Frustrated

Monday... the perfect day to be positively negative...

Aaarrgghhhh!

And my wife (and doctor) want to know why my blood pressure is up! Where should I start? My current top twelve:

1. I'm tired of scams and the people who perpetuate them, and the fact that it's then the victim's problem to work out when they illegally pervert the business world. Go ahead - take me to court. That's the only way you'll get any money you think I owe you.

2. I'm tired of getting 5 solicitations for credit cards every single day in the mail - and watching as the credit card companies cry about their billions of profits while lobbying to make bankruptcies (which they've created) impossible to obtain. And I'm tired of a Congress that helped them do it.

3. I'm tired of hearing the economy is "up" when in fact that's a bunch of crap for 95% of Americans - me included. In the last two years my property taxes alone have gone up 25% and my income has gone up 4%.

4. I'm tired of being lied to.

5. I'm tired of hearing how great the job market is when everyone I know looking for work can't find it. And people who are extremely qualified don't even get the common courtesy of acknowledgement of receipt of their resume - much less ever get a call-back. I'm tired of the lack of professionalism and common courtesy shown today by HR people under the age of 29.

6. I'm tired of losing eight hours every day to something I don't love.

7. I'm tired of people who don't return phone calls or emails.

8. I'm tired of being asked for my opinion so that it can then be completely ignored.

9. I'm tired of a body that was once competetively athletic that now can't run or fall on the ground without pain and a muscle pull.

10. I'm tired of watching my country go to hell and watching no one do anything about it. I know my children will pay the price - and I just hope they still have a free country to appreciate when they enter adulthood.

11. I'm tired of people who care only for themselves - or people just like them.

12. I'm tired of everyday reviewing this list, and finding no change. They say ignorance is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results...

Yes, I'm tired and frustrated about a lot of life's everyday things. I finally know what being in the "Rat Race" feels like. Or maybe it's feeling like a mouse in a maze. Or maybe a hamster running endlessly on a treadmill and getting nowhere. Pick your rodent of choice.

I have always felt I was an idealist and an optimist. It's most frustrating to watch as somehow my half-full glass seems to be draining a little more all the time.

Here's hoping to getting a little bit of a refill before time runs out.

Worth repeating... over and over...

"We are patriots. We're deeply concerned. And we demand change, now. "

• No more lies from Condoleezza Rice about whether she and President Bush were advised before 9/11 of the possibility of planes being flown into buildings by terrorists.


• No more gross incompetence in the office of the Secretary of Defense.


• No more torture of human beings.


• No more disregard of the basic human rights enshrined in the Geneva Convention.


• No more kidnapping of people and sending them off to secret prisons in nations where we can expect they will be tortured.


• No more unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans.


• No more proposed amendments to the United States Constitution that would, for the first time, limit fundamental rights and liberties for entire classes of people simply on the basis of sexual orientation.


• No more federal land giveaways to developers.


• No more increases in mercury emissions from old, dirty, dangerous coalburning power plants.


• No more backroom deals that deprive protection for millions of acres of wild lands.


• No more attacks on immigrants who work so hard to build better lives.


• No more inaction by Congress on fixing our hypocritical and inconsistent immigration laws and policies.


• No more reliance on fiction rather than the science of global warming.


• No more manipulation of our media with false propaganda.


• No more disastrous cuts in funding for those most in need.


• No more federal cuts in community policing and local law enforcement grant programs for our cities.


• No more inaction on stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.


• No more of the Patriot Act.


• No more killing.


• No more pre-emptive wars.


• No more contempt for our long-time allies around the world.


• No more dependence on foreign oil.


• No more failure to impose increased fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.


• No more energy policies developed in secret meetings between Dick Cheney and his energy company cronies.


• No more excuses for failing to aggressively cut global warming pollutant emissions.


• No more tragically incompetent federal responses to natural disasters.


• No more tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the middle class and those who are economically-disadvantaged continue to struggle more and more each year.


• No more reckless spending and massive tax cuts, resulting in historic deficits and historic accumulated national debt.


• No more purchasing of elections by the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country.


• No more phony, ineffective, inhumane so-called war on drugs.


• No more failure to pass an increase in the minimum wage.


• No more silence by the American people.

"This is a new day. We will not be silent. We will continue to raise our voices. We will bring others with us. We will grow and grow, regardless of political party - unified in our insistence upon the truth, upon peace-making, upon more humane treatment of our brothers and sisters around the world.

We will be ever cognizant of our moral responsibility to speak up in the face of wrongdoing, and to work as we can for a better, safer, more just community, nation, and world.

So we won't let down. We won't be quiet. We will continue to resist the lies, the deception, the outrages of the Bush administration. We will insist that peace be pursued, and that, as a nation, we help those in need. We must break the cycle of hatred, of intolerance, of exploitation. We must pursue peace as vigorously as the Bush administration has pursued war. It's up to all of us to do our part."

Mayor Rocky Anderson

Washington Square
Salt Lake City, Utah
August 30, 2006

Full transcript of speech