99 Problems

Jay Z claims that he had 99 problems. That is a lot. I hope he has worked those out. I was thinking about some of the problems that Americans face, and in about five minutes, I came up with a list of 51 problems. Oh, and one thing that is certainly, emphatically, NOT a problem. Happy reading.


1. There’s a European financial crisis that could tank our entire economy

2. It is not normal to have 90-degree weather in March

3. Community is still on the brink of being cancelled. Outrage!

4. Crazy people can get guns

5. Crazy people can’t easily access help for their mental illnesses

6. Our old-school educational model does not take into account that more than 50% of the children in it do not learn through sitting still and listening to lectures

7. Some of those children eat candy and soda for breakfast

8. We live in a society where people scream for their right to eat candy and soda for breakfast

9. As a country, we’re getting fatter and fatter

10. And the contestants on Biggest Loser are getting meaner and more obnoxious

11. Also, Dolvett is too handsome and it’s distracting

12. But seriously, people die of obesity

13. Children are hurt and abused by their parents

14. Recess has become a thing of the past

15. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are dating?

16. Rather than question politicians about real issues, people sit around waiting to catch them “flip-flopping”

17. Gas is expensive

18. So is college

19. The bugs are going to be out of control as a result of the warm winter

20. Americans would rather deny the existence of global warming than change one thing about how they live their lives

21. Angelina and Brad had an affair about a hundred years ago, but only Angelina is considered the bad guy. She wasn’t even married

22. Visiting prostitutes is some kind of team-building activity for our Secret Service

23. People don’t seem to get that prostitutes would probably rather do something else

24. They’re too busy reading 50 Shades of Gray and further warping their view of reality

25. And women in this country who are raped are still accused of “asking for it”

26. Drug and alcohol addiction are seen as willpower problems, and people are vilified for being addicts, but morbid obesity is seen as a choice that should be protected

27. Had Trayvon Martin been white, he would not have been followed. Period

28. But people still deny that this is a racist country

29. They instead blame black people for making them scared

30. And support political candidates who think that black people should get jobs washing toilets

31. As a matter of fact, tweets about a black professional hockey player who scored a winning goal against the Boston Bruins referred to him as the n-word.

32. And there are still people who say, “Why is it okay for THEM to say that word and not me?”

33. Our citizens do not know basic rules of grammar

34. Rules that a second-grader should know, such as “your” and “you’re”

35. And yet we want to keep the Mexicans out because they don’t speak our language

36. We complain about how backwards the Muslim people are, but we execute our own citizens, knowing that we have executed innocent people in the past. Oops!!

37. Families, towns and regions are devastated by tornados, hurricanes, floods and wildfires

38. Our favorite sport is one which causes debilitating, permanent injuries and brain damage in its players.

39. There is no mechanism in place to require child support from both parents

40. The burden of single-parenthood falls largely on American women

41. Who are paid less than men for doing the same work in 2012

42. Political candidates spend MILLIONS of dollars on attack ads against their opposition, but programs that work, like health services through Planned Parenthood, are defunded

43. Human beings are told that health care is a luxury

44. And that, if they don’t have it, they should just die of cancer

45. Because they should have planned better

46. And we would rather take the money that we could have spent on the welfare of all and apply it to a second set of golf clubs

47. After all, new stuff is important

48. There are hungry old people

49. There are hungry families

50. There are hungry puppies and kitties

51. There are hungry children. Which is something we should never have. Not in this country.

Now, after all of this, I’m supposed to believe that two people who want only to love, honor, cherish, and support each other, in a committed relationship, for the rest of their lives, is a problem because they both happen to be of the same sex?

That doesn’t seem like a problem to me.