WARREN GRANT: Pondering our world … and it’s a mess

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of observing and from that, a lot of thinking. It’s difficult to put words to paper without offending someone. I don’t know if people are really offended or if they just want something to gripe about.

I’ve been watching for a long time, the slow evolution of our marketing system. At one time, strip malls were popping up everywhere. Then the malls started to take over. Not long after, the mega-malls were trying to outdo each other to see who could be the biggest and best.

Nobody ever saw it coming. The internet. At first it was just a curious phenomenon that many didn’t understand. Many thought it would soon pass, as fads do, never giving it a second glance. But it has turned into a giant with tentacles wrapping around the entire globe.

Thus, the real problems began. More and more people jumped to the internet to sell their wares. Things grew slowly at first until more people started seeing the results that others were making and then it became like the gold rush to California. A pure stampede, which dealt a blow to the big, name-brand stores. Many are closing and many already have. It’s hard to argue with the cost of a product much cheaper than in local stores. And to have it delivered to your doorstep seems like a no-brainer. People still try to shop locally, but it’s becoming a thing of the past.

Those who are on a fixed income don’t have a choice but to go to the cheapest supplier. And then there are those who need a little extra cash and are working at home with a ton of reasons to do so. Not having to get up and get dressed to go to work, fighting the traffic, choosing the hours you want to work, not having to pay a baby-sitter, and the list goes on.

Although I don’t have a crystal ball to see the future, I can tell you with great certainty that the future is on the web. As more and more companies find the web luring them to higher profits with less and less employees, it has to happen, and it will. The personal touch of going to a department store and ending up becoming friends with a salesperson is gone. Welcome to the virtual assistant.

If ever there ever was a reason to legalize killing someone, it has to be the person who invented the virtual assistant that has never, and I mean never, helped me to accomplish something or fix a problem. Getting mad enough to allow a few words not normally used won’t help you out but will only get you a “now, now.”

It’s the bottom line that is being pushed, and no matter what it takes, damn the torpedoes, stay straight ahead. Thinking about the state of the country is becoming alarming. We, the United States, are broke. We are bankrupt as in we cannot in any way pay our way out of the mess we’re in. Giving billions of dollars to foreign countries that hate us, fighting in foreign countries that we have no business sticking our noses into their business, and thinking that somehow we can stop countries from fighting against each other, when they have been doing it for hundreds of years.

I have but one question to ask of anyone: Who made us the policeman of the world? Why are we supposed to be the keeper of the rest of the world when we can’t keep our own back porch clean?

And now the coup de gras has been delivered by our government by supporting one sex. No men or women, no male or female, just a person … no, make that a people so that we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings and they can be any gender they want. See you in the girl’s restroom.