The Nation We Live In, a Collection of Essays and Short Stories

Who gets your attention these days, whether deservedly or not? Is it the huge billboard adjacent to the busy road or highway? Is it your smartphone, or iPad? Is it cable, Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Roku or some other sort of Television programming? Face it folks, the world, marketers, friends, families and businesses are all striving and yearning for your attention. Why? Mainly because of the money. The bygone era of peaceful, non-digitally stimulating living and lifestyles may perhaps be over. There is a growing segment of society whom intrinsically wonder and would like to test living "off the grid." Do you currently live "off the grid". Would you ever consider living off the grid? If yes or maybe, how long of a duration do you honestly think you could make it sans digital, social media and entertainment? I predict it would challenging as hell for me, to completely abstain and go cold turkey on social media's constantly creating endorphin applications. The

Long Live Abortion! From now until the death of humanity! Warning, if you are a conservative, republican, aging white male, on the tail end of your life; you might NOT enjoy reading this. My relatively youthful opinions on this subject like most folks are strong. I once aced a University of Texas undergraduate course containing this abortion topic with an A letter grade. The course was titled, "Contemporary Moral Problems." Yeehaw! From that now decades old course, our University professor taught us, pupils, that abortion pre-viable fetus in the mother's womb should be allowed . Pre-viable fetus means the organism is unable to live on it's own without the mother. Abortion with a living viable fetus should NOT be allowed. This occurs usually in the 3rd trimester of a woman's pregnancy. To reiterate post-viable fetus, abortion should NOT be allowed. It's pretty simple. This line of thinking, is to determine if the early life can survive on its own,