We are indeed bombarded with the same bad news all the time.

When we are young we are new to the world and we feel a strong impulse to do something to change things.

We don't really know where to start so we rant at the older generation who seem blithely uninterested and whose understanding smiles are nothing short of frustrating.

As we get older we see the same cycles repeating and our optimism in the possibility of change wanes and in many people dies.

The age at which this happens seems to be getting younger and younger to the point that there are 14 year olds out there with all the fatalistic resignation of 70 year olds.

We think to ourselves - hey what the hell - nothing changes, I may as well try to make the journey as painless for me and my kids as possible.

I may as well just accept that the world is full of bad people, poverty, war etc and take the realistic approach which is to ensure that if the world is going to hell that a least I've got a comfortable safe seat with a minibar where I can be away from all the sad/bad experiences.

I feel the lure to live that way drawing me in like a vortex.

Build me a substitute womb in which to dwell.

Let me be numb and blind to the plight of the world cos there's not much I can do about it.

The problem is that being human I have a nerve in the pit of my stomach that is ill from the pain of humankind.

I'm not a martyr - it's natural.

It's also an intelligent survival instinct as I am informed enough to know that human kind cannot live in isolation, but need each other to survive. And bein so informed I can't ignore it - though I would love to.

That's why I'm a sucker for a guy like Obama.

He takes the last glimmer of a spark that will not die and breathes life into it.

Naive maybe, but life is better when there is hope.

I am a happier person when I'm honest and when I believe in the possibility of change.

Now here's a question to put the cat among the pigeons ...

Is that line the line that seperates cons and libs?