Day 2398

It's a sad day in Dallas. I learned about the shootings just before I went to bed last night and watched the unfolding carnage on TV for several hours before I drifted off to sleep. The next morning I woke to find myself in a city that was coming to grips with a massacre. At breakfast and later at the grocery store I overheard people talking about the shootings. I'm sure there was anger, but the prevailing sentiment seemed to be profound sadness. What have we become? When I think about recent events, I feel like I'm witnessing the decline and fall of civilization itself.

It wasn't always this way. There was a time not all that long ago when Americans genuinely thought of our country as a great melting pot. People came here from all walks of life and were proud to adopt a commonly held sets of values and call themselves Americans. Assimilation was not only regarded as a good thing, it was the only thing.

All that has changed. Somewhere along the line, we have abandoned the concept of our country as a great melting pot and started worshiping diversity and multiculturalism instead. In my opinion, the results have been disastrous. We no longer have a common set of shared values. We have reverted to a strange kind of tribalism where people's loyalties are only to their own tribe. I've been around a while and I've never seen the country more divided. We may talk a good game about how American society is different, but when you look what is happening, are we really that different from the Israelis and the Palestinians or the Shiites and Sunnis? Basically, we all hate each other.

It was a slow, very hot day. Dot pooped in the house. I paid a few bills. And I spend way too much time trying to convince the U-Verse people to remove the non-return fee from my statement and credit the $150 back to my account. Eventually, some help desk people on the opposite side of the world told me that the situation had been resolved and that I should just pay my normal monthly bill. On the plus side of things, the sink doesn't leak anymore.

I'm hoping that the water on the roof has evaporated. I'm getting really tired of removing it every time it rains. At least we didn't have any downed trees during our recent thunderstorms. High winds blew over one of our neighbor's trees, creating a real mess and blocking a city street for two days. I always worry that one of our old Oak trees is going to come crashing down, but so far all they are doing is killing the grass. I need to think of something more exciting than vacuuming and going to the gym this weekend. We'll see how it goes. I've been so tired lately that whenever I find myself with free time, I just take a nap.

Trevor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day