Time Marches On

It's been nearly a year since we've had a posting here, and lots has been happening.  The Worldview has a whole new perspective.  From way further North.  Brett Favre and I have left southern comfort to "enjoy the seasons" in the land-o-lakes.  Of course Brett's situation is more comfortable than most, while mine is more "average American."

There is good news in the world.  The Iraq War appears to be somewhat over.  More or less on some kind of Korea model.  Anyway, it's good news.  Maybe this will do for Obama what winning the first Iraq War did for the first President Busch.

The politics are active but not much fun these days.  Up here opinions rum the spectrum, just like down south.  Here both Michelle Bachmann and Al Franken represent us.    Back home both Jimmy Carter and Newt Gingrich are on the local scene.  So while our states might be red and blue on the electoral maps, they really are both mixed bags of political opinions.

Braving the Cold of a Blue State

Word on the tv is that our Republican friends are on verge of a big victory in the "mid-terms."  Not tests, elections.  Obamamania is all but dead.  The consensus is that he blew his big chance.  It's hard not to agree.  We can only hope that the next batch of pols will hold true to form and not do what they say once elected and actually come up with a way to fix the economy.  Expectations are universally low.

Obama's fall from grace may seem counter-intuitive.  He won the war in Iraq against . . . the bad guys, and the troops are coming home.  He took office in the midst of a true economic crisis, and managed to contain it.  But memories are short and distorted.  The urgency of the financial meltdown and the bogginess of the war don't seem so serious as they fade into memory.  Obama is the cleanup man with the mop who gets blamed because he is found in the middle of the mess.

The country will muddle forward.  It reminds me of the 1970's.  People will turn inward and reevaluate their priorities and the meaning of our lives.

So it's September and a brand new season is upon us.  A thankful time to enjoy life.

Labor Day means that Fall has come to this part of the country, along with the start of school.  This is a mark of a civilized sensibility that is a comfort to traditional minds.  School (and football) should not start before Labor Day.  The seasons of our lives should not be slaves to meaningless celestial occurances like equinoxes and solstices.  It is Fall now.  Days are shorter, golf is cheaper, and sweaters are occasionally needed in the evening.  There is a fresh crispness in the air and khakis are on sale. Eating dinner outside is truly pleasant.  Hmmmm. 

Life can be beautiful.

Dog Day

Four appointments today. Spread out around the metro area. Equipped with printed mapquests, an aging and out of date GPS in the car, the sporadically functional Sprint navigation system on my Blackberry, a full tank of gas and a 12-pack of Diet Coke, I head out to earn my daily bread.

House calls. That's what's happening today. Meeting folks at their homes to close their loans. Generally it's OK. Today all the folks seemed nice on the phone, and I am on schedule, so things look good.

I'm leaving appointment number 2, driving and typing in my next destination on the GPS when - BAM! - I've hit some crazy huge pothole in the road. I feel like one of my tires is flat, and the road is windy and fast, so I vear into an uphill side street as the dashboard lights start to go crazy, and then pull into somebody's driveway.

I stop and catch my breath. Well! That was stressful. Now what?

I look at the house and it seems that nobody is home. Check out the car and sure enough, a back tire is cut and flat. F-word. What to do now?

I call my wife to come pick me up. She's not answering. I'm thinking I'll need to find a number for a tow truck. Obviously it has been a long time since I've had a flat tire and I'm not thinking clearly because it takes me a while to remember that cars come with a spare tire. An extra tire! Just for this situation!

This is the kind of realization that makes you feel stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

So my first step is to the glove compartment, to flip open the owner's manual and figure out where this spare tire might be. It's in the trunk! Finding it under the carpet back there, I reach in and grab it and give a mighty heave and . . . nothing. Try again. And again. It won't budge. Boy, I am really out of shape. Then I realize that the tire is screwed into place back there so it won't bounce around.

This is the kind of realization that . . . well, you know.

Eventually the tire is out, leaning against the back bumper, and the jack is affixed to the car and I am jacking away to lift the deceased tire off of the ground. Then suddenly I see a shadow move out of the corner of my eye, and thinking that someone has approached (perhaps a suspicious neighbor), I look up to see the spare tire rolling away down the hill of the street. By jacking the car up I've caused the spare tire to stand up as well. And it is doing what all tires are born to do - hit the open road.

Thinking quickly, I decide to panic. I run after the tire toward the fast windy road at the bottom of the hill, waving my arms ridiculously and yelling "look out!" Cars stop. The drivers are polite. No honking or glaring looks. I wave apologetically and retrieve the tire.

It's getting hot. I'm wishing I wasn't wearing a suit.

Back to business. I carefully place the spare tire along the side of the car this time, and return to jacking the car up. I successfully unscrew the flat tire and haul it around to the trunk, where I (FATAL MISTAKE ALERT!) proceed to heave it into the trunk. Then I proceed to push and pull the tire to get it into the trunk's special spare tire wheel well that hides under the carpet back there. As I'm pushing and pulling, suddenly space and time seem out of sorts and I think I might be dizzy, but a loud crashing sounds makes me suddenly realize that the car has been moving and has now fallen off of the jack and the car and the wheel hub are now lying flat on the ground.

