Happy New Year!

The new year starts today. Now, I will worry about the recurring "big" problems for this year. These essays are my opinion, and no one else, regarding these topics. This list includes:

1. The Olympics, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is one of the few times that the Olympics has been held south of the equator.
2. Presidential politics. Until now, I have avoided listening to the self-aggrandizing buffoons who are leading the charge this cycle.
3. Terrorism - In the United States, we have been fighting terrorism since long before the Declaration of Independence was signed. The only thing that has changed is the people perpetrating it.
4. Government overreach. Again, this is an old problem going back to the 1760s with the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts. Back then, it was the British Crown. Today, we do it to ourselves.
5. Intolerance - We were founded upon the idea of freedom - freedom of religion, of expression, of ideas. But we were not tolerant of others, as witnessed by religions, ethnic and racial discrimination, the various "witch hunts" and now, the stifling "political correctness" which generates new "code words" and "code phrases" for old, often painful concepts and overlays the older uses of these words, warping how our children see history.
6. The question of what do we want from our government at various levels - municipal, county, state and federal? Or, has this question become just another political correctness "code phrase?"