What is the sound of no hands clapping?

I have a colleague I have only met online, who was in Germany for a while, and loves festbier. 

Drinking one for you now, N! wish I could bring you one, but I don't know how to get one to TX without it exploding and spoiling. Maybe we'll have a chance, to have one fresh, over here, sometime. Hasen-Brau aus Augsburg is an early spring favorite, for its spicy, sprightly flavor as well as the elegant long-legged bunny ornamenting the label. 

It's not like we've been moving every two years, as is expected of military families. I didn't sign up for that. I'll put up with some disruption, for opportunity, and we've certainly made the best of it. 

What everyone expects, is that we WANT to go back to the US. CG certainly doesn't. I've never seen him so happy and healthy, as over here. Except this last year, when his poor body began to fall apart. 

I've tried to write about the things I hate about Germany, and there's a good handful... but there are more significant things to hate about the US. Crime. Lack of public education (college) and health (highest infant mortality in the Western world, shortest life expectancy for poor elders, diseased vagrants) myopic politics.. I could go on, but it's just bloody dispiriting. 

Not looking forward to being maniacal about locking, hiding, guarding. Not looking forward to kids sporting the "poopy pants" look whether they are dumbass gangster dumbasses, or just wanting to be dumbasses. Not much diff.. probably just payoffs and access to weapons. Here's to carrying a fake wallet with a scanned 20 visible. Or a can of pepper spray and a chunk of rebar. Or both. Can't carry a gun in Maryland. Gee, what about that crime in Baltimore?

When the kids have no hope of entering university, they turn to other dreams. If all they see in the media is gangsta this and pimp that, what do they have to do?

It wasn't around so much, when I was at that age, and I was a terrible misfit geek in a very white-bread magnet school. So I don't really have a grip on these issues, and I know that.

If Obama wins, will these kids start wearing ties and go to Yale?
Not unless the infrastructure changes.

Not unless we give them a way, and we make being smart cool again.

I'm not into pandering, and I'm not even sure Obama's black! He's half white! what does that mean? The man's not even an Oreo. More like Eskimo pie.

On the other hand, ol' McCain is having to stroke like crazy, just to stay above water.
Hmm. Probably not a good analogy, for a dude his age.

Miz Hillary? honey, being married to the prez, does not a candidate make. I've been married to a PA wonk for a while, and you couldn't pay my ass enough to do that job. I'm SURE not qualified for it by marriage.

Besides, I can make more at mine, which I am actually Good At.

No, I don't like any of them. Nor do I like Ron Paul, an old Libertarian Texan. I could deal with Kucinich, but he can't seem to get it together.

Guess I'm stuck with the choice of no choices, again.

What is the sound of no hands clapping?