HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

We have a love-hate relation with hair.  Some body hair we like to grow long and then we pamper and protect it.  Other body hair we hate and do everything we can to get rid of it or, at least, make it inconspicuous.  What is going on with our ongoing war on hair?

Young teen males develop a peach fuzz mustache long before they can grow a beard, that courser facial hair they will spend the rest of their lives in a daily ritual of removal.  Teen males have been known to borrow mom’s mascara to darken their emerging upper lip hair.  At the same time, their mom is using whatever over-the-counter product she can find that will lighten (or, hopefully, remove) her emerging upper lip hair.  We are just never satisfied with our body hair.

I have hair growing in places I never anticipated, the end of my nose, in my nose and in my ears, to name a few.  At the same time, underarm hair and chest hair seem to be dying off of its own accord.  I don’t know why.  Good riddance.  Most western women would be happy to be relieved of their underarm hair once and for all.  Some women have resorted to expensive and sometimes painful procedures to remove hair from various parts of their body forever.

What is the purpose of hair?  Jennifer Viegas writing for Discover News tells us that our human “hair has the ability to enhance the detection of parasites and can even prevent pests from biting.”  Well, there you are.  All those areas we have been shaving over the years are invitations to parasites and pests, and not the human kind.

She further tells us that we have two types of hair: vellus and terminal.  “The former is the aforementioned peach fuzz, while the latter refers to heard hair as well as to pubic hair that develops in the armpits and around the genitals.”  Now I know why women want to shave their underarms.  Who --   besides men, apparently -- wants pubic hair growing under their arms?  Of course, that begs the question of why women enjoy resting their head on their man’s shoulder as they snuggle in the safety of his armpit.  They may assume they are safe there from pests and parasites, other than the human kind.

Like I said, we have this love-hate relation with hair.  We like flowing blonde hair on some people, mostly women, but are repulsed by the hairy arms of some men.  We absolutely do not like other people’s hair in our food.  Hence, food service workers have to wear hair nets and men with beards have to wear a “beard bib.”  (I made that up.  I have no idea what those beard shields are called.)  Some women I know should have to wear one also, but we never see them so dressed when preparing or serving food.  (A little gender bias there, if you ask me.)

Why do we have hair on our fingers, particularly the knuckles?  Are they there to warn us of the approach of pests and parasites?  Perhaps, but three hairs on the end of my nose?  What are they for?  They didn’t use to be there, so am I to understand that my nose is in more danger from attack by parasites and pest as I grow older?  Or, and here’s a thought, maybe that is what the elders meant when they said someone “had a nose for danger.”  Nose hairs let you sniff out danger (pests or pestilence) better than those people without them. 

Age-related experience is supposed to make me a more valuable member of society, a respected elder so to speak.  It may be that I have more value to my friends and family because of my three nose hairs.  Maybe I’ll let them grow.

IT’S MOSTLY ABOUT FEAR

There are a number of things we humans fear but the greatest probably has to do with fearing death.  That appears to be innate.  We are born with it.  We instinctively flee anything we perceive as dangerous, especially anything life-threatening.

Aside from that innate fear, our second greatest fear is a fear of fear.  Franklin Roosevelt said to the nation after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  He was right, but we did not learn our lesson.  In the words of the song from South Pacific, we have to be taught to hate and fear.  And we are carefully taught.

Numerous groups are masters at playing the fear card.  We parents teach our children early in their young lives to fear.  They don’t always know what is going to happen when we say, “I’m going to count to three,” but they learn quickly to fear finding out.  The fear of what may happen is more powerful than the actual consequence, at least in their minds.  And we parents build on that fear.

When I was a child I knew if I misbehaved that I was either going to get yelled at or spanked.  I usually opted for the spanking.  Scolding did not seem to release a parent’s pent-up frustration, so I was faced with living the remainder of the day under the threat of more scolding, more anger, and more little jobs to punish me.  A spanking was pretty much it.  Frustration was released, the crime was punished and that was that.  On the other hand, I dreaded the “Wait until your father gets home” threat.  That forced me to live the rest of the day with my fears of what was to come.

Churches are good at playing the fear angle.  Angels on high may have quelled the insecurity of shepherds in the fields by saying “Fear not,” but ministers and church leaders ever since have used fear as the primary means of keeping the faithful in line.  Listen to any television or radio minister and you will be warned multiple times of the fate that can befall you if you fail to follow the path they prescribe.  You can lose your soul to eternal damnation or you can condemn your town to destruction by not voting the way Reverend Pat Robertson says you should.  A lot of good things are promised, but you can count on a lot of bad things happening if you do not tow the religious line as seen by these pulpit prophets.  Fear, it seems, plays a big role in the pulpit patter.

It did not take long for politicians to notice the power of fear.  Listen to almost any political speech, but especially those given in political ads, and you will hear about all the dire things that will happen if you vote for the wrong person.  “Elect me and I will bring this country back to the greatness it is destined to enjoy.” That suggests, of course, that the country is going to hell in a hand basket and, further, that the speaker has the political knowledge to put us back on the proper road.  Like the ministers they emulate, they purport to know sin when they see it and know how to save us from ourselves.  But first, you must accept the fear they are selling.

What if you do not?  Well, the nation or your town will be destroyed, your children will live in poverty, your soul will rot in hell, your golf score will increase and your income will decline, or something worse.  You will suffer.  This is because they (politicians, preachers, or parents) must build the fear factor in your mind so they can control your behavior.

If we analyze the comments of these prophets of doom we will recognize that we have nothing to fear except the fear they created in our minds.  We are better off learning to deal with the problem rather than the fear.

COULD CEOS SOLVE DEBT CRISIS?

I don’t care for the way congress is handling the debt crisis.  I don’t know many people who do.

A few people will profess their disgust with congress and the inability of one party or the other to do anything constructive.  These are usually highly partisan people who recite the talking points of their political party’s leadership.

(It always strikes me as strange that we talk about party leadership in Washington when there seems to be so little of it.  And, invariably, our references to the lack of leadership always concern the “other” party.  I guess that’s human nature, however.)

These shallow-minded people aside, more and more people seem to be totally annoyed with the leaders of both political parties.  I hear repeatedly, “Why can’t these politicians sit down, agree on the scope of the problem and recognize what has to be done?”  The speaker will usually go on to say something along the lines that when ordinary Americans face a debt problem in their lives, they know they have to (1) reduce spending, and (2) come up with some more capital.  They have to pay down the existing debt with extra funds found through an extra job, sale of securities, or some other means.  At the same time, they must cut up credit cards, stop eating out so much, and quit playing golf or whatever it takes to stop creating more debt.

