Don't you just love the various depictions of the Grim Reaper - you know, those skeletal figures wearing a hoodie and toting a deadly looking harvesting tool? I suppose that's supposed to strike fear into the hearts of everyone, and it probably does. But . . . death doesn't look that way at all. In fact, death looks very friendly in most cases, and here's some facts to support that contention. Cars have killed 20,000,000 people since its invention, and most of us love cars. We've had a fascination with cars since the things first appeared just over a century ago. I'm 72 years old, and I've walked away from a dozen fairly serious car wrecks. I didn't walk away from one, and it left me partially crippled for life. Like many others, I've had a lifetime fascination with the automobile, and it's been costly in more ways than just the injuries.
Like to smoke? Tobacco related deaths snuff about 450,000 people a year in this country alone. And yeah, I'm been a tobacco user on and off for a long time. I still smoke a pipe, which puts me in the slow learner class at best, and the outright dumbass class for all practical purposes. Like to eat? Me too, and that's the most risky thing we do. You don't expect the Grim Reaper to look like a t-bone, or a bowl of ice cream, but he does. And overweight related deaths amount to nearly 40,000,000 a year. That's forty million, if you need it written out. Are you a gun lover? Since 1968 guns have killed more people in America than all the wars put together that this country has been involved in. Alcohol use kills close to 90,000 people a year. Addictions to illicit or prescription drugs take down another 40,000.
I could go on and on about the health risks and the tools employed by the Grim Reaper, but I think you get the point . . . and if you don't here it is. We're awful when it comes to using things that otherwise could be a good thing. In many cases drugs are a wonderful invention, saving millions of lives each year, but too many people abuse them. There's nothing good about tobacco at all, not up side to that, and there's no reason anyone should die from alcohol use. Those things we can do without, totally. Cars? Well, everybody needs to have an automobile, and it's a wonderful creation for the most part. It's not the car that kills; it's the driver. Same with the gun. It's not the gun; it's the individual employing it wrongly that kills. There's no excuse for all the blubber-butts and lard-asses running around this country, and it's killing them. And in the process of doing that, it's inflicting misery on the rest of us in terms of health care costs. The problem is us, the abusers, the overdoers, the gluttons, and the careless. Add in those with evil intent, and you've got a bad situation all the way around.
It's us, dammit! The Grim Reaper looks like us.
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