Friday morning rant

Please allow me to rant this morning. It is Friday and has been a long week and I spend too much time in the car listening to talk radio and am stressed out on the verge of major decisions in my life. And I haven’t slept enough.

Here are the things that have me ranting this morning.

#1 I read an article this morning about how the state of Michigan is going to have to cancel 100 road projects originally slated for 2011 because they are experiencing a shortfall of $84 million dollars in their budget. Really? Could it be because half the state is unemployed and people are leaving the state in droves and the city of Detroit is a shadow of its once booming self? Is it me or when your income is reduced, you should also reduce your spending? It seems obvious to me that the state would have to cut some spending somewhere to make up for the loss of revenue. Not rocket science. It just seems like everything I turn around I am reading about another local government that is bankrupt or on the verge of it. The state of California, the city of Detroit. Come on, how hard is this concept? Less money coming in, less money going out.

#2 President Obama said in a speech this week that at some point some people have made “enough money.” Can someone tell me how much is enough money? Because I’ve got to tell you, I don’t think I will ever have enough money. I understand that some people have more money than I could even ever imagine, but oh fucking well. Maybe Michigan should confiscate some of that money to pay for the $84 million shortfall in their road construction budget. That would be the fairest thing to do, I mean you should see some of the houses around here. They’re huge and the people living in them are obviously gluttons and have more money than they know what to do with.

#3 Right now, there is a case going on in the county I live in where a 4 year old boy was beaten to death over the course of 4 days by his mother’s live-in boyfriend as a punishment for wetting his pants while sitting on the couch. It turns out that not only had the mother come and gone from the apartment over the course of the beatings, but several other people had as well and while a couple of them mentioned that she should take the boy to the hospital, none of them called the police or 911 or anything (including the mother). It makes me ill. Both the boyfriend and the mother are being charged with murder, but the defense attorney for the guy is running around saying that he (the pos boyfriend) is actually a schizophrenic and that the county knew about it and that they didn’t do anything to help. And now the attorney for the mother is asking for her to have a psych evaluation (to see if she is fit to stand trial). Both of these individuals have multiple drug convictions in their past and apparently one of the reasons that the mother didn’t want to take the boy to the hospital is because she didn’t want her parole officer to find out that she had moved. So my rant about this is that obviously both people are some sort of mentally disturbed, but the bottom line is that he barbarically beat a little boy to death (just to horrify you further, he burned the boys hands and feet, kicked him in the abdomen and head and poked his eyes and I’m guessing there is more detail that hasn’t been released yet) and the mother out of whatever sort of fucked up self-absorption or apathy or drug haze stood by and did nothing about it. So, let’s stop this crap with the “why oh why did these people do this?” and get on with their trial. Quite frankly, I don’t really care if they are both crazy as loons, they killed a little boy. Put them away and throw away the key and be done with it.

And, that’s all I have to say about that.