Maybe it's time to stop watching so much "Honey Boo Boo"

Below is a supposed email from Bill Cosby (proven to be false) that my grandmother's husband forwarded to me today:

"I'm 76 and I'm Tired" by Bill Cosby
I'm 76. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Except for some serious health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn't call in sick in nearly 40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, it looks as though retirement was a bad idea, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honour"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to. I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia, New Zealand, UK, America and Canada, while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
I'm also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20's bedeck themselves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 76.. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter and her children. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in.
There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

Do you ever get, like, shaking mad?  Cause I was that when I got it.  Why, knowing me, would you forward this to me?  I have an Obama shirt for chrissakes.  I hang dry my clothes.  My father generated electricity through a miniature hydro dam on his property.  I eat free range meat... on the rare occasions that I actually eat meat.  I work for a union.  The word "socialism", when said just so actually arouses me.
And so here is the response that I sent to a few of the people that the initial email went out to (but not my grandmother's husband because heaven forbid I should ever be a proud liberal atheist, or anything):

I'm 36 and I'm tired, too.

I'm tired of my investment portfolio taking a hit every time the top 1% develops some ingenious new investment vehicle which does little more than ease the transfer of wealth from the disappearing middle class to the wealthy elite.  I'm utterly exhausted every time I hear how someone on Wall Street is getting a $100 million dollar bonus or better - is being fired but is still getting a $25 million dollar payout due to contractual obligations.

I'm tired of listening to the pathetic rhetoric surrounding other religions when, if you crack open the blessed Bible to almost any page you can find various instances of god smoting us and fathers turning out their daughters (and sons) to be raped to death, or sacrificing their children.  Additionally, I'm tired of having to remain quiet on the fact that I am an atheist instead of doing what I want to do, which is decry all humanity that seems so mindlessly willing to believe (and kill for) something that has not been proven to exist.

I'm tired of being told about tolerance.  I live in a country that is not mine, and whose original inhabitants have been relegated out of site and out of mind.  A country that did not allow women the right to vote until the early 1900's, put Japanese Canadians in concentration camps, and used the Chinese as slave labour to build our railways.

I am totally fatigued to continue to have to deal with people that don't think that the state of our environment is a pressing emergency, and who - on one hand state they loathe a sense of entitlement in others, and yet refuse to accept anything less that what they have always been accustomed to.

I'm tired of the disdain with which our society views its weakest members.  We have not walked a mile in their shoes.  We know that mental health institutions have been shut down, putting people on the street.  We see numerous horror stories of how the childcare system routinely fails and foster children are raped and beaten and killed.  It's tiring to me that people continue to perpetuate this thought process instead of actually and honestly considering the other side of the story.

But hey, who am I?  I have short hair, a pierced nose and a tattoo and yeah, a little bit of my underwear is showing today.

Occupy.  

In sol,

T-