Thinking quickly, I decide to flail my arms up and down and yell the F-word repeatedly. Then suddenly I see a shadow move out of the corner of my eye, and thinking that someone has approached (perhaps a good samaritan who will change the tire for me), I look up to see the the spare tire rolling down the hill AGAIN.

Feeling that fate is against me, I am even more panicked this time, and run down the hill once more. Arms flailing, yelling warnings, hoping that nobody gets hurt because I cannot change a tire properly. Rolling the spare tire up the hill, again, I wonder about how to get the car off the ground.

Amazingly, the jack still fits under the car even when it is flat on the ground. Maybe there really is something to that German engineering rep. I silently thank whoever designed the jack for doing a good job, and start cranking.

A short time later, I'm back on the road. I'm not even that dirty. I wonder if I have a road hazard warranty for the flat tire. The whole episode only lasted about an hour. Not so bad.

If I hurry I can get back on schedule. Here's another insight I'd learned and forgotten, when towns run into budget problems, like now, police seem to give out more tickets. Hurrying begets speeding which begets speeding tickets. So a nice police officer reminded me to drive safely by begiving me a ticket. I can't say I didn't deserve it.

Tomorrow I'll be more careful.

Good Deeds Punished

Are we a Nation of Nitwits? Or am I just stuck spending time with the wrong sorts?

These are the questions I ponder as I listen to the folks I meet throughout my days who feel quite comfortable in sharing snarky political opinions about President Obama. These folks really don't like Obama. And why should they? Him being a big government Socialist who caused the Great Recession and all. Except of course for those days when he is being a big government Fascist who caused the Great Recession. Or those days when he is a big government Muslim . . . well, you get the idea.

So Clever!

Yesterday's experience was pretty typical. I was dealing with an elderly couple who were, of all things, refinancing their home mortgage. They were very old to be doing this, which brings to mind a few questions about personal responsibility and the virtue of thrift. But, thanks to Fannie Mae, such concerns can be set aside because our federal government has allowed folks like them to get a brand new mortgage loan on their home at 4.5% interest, which they are scheduled to payoff in full at the age of 114.

No wonder they have such negative feelings about the government.

These folks are supported by government welfare payments called Old Age Insurance Benefits or Retirement Insurance Benefits. This "insurance" apparently is designed to provide protection against the risk of becoming old or becoming retired. Go figure.

Old Age Benefits come from the federal government's Social Security Administration, which sounds suspiciously socialist to me. So we can all understand why these oldsters would be hostile to these Big Government programs. And much to what I am sure is their chagrin, the oldsters are also forced to get socialized medical insurance through Medicare, yet another government scheme to destroy Capitalism and redistribute wealth.

With all of this government intrusion into their lives, no wonder they feel resentful about it.

Of course like most of the folks I deal with who are over 65, they wanted to know if they needed to renew their exemption from paying school taxes. That's right, here in Georgia schools are funded through property taxes. But if you are over 65, you are exempt from this. This may seem shameful to people who care about things like children, or their country, but it was the only way that the people of Georgia who do care about education could get the oldsters to vote to fund the schools. It was a deal.

As one elder put it to me, "We want to make sure we get that exemption, especially since our kids are out of school now." Of course this is a perfectly sensible and self interested view. If you assume that self interest is perfectly sensible.

This is the Republican Party view of good democracy in a Capitalist America. If everybody votes for their own self interest, then that will translate into better results for all of us, and the country as a whole. It seems to sound OK. The fact that it doesn't really work, and that we all really know this, hasn't dampened our collective enthusiasm for repeating it as a sort of conservative mantra.

Like the senior citizens I met yesterday, most of the old folks I deal with don't like President Obama. Maybe because I'm a middle aged white guy, they assume I share their "Fox & Friends" worldview, and they feel free to share the Fox-ignorant-talking-point-of-the-day with me. Usually I say something non-committal, like, "We'll see what happens" or "I hadn't heard that." There really isn't much that can be said that would make a difference. Folks like this don't do much actual thinking for themselves. They listen to what fits into the established mail slots of their brains, and things that don't fit simply don't register, and fall by the wayside. They sit in front of their televisions nodding along with Glen Beck and sharing his frustration at how the federal government and unions and liberals are ruining the country, in complete self-denial that they themselves are living on the dole.

"Fair & Balanced" - and Friendly!

But of course the real frustration on my side of the fence is that they are us. These are Americans. It is embarrassing to realize that this is true. Their muddled mind mush of beliefs that our country was founded on principles of Capitalism, but also Christianity, while failing to take note of the inherent conflicts this implies, or what this means to us today, really brings up the word "stupid." That all of these folks at the bottom of the economic food chain love Capitalism so much is testament to the power of repeated suggestion. I doubt whether 99% of these folks know a true capitalist who would accept their call. And I doubt whether half of them actually know what a capitalist is.

So how do Fox and Rush and Hannity get away with selling such obvious baloney to our citizens? And why are we as a people still so gullible in such large numbers? Here's one explanation from a long ago anti-communist that still rings true,

". . . because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

Karl Rove could not have said it better.

For a better written take on Fox News, check out an interesting take by Deepak Chopra by clicking HERE.