Giddyup, High Horse

I'm finding myself less and less tolerant of ignorance and intolerance.  And I'm finding it easier and easier to select that "Unfriend" button on the ol' Facebook.  I'm not sure if this is bad or not.  And it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't want to be friends with you, it just means I can't bear to see your posts anymore.  Well, maybe it does mean that I just don't want to be friends with you anymore, because I do have that option of hiding your status updates but instead, I make a clean break.

I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings by unfriending them, I just choose to remove that negativity from my orbit.

Two people got deleted today over their comments concerning the Sandy recovery response.  An old high school friend started ranting that we can send thousands of troops overseas at a moment's notice, so why does his brother still not have electricity...

Patience, not really an American virtue.

Another high school friend first bashed Obama for his "photo op" response and wanted to know why he wasn't doing more and then went on to agree with someone who said it's a good thing the Republicans fight for our gun rights so that we can arm ourselves and protect ourselves from looters after major disasters.

Oh.......where to start?

I'm not sure what part of this storm's destruction they're not understanding.  I am 100% confident that EVERYTHING that can possibly be done is being done.  Whole infrastructures need to be rebuilt in some places in order to return folks to normalcy.  I'm equally confident that President Obama is doing everything in his capacity to help his fellow Americans.  He cannot just snap his fingers and return everything back to Saturday, October 27th.  To think otherwise is utterly ridiculous.

I know people are getting impatient and I understand.  I lost power for a week after Hurricane Isabel and that was nothing compared to what most people are suffering following Sandy.  I know any change to my routine gets old quickly, so I can only guess how over this everyone is.  But being irrational, getting angry, and blaming the President isn't going to make anything happen any faster than it can.  Things take as long as they take.

I'm also enjoying the scoffing towards other countries for not rushing to our aid.  I'm not even sure they're not.  We may just not know of it yet.  But I can tell you that in many natural disasters, when Americans offer help, it's to countries that are far worse off than we are on a normal day.  Haiti was hurting before the earthquake ever hit.  The Haitians are not going to be able to funnel money to NY and NJ.  Not because they don't want to, but because they can't.  We as a country pride ourselves on helping others -- whether they be our fellow Americans or citizens of other countries.  Can we PLEASE have a little class and remember that we donate to others out of goodwill and not with the expectation that the gesture will be reciprocated?  And if you can't do that, then please, keep your damn money in the first place.  Help others because it's the right thing to do, not because you expect something in return.

Giddyup.