Sometimes, I wonder why I feel they way I do. Not that I feel I need to be the nicest person in the world or the most compassionate or the the most congenial. As a matter of fact, I am very wary about people who are. I do my best to avoid them. Something about someone who is so... so excessively nice makes me roll my eyes.

I am also not a fan of people who are given to many chances. This morning, Darryl Strawberry (ex-Met, for those of you who don't know, that's baseball) was on the news. He was at Spring Training Camp as a special guest "coach". This is a man who has repeatedly been in and out of rehab/jail/trouble because of drug addiction. I question what message is being sent. At some level, the baseball powers-that-be MUST know that by constantly giving this guy any air time, they are condoning drug use. What is the message that is being conveyed? Oh, drugs are bad but if you do them, just keep doing some kind of penance and all will be fine? Should we be giving anything more than a second chance? Personally, I don't think so.

Many of us do not get a second chance. A whole lot don't even get a first chance. Why the hell should someone who throws away a third or fourth be even afforded a third or fourth? And especially if their first chance was lost on something illegal and serious as drug abuse? Does anybody else find this at all unfair? Should Darryl Strawberry (or Marion Berry or Robert Downey, Jr.) be allowed any type of third chance? Am I just uncompassionate? Do I despise these people because they are in the public eye? Maybe. I have a childhood friend who has repeatedly gotten himself in trouble with gangs. I feel for his family. His mother is someone I admire and love, as a child and as an adult. She is tenacious. I feel for her. I lost interest in him after his second incarceration.

I don't think I am cold and calous. I just think that our American society has a lot of chances to make the best for ourselves and those around us. We just seem to not take those chances. Worst of all, we keep allowing ourselves to achieve the same failures over and over again. Later.  ¶ 8:32 AM