Jaybrams.com

The Olympics have always been a big deal in our family. It was the only time during the school year I was allowed to stay up late, summer or winter, and we spent hours watching and chatting about the ongoings in every event, large or small. I’ve struggled with sleeping problems for as long as I could remember, so it was common to find me up at two or three in the AM watching things unfold live even as recently as Athens. Over the past couple of years my old age caught up with me and I’m barely able to make it through the prime time showings this year, but this weekend it was still NBC/MSNBC/CNBC/USA from wake-up through lights-out.

Only four days in and there is so much to talk about: the opening ceremonies; the tragic murder of the volleyball coach’s family; last night’s amazing Men’s 4×100 relay; Russia and Georgia escalating to a war; Chinese humanitarian issues; George Bush’s presence…. I could go on and on.

At the very least, Bush was spot on last night when he told Bob Costas (paraphrasing) that it is important for us to remain engaged with China despite our differences and disagreements. We have a better chance at being a positive influence in reforming the authoritative nature of their government and their poor humanitarian track record if we build an amicable relationship between our governments. We’re dealing with a major powerhouse who is still “up-and-coming” in modern power / politics. I know we want to think we live in a world that is above expansion through force, but we’re not. WWII was about expansion of power. Even in our short history it was only 100 years ago we got into with Spain over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the like and only 150 years ago that we wrestled away much of the south from Mexico. *sigh*….

I know i’m getting far too historical on your rears (perhaps even out of my league) and losing half my audience to boredom… but I can’t help but see a shift of world power taking place over the last several years; not necessarily a shift towards China, but certainly away from America. The view of America has quickly taken a turn for the worse world wide. If there is one thing I’ve learned in my World Civ classes these past two semesters, most “world powers” only remain the world power for about 300 years… lets see… 2008-1776= 232 years of dominance…. hmmmm…. I don’t think the decline is going to reach its peak (or… valley i guess) in my life time, but “soon;” I also think it will look more like Britain’s decline, where we are not destroyed by any means, just less of a force politically and influentially around the world but not so much that we can’t rebuild our influence, much like Britain has done. I hope I’m wrong on all accounts… I hope we can recognize our shortcomings and rebuild from this point rather than falling further into decay. There is still so much good in what we are and what American is supposed to stand for, but I fear we are blinded by green (i’m talking economic green, not environmental green) and perhaps by our own sometimes-hidden-sometimes-blatant elitist attitude.

blech… rambling too much as it is and about to get into other things that would just convolute this site… stuff about “illegal” immigrants, American pride, the war in Iraq and such… I guess seeing what China is doing and reading up a (very) little bit on the Russia/Georgia conflict got my mind to wandering again… struggling with the whole concept of American Identity vs Christian Identity vs American-Christian Identity.

So, anyways, I haven’t had any Dr. Pepper since Friday and I started the hundred push up challenge… Go me!

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Category : Culture, Current Events, Empyreal, Family, Politics