A Cat Tale

            Not long ago, Deemon O’Flaherty, the illustrious lawyer whose “life of crime” is the storied stuff of legend around here, allowed as how I should get a cat.

            “Don’t you think that would upset my ferocious dog, Woof Man,” I asked?

            “Pffffttt,” he sputtered, wasting at least a half ounce of lovely, approachable, heady-nosed Middleton Barry Crockett.  “Woof Man is a long-haired Chihuahua,” he spat, “What in all the tales of Erin does he have to say about it?!!  Is his little hair going to stand on end?”

            “You scoff,” I retorted, “but he is a dog of regal bearing, and considerable popularity, not to mention fearless, faithful, and of frugal upkeep!”

            “Sure, and a canine of significantly less flatulence than your own upstanding self, I’ve no doubt. But a cat…”  He wandered into his own thoughts for a brief pause.  It is a tactic he uses to advantage when addressing juries full of tough-on-crime stalwarts.  Presently, he looked directly at me.  “These days,” he expounded, “there are a lot of crazies making bombs.  Can your diminutive Doberman sniff out a bomb?”

            “What?!  That takes specialized training.  Anyway, what do I need with a bomb-sniffing Chihuahua?  Woof Man is just fine as he is.”

            “Well, you have to admit, it’s a useful talent, and you’re never going to be able to learn it yourself, are you now?”

            “What are you driving at?”

            “It happens, as a fine figment of fate, that one of my very own acquaintances from the world of legal ambiguity, possesses a cat for which he can no longer care due to a sentencing mishap.  This cat has been trained to sniff out explosives! “

            I studiously sipped my glass of amber iced tea to avoid exploding in laughter.  Only a man such as Deemon O’Flaherty would have noticed the curl of a grin that I forced out of my mouth at the rim of the glass.  And only he would have noticed the little sputter I concealed as I sipped.

            “So what does this cat do when it finds a bomb,” I asked?  “Does it wink its little eye and mutter arghh?  Does it nod its little grey head?”

            “Yellow,” he said.  “It’s a yellow tabby cat.”  His demeanor was serious, trying to overcome both our urges to burst out laughing.

            “And???”

            “It sticks its little tail out straight as an arrow, and scratches with its little back feet.” He quickly turned away and sipped his Middleton, then held the glass up to the light to study it.

            “All right, Deemon.  I’ll take the cat for you.  What’s its name?”

            “Griswold,” he answered turning back to me with a smile. “But it doesn’t matter, he won’t answer to it.  He’s in the car.  I’ll go get him.”

            I took the cat in my arms—he seemed friendly enough. “Griswold won’t do,” I said as he purred.  I’m changing his name to Cheddar Bake.  From now on, you are my bomb-sniffing cat, Cheddar Bake.”  O’Flaherty winced, but then smiled.  Then Cheddar Bake spotted Woof Man (who had been quietly eying him).  His tail shot out straight as an arrow as he turned in my arms.  He began pawing with his back legs and he let out a low growl.  I swear to God it sounded like he said “Arghh.”

Real World Economics 1.2

           As conservatives and liberals who acknowledge the need to work together to arrive as a successful society into the 22^nd Century, we need to deal with the impacts of economic change in a way that brings along those negatively affected and capitalizes the strengths of our ingenuity and those positively affected.

We need to find government’s place in the mix. We need Congress. We just need it to act like an adult. I’m not saying it should be allowed to drink yet. But baby Congress is past puberty now, and needs to take public citizenship seriously. Polarization was ever so prepubescently entertaining, but now it’s time to produce. Americans are sick of “talking point” politics. No more smarting off. No more ‘Kick the Can.’ “Outsiders” are banging on the gates of government! It’s time to solve old problems, anticipate new ones, and get America moving—not as liberals or conservatives, but as Americans. That won’t be done by any President—our economic problems trace directly back to Congress.

Around here, we think it should be illegal to hide money from the taxman overseas. We think a higher national minimum wage is needed. We think if you leave education to the States, you’ll get the crap they have in Texas, and if you follow the Libertarian mantra, you’ll get the tax stupidity they have in Kansas, and that Governors in Nebraska and Kentucky lust for. And if you leave voting rights to the states…..well, you know. Some things the fed gov needs to do. We think a flat tax would unfairly burden all but the richest Americans, and wonder why businesses get to deduct expenses but individuals don’t.

It’s clear the War on Drugs, and bank & financial market regulation are not working. And how about that self-perpetuating, war-industry-enriching War on Terror. If that doesn’t terrify you, what’s it gonna take? It’s clear that “corporate citizenship” is mostly gone, and that corporations are not people and money is not speech. We think church and state should be separate and that government is properly secular.

Why don’t YOU sound off and help America fix the real economy? The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Real World Economics 1.1

Capitalists need consumers who both spend and save.  Consumers need investors for employment that enables them to both spend and save.  If not “either / or” (capitalists or consumers), then where is the middle ground?

For starters, let’s accept that we can’t go back to “Grapes of Wrath” America.  We’ve learned what happens when working people have to survive with neither bargaining power nor safety nets.  We’ve also learned we can’t rely on Capitalism to help when economic bubbles burst, or when we suffer periodic economy-wide melt downs. That’s what gave rise to assistance and annuity programs.  Our society gains nothing from lassiez faire poverty.  Capitalism should be allowed to make its corrections, but without starving, crippling or killing people.  

So as long as taxpayers are paying for corporate welfare, it won’t work for America to cancel unemployment insurance, individual welfare, and food and housing assistance, and eliminate instead of raising the minimum wage.  Closet benefit reduction schemes to voucherize social safety net programs may gain some traction, but depriving needy Americans while the deep state foxes gorge themselves on freebies is a ticket to serious social unrest—the evidence is everywhere. 

In case you haven’t noticed, good primary-earner jobs are getting harder to come by, especially for generalists without college degrees, and job seekers without technical training.  Let’s recognize that jobs are disappearing and will continue to disappear at an accelerating rate throughout the 21^st Century.  Technology and outsourcing will change the face of employment in this country.  If you don’t see that, you aren’t paying attention.

So proposals to achieve full manufacturing employment, a middle class boom, and college for every child by taxing wealthy citizens like it’s 1950 are both unlikely to succeed and beside the point.

Around here, it seems the bottom line is that we don’t need liberals and we don’t need conservatives—we need each other, as fellow citizens.  And that need will become more painfully evident as the 21^st century unfolds.