Separating the BS from the Apple Butter

            I’m ending my relationship five buck coffee.  What once was a harmless if pretentious exercise in conspicuous consumption has gone bitter.  It is now tainted with pretend corporate responsibility.  You can just see the two little kids at the sandbox talking: “Pretend there was this controversy,” says Kid 1.  “Yeah, and pretend like we cared,” chimes in kid 2. etc, etc, culminating in, “Let’s give a show!”

            (Here’s the apple butter.)  While people are silent about the voting rights and discrimination tragedies just dumped on our country, everybody wants to put on a completely artificial show against racism in (Here’s the BS!) the fake issue carnival of Paula Deen’s ancient use of “N” words.  Far as I’m concerned, apology accepted, issue closed.  And any of you foolish enough to discount workplace discrimination, and deliberate disenfranchisement ...may have a future in the high court.

            Back to the five buck coffee, when you add in all that cream, sugar, and camel hair extract or whatever, you can’t really tell whether it’s five buck or fifty cent coffee.  And good, unadulterated home made sippin’ java costs between  7 and 25 cents a cup.  So, travel mug it shall be.  But I’ll be careful where I buy that mug—there’s more than one way to ‘Live Better.’  And when the little speaker voice asks “What can I get you?”  I’ll tell it I don’t need anything, I just wanted to be in the line.  It’s my ‘me’ time.

Wednesday

            You have something you have been wanting to do.  You have been thinking about it for a while now, and your internal resolve is almost complete.  It needs to be done, and you are definitely going to do it. 

            Maybe registering to vote is what you are considering.  Wednesday would be a good day for that.  Why?  Because many others are taking action on their personal “to do” items on a Monday, starting fresh for the week and cramming the hours with stuff.  Or a Friday, filling out their weeks when a day or two of contemplative repose is coming to reward them, but invariably is lost to unforeseen difficulties.  Maybe you are working up to a do-it-yourself project on the car or the house.  While others wear themselves out with a loooong Monday, or taint their weekends with frustration, Wednesday calls to you, and you can hear the old song phrase, “Here I am stuck in the middle with you.”  Wednesday will protect you from complications and stick with you till your restful weekend arrives.

            Now, in my family, Wednesday has a special significance.  It is the day to which we traditionally assign things we DON’T plan to do, because we didn’t want to anyway.  For us it is the Julian equivalent to “We’ll see.”  It seemed therefore an excellent day on which to begin a diet.  It needs to be done, and I am definitely going to be cranky.  Starting today, no sweets, no sodas, no kidding.

Stated Reasons

            In a dinosaur move, the 2013 State Legislature failed to approve expansion of Medicaid for Nebraskans.  A dedicated few individuals saw fit to obstruct the consideration of this matter by filibuster.  They were joined by others who chose not to go to bat for Nebraska.  The whole sorry failure will cost us $423 million in 2014, and will go over a billion dollars.   Who cares?  We embarrassed ourselves, but we got a little of it on Obamacare, as the Pleistocene fantasy goes.  Where’s OUR Jan Brewer?

One thing we DON’T need is for our state governing body to ape the behavior of congress.  Our national legislators have been hemorrhaging cool for years now.  One almost expects it to appear in yellow puddles between their shoes.  Meanwhile smiling state simians take up foggy bottom tactics and the mantle of austerity.  But it is a false frugality they foment.  And in any case, it’s political not fiscal in nature, stated reasons notwithstanding.  You see, the Affordable Health Care Act, which is the law of the land (as modified by the conservative Supreme Court) is a close copy of the proven health care program designed yesterday by the very people who so furiously oppose it at taxpayers’ great expense today.

Just like the counterfeit concerns over Bush invasions of privacy, (the ones that disappeared after Bush was gone and the invasions got worse) it’s all about gotcha politics, and it’s taxpayers who pay for the play.  Around here, we think taxpayers have wasted enough welfare on politics.

Us Old Dogs

            There was a time when ‘transportation’ meant walk, bike or bus.  That was after the word meant getting sent to Australia or Georgia to a penal colony.  And it was before transportation meant, “Get in the truck!”  It was a time when walking several blocks to the grocery store was how things were done.  Bicycling a couple of miles to the theater was de rigueur.  You took the streetcar, and later the bus to go downtown to the ‘department store’ or across town.  It was a greener world, and we have left it behind.  Today, when you go past a new car dealership, mostly what you see is enough SUV’s and 4WD trucks to turn the earth green with stomach tremors.  Times have changed, and so has our architecture, or rather municipal design.  We are nearing the logical conclusion of an automobile-centric concept of living.

            These days, the fringe is where people are talking about rating cities for “walkability’ and deeming it an asset to living well.  It is not a place where curb sidewalks are popular in residential areas—they are common, maybe even necessary in America’s downtowns—but dangerous places for families to walk where vehicle speeds increase, and speeders abound.  Pedestrian friendly design deserves a comeback.

            Around here, we frequently visit larger cities, and are plagued with the notion that we are doing it wrong (forgive the grammar).  Us old dogs remember when walkability was a way of life, not a fringe concept.       

