Changes (a little political for Saturday morning, but give me a break, we got shellacked)

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

It has been over a month since I have been home on Saturday morning.  Way back then the leaves were still green, with a little brown, and I worried if we were going to see reds and golds this year.  On that Saturday morning I didn't have a leak in the pipe to my water heater and Bama was still undefeated, if only by a few hours. It seems that things change while I'm not looking.   On that Saturday morning in early October, the sun rose close to the middle of my bedroom window.  It rose all the way to the left this morning.

I am a wreck. I don't know what to do. First the leak in the water heater, Bama has a loss,  and now it appears that either the sun or the earth has shifted radically while I was not watching. Heaven or earth has moved.

Surely the end is near.

So I might as well not fix the leaky water heater pipe.

Other things have changed since last week..

Last week our nation was under an imminent threat of an ebola epidemic disaster of Biblical proportion. But since then the massive outbreak of ebola in the United States has been brought under control. Other than health workers who were brought home from Africa for treatment, there have been a total of four people in the U. S. infected, two while administering treatment to a patient in Texas. Two contracted the disease in Africa, one of whom died.  One doctor, Craig Spencer, is being treated in New York and is in stable condition. There has been an international effort to assist the beset countries in west Africa in bringing the ebola outbreak under control.   The United States sent military troops to construct treatment infrastructure, offered the expertise of the CDC,  and provided economic aid, supporting those countries in giving the world hope that the corner is being turned at the source of the viral outbreak.  While thousands are still infected and being infected, there is cautious optimism that the virus is being contained.

ISIS, which as recently as last week was reported to be poised on our Mexican and Canadian borders to invade our country, seems to be concentrating its activities in Iraq, and appears to be weakening. The group has been exposed for what it is and isolated when it left the confines of Syria, even among Muslim nations in the region. The international coalition, put together primarily through American efforts and which includes several Muslim nations, appears to have turned the tide against the inhumanely cruel terrorist organization.

As recently as last week the American economy was in freefall.   But miraculously changes have occurred.  The U. S. economy is humming.  Unemployment is at 5.8 percent, the lowest since mid-2008.  The economy is on track to produce more jobs than any year since 1999.  The U. S. economy has produced private sector job growth for 56 consecutive months, the longest such period since these matters have been recorded. Government employment has shrunken significantly. Inflation is minimal.  The stock market remains at record highs.  Corporate profits are off the charts. The U. S. budget deficit has declined every year since 2009.  The GDP increased by 4.6 percent in the 2nd quarter, and 3.5 in the third quarter, both much higher than expected, and indicators of a growing economy.

As recently as last week the oil industry was under attack in the United States, making it virtually impossible to conduct business.  But this week American oil production is at record levels. America exports more than it imports. Oil prices are down.  Gasoline prices are down. Russia's economy  which depends to a great degree on the sell of oil is suffering because of the falling prices.  It is the same issue that was the demise of a couple of Putin's predecessors in office.  That might be even better than cheap gas.

I can't imagine what happened, how all of these disastrous things and so many more could have changed so abruptly.  I heard and watched for myself the awful reports of a disastrous freefall economy, the ebola outbreak unchecked, the imminent ISIS takeover of our homeland, the attempt to destroy the oil industry.  It was all on video, narrated with creepy Halloweenish voices, proving that all of the assertions of doom and gloom were true. And all apparently President Obama's fault.

I was in Colorado.  And I was watching political advertisements on TV.  And every one of the assertions, and more, were corroborated by reliable Facebook posts here in Alabama.. How in the world could things have changed so quickly?

There is only one answer I guess, as much as I hate to admit it. I guess it was the Republican wave victory on Tuesday.  I just couldn't have dreamed of results so quickly.

And no doubt they will quickly correct the issue of the liberal sun moving so far to the left.

I guess I'll have to fix the water heater pipe after all.  I feel like I need a hot shower.

Just kidding. I pray for nothing but wisdom and good things for all those elected. And a return to a political environment which allows us to laugh together.  Otherwise this whole writing thing is not nearly as much fun.

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