It’s A Billionaire Thing

            A good friend predicted back in the 80’s that globalization would take a heavy toll on America’s economy.  Another said that multinational corporations would become bigger than governments. 

            Submitted for your approval: America has lost some 7 million jobs due to multinational corporations and others shipping the work we used to do to places where labor is cheaper.  If you do not approve, we may have some ideas in common.

            I’d like to buy a shirt made in USA of domestic cloth.  I’d like to go to the Big Box hardware and buy a tool not made overseas, but in America.  I’d like to go to the Bed & Stuff store and buy quality dinner table flatware made in, you guessed it, made here!  Domestic shoes, anyone? 

            Billionaires have something in common.  They all seem to be in favor of things that enable them to make more money.  Whether it’s the TPP, offshore tax havens, corporate inversions, reducing domestic taxes even though schools and bridges etc suffer (can you say ‘Kansas’, boys and girls?), or making sure the penalties for wrong doing at their level are rarely and mildly punished.  To paraphrase Willard Motley, knock on any billionaire’s door.

            Around here, we think this is what makes most ordinary Americans angry, in spite of efforts to get us all worked up about immigrants and people of color stealing our precious prosperity.  Why, then, we wonder, do so many struggling voters want to vote for billionaires?  Does that make ANY sense?  

Selling Jimmy

          So Jimmy! I got this guy, ya know? Need a box of watches? He’s your man, and every one has that little “hood ornament” on the dial the customers want. He makes the best deal! Guaranteed! You need a set of wheels? You can’t do better than him! He knows where they’re at, and he can bring ‘em in. We’re talkin’ dimes on the dollar! I’m tellin’ ya, he drives around in limousines! With showfers!

And money? He buys buildings like me and you buy popsicles! I mean this guy’s made a fortune in buildings alone. Companies too! He’s a guy with a lifestyle, ya know? They wanna eliminate one hundred dollar bills? He’s got to find a new way to light his fireplace! Lap of luxury, Jimmy, that’s it.

All the big guns wanna be his pal, and he don’t skimp with it. If he wants something, he’ll make you a deal. He’s got a plane bigger’n your house, and a boat too, probably. I ain’t never seen it though. Now Jimmy, he ain’t no saint. He’s known to enhance shall we say, the truth, if it gets the project down the road. Ya know? But he’s a doer! You wanna buy a company? He’ll build one for you. You wanna start a business? He’ll ride it up with you.

This guy’s aces Jimmy. He don’t fool around. He needs what he gets and he gets what he needs, is what I’m sayin. A person could do worse for a pal. He axed me to talk to you. T’ing is Jimmy, he wants to marry your daughter. Jimmy! Jimmy! Where ya goin?!!!

The Government We Deserve

          The maxim is that voting gets us the government we deserve. The polarization and gridlock keeping congress unproductive on the big issues that matter to most people, is a function of the inability to overcome a predilection for clinging to ‘our positions’ to the exclusion of all others. That predilection is what helped produce eight years of notoriously disrespectful, bull-headed obstruction in the last few congresses. That, and fear are keeping the egregious waste of legislative energy going in the present congress. America’s psycho extremists are still at work fanning fear, anger, misogyny, racism and hatred.

           Meanwhile, those people pouring billions of dollars into influencing our hapless legislators are getting exactly what they want. No reduction in pharmaceutical prices, no action to drastically reduce humanity’s carbon footprint, no action on controlling the huge institutions that gave us the Great Recession, no tax or immigration reform, no national minimum wage, continuing attacks on safety net programs, attacks on improving America’s healthcare system, attacks, attacks, attacks, delivered with partisan smiles. 

          Hardly a day goes by without someone petitioning congress to not do stupid, wasteful, discriminatory, or destructive things. Hardly another goes by without some candidate promoting stupid, wasteful, discriminatory, or destructive things.

           Around here, we’re wondering, “Where are the jobs? The ‘job creators’ now have most of the money. Why do we still have 50% unemployment in some minority communities? If you can’t recognize that demand, not the kindness of strangers, creates jobs, you probably really do deserve the government we have.

Getting Healthy on Finger Food

           I am one of the Forgotten Americans who don’t eat properly or go to the gym. I eat in the car on the way to work. I could eat maybe some milk and candied cereal, but I don’t want to set a bad example for the kids. They’re teenagers, and being a parent who reduces the amount of sugary cellulose fiber available for their well being, well that just isn’t me. So I sleep in until 4:30 AM. My wife would fix breakfast, but she works nights these days.

           There’s something about a bread-egg-mystery meat-cheese sandwich eaten in the dark, in the car, that makes me just drool. So I start every working day by going to the drive thru to get a “droolie”. I take my own coffee of course!

          For lunch it’s drive-thru salads, (with chili to kill the taste). Not really finger food, but I like to eat healthy at least for this one meal. There’s never enough time, so I eat in the car. It’s not dark, but then one does not eat salads, especially with chili, in the dark.

          For dinner, I let go—burger,fries, and a soda! Once a week, I go even further and change the soda to a milk shake. I eat in the car on the way to my other job. It’s not dark yet, most of the time. But while you can get away with salads in the dark, only a fool eats French fries in America without looking at them first.

