Up In Smoke

We were right there with the rest of the country on Sunday night watching the gorgeous and amazing fireworks displays in Washington, D.C., New York City & Boston. And of course there were the fireworks all around us in the neighborhood throughout the evening. And yes, I'll admit I love to watch fireworks as much as the next person. I don't think I would be exaggerating if I said we probably saw over $ 5- $6 MM in fireworks on the 4th, maybe that's even far too low compared to the real cost.

Not to sound like a Socialist or anything but how many homes could have been built in Haiti or even New Orleans for that amount of money? How far could that have gone in upgrading the dikes in New Orleans, how many homeless people could have been given 6 mos. to a year of shelter for that money, not to mention feeding them. How many kids who are terminally ill could have gone on a last family vacation with that money? How many transplant surgeries could have been covered with that cash? How many single parents with dead beat ex-spouses could have been given some of that money in lieu of the child support they are not receiving to enable them to buy decent child care so they could work? How many jobs could it have created?

The answer to all these questions is undoubtedly not much, but anything would have been more beneficial than the way the millions of dollars was spent. Could we all have lived without the fireworks one year knowing the money was being used instead in more worthy ways? Did anyone even ask?

It's as if the more extravagant the display, the more they are hoping we will forget about the economy, the scenes of so many natural disasters, the wreck of the Gulf, schools scaling back to the point of ridiculous, the cost of everything going up while the cost of our homes goes down. I guess my point is, it didn't fool me. I wonder how many others think that since the fireworks were better than ever, everything is hunky-dory?