The Gimme Party

Whatever happened to Democrats like Harry Truman, Scoop Jackson and JFK?  Not that any of those guys would recognize their old party these days.  In 2016 the dems are offering up three candidates that are so comically unqualified to be president they make the less than inspiring slate of Republicans look like the second coming of George Washington, John Adams and Abe Lincoln.

What the donkeycrats have to offer this time around is two geriatric  broken down has beens and a younger doofus  who's only claim to fame is having been one of the worst mayors of the second worst city in the country.  And, when he finished with Baltimore, Martin O'Malley took his "magic" to Annapolis for a forgettable stint as governor of Maryland.  All of this hardly matters since he barely rates an asterisk in Democratic polls. No need to worry that he'll get his mitts on our ship of state.  Hillary Clinton, as of this writing, seems to be the odds on favorite to win the Democratic nomination if she isn't indicted for any number of crimes involving her unsecured state department email account and criminal activity by the Clinton Foundation.  She and her minions feel entitled to the presidency based on the fact that she is a woman who couldn't possibly do a worse job than a man.  Wanna bet?  Just for the record,  this woman had so little integrity that she faked more than forty years of looking the other way while her old man was doing the horizontal mambo with everything in a skirt.  The young intern playing "Bobbing for Bubba" in the oval office was okay by her as long as hound dog Billy promised to help her become the second President Clinton.  All of this proving that chicanery of this magnitude  reinforces the political maxim that the quality of one's compromises is more important than the correctness of one's position.  This morally bankrupt harridan actually believes that she is entitled to the presidency and will stop at nothing to get the gig.  

Getting the gig is tough this time around when you have an avowed socialist running for the nomination while promising to provide the electorate with bon bon trees, income "equality", free college and, in general, a government willing to pay whatever it takes to buy your vote.  (A leader willing to rob Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the steadfast support of Paul.)  Bernie Sanders is a socialist.  The guy honeymooned in the former Soviet Union!  Can you imagine trying to explain to Harry Truman that his party has a 74 year-old Brooklyn born Jewish socialist who loves getting cozy with commies in serious contention for the nomination?!  This guy has no shame.  Somehow always managing to look like he just arrived from an explosion at the Salvation Army,  Bernie  appears all over the primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire promising to end "income inequality" with a jumbo sized horn o' plenty loaded with government goodies purchased with money the government doesn't have and WON'T have but will gladly put on your grandchildren's credit card.

Of course Hillary and Marty have jumped on the income inequality bandwagon too.  It's easy to prey on the stupidity of any adult who really finds something amiss in the fact that a doctor or president of a major company makes more money than the vice president in charge of rags at the neighborhood car wash.  Here's a news flash for those morons:  YOU'RE ONLY WORTH AS MUCH AS SOMEONE IS WILLING TO PAY YOU!  If you want to make $25 million a year playing baseball, you'd better be good enough for the owner of the team to have money left over after handing you your paycheck.  Lots of us can mop floors, wash cars and carry out groceries; that's why those jobs don't pay well.  Positions of that caliber are not supposed to be careers.  They are stepping stones to aspirational occupations that bring higher pay as a reward for skills that are in demand.  Nobody hands out good paying jobs.  You must work hard for them and develop the required expertise to do them well.  America was built on this premise; not free college and "equal" pay.

A man of great wisdom, Shelby Steele, summed up the philosophy of today's Democratic party rather well when he said, "Liberalism in the 21st Century is, for the most part, a moral manipulation that exaggerates inequity and unfairness in American life in order to justify overreaching public policies and programs."  

Winston Churchill said it even better:  "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.  Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of the misery." 

These pipsqueak candidates can keep their campaigns of division and envy.   America needs a Winston Churchill in 2016.

...Or, Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Most people crave pets.  Smart people own cats and dogs.  Morons collect snakes and other critters that belong behind glass or bars.

Of course the nitwits who go for the exotic animals usually wind up tiring of the not so cuddly object of their affection and either give the creature away, turn it loose or stupidly kill it with neglect.  South Florida now has a sufficient python population to host an annual round-up of this unwelcome addition to the fauna of the everglades.  Thousands of these non native reptiles have laid waste to the original inhabitants of that fragile and beautiful river of grass and they seem to have no natural enemies. This ecological disaster was solely created by python owners and their' fickle illegal decision to set them free.

This does NOT belong in your pants!

A story just last week gave further proof to my contention that only a short bus rider would want to consider a snake as a suitable pet candidate.  A Portland, Oregon pet store captured a local dimwit--and, by the way, Portland has no shortage of dimwits--stuffing a two foot long python down his pants just prior to strolling out the door of the establishment.  Thanks to a surveillance camera, the culprit didn't get far and may have accidentally been saved from one of those hard to explain embarrassing emergency room visits.  You see, it seems the cute and not so cuddly slithering spawn of Satan was VERY close to feeding time.  Ouch!

Granted, if memory serves,  for most young guys, any action south of the belt line that doesn't involve limping out of a rectory at three in the morning is  generally okay, but this may have been more than the young non- invitee to the Mensa picnic bargained for.  

As the great Norman Cousins wisely said, "Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences."  

Stick to cats and dogs kid.  They won't fit in your pants.

Young jughead about to make his move...

Tick Tock

Quick! I need to lose twenty pounds and replace fifty-thousand burned out brain cells.

Fifty years?!  According to emails I've been receiving, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of my high school escape… uh, graduation and there is going to be a reunion.  After the initial realization that I could have gone to high school and graduated a couple of more times in fifty freakin' years it occurred to me to celebrate and embrace the fact.  It's always good to see old friends who shared the same longitude and latitude with you during this now seemingly prehistoric benchmark on history's timeline.  

