Rant #2,851: Things Can O

Good morning to you!
 
Rise and shine!
 
If I am (semi-) retired and can get up at this hour, so can you!
 
I showered, got dressed, and went out to get the newspaper.
 
I brought the garbage pail to the street for pickup, and while the feral animals once again did get to its contents, at least it wasn’t all over the place, as it was all in the barrel.
 
A good start to the day, indeed!
 
I opened the newspaper, and I see that they got the imbecile who sold the fentanyl-laced cocaine to those West Point cadets on leave during spring break.
 
That is all fine and good, but who are the REAL dummies here?
 
If and when these idiot cadets recover, each and every one of them should be expelled from West Point.
 
Is the way they behaved while away from the academy the way we want our future soldiers to act?
 
No, I don’t think so, and expelling them would send a strong and clear message to their fellow cadets, that you cannot participate in this type of behavior and be a soldier representing our country at the same time.
 
And that is not even adding into the fact that by participating in this imbecility, these cadets are themselves liable for arrest by Florida authorities related to their possession and use of such substances.
 
How stupid these dummies really and truly are.
 
Let’s hope that their overdoses don’t kill them or do any permanent damage to them, but let’s not fully exonerate them either.
 
You have to be held accountable for your actions, and if you are stupid enough to be participating in actions such as these, well, you should expect to have the book thrown at you.
 
And of course, as I browse through the newspaper, there is still that war in the Ukraine, where it appears that Russia is pretty much just bombing and attacking anything in its path there, whether it is a residential area, a hospital, or even a religious facility.
 
We are staying out of the war for now—could you imagine sending cokeheads like I just described into such a situation—but Russia is beginning to attack areas closer to Poland, which is one of our NATO allies—
 
And we have said that if one of our NATO allies is attacked, we and the other NATO countries will have to get deeper into this war than anticipated.
 
Right now, Poland has welcomed thousands of Ukrainian refugees into is country as a safe haven, but I saw a report on the news last night where a Polish family was interviewed. this particular family had taken in some Ukrainian refugees into their home, and they voiced the opinion that they fear that once Russia is done with the Ukraine, they might be next.
 
If, God forbid, that happens, what does our country do?
 
Is this the start of World War III?
 
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this, not even near this.
 
Let’s move on to happier things …
 
Although this was not in my newspaper this morning, today is the day that we are taking my mother out to brunch for her birthday.
 
She wants to go to International House of Pancakes—better known as IHOP—so that is where we are going.
 
It should be a lot of fun.
 
My mother has withstood the Depression, World War II, and even more recently, the pandemic, and a lot of other unfortunate incidents in her lifetime, and she doesn’t need to add to that list World War III, certainly not at this stage of the game.
 
Let’s hope that we—and us in general—never have to face such adversities in our lifetimes and those of our children.
 
There will be other things that I will read in the newspaper later today, but those two things I spoke about earlier stand out right now.
 
Nothing there is very good, but the news is the news, and it must be reported as such, whether good or bad, or somewhere in between.
 
But when I look at my mother--still going strong—I know that there is good in this world, and plenty of it.
 
You can’t always sugarcoat everything, but looking at her strength and resilience, it gives me a lot of hope for better times.
 
Yes, a lot of hope.