Cheese Would Smell Better

          Mitch McConnell and The Obstructers, the U.S. Senate’s favorite choir group members, are grinning like a glee club. They don’t really like their next likely NOM-CAN-POTUS, America’s own Trumpeter Swan, The Donald. They have that in common (and I mean ‘common’ in the worst possible way) with God’s own grandiose ‘Ted’ Cruz. But they also hate Cruz, and that’s the one thing they get right with the majority of America. Even Texas hates Cruz and THEY voted FOR him. So it looks like Lady Liberty is headed for a bad case of the D.T.’s.

           But Mitch and The “O’s” are still gleeful. They believe they’ve found another political ‘golden fleece’—the mantra that American voters deserve a say in who the next Supreme Court nominee will be. It’s a great line and Mitch has been SINGIN’ it. It’s not a verse from the U.S. Constitution, however. It’s just a choir song, and who can say the choir isn’t one hunnert pussent ‘Merican.

           Problem is, it sounds good, but there’s no reason why it should. The Senate has a Constitutional duty to review and vote on Obama’s nominee. Most Americans feel whatever happens, if you are being paid to do a job, you should do it, or quit. Probably not a lot of Americans know how much we pay our U.S. Senators to do their jobs. Even at that, we deserve better than some con artist’s choir verse from the people we elect.

      My dog, Woof-man, would probably say, “It sounded like cheese being unwrapped, but it wasn’t!”

Sociopathy

          What is it about extreme political viewpoints that attracts so many sociopaths? Somebody is always comparing a political enemy to Hitler in a pathetic display of anger or fear, and demanding punishment based on his or her own thinly veiled hatred. Or it’s another sociopath throwing huge sums of money into the ring to sway actions on threat of election challenges. Or somebody tough-talking about America’s greatness while proposing a course of bigotry, greed and selfishness.

Extremism is hardly conservative politics. It is radical, in some cases relentless, and almost always remorseless. It occurs all the way from the ‘lobster and caviar’ set to the ‘beer and burger’ crowd. And it is amazing that extremists seem to have an endless supply of money!

Still, a lot of people recognize political extremism for what it is—poison. If you look you will find them—the rich and the poor alike who oppose the hostage-taking extremists that want to eviscerate safety net programs or grind America to a halt regardless of the damage to our country.

Extremists want to seem tough on crime and drugs, but are unable to acknowledge the truth about crime and drugs, and honestly propose a humane course of action to mitigate them. Oh, and they’re tough on illegal immigration. They take a stance that fits perfectly the “Bully the weak” paradigm—and they energetically coach Americans to be stupid and hateful about immigrants…and almost everything else.

What toughness. Around here we just call them sociopaths.

Bainwarble Gets A Pony

           The loss of his Yugo and the adoption of Senator, his sneaky coyote, doubled Bainwarble’s need for transportation. He had several extended conversations on the subject with Wiley Stinks, our chef, whom he considers a “man of the world.” At the end of one heated argument, Wiley told Glassshard, “You can’t carry a coyote around with you on a horse! What you need is a car named after a horse. Go find a car, any car,” Wiley said finally, “with a name that sounds like a horse!”

           Bainwarble found a Pinto and checked it out. It had 49,000 miles, and it was almost completely junk. Crack in the windshield, fender dings, broken headlight, bare metal on the foot pedals, holes in the floor mats, and the seat springs were barely functional. The rear end of the car seemed to have missed all the wear-and-tear: it was nearly pristine. Glassshard sat in the driver’s seat and gripped the smooth plastic wheel. The seat let him down far enough to see out perfectly.

           “Does it burn oil?” he asked.

           “It leaks some—the rear main seal—the undercarriage catches fire every 4 or 5 months. We just let the oil burn off.”

           “I like the vertical flames painted on the car,” said Bainwarble. The seller knew he was hooked.

           “After each fire, we use high-heat paint to protect the bare spots.”

           Bainwarble paid the guy and drove it home, thinking all the way how much more comfortable it was than his old Yugo.

Musical Mickey Mouse Moments

            Well, it’s happened again!  Sunday, March 13^th, the Sandhills Symphony treated those who were savvy enough to attend, with another wonderful musical performance, this one complete with spoken Shakespearian interludes.  Carolyn Clark gave us Portia’s ‘quality of mercy’ soliloquy.  Ritch Galvan gave us the Hamlet soliloquy and later delighted us with his presentation of “Puck” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Skip Altig gave us the “Romeo” soliloquy.  There seems to be no end to the ingenuity with which this group of dedicated volunteers entertains its audiences.

            All of this fun was wrapped up in their performance entitled: 400 Years: Shakespeare to Mickey Mouse.  You would have recognized music you heard in “Mickey Mouse and Friends,” “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” Allan Sherman’s “Camp Granada” song, “The Lone Ranger,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Beetlejuice,” and many more. 
            The next concert will be in October at the N.P. High School Performing Arts Center.  You really should make time to go!
            I hope many attendees were able to find the “Sandhills Symphony Donations” box and leave a token of appreciation.  This is a group that richly deserves the support of our community.  It comprises our friends and neighbors who work very hard to bring us moments of musical delight.  Anyone who would like to contribute to the Symphony, either musically, or financially, can make contact at Sandhills Symphony
                                                                        PO Box 1972
                                                                        North Platte NE 69103 or
                                                                                www.sandhillssymphony.org