Keeping the Faith.............

“Cause the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.”

-Billy Joel
Keeping the Faith


You know, sometimes you can find serious truth in something as simple as a pop song. There is so much going on in the world that is not right. It’s just fuckin’ scary at times, and we get consumed with it.



We have Iran trying to go nuclear. Iraq has turned into the ultimate fix-it-upper, I knew it would, as we struggle to respond to the increasing violence against civilians there. Is it just me, or has anybody in the media, or say.... the Democratic party noticed the “Insurgents”,(terrorists) brutal shift from primarily trying to kill US service members to the wholesale wacking of civilians. If I am a terrorists organization that has been taking serious casualties for the last three years and I see a democratic government emerging from the rubble of bombed out Iraq, yeah, I’m shifting gears and I am going to try to destabilized that effort- When will Liberals see this tactic for what it is, when?



Africa is doing it’s usual bullshit. Look for another serious famine coming down the pipe in Africa in the next couple of years. China and North Korea still insist on living in an alternate reality, like that is gonna change anytime soon. The Bird flu is winging it’s way towards America as we speak, and Ted Kennedy is still hogging all the Chivas Regal there is in the Northeast, ain’t that a bitch. Everybody south of our borders feel as though they can enter our country illegally, work, suck up services meant for citizens, and cop an attitude when we cry foul- It’s like a nightmarish Mel brooks movie- “Green Cards, we don’t need no stinking green cards”. Makes you depressed doesn’t it.




Let’s back up and look at Mr. Joel’s words, “Cause the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems”. The key is the good old days weren’t always good, hm.... he’s right.

The 1918 flu epidemic had a estimated worldwide mortality between 25-50 million. This epidemic was only upon the scene for about eighteen months after it’s first case appeared. Compared to the plague of the middle ages with it’s 8-13 million dead globally per year, this may have been the most lethal recorded epidemic in human history. Keep in mind, influenza is spread by aerosol droplets, yeah breathing, and any and everybody had a chance at contracting it. It is believed up to 20% of the world population contracted the flu, not all that contracted it would die from it, but the mortality rate was 15.8% in the city of Philadelphia alone, wow.

The epidemic of 1918 is one of the reasons I get upset with all the political correctness hype behind HIV, shit, you have to do something in a certain manner to become HIV infected. Yeah the good old days weren't always good especially if you check out recent history, there was a thing called “POLIO.” At the height of the polio epidemic in 1952, nearly 60,000 cases with more than 3,000 deaths were reported in the United States alone.



The 1950’s is usually considered the “golden era” of America, the good old days. That may have been true, if you were white and middle class and above. The 1950’s for my family was a decade to be endured, a time of struggle, with only a veiled promise hinting at what was to come. "Tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems", would have sounded absurd to some of my relatives back in 1950, but tomorrow was going to be better. Tomorrow would see my family prosper on a level undreamed of by my ancestors that arrived to the coast of America in chains. Tomorrow was going to transform the KKK into a dysfunctional social club, not the dreaded beast that it was to my Grandfather. Tomorrow would see all of my relatives have access to an education. Tomorrow, it’s what they lived for, and I’m glad they did.




I am of the belief that nothing worth doing or having ever comes without sacrifice, and some sort of struggle. There will be wars, death, famine, and stupidity involving weapons that exceed our ability to comprehend the long term effects of their use, but tomorrow, in spite of the fuck ups to come, is what you live for. A better tomorrow .

Later’