That’s it.  Stop spending and find extra income where possible.  Doctrine, myths and beliefs must take a back seat to reality.

A friend suggested turning the problem over to a super committee, not of politicians -- who have demonstrated their inability to deal with the problem they created – but to a committee of business leaders, people who regularly deal with and solve similar large-scale financial problems in their particular industry.

The idea has appeal.  First of all, as just indicated, CEOs of major companies deal with this problem on a regular basis.  “Deal with,” means they confront the problem and solve it, not kick it down the road to the next CEO.  Doing so is a sure fire way to get fired.  Second, a committee of CEOs is not beholding to voters who (1) may not understand the scope of the problem or (2) may care more about some ideology than they do solving the problem.  CEOs don’t have to worry about appealing to lobbyist or constituents; they worry about getting the job done, something the current crop of politicians in Washington does not do.

This may be too simple a solution to a complex problem, but doesn’t it make a little sense?  And wouldn’t the country be a lot better off if we started electing people to congress based on their proven ability to get things done rather than their religion, their ideology, their presence before the camera, their slick. 30-second TV advertisements, their ability to generate millions, even billions, of dollars for an election campaign, and so forth?

THE FRUSTRATING SERVANT

Computers and computer related instruments drive many of us crazy.  When they work like they are supposed to, they are obedient servants that perform tasks we cannot. 

Computers compute.  They compute at speeds we cannot image.  Hence, they can process millions of calculations in less time than it takes for us to give them the task.  Computers spend a lot of time waiting – waiting for us to type in an instruction or click on a key telling them what to do next.

Many people find it difficult to co-exist with the computers in their lives.  They throw up their hands and exclaim in disgust, “I don’t understand computers; won’t have one in my house.”

The problem with that statement is that computers are now found in so many parts of our lives that we dare not try to fool ourselves that we don’t understand them and won’t have one in the house.  We already have them in our houses and in our lives.  Modern homes with climate control systems are controlled by one or more computers in the heating system and in the temperature control module on the hall wall.  Modern cars will not operate without their numerous internal computers, most of which we don’t know exist … until they cease to function.  The ubiquitous cell phones, now in nearly every purse or pocket, are simply portable computers that perform multiple functions, sometimes the least of which is to make and receive phone messages.

And therein lays the problem: we ask modern devices to perform multiple tasks.

We long for the good old days.  We want to equate the computer and all the computer devices to the simple telephone.  “I did not have to know how the telephone works to make a phone call.  I just picked up the received, dialed my number, waited for the person on the other end to pick up, and the talked.”

Actually, if you re-read that last sentence, you will see that you did have to know how the phone worked.  You had to perform several tasks for the phone before it could perform for you.  But that aside, the phone was mostly a single function implement.  Modern computers, especially those cell phones we have all come to rely on, are multi-function devices.

As with all tools and electronic equipment, it is incumbent upon us to understand how the tool works, not the other way around.  A simple telephone on the wall in the kitchen will not work for you until you pick it up and go through the correct dialing procedure.  Computers in all forms require that we learn how they think, how they do what they do.  They have an algorithm for each task they perform.  That will not change regardless of how often we swear or throw them across the room.  We must learn how the computer, the cell phone, the iPad, or whatever thinks.  These pieces of computer equipment will never learn how we think.

Computers are obedient servants, performing task that are beyond human comprehension sometimes and certainly beyond human ability.  Nevertheless, they can be frustrating servants.  The difference between most of us and the computer geeks we know (our grandchildren) is that they have taken the time to understand what their computer can and cannot do.  When we adults recognize that, we will be on the road to understanding (and enjoying) the various computers in our lives.

A HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT FOR AMERICA

The president is scheduled to appear before a joint session of congress tonight, according to advanced reports, to make a speech on his new proposed jobs program.  Predictably, many Republican members of congress have already signaled that they will oppose anything he proposes.

Now, isn’t that ridiculous?

Yes, they have advanced information on the gist of his speech.  For all I know, they have a copy of the complete text of his speech.  Just the same, to announce ahead of time that you are against anything he has to propose seems to explain in a nutshell what is wrong with Washington these days.

Both political parties are dead set against voting for or participating in any sort of compromise discussions that may allow the other party to take credit for anything.  Our political leaders (?) have adopted the position: If they are for it, I’m against it.  End of discussion.  The result is statemate. 

To make matters worse, and things in Washington are getting worse by the day, opponents never seem compelled to state what they are for, nor to propose a modification of the program or bill they are against.  And then they wonder why the approval ratings of congress are at a historic low.  They don’t even try to explain themselves anymore; they leave that for the right- or left-wing radio and television pundits – who, of course, are not elected officials and can say anything they want.

WE CAN PUT A STOP TO THIS NONSENSE!

Here is a homework assignment for YOU this evening.  First, every adult should vow to watch the president’s speech tonight, regardless of party or religious affiliations.  Second, and this is the hard part, the part that our congress people are unwilling or unable to do, you must find at least one thing in his speech that you can agree with and one thing that you disagree with.  Third, you must send an email to your congress person indicating those two points.

We won’t all agree on the same point, nor will we all disagree on the same point.  But each of these points, the pro and the con, can be the starting point for your representative in Washington to use as basis for compromise discussions.  And you must acknowledge that there won’t just be a couple of each.  A voter in Nebraska may find one thing to agree with that a voter in New York didn’t even notice, and vice versa.  Collectively we will give our representatives some ideas (from their constituents) to begin discussions for an effective jobs-creation program.  They will have no more excuses for sitting around doing nothing other than sniping at the opposing party’s proposal.

Let us, ordinary, man-on-the-street American, take back control of Washington.  It is not realistic to talk about voting “all the bums” out of office.  It is realistic to talk about several million people putting aside our prejudices long enough to actually listen to the President’s speech tonight and picking out one item on which we agree with him and one on which we disagree.  Then we can get on the Internet and send those two items to our representatives in Washington with the clear instruction that we want THEM to act on our views.  No excuses, no finger pointing, no spin, no media moments in front of the TV camera.  Just get the damn job done and get America back to work – now!

THE OLD AND THE NEW

I  suppose that, like me, you have heard an “older” person say, “I don’t have one of those and don’t intend to.  I don’t even know how to turn one on, and don’t intend to learn.”  They may have been talking about a computer, a smart phone, and iPod or some other electronic gadget.

