Reviews and Views

Have You Ever Wondered…

Have you ever wondered, “What is going on?”  Things we once took for granted or as fundamental are now assaulted due to changes we are still struggling to understand and comprehend.  Events over the last 16 months are a bit confusing.  For most, the future looks a bit unstable and uncertain at nearly all levels.  Confidence in our leaders, both nationally, state-wide, and locally is very low and in question.  There are no new ideas anywhere.  Some embrace an undefinable belief that “things” will return to “normalcy” soon – somehow.

Yet what is normal any more?  Is it normal for over 10% of our state and nation to remain unemployed; higher in many areas of this country?  There are predictions that unemployment in Georgia will rise to nearly 11% within a year.  Nationally, that percentage could continue to rise even higher  regardless of the current 9.7% unemployment rate.

Is it normal for families and their children to go to bed hungry?  Many local food banks are distributing more food than ever before as demand spikes – even here in Fayette County.  This is America – the breadbasket of the world.  Hunger should  never be a problem, but uncomfortably, it is becoming so.

Is it now normal that we distrust government, our neighbors, and those that have and those that don’t?  Why should we distrust others?  Because unfortunately we don’t speak truthfully to each other any longer.  We are now afraid that we will offend someone and be thought less of by doing so.  The truth is no one “thinks” about you as much as they think themselves.  We are all more prone to consider our own needs and wants than someone else.  This is part of the problem  We don’t take time to listen to others; to consider them of equal value; to offer a helping hand and to express love for one another.  Some do for the right reasons while others.  Others do so simply for political gain and to secure power.  May we offend each other with truth while offering our understanding and love.  If you don’t know the truth, then find out.  If you don’t understand love, then turn to GOD.

Bill Wyler (“I’m just saying…”)

February 7, 2010 Posted by Bill Wyler | Economy | 1 Comment

2010: Ready or Not Here It Comes

Darryl Robert Schoon wrote an article on December 07, 2009. 

Constant prosperity through credit is not possible – perhaps temporarily but not permanently.  “Quantative Easing” is a monetary phenomena akin to self-abuse or self-stimulation.  In times of deep change, few will understand what is happening and instead of changing, most will persist in clinging to the old even as it is being swept away.  Events change but human nature rarely does – at least not yet.  We are now approaching the final stage of the collapse of the bankers’ house of cards; when debt levels are so high they can no longer be serviced, it will crush those still trapped by credit’s promissory lure.  We are already seeing evidence of deep systemic change.  The falling away of the old will make way for what is to be; and, despite our efforts, none of us can stop it.

January 1, 2010 Posted by Bill Wyler | Economy | Leave a comment

The Inevitable Decline of All Men…

OZYMANDIAS by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.  Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

“Ozymandias” is frequently anthologized and is probably Shelley’s most famous short poem.  

The central theme of “Ozymandias” is the inevitable decline of all men, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time.

September 1, 2009 Posted by Bill Wyler | Economy | Leave a comment