Finding Your Inner Tree

I have spent big chunks of my life trying to be a better person. Sadly, I admit that my efforts have largely been a fool's errand. Normal people have empathy for their fellow man. Me? Not so much. I come from the "You shot it Tarzan, you eat it" school. As Earl Hickey would say, "Don't mess with Karma." For example, take the headline I saw in the paper today. It said Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones fell out of a palm tree. I seems that he has taken a much-needed respite from the Stones "Death Warmed Over Tour" by vacationing in Fiji and has fallen from a palm tree, suffering a concussion. Oh, I know what you are wondering, "What kind of palm tree was it?" No wait, that is what I wondered. I also wonder what a 62 year-old bozo is doing in a palm tree in the first place and what substance was he under the influence of and how much did he ingest? By the way, according to the news report, this is Richards second concussion of the week. Most people are sympathetic toward poor Keith and wish him the best. Senior citizen falls out of a palm tree? No sympathy from me. Oh, before I forget, it was a Coconut Palm. Then there are these knuckleheads the cops shoot because they are waving a gun around. For instance, there was a guy shot recently because when the cop showed up to break up the fight he and his girlfriend were having, he pointed a gun at the cop and refused to put it down. The knucklehead had already shot up her car, before taking the battle inside. Several people called 911 to report a man with a gun screaming at a woman in the parking lot. The girlfriend, bless her, tried the old "my dog didn't bite you defense". She said he didn't shoot the car, but if he did, he wasn't angry, and even if he was angry he didn't have the gun on him when the cops got there, and even if he did have the gun he never pulled it out, and if he did pull it out he wasn't going to shoot. Brilliant. But of course she loved him 'cause he was trying to stay off drugs and trying not to hang around criminals and trying not to be hostile toward the world. They were planning to get married as soon as he finished drug treatment. True love is so beautiful.