Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

One of my favorite radio and print personalities is Dennis Prager, the guy makes sense and prefers clarity to conflict. He does what is probably the best hour of talk radio on his weekly "Happiness Hour". He has spoken and written extensively on the subject as his latest column also addresses. I agree, we have an obligation to our fellow man to be happy. If you disagree think about how it feels to be around a perpetually moody or angry person, it is demoralizing and often demeaning or violent. I know how far a smile and thank you goes, including getting out of traffic tickets with a " Hi, officer, thanks for doing your job, I was going a bit fast wasn't I ? Open road, pretty day and I was just enjoying it, sorry." , I was going 105 mph in my 240z . He said "slow it down" and let me go with a warning. This happened twenty odd years ago but the lesson stuck. I was happy an officer was there protecting the public from a crazy nut like me, I have covered 2100 miles in 25 hours between LA and B'ham and was getting passed by big rigs.
Happy people accomplish things, have intuitive ideas and are not cluttered with angry, loony victomhood conspiracy theories. Happy people make life better for all, including forcing yourself to be even when you don't want to, better than caffiene.

When you think about a Muslim suicide terrorist, is "happy" the first word you think of to describe him?
When you think about Nazis or Communists or Klansmen or child molesters, do you immediately think, "Now there are some happy people"?
Of course not.
It only takes a moment's thought to realize that while most unhappy people don't engage in evil, most evil is done by unhappy people. This is true on both the macro and the micro levels. We all know how much more likely we are to lash out at others when we are unhappy and how much we desire to make others feel good when we feel happy.

OOHRAA: Mike Yon's extraordinary work has made it to the floor of the Senate!!!

The Senate
Over the next few days, beginning November 8, 2005, my work will be used on the floor of the Senate to describe the actions of our soldiers in Iraq. Between 9:30 and 10:00 am, Senators will be reading my dispatches and showing some photographs I took in Iraq. I am honored that my work will be used to demonstrate the progress our soldiers are making in helping Iraq secure and maintain its freedom.I'll also soon complete a dispatch covering the "Deuce Four" redeployment Ball in Tacoma, where Bruce Willis gave an extraordinary speech.