The World. Our World.

It just seems that nothing is real any more. The world, our world, goes from bad to worse, from unbelievable to more unbelievable. Each day brings a new worse than the new worse from the day before. The economy or lack thereof. The CraigsList killings. Now the swine flu (who would ever think that a pig could add to the list) and on and on.

Maybe we have too much news. I think Will Rogers once said something like, "Did you ever stop to think that we have just enough news to fill up the newspaper each day?" That was long before cable television. It was before instant Google News. You have to wonder if our problems are as bad as they seem or if seeing them over and over and over again makes them seem to be more than they are.

One friend is eating crackers because the money is gone and a job is not forthcoming. Another is looking at buying a tent and asking if there is anything left to contribute. These are real problems for real people. They are personal. They are gut wrenching. They have no time to wait for a bailout.

Yet another friend once pointed out that we should quit worrying about saving the earth and start worrying about saving the human race. The logic is sound. The earth will be here a million years from now. It may or may not have people on it. We worry about icebergs melting, but we let companies and the jobs they provide disappear in a heartbeat. We sue over individuals experiencing discrimination and allow entire workforces to stand in line for unemployment insurance that protects no one and no thing. We worry about a mouse on the beach losing its habitat to development and allow millions of people to lose their homes to the greed of finance companies while the blithering incompetence of politicians allows them to give pay raises to their staff as the rest of us go without a paycheck.

The older I get, the more I realize that I have no answers, only questions that people much smarter than me cannot seem to answer. Tim Russert always said that he asked questions for Big Russ and his buddies at the VFW hall. (I think it was VFW.) They were simple questions. They usually got complicated answers. I always liked his questions. I never quite understood the answers. I always thought those Washington bigwigs he asked were trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Maybe that is the answer that I am looking to find. Maybe we need a world with safe bacon and no wool. Don't tell the sheep that I said that, but I think we are on to something tonight.