purpose to make me any of 5 billion citizens of other countries. But he didn't.

He blessed me with a life shaped by a country, family and culture that far too many of us take for granted.

For the record, there is no free lunch. We live in the land of plenty because our ancestors all got off their butts, came here, and busted their backs to build a country that would provide the life and lifestyle that the U.S.A. provides.

Is it perfect? Nope. It seems like Black folks, and Indians have a pretty good point about past abuse... But if they ever want to get past those events, either individually or collectively, and embrace the future rather than the past, the atmosphere is more supportive here than in other places. Very few of us will get through life without (many) disappointments. However, this country provides VASTLY less painful disappointments than the alternatives.

Dissidents, revolutionaries, soldiers, and our forebears toiled to provide this alternative to the rest of the world.

That effort, for the last few centuries, put forth by better men than you (or me) is certainly worth one-and-a-half minutes of respect and reflection before a first-pitch or a kick-off.

If standing and removing your hat (or saluting) is just too much effort and life-interruption for you, then you can't possibly include yourself among the people who have made this country the blessing it is.

Kurt, you've said a mouthful.

And to the guy in the wheelchair who tried to rise-- Well, there are still heroes.