Yet, you can be sure they have in their house a television set, a telephone, a phonograph player (33rpm no doubt) and, possibly, a CD player.  All of these were new electronic gadgets in their day.  I can remember a few older relatives complaining back when I was a youth that they didn’t see any sense in having more than one telephone (the one in the hallway) in the house.  Mom later convinced them she could use an extension in the kitchen.  These same people were slow, even reluctant, to move from calling central to using a dial phone, and later, a push button phone.

Progress marches on and we’d better keep up or we will surely be left behind.  Our children and grandchildren are justified in thinking: You’re too old to understand.  Wait until you are younger.  For some of us do indeed act as if we are too old; our brains have solidified and we are incapable of learning anything more, which, of course, is absurd.  We are just being obstinate or lazy.

Not too many years ago, during our vagabond days in the Chuckwagon, my wife and I, along with others in a campground, lined up at the bank of pay phones waiting our turn to call home and check in with our family.  When we embraced the modern technology of cell phones, we avoided all the waiting in line.  Some people then said they didn’t understand cell phones and wouldn’t have one if you gave it to them.  Today, just about every senior citizen I know has a cell phone, usually two, one for the husband and one for the wife.  And increasingly, they are discovering what we learned at least ten years ago: we no longer need a land line in our house.  Since we travel a lot every year, it made little sense to have a land line back at the house that we seldom used.  Our cell phones went with us everywhere; friends and family and the doctor’s office, could call us anytime, anywhere.

Recently, my daughters, with the encouragement of one techo-savvy granddaughter, purchased for me an iPhone to replace my Blackberry phone.  It has many amazing features besides serving as a means by which I can place and receive telephone calls.  One of the more interesting is the face-to-face feature, the ability to talk with someone and see them at the same time.  A program called Skype allows you to do this on your computer, provided it has a web camera.  The iPhone has this built in with a front-facing camera that takes your picture as you talk and sends it to the person with whom you are talking – provided that person has the ability to receive such an image.

So what?  Well, for starters, that feature allowed my wife and me to talk face to face with our granddaughter, Leslie, who called from college the other evening to chat.  She was away from home for the first time and just needed to talk to and see a familiar face or two.  We had a very nice 20 minute conversation from our place in Colorado while she was in her dorm room in New York.  That’s special.

Equally special was the phone conversation, in face-to-face mode, with a high school friend who called recently.  We had not seen each other in over 10 years, but we had the opportunity to chat face to face while I was in Colorado and he was in Hong Kong, China.  He learned that I had a web cam and called to talk about our upcoming 60^th class reunion that he will be unable to attend.  I invited him to call again on the day of the reunion as I planned to have my computer and web cam set up so he could talk face to face with classmates at the reunion.  He promised to do so.  And I know of at least one other classmate who cannot make the reunion because of health reasons who plans to call that day as well.

Technology has always been a challenge for some, but we all get on board with the new gadgets sooner or later.  Some people, remember, resisted getting one of those new-fangled horseless carriages and now, we can’t live without our cars. 

Some of us would rather embrace our fears.  We will not let success keep us from failure, or in the case of developing technology, we will not let the opportunity to enjoy a bold new world keep us from wallowing in our self-imposed internment of ignorance.

SUMMER TRAVEL BLOG

Travel, they say, is broadening.  Well, when you spend 12-plus hours in a car driving across the country, travel certainly broadens your rear end.  We racked up over 600 miles our first day out and felt very “broad” by the end of the day.

Surely someone will ask why you were driving when air travel would be so much faster. The short answer is, I don’t fly.  I have a vertigo condition that makes air travel very uncomfortable.  That aside, we enjoy driving.  We see so much more when driving.  Driving across the country compared to flying is comparable to walking to work versus driving.  When you walk you see many things you never notice when whizzing by in a car.  Driving from New York to Colorado allows us to see places and visit people impossible in faster modes of travel.  Besides, we are in no hurry.

I spent a great deal of my life hurrying to get to work, to get a report in, to mow the lawn before a storm, or hurrying for something that often turned out to be not all that important.  I don’t hurry anymore.

Driving across Ohio we noticed that the state was cutting back on mowing right-of-ways by only mowing the first 10-12 feet and letting the rest grow to natural height.  This practice not only saves on mowing expenses but allows natural grasses and flowers to flourish along the roadways, helping reestablish these native floras.  It looked as if the state might have mowed higher along the right-of-way once last fall just to keep trees and shrubs in check.  Otherwise, only the area immediately adjacent to the roadway was kept regularly mowed.  Apparently the highway department in Ohio is capable of thinking outside the box.

Driving through several road-construction areas gave us insight to how well road construction engineers these days are at keeping traffic moving.  Yes, we had to slow down and, yes, there were some delays in a few areas, but by and large the construction zone was maintained in a manner that allowed an impressive flow of traffic – except for those who were rushing to work or easily annoyed.

It is easy and tempting at times to notice the angry or inconsiderate driver.  Just talk to anyone about driving conditions and they will invariably tell about some jerk they saw weaving through traffic, speeding way beyond the generally allowable 5-7 mph above the posted speed limit.  But if you sit in a car all day as we did you cannot help but marvel that there are so many cars speeding along at 60 to 75 miles per hour (depending on the state) with everyone staying in their designated lane.  In some areas you are separated from oncoming traffic – traveling just as fast as you – by only a double yellow line painted on the road surface.  And most of the time no one gets hurt.  Amazing!

We reached Omaha, Nebraska the second day, our intended destination.  My niece lives there and we wanted to visit with her and take in the Omaha Zoo, reportedly one of the better zoos in the nation.  My niece’s ex-husband works at the zoo and was able to get us free passes.  (See, I told her, he is good for something.)  There was just one problem.  Omaha was caught in part of that bubble of heat that was searing the mid-west.  The morning temperature quickly rose to 95 degrees, and that was before we even left to go to the zoo.  According to the TV weather person, the heat index started at 105 degrees and topped out at 110 degrees.

Many of the zoo exhibits are housed in air-conditioned buildings.  That was great.  The problem was that you had to go outside to get from one building to another, and we had my niece’s son, daughter-in-law, and two year old daughter with us.  In addition, my niece is in a wheelchair.  Hence, we did not move very quickly from building to building.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my niece and her family and knew that they would be going with us.  (It was good-ole dad, after all that furnished the tickets.)  I am just reporting that it was brutally hot and when we left an air-conditioned building to step outside, the change in temperature took you breath away.  All of us wanted to get to the next building as fast as possible.

