Eager to buy some and try these out. Read up on the science behind them – much, much more comfortable to run / walk / climb in than regular shoes.

In the morning my neighbour returned my bin which they had thrown down her steep driveway. I kind of admired them for coming back in silence and having the last word. Perhaps they wanted to meet me, a strange loner, but didn’t know how. In the end they are ignorant rednecks and I haven’t the energy but try to not hold it against them.

Lucky for me my bin wasn’t damaged much, unlike your letterbox. Sorry to see that.

Another story involves a relative and his friends who used to pick on a single house on their way home from town on random weekends, and trash his letterbox. There was no reason why they chose this house, and they had never even seen the owner. They loved the “Dada” aspect of it but were totally insensitive to the paranoia they must have caused. This relative now works in Government armed services. His father abused power and this has no doubt had an influence.

Let us be glad we are better better educated than these vandals at least… of that I am certain.

I’ve spent some time living in France as a kid (as my mother is french), and I was typically treated as a pariah (at best) just for being an American, race not really being an issue. So, wonder if it could be nationality, as well.

Interestingly, and challenging, the Christian view is that it’s all irrelevant – if you see someone in need and you have been provided with enough to take care of yourself, give it willingly and cheerfully to that someone with the understanding that God will provide for you.

From a problem-solving point of view, a good friend of mine hit the nail on the head in regards to healthcare: ‘they’ aren’t solving the problem. The problem is healthcare is expensive because of a combination of greedy inventors with patents, amoral lawyers with sketchy malpractice claims, and a whole army of insurance companies lobbying for the benefit of their business model.

Creating yet another organization within that environment doesn’t sound like a solution to me, but I have always applauded both the concern, the intention, and the effort of both sides of the camp.

I believe one of the biggest issues we have on race in America is that Black folk are screaming too often and White America is too seldom willing to listen.

That is to say there is less racism than most of Black America perceives, but far more than white America admits.

After doing my recent healthcare peace I was put in check a little more in regards to the Tea Party. In reviewing their demographics, I believe they’re caught in a bad spot. Their membership is predominately educated, white, young and affluent. Which means they are in a direct tug of war on taxes and resources with everyone else, including minority groups. This tug of war creates an illusionary racial and class issue that is not helped by spitting, racial slurs and Tea Parties against a Black president who didn’t create the massive deficit in the first place.

@Nick, you caught me being lazy, probably because you’re a Jedi guy, remembering what the young Obi-Wan said, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

@Martel, curious as a limited government African American have you never considered attending anything with the Tea Party? What’s your constructive understanding of why you’re not involved with the Tea Party movement.

Certainly the vast majority of the southern right-wing camps skew towards being horribly racist, but let’s be real – like everything else, you have a bunch of dicks mis-representing the ideals of a group. It would be like me calling all democrats at the Obama rallies rich-people-hating hippies. Or, to hit closer to home, like saying white Christians are all racist and they should just come out and say what they mean.

We all know that there are all kinds in there. Again, let’s be realistic. There’s too much drama in the world as it is.