The early sixties were really more like the 1950's.  The "Sixties" as popular culture defines it really didn't begin until just about the time my class graduated from high school in 1966.  Spencer, Iowa was, and is, tucked away in the frozen and often dusty cornfields of Northwest Iowa about two-hundred miles from Des Moines and even further away from any cities of consequence like Minneapolis or Kansas City.  Today, with Amazon, Netflix and broadband access in general, I imagine it doesn't seem far removed from the rest of the world but the feeling was much different fifty years ago.  In 1966 we had three television stations available in "living black & white" from the ever so sophisticated markets of Sioux City and Sioux Falls, a very skinny daily newspaper, a movie theater that got the latest movies a couple of months after the rest of the world, and a corn pone local radio station that featured farm markets and music programmed for our parents. NO ROCK N' ROLL!  Is it any wonder most of us wanted to escape?  (By the way, piggies are up and moo cows are even at today's livestock market open.)

It'll be fun to get together this coming August to do some catching up.  I can't imagine there being much pretense or self importance at this point.  If you had something to prove, you've done it and there is no need to bullshit anybody, even if you could. It's time to reflect on mistakes and successes with the wisdom and contentment that is the sweet by-product of grabbing life by the horns.  Coming from rural and small town America, the experiences of the past fifty years have been, I'm guessing, for most of us even more big screen and technicolor than it has been for our counterparts who graduated into adult life from places like New York City or San Francisco.  

Our dreams in 1966 may have been in black & white and we knew little of the world, but now, fifty years hence,  I'm expecting to hear plenty of colorful stories of triumphs, near misses and failures that taught some important lesson.  As Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in life are the day you are born and the day you discover the reason why."  I expect most all of the class of '66 has, by now, figured out why.   It'll be good to hear their stories.

"Turn the rotor it's time for Bandstand."

Hold It! The Kid Wants You In The Shot

I got a new camera for Christmas.  No big deal, as I have had an off and on affair with cameras for more years than I care to remember.  As I recall I started with a hand me down Brownie Instamatic and over time graduated to Polaroids, range finders, single lens reflex and now DSLR or digital single lens reflex.  

I'm already wondering if I should have just left well enough alone and continued chronicling life's important moments with my good point and shoot Nikon Coolpix that has served me well for the past several years.  It takes good pictures and--most important--ANY MORON (me)-- can easily handle its operation.  The new Canon DSLR that I bought at an unnamed warehouse store-- okay, COSTCO--was advertised for $150 less at Best Buy less just days after I bought the damn thing.  Did this portend an adversarial relationship with my new purchase?  

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but the instruction book that accompanied the new camera seems at least as heavy and certainly a snooze worthy equal to my old high school geometry textbook.  Of course with the latter and the help of homework copied off my pal Tom White I was able  soar to a solid D minus in Mr. Graff's class but, with the camera book,  I can't even manage to stay awake or bluff my way to mere competence.  Isn't there somebody I can hire to understand all this nonsense?  And, while we're at it, where the hell is White when I need him?  This learning curve is daunting.

Since you mentioned curves--you did didn't you?-- the box containing the new camera also contained a DVD of instructions on getting started and becoming a comfortably adequate master of my new toy.  The only problem is that the lovely young woman tapped to show me the tricks of operating this magic box of visual high tech is so good looking I have yet to learn a thing.  Heck, I watched her presentation sixteen times before I realized the sound wasn't even turned up.  This is vexing.  I've given some thought to just employing a fourth grader to follow me around and snap pictures of things I point at.  Problem solved!  All this digital technology is part of the sub thirty-something generation's DNA anyway.  Let one of them deal with all this DSLR B.S.  Those of us who have attained "senior" status know that though pain is mandatory, suffering is optional. Options ahoy!

If anybody needs me I'll be watching this very fine DVD presentation.  I may be old but I ain't dead yet.

"Eyes up here old man!  You might learn something."

A New Year

Count us among the many who are glad to see 2015 confined to the attic of history.  The return of my wife's lymphoma was, of course, a stunning setback that forever stained the year.  A stem cell transplant involving an extended three month stay in Seattle gave Linda a new lease on life but several months of recovery remain as she regains her immunity and strength. 

We are once again at home by the shore of Lake Coeur d' Alene in northern Idaho and are happy to be  sleeping in our own bed.  Years like the past one are good for reminding you of just how special life's simple pleasures can be.  I approach snow shoveling and taking out the garbage with a smile these days.  Seattle was a good reminder of why we are done living in cities.  What was a necessity when we were working is no longer the case.  Neither of us miss the traffic or the noise.

Linda walking the sparsely populated winter beach of Lake Coeur d' Alene

As most of the country enjoys a warmer than usual winter, there is no shortage of snow or sub freezing temperatures in Idaho's panhandle.  Though we will probably have changed our minds by this time next year, it's kind of fun to "do" a real winter for the first time since 1973.  Snow shovels and winter coats have come a long way in forty years.

2016 is a leap year and, in case you've been off the planet, it's also a presidential election year.  Here's hoping we don't muck it up again.  Where is the new John Adams, Harry Truman or Abe Lincoln?  Heck, Richard Nixon is looking pretty damn good to me of late.  I guess we'll know soon enough if we're getting smarter or, as I suspect, dumber by the decade.

Now that the battle in Seattle has defeated the tenacious serpent that is cancer, I hope to be more diligent in keeping up with this blog.  Not only is it good therapy and fun for me it also is a surprisingly terrific method of finding long lost friends. May 2016 bring nothing but goodness to you all.