Paying Attention: Woodschlock and other stuff

"You should get bitter as you get old. It shows you're paying attention." TV's Craig Ferguson

I have been paying a lot of attention lately.
It's not a problem because I have been spending quite a bit of time in airports wondering how a mode of travel that used to be fun became a form of torture. My god, it is a miserable experience to get on an airplane these days! The stepped-up security I can handle. I merely remember the smoking wreckage of September 11, 2001 and the fundamentalist idiots who did it and I am fine. However, what does get me going is this "nibbled to death by ducks" pricing that the airlines seem intent on imposing: "That'll be $30 if you want to check a bag, sir." "Something to drink? How about a snack? Got a credit card?"

Stop it!

H0w about telling me what the REAL price is when I buy a ticket? You clowns are fooling nobody. JUST GIVE US ONE ALL ENCOMPASSING PRICE PLEASE! ((It also wouldn't hurt if you were occasionally on time.)

Also, I am completely sick of this endless debate of health care in America. Wasn't Medicare and Medicaid supposed to fix everything when LBJ drunkenly foisted it upon us back in the 60's? If those two socialist programs haven't taken care of everybody by now how is implementing an even larger plan going to do anything more than bankrupt us? And, more importantly, if the freeloaders in Congress think their health care reform is so damn good for their constituents why have they exempted themselves from the plan? It would seem that until they come up with something that they are willing to submit to along with the rest of us they should just SHUT UP AND LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE.

Now...on to something that really chaps my ass: Woodstock

It is necessary to keep a pail near my easy chair as I watch the endless television news tributes to the fortieth anniversary of "three days of peace and music". "The 1960's and Woodstock was a time of great hope and dramatic social change for everyone" gushed one report.

PULLEEEZ! What a crock! Chris Reed, in the San Diego Union-Tribune, said it best: "The festival's alleged history-altering greatness is best seen as just another talking point of a helplessly, hopelessly self-infatuated generation." Amen!
While most of my friends were either working, in school or in the service, these nitwits were smoking dope, screwing , rolling in the mud listening to crappy music by mediocre musicians not unlike themselves.

I don't think that it's a coincidence that the folks who were at Woodstock mostly wound up in education and government where "feeling good about yourself" trumps accomplishment. I wonder how that "single payer" (see government) health plan would have played at Woodstock?

Kumbayah anyone?