We enjoyed our visit to the zoo, got to see some fantastic exhibits, and enjoyed going to dinner with everyone that evening when we could sit and visit over a cool margarita.

We continued our adventure the next day by scooting across a large chunk of Nebraska on I-80 to North Plate where we turned south to see if we could find Dancing Leaf.  This is billed as a cultural learning center on primitive Native American life.

Dancing Leaf is located near Wellfleet, Nebraska.  Wellfleet, I believe, has a population of 100 and is easy to miss.  Further, the sign for Dancing Leaf had been knocked down and we nearly drove my without stopping.  Fortunately, we saw a postal delivery car and got directions, and it is good that we did.  The stop-over was well worth our time.  Les Hosick took us through a 90 minute presentation of early American life, including the time before people passed over the land bridge in Alaska to inhabit this land.  Nebraska, it turns out, was once under a shallow sea and the area around Wellfleet is famous for the quantity and quality of fossil plant and animal remains.

It turns out that much of what we think we know about the plains Indians, largely gleaned from movies, is incorrect.  Before the white man came with horses and metal implements, the plains Indians were more agricultural than we think.  The lived in generally fixed homes, much like the Iroquois of the Northeast, and raised crops, notably corn, squash and beans.  They hunted, for sure, but following the buffalo herds as often depicted in movies was out of the question before the introduction of horses to their way of life.  Meat in their diets came from deer, antelope, hares and other small animals.

It was a learning experience and Joyce and I both enjoyed the two hours or so we spent there.

The next day we made a dash for Denver where Joyce’s two brothers live.  When we crossed over the Mississippi from Illinois to Ohio our GPS showed the elevation as 603 feet.  By the time we got to Omaha the elevation was over 1200 feet.  Now, at Denver, we are over 5,000 feet.  We will hang out here for several days, visiting with family, before going on to our ranch west of Colorado Springs where the altitude is nearly 9,000 feet.  We have learned from experience that we do better if we let out bodies get acclimated to the altitude gradually.

Oh, by the way, the temperature this morning at Florissant, the nearest town to our place, was 55 degrees.  As I write this at 10:00 a.m. the temperature in Denver is 86 and it is 66 at Florissant.  I’m ready for some cool, dry weather!

WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE

Space is supposed to be the last frontier.  If we want to go “where no man has gone before” we must venture into outer space.  Space exploration, unfortunately, costs a great deal of money and a lot of advanced planning, especially if you want to return alive.  So, it is expensive and dangerous.  It is not for the poor or timid.

The oceans have been charted and most interior land masses have been explored or, at least, plotted through satellite imagery.  This might cause some young people to decide that there is nothing left for them to explore or discover.

They are wrong.

There is one place where no man has gone before that only they can discover.  It is their life.

John Grunsfeld, deputy director at the Space Telescope Science Institute, was quoted in an interview about the future of NASA directed space travel as saying, “NASA doesn’t have a story right now.”  And, he added, “Exploration is nothing if not the articulation of a great story.”

What can be more exciting than exploring, expressing, or articulating the story of our lives – and only we can give this story the excitement it deserves.

Each day and with each little step we take, we walk where truly no person has walked before.  No other person could.  We are unique and our lives are unique, uncharted territories waiting for us to discover them.

Adventure?  What can be more exciting than discovering your first love?  What can be more devastating than to have that person reject you?  The disappointment the Apollo 13 astronauts felt when they had to turn away from their expected landing on the moon and complete a race for their lives to return to earth was crushing, I am sure.  But their training helped them understand that through science and human perseverance they would prevail.  Nothing prepares us for the heartbreak of a breakup.  We have to struggle as hard as any explorer to work our way “back home,” back to a world where things make sense and where we can again look forward to tomorrow.

Discovery?  Our lives are one long expedition to discover what kind of parents we will make, what job we will have a year from now, how we will do in college, when will we finally feel comfortable driving a car, what is the dress code for the event we are going to, and so on.  So many choices, so many decisions.  Those choices and decision determine our lives.

We are assured by parents, teachers and friends that we are not alone.  Yet, we usually feel very much alone.  We are told, “I know how you feel,” but we suspect the speaker cannot possibly know how we feel.  We are slashing our way through a jungle of new ideas and new experiences that will eventually articulate the great story called our lives.  We are walking where no man has gone before.

PIGPIMPLES

I went to see the last of the Harry Potter series last night.  It was OK, but it wasn’t the best of the series.  As is currently the case among Hollywood directors, there was too much emphasis on special effects, leaving my wife, who has not read the book series, wondering at times what was going on.  I wondered myself at times.

The closing scene showed all the principal characters grown up, married and each with several children, at least one of which was making his/her first trip to Hogwarts, just as the eleven-year-old Harry did in the first book of the series.  This started me thinking, always a dangerous thing as my wife will confirm.

I asked myself, “Why must these potential wizards have to wait until they are eleven to get a feel for their undeveloped, but budding magical powers?”  Even in the Muggles world (Muggles are those without magical powers) we know that very young children need to be removed from the influence of the home and their parents and placed in baby care, followed by day care, and that followed by pre-kindergarten so they will be ready to enter the scary world of public education when they turn five.  If they cannot read and write, as well as do simple arithmetic upon starting their "formal" schooling, we fear their lives will be one long futile search for success and happiness.

Hence, my big idea.  Why not start a preschool for Hogwarts students?  I will call it Pigpimples, or PP for short.  Children who demonstrate a propensity for making things happen without any plausible explanation must be potential wizards and would be candidates for PP.  Children around whom things mysteriously disappear could be sent to PP, the same for children with mystery ailments.

While at Pigpimples, children would learn simple magic: three-card Monty, pulling nickels from someone’s ear, “Gotchur nose,” making the end of their thumb separate from their hand, and other slight-of-hand tricks that they can use to earn a living at any carnival in case they bomb out at Hogwarts.

Since I am talking about children too young to attend a campus school such as Hogwarts, we would need to establish a franchise of Pigpimples schools in every community.  Our motto: Every child needs PP.  When the franchise goes national we can have kids PP-ing all over the country.  Every parent then will know if their child is truly a budding wizard or just a “splash” in the PP pan.

WE ALREADY HAVE SMALL GOVERNMENT -- WHY NOT USE IT?

I watched several of the Sunday morning talk shows last Sunday such as Face the Nation and Meet the Press, to name two, and I couldn’t help noticing the number of times one person or another mentioned the need for officials in Washington, particularly the Obama administration, to focus more attention on creating jobs.  Jobs, jobs, jobs.  We need jobs!  We need to put more people to work.  And the government, meaning Washington D.C., is not doing nearly enough to get more people working.

