Road Apples

So, having said that (previous post), I offer some gleanings from what I call the “on-the-road media”, which consist of, basically, crushingly boring local newspapers, USA Today (which was not called “McPaper” for nothing, being just about as bland as hospital oatmeal, with writing rivaling National Geographic for sheer inanity), and whatever can be gleaned from the Internet on those odd evenings when one can tap into WiFi. And I'll add, just for the sake of efficiency, some tidbits from what has occurred since I got back home, just to beef things up a bit.

Strangers in a Strange Land

“32 naturalized pledge allegiance” -- headline in the Pittsburgh paper, and I assume they mean naturalized citizens, rather than some form of processed milk that somehow has the capacity (and the desire) to pledge allegiance. And my thought always is, what are these people thinking? They have just signed on to the largest national debt per capita on earth, and it's only going to get worse. Unless they walked off the boat (or plane) with a few million dollars in their pockets, they're going to have to send their kids to public schools. They're showing up in the middle of a mini-Depression. The government here can't possibly be any less corrupt than the one wherever they came from. We have intractable racial strife... unemployment... environmental crises every five minutes... a middle class that's being systematically exterminated, and a proletariat class that's made up of mind-numbed wards of the state. And yet they want to live here! Are they insane? Or, are things really even worse wherever it is they came from – in which case “I pity the fools” that live in those places. Of course, they could be delusional... and one wonders how many will wind up with regrets. But then you look at our southern border, AKA the unguarded superhighway to “El Norte”, and you see the same thing. If this country is the lifeboat, there must be a hell of a storm brewing out there...

We Don't Need Your Educators

“Dems, Obama urge $23B teacher bailout.” This, in response to “an estimated 100,000 or more education layoffs”. And Arne Duncan says “we have to keep hundreds of thousands of teachers teaching”. But here's my question. Have public school enrollments plummeted? Because if they haven't, then clearly all of these layoffs will leave many classrooms without any teachers. Unless.. these jobs are simply examples of padding, or featherbedding. In other words, if there is a surplus of teachers then getting rid of a few won't have any impact... other than saving money. Or... is it possible that what they are calling “teachers” is really “support staff”, which, as we know, is at least half of the total of all personnel involved in public education. Here's the point. Nowhere in all this special pleading is there any indication that any children will be left teacher-less. Which leads me to believe that these layoffs will be of supernumeraries – i.e. of “filler” that the unions have insisted on. And sure enough, the same article points out that “skeptics... point out that the teaching force in recent years has grown faster than enrollment”. Yeah. It's like having a coal shoveler on a diesel engine. Pardon my skepticism, but all I see here is a threat to a tiny top layer of the public education empire. If anything, the cuts should be much deeper.

Value Voters

“Masked gunmen kill 15 in Baghdad gold heist.” Wow – it's just like the wild west. Or Prohibition. Or our “inner cities”. But at least the culprits know real value when they see it. Catch them robbing Iraqi dinars or American dollars. It's to laugh! When Iraqi thieves know more about currency and real value than American citizens – or their leaders – it's a sign of the times.

Let Them Eat Euros

The Associated Press, for all that it is a tongue- and tail-wagging tool of the Regime, still manages to get off a good shot once in a while. In this case, it's an article entitled “Queen calls for austerity in Britain”. And in it they just happen to mention that “the queen wore a crown studded with 2,000 diamonds” and that the festivities involved “canon (sic) fire, cavalry, red-jacketed Yeoman warders and glittering carriages.” All of this to advertise austerity. Well... “there'll always be a Britain”, as they say... and it promises to be a majority-Moslem country before long, just like the rest of Western Europe. And I guess when they are all under sharia law, no one will have to “call for” austerity – it will just be a fact of life. But in the meantime, the AP is having fun with Britain's foolishness... which I guess means we can have fun with it too. Until we contemplate our own, that is.

The Zen of Geezerdom

“Daily stress plummets after age 50” -- according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (so you know it's true, just like global warming). More specifically, “worry holds steady until around 50, when it drops sharply”. Now... for an explanation, I nominate, first, all those “over the hill” greeting cards that people who are turning 50 get. (They have them for people turning 40 as well, but that's mostly for glamor professions like ballet and pro football.) I'm kidding, of course... but not entirely. What those messages represent is the idea that, basically, it's OK to give up – that anything you haven't already achieved ain't gonna happen, so you might as well just relax and stop struggling, striving, and worrying. And there is ample historical precedent for this notion, as we know – most of the significant achievements in any field (science, the arts, literature, etc.) are achieved by people younger than 50 – well younger in many cases. So in a sense, it's perfectly realistic for a person turning 50 to rest on their laurels... or, if they have no laurels, to rest on whatever is at hand. But is this all that's going on? “Perceptions of well-being become more positive after 50” as well. But again, isn't this a product of expectations? What is “well-being”, after all, but a comparison of things as they are with things as we feel they “should” be? But if we lower our expectations as the result of “facing facts” about our overall level of accomplishment, then – paradoxically – this exercise in realism becomes a source of – maybe – greater contentment. As the Zen masters say, striving is the source of all unhappiness; expect nothing, and that way anything you get will be on the plus side.

Passage to India

At the conclusion of a widely-publicized trial, “the judge said, 'The common man will lose faith in the courts if this man is let loose, if death is not awarded.'” Sounds like a pretty no-nonsense conclusion to me. And, as you might guess, the statement was made not by a judge in this country, but one in India. On our side of the great divide, we don't seem to care if the common man loses faith in the courts; in fact, it's assumed that he will, and that he already has. And by “the common man” we don't mean the common criminal, but the vast non-criminal (or, not-yet-criminal) class, AKA the middle class and the working lower class. These are the people whose opinions are valued the least by the Regime, the government, the media, and the culture in general. Our own great divide is between the controlling elite, who know everything (or pretend to) and the ordinary citizen, who knows nothing (according to Obama and the media). So why can't we – at least in this respect – be more like India?

Where's the Beef?

“Chavez cracks down on high meat prices.” And that makes me think that perhaps the main thing defining liberals is their total cluelessness when it comes to economics. As far as they're concerned, the proper and “fair” price of any goods or services is the price the government assigns to them – supply and demand have nothing to do with it, and neither do costs (materials, labor, etc.). And the funny thing is that whenever any government tries to control prices, the item in question disappears from the market – as is happening with meat in Venezuela. And the even funnier thing is that they never learn from experiences like this, and are perpetually waiting for the next excuse to impose price controls.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short

“Study finds Neanderthal traces in people today”. Well heck, I could have told you that. All you have to do is get stuck on a “T” (trolley) car with a bunch of Penguins fans.

Chinatown

“Ordinary people have the right to ask, how are you spending my money? Are you spending it on me? What are you doing with it?” Thus, the plea of a private citizen – in the People's Republic of China. And admittedly, this is in the city of Wenling, which has an “open-books policy” when it somes to municipal expenditures. But still, it's enough to make you think -- who asks questions like this over here? Mostly the “tea partiers”, who are regularly accused by the Obama administration and its media lapdogs of being traitors, rabble-rousers, and potential terrorists. And again I say – why can't we be more like... anyone except who we are?