Ill fares the land ...

As I was reading the newspaper the other day, I came across a quote from Oliver Goldsmith, “Ill fares the land … where wealth accumulates and men decay.” I immediately thought of the current weed crop of Republican candidates. Mr. Goldsmith was an 18th century writer whose combination of thoughtful work, hack writing and dissolute life style earned him the title of “inspired idiot’ from a fellow intellectual. Again I thought of the GOP group. One pretends that he led a job creation venture capital group when the company was in fact primarily a leveraged buyout company that likely laid off far more than its few venture capital investments created. But he worried about pink slips with only a few million to rely on. You, know just little the average worker. He just doesn’t pay taxes like the average worker. Another cries out against the Washington culture, even though he was earning a very high income catering to that culture. Another believes his faith should dictate government policy for all, a true chauvinist. The last in the standings seems to belong to another insular century. (That being said, like him, I also wonder in this age why do we station so many troops overseas? I thought WWII and the cold war were over. Is the USSR making a comeback?) Watching and listening to all of them, it is easy to see that the rot and idiocy have set in deeply without a hint of inspiration. Thank God for the mute button.

Oh Tannenbaum

Here in the Northeast there is a tempest in a teapot, or perhaps a eggnog cup, about the Rhode Island governor referring to a festive tree in the Capitol as a ‘Holiday’ tree rather that a ‘Christmas’ tree. The local Catholic Church, as well as the Republican Party, which generally seems to coalesce best around the negative and inane, are up in arms about the Governor trying to be inclusive. Shame on him, how dare he think of other people, particularly at such a time of good will towards all?

Can’t you just imagine the newly born Christ smelling the sweet fragrance of conifer trees so soon after his birth? Yea, it’s hard. We don’t usually associate fir trees with that area of the Middle East, probably because there weren’t any. But there were many early religions in Europe in particular that perceived the fir tree as home to pagan gods. Certainly the Church was being inclusive then by co-opting their traditions.

Perhaps the Governor should have referred to it as the Druid tree or possibly even more guileful as a Yule tree.

Shame on me, but, no matter your tree, Happy Holidays!

Nobel Prize for Economics?

I saw that Nobel prizes were awarded for economics. Why? Does anybody really think these guys are doing science — particularly after the last number of years? As any student who has taken a statistics course should be able to tell you, just because you can draw a graph relating two or more things, it does not mean that they are related, let alone a theory. Economists are all over the place on what caused the problems and how to solve them. If you are a conservative politician, there is an economist for you. If you are a liberal economist, there is an economist for you. We are spending much. We are not spending enough. There is too much regulation. There is not enough regulation. This is science? Please, this is politics.

There are many demonstrations around the nation, Occupy your favorite city. They chant about the 1% who control the vast majority of the nation’s wealth and the rest of us 99% - ers. The newscasts keep asking about what they are demonstrating about? Apparently they are not listening. I guess reading news that someone else wrote puts you in the 1%.

We need new aliens

I was recently among the last to see “Cowboys & Aliens.” I t was not the movie I had hoped for nor the bad one that maybe I hoped for as well. It was a good, not great, but entertaining movie. My only problem was the aliens. Isn’t time we rethink the movie image of the extraterrestrial? How do they cross the vastness of space when all they can voice is some sort of high pitched whine? Why must they be mutated insects? And the slobber; what must the deck of the spaceship be like with all these aliens drooling continuously? At what point will it be impossible for them to move about with the thickening mucous on the floor? Do they need to spend an enormous amount of resources on cleaning supplies? And that is just under the influence of gravity. What happens in the zero gravity of space? All that slime is floating around the spaceship. Does it gum up the instrument? How do they keep the space in the spaceship from filling up? Does it ruin visibility? Is the reason they’re invading earth sponges?

Republicans don't belong to an organized party

It is fascinating to watch the Republican Party slowly destroy itself. It cannot seem to help itself. They cannot compromise on the budget. In particular, they will not increase revenues through taxation even though the percentage of revenue through taxes is the lowest it’s been in about sixty years. It may be noted that it did nothing to ameliorate the recent recession and may very well have been a contributing factor.

Their slate of potential candidates is nothing short of embarrassing too. Multiple choice Mitt Romney admits that he is ignoring the economic definition of recession. He does this because he believes the American people cannot understand it and it is contradictory to his current message. Apparently he cannot explain it to the American voters either. The only remotely interesting thing about Mitt is how he keeps that finger, which he keeps moist and in the wind, from becoming chapped.

Michele Bachmann apparently failed historical geography and revolutionary war history about the founding fathers. But with the latter she has taken the Palin approach of denying she was wrong. But then again her Tea Party base seems to have not any use for facts either.

Newt Gingrich who objects to being quoted sets the moral tone for the group. He is currently a political consultant, probably specializing in how to deliver bad news to about to be former spouses and the like.

Tim Pawlenty is proud about shutting down the state government in Minnesota. Wow, don’t you wish he was president now. Jesse Ventura, Michele Bachmann and Pawlenty, how bad are the Minnesota winters? There is other stuff with Pawlenty, but I keep falling asleep.

The others are Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Thaddius Mc Cotter, Rick Santorum and, of course, Ron Paul. Quick which can run a pizza parlor?

The Iodine is coming!

I made the mistake of watching the local television news last night. The lead story was that there was a trace of radioactive Iodine detected in rain water (a puddle?) in Massachusetts. Then the news cut to the weatherman, presumably to give the story a proper scientific vetting, who explained that the radioactivity released from the Japanese reactors finds its way into the upper atmosphere where some of it gets caught up in the jet stream. The radioactivity is then carried across the Pacific Ocean, beneath Alaska and across the continental US to the East coast of the US. But the weatherman assures us, it is okay in the near term because no rain is expected for the next few days. We are saved! Or at least our demise is delayed. And what is the effect on our water supply? Officially, it is undetectable! In the air by the rain water? Undetectable!

Please, this is the lead news story? Perhaps worth a mention as an add-on to the proper news update of the tragedy in Japan, but the lead, the most important thing that we need to know for the day? Whatever happened to the phrase journalistic responsibility? Did the editors (I am making an assumption here) debate whether that was the lead or the imminent danger of an escaped cobra in a zoo over two hundred miles away?

Day Light Savings Time

It’s Daylight Savings Time. I often wonder what fool or politician, likely same thing, thought this up. You usually hear two reasons. Firstly, it benefits the farmer who now does not have to get up in the dark to tend to the chores. Here the farmer has let down the politicians badly. After decades, they, as a group, have failed to teach the animal and plant life to tell time by the clock. They persist on arranging their days around the rising and setting of the sun. How rude!

The second reason proffered is that school children now do not have to come home from school in the dark. However, they just have to go to school in the dark. Moreover, the same politicians want the school children to spend more of their day in school. So what is the benefit exactly?

Clearly, the benefit is that the politicians can provide the illusion, or delusion, that they can control time and dole it out to their constituents as evidence of the politician’s benevolence. How do the fundamentalists square this with the belief that only God can create and bestow time? Are they blasphemers?