I could not help but notice also the number of times someone mentioned the need for smaller government.  We need to get big government out of our lives.  We need to return to the ideals of limited government our founding fathers envisioned.

Of course, no one wanted the government to stop funding rebuilding the infrastructure of our country by cutting back on roads and bridges projects, or stop stimulating the economy, or stop supporting the dairy farmers, soybean farmers, cotton farmers or some other agricultural field important among the constituents of their state.  Limited government is fine as long as it does not limit my income or chances for career or industry growth.

Then, I remembered, we have smaller government.  We have small government that is (more or less) responsive to local needs and local pressure.  We call it city government, county government, and state government.  Why aren’t we demanding that these governments limit their size and expenditures?  The answer I fear is that we know that cutting back on local government spending means cutting back on local jobs and contracts to local businesses.

 Okay.  Patronage jobs are an essential part of local government.  The people we help elect are supposed to reward their supporters by sending some jobs and money their way.

But why is it that when it comes to creating jobs, we always turn to Washington?

When was the last time you heard a town supervisor or county chair talk about creating jobs?  How many state governors campaign on a platform to create jobs in their state while reducing expenditures, and how many of us realistically expect them to deliver on any such campaign promise?  We hear repeatedly that most jobs in this country are created by small businesses.  Moreover, small businesses as opposed to large nationwide corporations tend to be local -- state and county local or, maybe, regional.  Isn’t this the domain of local (small) governments?  Why do we not expect these governments to do more to stimulate job growth in our locality?

If we truly want smaller government, we should stop always looking to Washington to solve every problem.  Let us instead ask our already small local governments to start doing their job.  Let’s begin by asking small LOCAL government officials (city, town, county, state) to step up and start doing what we elected them for: to exercise the leadership they promised during their campaigns and work together (across party lines) to solve LOCAL problems in a manner that satisfies LOCAL concerns and conditions.

Local government officials are more responsive to local pressures.  After all, they live nearby and cannot so easily put distance between them and their constituents.  It’s time we stop bitching and moaning about big government and start complaining to local elected officials about not doing more to create jobs, stimulate the economy, balance local budgets, and deal responsibly with local problems and conditions.

RLS BAD FOR AMERICA

It is sad to watch how our government goes about solving problems and dealing with national concerns.  When legislators vote strictly along party lines and with the idea of making sure the other party does not achieve success or recognition, we have the present sad situation.  I call it the RLS condition.

Before I explain that last sentence, I need you to play a little game with me.  Imagine that you are Mr. or Mrs. Jones and with your spouse, you have to find a solution to an urgent family problem.  Let us suppose it is a financial problem.  You have maxed out your credit cards, you are behind in your mortgage payments, the car needs new tires, one of the kids need braces, school taxes have gone up again, or some other pressing financial matter.  Regular bills keep coming in while income remains the same.  The two of you need to sit down at the kitchen table and work out a plan of attack – and do it today.

There are really only three options: find additional income, reduce spending, or do both.

That’s about it.  You could get additional money in the short term by borrowing from family, friends, or a lending agency.  One or both of you could look for additional employment, a part time job for instance, but that will only produce income down the road.  Still, it’s an option to consider.  You must address the spending patterns that got you into this mess.  Dad may have to give up golf and mom forego her weekly visit to the hair salon.  Who knows what you will decide.  That is where the kitchen-table negotiations come into play.

Now suppose that neither of you is willing to discuss any solution that requires you to give up anything.  Further, you reject any proposal that does not require sacrifice by your spouse. In other words, if your spouse likes it, you are going to be against it.  Sounds stupid, doesn’t it.

We have something like that going on in Washington as our elected officials grapple with how to deal with the nation’s mounting debt – and it has been the SOP (standard operating procedure) in Washington for far too long, regardless of which party is in power in congress or the White House.

It is the attitude that says, “I want to help solve this problem so long as the solution does not cost my party any political capital.  Further it must make the other party look bad.”  In other words, if the other party is for it, I am going to be against it.

I call this the Rush Limbaugh Syndrome, RLS for short.  Rush Limbaugh candidly admitted after President Obama’s election that he wanted to see this president fail.  Rush Limbaugh is not a legislator.  He is a political pundit.  As such, his responsibility is to say or do whatever it takes to generate good ratings.  Ratings are the coin of the realm for political pundits.  He has followers who share his desire to see President Obama fail and he took a position that honestly reflected those viewers’ feeling.

I admire honesty, but Rush Limbaugh is not an elected official.  He does not vote on legislation.  He does not have the responsibility for solving any of the nation’s problems.  His narrow position on political matters is not what most of us want in our representatives or senators.  You cannot honestly represent the folks back home if you frame your approach to every piece of legislation with the question: “Will this help make the president fail?”  Just as dishonest is the question: “How does the party leadership want me to vote?”

We have too many politicians in Washington whose priorities are: the party, then my reelection, then the nation.

I gave Rush Limbaugh credit for being honest.  I wish I could do the same for most of our legislators. 

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

My friend asked, “How come you don’t post something on your blog every day, or at least once a week?”

Too lazy.

Busy doing other things.

Nothing to say.

I tend to write more when I am traveling.  Chuckwagon Journal used to be titled Chuckwagon Travels and I wrote about the adventures or misadventures Joyce and I encountered while traveling in our motorhome.  Those days are behind us.  We sold the Chuckwagon in 2008.  We still travel, but in a car and there are fewer adventures to write about.

But write, I must.  After writing a weekly newspaper column (Report Card on Education for the Schenectady Daily Gazette) for 30 years, I just can’t get out of the habit of thinking that people might be interested in some of my thoughts or ideas.  Hence, I must have a thought or an idea before I am motivated to sit at the computer and put something on paper, or on the computer screen, as is the case these days.

I am no longer busy with yard work, garden work, or other household chores, so I have more time to write.  The lazy part is just me being honest.  Sometimes I prefer to whittle, read or do something else besides write, so I procrastinate on the writing.

Today’s blog will be short.  I really don’t have a major topic, just a major burr under my belt.  I am really getting annoyed at receiving chain email and forwarded messages that express the views of some mysterious writer but never invite me to respond – and never include the thoughts of the sender.

There is no discussion, no dialogue, no exchanging of views, no challenge to stated “facts?,” nothing worth my time.  It is usually a piece designed to (1) encourage the faithful or (2) piss off the wayward.  Please, do not waste my time.

