They’re digging a very large and long ditch, or trench, outside of my office at the airport…it resembles a half-mile mass grave site and has attracted the interest of the local buzzards.
Newspapers across America announce the latest homeless, the economically dead...the foreclosure notices continue unabated. Local automobile importers have stored tens of thousands of new automobiles through the countryside along the coast. Nobody’s buying, nobody needs another car, and the bank loans have dried up, died. Local businesses have shuttered their doors. We cook our own burgers.
Who wants to buy stocks now? So, that marketplace has dried up as well, toe-tagged DOA. Forget the real estate market…it died 2 years ago. No sense to continue this line of thought, since you also know what has “died” and needs burying.
Hordes of black buzzards circle this construction work in anticipation of “something” that may be going into the ditch. These are intelligent creatures. While they don’t live on living things, they can sense when death is imminent. They have a keen sense of smell and are attracted only by the stench of carrion. And from the looks of things there’s plenty of carrion to go around.
George called me while I meditated on the abundance of buzzards and the gaping hole in the earth. We lamented on the demise of real estate and concluded if it were not already dead, the coroner was on the way. I asked, “George, why do you think these buzzards continue to circle my office and this ditch?” Quick with a reply, he said, “Bud, do you think there are enough buzzards to go around?”
I posed the questions to several friends. Lynn, a quiet, sensitive type, responded, “Buzzards represent the end of the line…do you think they could have a happy ending?” Why, Yes, I thought. The “end of the line” is a “happy beginning” for buzzards. They’ll be the last thing standing. She added, “As for the ditch, well, think landfills. What goes in them?” It required no answer!
Then Beth, a gentle child of art, has become an angry American. She said, “I’m sure the American public would love to revisit the Pubic Lynching and stocks of the Puritan era, burnings at the stake and the large scarlet letter “C” tattooed on the foreheads of all those who played a role in the greed and takeover of our happy planet.” Happy planet? ~ which galaxy? She needs to get out more often! She continued, “Any average citizen could stand up and say, ‘They stole my retirement funds, and the gallows floor would release with a THUD. My child’s college fund…THUD. My savings. THUD. My future, THUD.” Extreme, I thought, but it would send a message. Don’t mess with artists!
Frankly, I like the old method of duels, where grievances were settled with the panache of pistols, knives or swords. It would be pretty good free public entertainment on the order of the Roman Coliseum events.
America is “in the ditch,” if you will, just about everywhere. What’s not dead is fast dying. The “leadership” in DC is planning to plunder the treasure again…go to www.Senate.gov, or just Google “Stimulus Bill” and you will see firsthand that about 10% is “stimulus” money, the rest is pure pork!
But back to my ditch. The lines to my ditch may soon be long. What’s going into it? Why, everything that’s superfluous: worthless stock certificates, delinquent mortgages, jobs, cars, automobile companies, words of politicians, pallets of inflated currency, vacant houses and lots, and Starbucks, all for a start.
The condemned, those responsible for the carnage, the money changers, stock manipulators, politicians, candidates, televangelists and the other charlatans may soon be arriving by dump trucks with the remnants of their plunder hanging from their tattered Brooks Bros. suits. It will be too late to plead and beg…the bulldozers will be waiting and running!
I said this was all a metaphor by an inventive mind…but you must admit it sets an interesting pulp fiction scene.
Are there enough buzzards to go around? I can’t say. But for now, I’d just like to know, “Is the ditch big enough?”
Bud Hearn
February 5, 2009
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