No, we didn't watch the SOTU.

We simply didn't want to devote that much of our evening to it.  I didn't expect anything more than we saw last year: Dems cheering at the drop of a phrase and the Repubs sitting stone faced.  The political reporter on our morning news said that was exactly what we got.  One of the reporters last night remarked that most Americans were very pessimistic and didn't trust the government--any part of the government.  My very contrary remark: well, duh!!!  What have we to trust?  When a government does something and is seen to do something, you can have some trust that they will address problems.  You might not agree with what they do but at least they are doing something about the problems.  Our government is so dysfunctional they are doing almost nothing.

I wondered if someone would bring this up.  One of the prominent sound bites from the State of the Union was Obama's pride in the "lowest unemployment rate in five years."  But how has that rate been achieved and who is left out.  I am glad to see the article note the drop in the participation rate (the percentage of working age people in the labor force) is only partly due to baby boomers retiring. I wonder how many "retired" boomers are like me.  I "retired" as soon as I qualified for Social Security but after two-and-a-half years unemployed without unemployment benefits.  And during which time I had only one interview inspire of filing applications for every job out there.  How many people simply fell off the statistics?

The sentiments expressed here mirror mine very closely.  I do go on Facebook but only to play a couple of games and those are becoming less and less enjoyable.  I hate the notion that I have to have oodles of not-really friends to get anywhere or I have to spend real money for virtual (non)goods.  I have often thought how nice it would be if they arranged a game that you could play without inviting all of your not-really friends to join in also.  I do have family on Facebook but they all know that the best ways to contact me are e-mail or phone.  Every now and then I fantasize about deleting Facebook.  Just have been too lazy to do it--yet.

I think the question asked in this headline can be answered in the affirmative.  We are, indeed, sleepwalking into a cashless society where every transaction we make is recorded and noted somewhere.  I wonder how long before the dictionaries will drop the word "privacy" and its variants because we won't be using it.  It will be meaningless.

The State of the Union--as it should have been.

Is it me or do these things always turn out worse than initially reported.

Thankfully, no cows were hurt.  Until I saw the source (Reuters) I wondered if it was a serious news story.