These forwarded pieces are electronic garbage best described as cheerleading and at worst as propaganda.  Our president, any president (regardless of party affiliation) would be roasted from one end of the liberal-conservative spectrum to the other – and rightly so – if he published such pap for public consumption.

Political pundits, particularly those on the far right or far left, can use this crap; they can say anything they want.  People do not have to listen to or read their daily rants if they choose not to.  Remember, political pundits are not accountable for their comments, and they really do not expect a reply.  They can and will say whatever will create disagreement, create a stir, get them quoted on the morning news or on some other pundit’s program.  They thrive on controversy.  Controversy generates ratings and they live for ratings.  Ratings determine what they are paid.  Do or say whatever it takes to get people stirred up so long as they tune in every day.  Newspaper, radio and television pundits do not have to be accurate or even honest.  They must be, however, contentious, controversial, and even divisive if it will help with their ratings.

Presidential candidates operate under a different standard, but they still enjoy a measure of freedom in what they say that any incumbent president does not have.  Candidates can say pretty much whatever they want about current policies, conditions or the president’s actions.  THEY do share the same stage as he, a world stage.  They do not have to speak in measured words, as every president must.  What they say, the charges they make, probably will not affect the nation’s economy or security.  The president, every incumbent president mind you, has to watch what he says, knowing that every phrase will have consequences.

You may not like what the current president is saying or do not like some of his policies.  Write me and explain your position.  I will be glad to discuss the matter with you.  If you just want to jerk my chain by sending (forwarding) some propaganda piece that someone else wrote, please do not bother.  As soon as I recognize it for what it is, I delete it.

Unfortunately, our politicians no longer talk to each other.  They posture in front of whatever camera they can command and they quote party-line rhetoric.  They seldom offer actual solutions and they never acknowledge that any solution offered by the opposing party has merit or is worthy of discussion.  Surely, those of us who are neither captive to ratings or polling results nor worried about reelection can engage in courteous, rational discussion of the issues we care about without resorting to fear mongering, demagoguery, or statements that lack basis in fact.  We can compare facts and discuss actual possible solutions.

We all have our biases, sometimes cleverly concealed, even from us.  Often, they are more obvious, especially to others.  Biases, personal preferences, beliefs, and political party affiliations are part of human nature.  They are what make us who we are and how we behave.  And they will certainly enter into any discussion, political or otherwise, we engage in.  But it is impossible to have a rational discussion with anyone who can only spout the ramblings of something they read on the Internet or heard on radio or television.  Their side of the discussion will inevitably default to what they have read or heard, nothing of their own.  Such discussions are a waste of time.

This nation has some serious problems.  What we need to deal with those problems are for politicians to enter into rational discussions about the scope of the problems and entertain possible solutions, regardless of the party affiliation.  Stop worrying about who will get credit (or blame for the problem) and start discussing solutions.

Those of us on the outside, outside government politics, that is, should exercise the same control.  Let’s have more discussions about what WE believe, what we feel and how a particular solution will affect us personally.  The pundits and the self-styled professional propaganda spokespeople may influence us, for sure, but let us vow they will not take over our minds and speak for us. Then share with me YOUR opinion of what I have written in this or any other blog.  You can be sure it is MY opinion and not a position adopted from something I read in a Forwarded email.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES (Forest Gump)

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY, must step down.  He is not fit to be in the House of Representatives.

I say this not because he is immoral.  Hell, if we asked all the immoral elected officials in Washington or the various state Capitols around the country to resign, we would have very few elected officials running the show.  No, Anthony Weiner must step down because he is stupid.

We have always had and will continue to have corrupt politicians.  I understand that, even accept it.  Power corrupts and regardless of their lofty campaign rhetoric, politicians are in the game for the power, for the influence and for the money that power and influence command.  Notice that our coinage has the motto "In God We Trust," not In Politicians We Trust.  We only trust those politicians who are beholden to a cause we hold dear.  We do not need to trust their morality, only their loyalty to the cause.

We know about various politicians' peccadilloes.  But because we have a vested interest in various special interests ourselves (tobacco subsidies, Medicare, corn subsidies, abortion, the military/industrial complex, Social Security, Welfare, big bank bail outs, the Interstate highway system, or some other government run/sponsored/supervised program) we tend to ignore them.  We want OUR politicians -- the ones we support with our money and our votes -- to focus on the issue, while we focus on the crimes and immorality of other politicians.  We know that it is only possible to get elected these days if you have some big money backing you.  And big money goes to those who deliver on big promises.  Promiscuity can be forgiven; straying from the party line is unforgivable.


Let's not be naive.  It's not always members of the other party; it's politicians -- and it is us.  There is more than enough blame to go around.

Why, then, should I pick on Weiner?  Because he is dumb.  He did something dumb, got caught, and then lied about it.  That's just dumb.

I can tolerate his immorality.  As I said, there's plenty of that going on in both political parties, at all levels.  But stupid is hard to forgive.  I would much rather have a smart politician than a stupid one who hides his/her ignorance behind a mask of morality.

Moral politicians will preach to me but accomplish little.  Intelligent politicians, even immoral ones, will try to find a solution to some of the nation's problems.  They are guided by answers, not beliefs.

There is an abundance of politicians claiming to be moral, upright, even religious.  That's an easy act to carry off, as long they keep their dirty little secrets secret.  It is harder to fake intelligence.  A moral politician can talk for an hour about his sense of righteousness.  A stupid politician will be discovered in five minutes.

Half of us are so disinterested or disgusted that we do not even bother to vote.

Look at the chart below.  (This is only part of the chart that may be found at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html.)

National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2008

This page provides information about voter statistics, including age of voting population, voter registration, turnout, and more.

Year	Voting-age population	Voter registration	Voter turnout	Turnout of voting-age population (percent)
2008*	231,229,580	NA	132,618,580*	56.8%
2006	220,600,000	135,889,600	80,588,000	37.1%
2004	221,256,931	174,800,000	122,294,978	55.3
2002	215,473,000	150,990,598	79,830,119	37.0
2000	205,815,000	156,421,311	105,586,274	51.3

Read more: National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2008 — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html#ixzz1OcWEWHat

Just under 57% of the eligible voters in this county bothered to vote in the last presidential election, an election judged by all as historic. 

