All my life, I’ve watched and read the ‘news.’

You know what it’s like. Various media outlets report:

  • Racial strife leads to violence in cities.
  • Religious fundamentalists control government.
  • Child arrested for possibly making threats — though not confirmed.
  • Child executed for criminal act.
  • Rouge government invades another country without provocation.
  • Civil rights of a nation’s citizens ignored.
  • Large corporations poison citizens with no government recource.

    I would sit back on my chair or on the couch, smug in my assuredness that I didn’t live there.

    Then as I sat in the studio audience at Real Time with Bill Maher last week, I realized something.

    I am in that country. No more pointing fingers at Russia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Israel, or Palestine — and a host of other nations featured on the news.

    We’re there.

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