"May you live in interesting times"

The title of today's post is an ancient Chinese curse. You see, to the Chinese "interesting times" meant a lack of stability. In other words: chaos, starvation, sorrow, and death.

As a child, I would always love to watch World War II movies with my dad. I grew up on stories about the war as told by my grandfather, a veteran who fought under Patton in the Third Army. Even as recently as high school, I recall thinking to myself about how amazing it must have been to live through such momentous events as those that transpired from the Great Depression up through the Cold War.

Of course, I started to reconsider my opinion that I would never experience anything like that shortly after 9/11.

Nowadays, with North Korea and Iran developing nuclear weapons, the former's increasing saber rattling, and Israel losing Turkey's good will (not to mention the increasing loss of world opinion) along with America's purposeful backing away from staunchly supporting Israel... let's just say I'm no longer convinced that I won't live in equally monumental times of change.

As a side note, I think this woman is the perfect example of what I hate about modern litigation. I think that even though Google is providing directions, it still falls upon the user's shoulders to use some common sense.

It is a tragedy that she got struck by a car, and I don't even particularly mind that she's suing the person who hit her (though I don't necessarily believe she ought to win... if she was walking on a road without a sidewalk, it might be her fault,) but to sue Google for "careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions" is beyond ridiculous.