Political pundits tell us that about one-third of the electorate will always vote Democratic and one-third can be counted on to vote Republican -- regardless of the issues or the qualifications of their party's candidates.  Hence, elections are won or lost not by what politicians stand for or can do, but on how well they appeal to "their party's base" and that roughly one-third of the voters who are independent of intelligent enough to be undecided.

We cannot always know what a politician is capable of or what he/she will do once in office.  (Remember, power corrupts.)  Nor is it smart to talk recklessly about throwing all the bums out.  (And replace them with who?)  But when a politician reveals his stupidity, ala Rep. Weiner, we should demand his resignation and demand that his party, the Democrats in this case, get behind helping him make the decision to resign.

History is full of moral/religious people who have committed heinous crimes.  And certainly, intelligent people can be wrong.  But an immoral, stupid politician is more that we should tolerate.

Rep. Weiner has shown he is both.  Resign your office as a U.S. Representative, Mr Weiner.  It's the decent and the smart thing to do.

WHAT'S A PENNY WORTH?

One of my grandaughters posted a comment on Facebook recently that stated, "The penny was only a good idea when things cost only a penny."  Well, I thought, there is some wisdom in that statement.  Then I thought some more and wondered when was the last time that things cost only a penny.

There certainly aren't many things you can buy for a penny today.  As far as I know, there is no penny candy,  no penny ante (as in a friendly poker game), no penny bubble gum, no penny anything.

Further, you can't even use a penny to by-pass a burnt out fuse when you don't have a replacement.  Ignoring the fact that that was never a good idea, it is no longer possible since nearly all fuse boxes today are actually circuit breaker boxes.  Just reset the circuit breaker after you've determined the cause of the problem; never mind trying to by-pass it.

Pennies are not even much good for paying sales taxes as most merchants round everything off the nearest five cents.  (They always round up; never down.)  For those few times you actually need a penny, many merchants have a small dish on the counter where other customers before you have (or may) toss the pennines they receive in change and you are welcome to help yourself if you need a penny or two.

Probably few people reading this blog can remember when sales tax was paid with mills, as it was in some parts of the country.  I was raised in Missouri and that state used mills to pay sales tax well into the 1940s.  I know this to be true because  I have some of the plastic mills that were minted during World War II when metal was in short supply.  Not only were mills cast in plastics but the copper penny was recast as a lead penny for a short time during that period.

What the hell is a mill?  A mill was one-tenth of a cent.  If you had a pocket full of mills -- as annoying as having a pocket full of pennies today -- you could sell 10 of them to any merchant for a penny.

That little history lesson in coinage aside, I wondered when was the last time one could buy something for a penny.  In other words, when was the last time a penny was good for anything other than paying sales tax.

I turned for this investigation to the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) Cost-of-living Calculator at http://www.aier.org/research/worksheets-and-tools/cost-of-living-calculator.  This handy little calculator allowed me to check the cost of things as they once were compared with now.

I started with 10 cents, since you can still buy a few things for that amount.  What I found using the AIER calculator was that 10 cents in 2011 was worth one cent in 1966 dollars.  Whatever one might has purchased for one penny in 1966 would cost 10 cents in today's dollars.

This started me thinking about other monetary benchmarks.  For example, I began my full-time teaching career in Park Forest, Illinois in the fall of 1961.  I was working on my master's degree at the University of Missouri when our third daughter decided to join the family.  Her emergence on the scene convinced me that I needed to forsake campus life and student loans in favor or a paying job.

I ended up at Rich Township High School, East after they offered me the princely sum of $5600.  This was $200 more than most first-year teachers received since I had completed 19 hours toward my masters in mathematics and math teachers with those credentials were in short supply.  We were in the post-Sputnik era and the US was desparate to improve students' knowledge of math and science.

I was surprised to learn, using the AIER calculator that my $5600 annual pay in 1966 was equivalent to $41,241 in 2011 dollars.  I do not know what starting teachers' salaries are today, but I suspect some (if not most) would be happy to have that amount to start paying down their college-loan debt.

Take away that extra $200 I got for being half way to a master's degree and my starting salary would have been $39,768 in today's dollars, a difference or $1,473.  Education does pay.

As a point of reference, the superintendent of schools at the time was making $25,000, as I remember.  He had many years experience on me, plus a doctor's degree, something I would not acquire until 16 years later.  I dropped his salary into the calculator and it spit out the amount of $184,113 in 2011 bucks.  That's not too shabby, but remember, schools today are considerably more complicated, students less well behaved and state and federal mandates keep school administrators on their toes.

Apparently the penny stopped buying much in the mid-1960s -- other than as a token for paying sales tax.  But we might all use the AIER calculator to compare cost of familiar items with then and now.  You may be surprised at how much (or how little) some items have increased.

SNOWBIRDS FLYING NORTH

"So long.  See you next year."

"Yeah.  You folks have a good trip.  Stay safe."

"Back atcha.  Take care of that heart.  Try to stay out of the hospital this year."

You hear those and other similar comments this time of year as you walk around the campground at Clerbrook Golf and RV Resort.  The snowbirds are packing up and moving out.  Several RV rigs leave the place every hour.  Other folks still at their campsite are coiling the water hose, rolling up the patio awning, and stowing chairs and other equipment that has been sitting out since they arrived in October, November, December or whenever.

It is time to watch the weather more carefully, looking over the shoulder of the TV weatherman to see what's going on "back up home."  In some cases returning snowbirds face snow.  Some will encounter rain on the way home, something that has been sadly lacking here in central Florida this year, and they will return to flooded streets, yards and farm fields.  Whatever the weather, it likely will not be a nice as what they are leaving behind, but the urge to return home is strong and they will leave regardless.

Some will stick around until the middle of April, while a few die-hards will remain in place until the first of May.  There are, of course, some full-time residents.  (They are secretly looking forward to having the streets, pools, shuffle board courts and golf course to themselves for a while.)  This comfortable winter-time small town of around 1,000 will become more like a ghost town in a few weeks.

Joyce and I also feel the magnetic pull of home and will join the exodus in another few days.  We are looking forward to meeting again with good friends, seeing familiar places, and returning to common routines.  Yard work actually looks inviting about this time of year.

LIFE AT CLERBROOK

We spend our winters at Clerbrook Golf and RV Resort. I love that name; it makes the place sound so classy. Well, as campgrounds go, it is classy. It is a gated community and the guard shack is manned 24/7. That is so they can keep out the riff-raff. Most of it that is. They let me in. Regardless, it is a nice place with nice people.

