Americans' unhappy birthday: 'Too much wrong'

By PAULINE ARRILLAGA, AP National Writer Sun Jul 6, 6:43 AM ET

Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat
line these days. Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's
Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's
232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for
schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags
along the streets of one neighborhood.

They beam through the Pledge of Allegiance, applaud each other's good
news — a house that recently sold despite Arizona's down market, and one
member's valiant battle with cancer. "I didn't die," she says as the
others cheer.

But then talk turns to the state of the Union, and the Optimists become
decidedly bleak.

*They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe
what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes
the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war,
$4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic
stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth.*

One member's son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a
daughter who's lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in
construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend
who can barely afford gas.

Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aide inducted just this
day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: "There's just entirely too
much wrong right now."

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Perhaps when the GOP is swept out of the White House, the Dems have more
seats in Congress, and the indictments start piling up, we can move forward.

:)