Torn Between Two Loves

            Being active is a great love.  To me, it seems like fun to be fixing things, like replacing the hold-down strap on the gutter downspout, adjusting the sliding screen door, or replacing the trim on the shed door.  Painting is OK, and so is the sense of making a difference that results when the room, or the deck looks so much better.  Plus, my wife does an excellent job of picking colors, so I don’t have to worry about the broken spokes on my own color wheel.  And of course, you can’t make more of a difference than replacing a burned-out light bulb.  Mowing the grass, yeah right, but who can deny the eye-candy of an expanse of bluegrass…through a clean window.  So, do windows!

            I no longer bicycle, but know it to be a pleasant activity, and an earth-friendly way to go places in life.  These days, safety in traffic is more of a concern than it used to be, and the whole process requires more stamina than I have to spare.  Speaking of activity, a good walk in the fresh air on a bright day is hard to beat.  Even walking the dogs can be a good time if there aren’t too many loose and unrestrained “He-would-never-bite-you’s” around.  And one wants to deal with only a minimum of any of their alimentary achievements.  So, activity is one great love.  

             On the other hand, us old dogs do love to take a nap!

It's Our Pets' World--We Just Rent Space In It

            We drove 380 miles for Rosie, a Maltese / Yorkie mix of irresistible cuddly softness.  She traveled well in my wife’s arms, and eyed me with interest as if to say, “Your driving needs improvement!”  I of course replied, “My driving needs reduction,” by stealing furtive adoring looks at her.  Well…and my wife.

            We journeyed only about one fourth as far to get Picabo, a pure Maltese who was equally cuddly and adorable, eleven years ago.  She also traveled well as a puppy in arms, and of course, my driving was much worse all those years ago.  These days, Picabo is still sweet and loveable—but thinks my driving stinks when I take her to the Vet.  She has had a few health events, including a bladder stone, so she is a seasoned people manager.

            Meanwhile, Rosie, who had no idea last Sunday, that she was going to get a person, is working on her management skills by practicing whines, growls, and howls.  These are tired days for us tenants!  Sometimes it feels like we have chosen to rent living space in a petting zoo.  I remarked to Picabo recently, “If I am so much smarter than you, how come you dictate so much of what I do?”  She had no patience for philosophy and answered by dragging me out the door on a leash.

            Craig, everybody’s Vet around here, just smiles and says, “I think your rent is going up!”

Conspiracy Theory 101

            No matter who you are, there is somebody somewhere conspiring to take away what’s yours and bring about your dismal undoing.  In fact, I’m a little bit concerned with what I don’t know about you.  But you would never….

            Anyway, we all know there are people plotting things we can only suspect because they are so cunning.  Like compromising the great rugged individualist spirit of the American West, limiting religious freedom, undermining our government, infiltrating our lives, spying on individuals, verifying the truth of our words, or helping women do things some think the government should prevent them from doing.  Plotting things like cheating us out of our tax deductions, covering up the real purposes and consequences of foreign policy, and trying to make us believe we live in a free market society.  Plotting to steal our guns and steal God from our lives.  One only has to remember Wounded Knee, Philadelphia Mississippi, and the Crusades for egregious examples.

            Conspiracy theories are popular because they require only greed, fear and hate—verified facts are annoying distractions.  Skillful charlatans prey on trusting victims who have forgotten the old rule: “Trust, but verify.”  The real conspiracy is the emotional manipulation that relieves you of your civility, your grasp on reality, your cash and your responsibility for informed citizenship.  Around here, we call it the piracy that you do to yourself.  If there IS a conspiracy out there, it can only succeed in the presence of greed, and/or fear and hate.

Rice Rocket

            We should be spending our political energy debunking austerity, creating jobs and restoring our country’s economy, but conspiracy fantasists are too busy worrying about Susan Rice.  Their “no there there” conspiracy accusations about Benghazi dominate their headwaters like an addiction.  Despite being one of those wastebasket-of-history ideas, it does resonate with the uninformed.  Like the fake moon landing, the Loch Ness monster, and Piltdown man. 

           A good many people want to believe the government is lying—hiding a horrible truth.  They were there for Clinton, Bush, now Obama, and surely most of their predecessors.  But Obama’s horrible truth isn’t about Libya.  History will more likely judge it to be his drone attack death toll of innocent foreign civilians.  And, his political adversaries’ horrible truth will probably turn out to be that Affordable Health Care worked and saved lives, and they can’t stand that. 

            Another horrible truth, often disdainfully dismissed by the manifestly misguided, is that government is frequently the most efficient provider of public services.  All those familiar jokes to the contrary are slanderous distortions, with rare, notable exceptions.

           Susan Rice draws only second-tier emotional opprobrium—the clear winners there are Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.  But around here, their time hasn’t arrived.  So it’s Susan Rice who gets the talk radio razzing.  She obviously has something to offer our country that some believe to be valuable.  While her opponents go pale and get sick to their tummies, she has rocketed past them, and will get a chance to contribute that something.