The campground has 1257 sites with about one-third of those sites having park model trailers on them. A park model trailer is a somewhat fancier trailer than a travel trailer, and owners rent their site year around, while RVers only pay for their site while parked on it. Park models also typically have a so-called Florida Room attached. This is a screened-in room with sliding glass windows all around that nearly doubles the size of the structures living space. Our particular unit has an attached shed that houses a washer and dryer along with some tools and miscellanea. The little breezeway between the shed and the house becomes a parking place for our golf cart.

For trailer trash, we live in relative comfort, as you can probably tell.

I mentioned earlier that this is a nice place with nice people. I have decided that it must be law that only pleasant people can buy RVs. I have the feeling that if you are a grumpy, disagreeable person most RV dealers will refuse to sell you an RV. Either that or any such person who manages to get one learns quickly that he/she will be unhappy (and unwelcome) in most campgrounds. (I suppose it is possible that naturally disagreeable people will find that in keeping with their view of life.) Regardless, you find very few disagreeable people in campgrounds.

A campground with over 1200 campsites becomes a small village this time of year when most of the campsites are occupied with snowbirds visiting Florida to escape the harsh winter weather of their “up north” home. The “village” idea becomes apparent as you walk or ride around the place. Everyone smiles and waves as you pass as if they had known you all their lives. Walking, biking, in golf cart or car, everyone waves to everyone they meet – and usually offer a greeting: “Good morning.” “How are you doing?” “Hey, nice day.”

Joyce and I run into the same “small town” friendliness when we visit our place in Colorado. Once you leave the main highway and start the seven-mile, dirt road drive to our house, everyone you pass in pickup or car will give you a wave of the hand or some other sign of acknowledgment. And if you stop for any reason, anyone passing by will stop to see if you need assistance. They may know you, recognize your car or truck, or not, it doesn’t matter. Stop first and ask questions later. You are likely not there if you don’t belong there, so you must be a neighbor. And neighbors help neighbors. That’s just the way it is.

There are a lot of walkers and bikers here at Clerbrook. Unfortunately, there are a great many who are not walkers or bikers, but who should be. The nation’s obesity problem is not restricted to the young; there are many senior citizens overweight. It is hard to be critical when you do not know what sort of physical limitations they may have that contributes to or makes it difficult for them to get sufficient exercise. It is clear, however, that they have insufficient strength in their arms to push themselves away from the dinner table. I guess a bit of sympathy might be in order. (I’ll have to try that sometime.)

I have a route that I walk most every morning that covers 3.25 miles. I do it in about one hour, which means I am walking a bit over three miles per hour. I used to try to maintain a four-mile-per-hour pace, but I have had to slow down some since my several visits to the cardiac catheterization lab. Joyce gets upset when I collapse alongside the road. It embarrasses her. That, plus she thinks I should have more sense than to push myself to the point of exhaustion. Silly woman. (I have many fine attributes; good sense has never been one of them.)

I must also admit that I am recovering from a common cold. Hence, I have been unable to do my Jack LaLanne imitation morning exercises, so I have to be content with walking. I would be remiss if I did not comment that I had numerous requests from women in the campground that I wear a tight fitting, belted jump suit with short sleeves and do my morning exercises in front of the TV camera so they could follow along. Modesty compelled me to decline. I would feel uncomfortable flaunting my body for their, probably, sexual fantasies. Besides, their flabby, potbellied husbands would hate me even more than they do.

My taut, bronzed, two-pack hard body causes enough distractions now when I visit the pool. I do not want to be the cause or more dissension among my campground female friends and their male partners.

This is, as I said, a small village and maintaining village harmony is important. I will do my part and stay away from the TV camera when doing my morning exercises.

POLITICAL THEATER AND OTHER WAYS TO CON VOTERS

I am not a Tea Party member but I support the notion of smaller government, especially less government involvement in personal affairs. There likely are times when the government must temporarily step in and help individuals with various aide programs. Such programs should expire after some reasonable time, but a period not to exceed the life of the average elephant. We have government subsidies going to people and industries that have existed for decades. That is wrong. Is it any wonder that these people or industries come to depend on these subsidies?

Some of us used to complain about so many people on welfare who seemed to treat it as a way of life. Three generations of one family -- grandmothers, mothers and daughters -- received welfare payments with all likelihood that the fourth generation, the current welfare mother’s children, is headed in the same direction. That is no different from farm families, say, that receive billions of dollars each year for not working land, not planting crops or some other non-producing farm-subsidy program. And they expect to receive the same next year, and the next year, ad infinitum.

Newly elected Tea Party backed U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler, R – Missouri, received $750,000 (!) in farm subsidies last year. When Diane Sawyer of Good Morning America asked if she would vote to eliminate farm subsidy programs as a step toward lowering government debt – supposedly a Republican-Tea Party agenda item – she refused to say yes or no. "Yes, there's a lot of us farmers that have participated in the program(s)," she said, but indicated when Ms. Sawyer persisted in asking the question again only that such agriculture subsidies should be "on the table" for possible spending cuts.

Let us not be gullible, people. No mid-West, farm belt congressperson will vote even to cut much less remove farm subsidies. The same can be said about voting to cut military spending by a congressperson representing a district with a large military-industrial footprint.

Forget the angry campaign rhetoric about reducing government involvement or reducing the national debt. When such programs (and they all do to some extent) impact people back in your home district every politician of either party or political philosophy begins to waffle. It is fine to talk about making cuts in government spending, it is another matter to deliver on that talk, and the newly elected congress does not seem any more willing to walk the walk than the previous congress.

Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, students of the Rush Limbaugh Policy Group, have already indicated that their primary focus will be to see that Obama is a one-term president. They will say many things for the benefit of “the folks back home” (It’s called preaching to the choir) but they have yet to propose any specific debt reduction programs. Boehner’s most significant leadership act thus far is the not-ready-for-prime-time political theater of having the U.S. Constitution read aloud in the House of Representatives.

That is sure to put every new congressperson in the right frame of mind to generate and support good legislation. (It also demonstrates to those new to congress how to waste time with parliamentary maneuvering.) What they need now is someone like Walt Disney to conduct a seminar on how one actually gets things done.

The Tea Party, I fear, just wanted the Democrats out of office. You may remember their motto: JUST VOTE THEM OUT! Indeed, some deserved to be voted out of office. But, alas, too many voters never considered the legitimate question: Replace them with whom?

The first act of these newbies in congress is to force a vote on repealing the Obama health care plan. They know it is futile. They know it will not pass. It is all political theater, and I fear we are in for two more years of such political posturing while our debt and other problems continue to mount.