Today

What can I say? — Things change with the passing of time. —- Time changes everything around us and it changes us too. — There is no escaping the fact that time changes everything and it is going on all the time. — There is no stopping the march of time nor its consequences.

So today I went to the Veterans’ Medical Center for my 6-month optometry check-up and discovered that I now have two cataracts — one in each eye — whereas up until a few months ago, I only had one cataract on my right eye. — Now I have a consultation set up with the intent of possibly scheduling cataract surgery. — I hate the prospect but I understand the need. — Now let me get off the pity party and on to something else.

yeah! I have glaucoma and two cataracts — but I can still see good enough to work my keyboard for the blog and to count my money from time to time …LOL.

I got to thinking today about the relations between The United States and the Chinese and the Russians and a few questions arose in my more-than-intellectual mind.

One of my questions is — and always has been — why does it seem impossible for The United States to ever have cordial relations with Russia? It seemed like we were doing pretty good in that department under Premier Gorbachoff when “Glastnos” was one of the Russians’ key diplomacy measures. — Whatever happened to Glastnos and why has it disappeared?

Another of my questions deals with our relations with China. — If China is the big, bad enemy of the United States that everybody is talking about, then why are we still loading the shelves of our retailers here in the states with seemingly endless myriads of goods produced in China? — If they are our enemies, why do we trade with them at all? — I am reminded that before the Second World War, The United States sold a titanic amount of scrap metal to Japan — and the end result of that was that we got a lot of it back in the form of bullets and bombs aimed at destroying us. — Do we never learn anything at all?

I cannot help but wonder how many of my readers who buy raisins at the store ever count the number of raisins in the packages they buy? — I do not count the number of raisins in the packages I buy but I would like to tell you that because of the phenomenon called “Shrinkflation,” many of those who buy raisins are now getting approximately 70 fewer raisins in a package and are still paying either the same price as before or a higher price than before and people should be getting angry about this but I have seen no evidence of consumer anger. All I have seen is consumers taking rising prices for granted and rolling over and letting inflation and shrink-flation roll over them just like they believe there is nothing that they can do to escape it all. — Consumers seem to forget they have the power to sock it to the greed-mongering merchants with a little thing called “Boycotts” — and I know from experience that boycotts do have the power sometimes to change things for the better.

That’s about all I have for right now folks — I will have more later — I have to go to church tomorrow — but I will soon be back. Remember who loves you! Yeah, that’s right — I do!