“On the neck of a giraffe a flea begins to believe in immortality.” S. L. Lec
Some days are better than others for reflection. Actually, some days are absolutely dangerous to contemplate anything, especially after a mixture of alcohol and nightmares.
Recently I was engrossed in reading a host of aphorisms by one obscure Polish aphorist (oxymoron), Stanislaw J. Lec. Being a reflective type, my imagination began to run wild. I have included a few in this inanity for your contemplation.
Life offers many ways out, but none quite as graphic as “The noose is long, but it’s still a noose.” I’ve never been at the end of a literal noose, though I do believe that public hangings, as well as public floggings, would send a message to some. However recently, I have been at the edge of an abyss with an ever-shortening figurative noose. Of course, there are many “nooses” which serve the purpose of hanging one, and I suspect we all have our favorite.
In Buckhead a sign read, “Every scarecrow has the secret ambition to terrorize.” Several vagrants had gathered around a fire, roasting something strange, and I was curious. Approaching, I recognized many of the participants, nattily clad former real estate tycoons. They had built a bonfire of mortgage notes and deeds, erecting a scarecrow on the pyre. The scarecrow looked strikingly like a famous banker, who had terrorized many of them in recent times.
I liked the one that said, “Dark windows are often a very clear proof.” Now, in the city there are a number of darkened windows, not only of high-rise condos and office towers, but also of black Cadillac Escalades that cruise Peachtree with drumbeat vibrations going on inside. While the first category is pretty easy to figure out, one can only surmise what debauchery is occurring in the Caddie.
Perhaps you have seen this one, “The exit is usually where the entrance was.” Doors can look so attractive, until you glance inside. This can go for humans as well. In this city of derelict buildings and foreclosed construction cranes, many must have missed the one, “I prefer the sign that said No Entrance to the one that said No Exit.” You see, the entrance is often a ruse, an apparition that actually vanishes upon entry, leaving no possible means of escape. Extrapolate this if you can.
In recent meetings I recall the one that advised, “Sometime mud gives the illusion of depth.” In these meetings verisimilitude rules, and what is said is often what is not. But then again I have become a master of the embellishment of nothing, as is the case here.
Some of you may recall this, “Bottom is still bottom even turned upside down.” It has been a known fact that water seeks its own level, which is usually in complicity with gravity. But have you forgotten to consider what happens to water when converted to steam? It rises, you fool, and so gives credence to this famous aphorism that it is still water, and often dirty water!
Many of you will echo this truism, “I wanted to tell the world just one word. Unable to do it, I became a writer.” Did I hear an “Amen” out there somewhere?
In the recent morass, perhaps it is good to remember that “Burning stakes do not lighten the darkness.” Oh, yeah, we no longer wear white cone hoods at the burning, we are far more surreptitious than that. And we’re quite adept at burning stakes even on the lawns of churches and government buildings. However, perhaps a few burned in the corridors of Congress might send a well-needed message. Just a suggestion.
As with much of my writing, “You have to climb to reach a deep thought.” And I have noticed that among most of you the ladder is only crowded at the bottom, not the top. My rising tide of intellectualism has failed to lift many boats, yet I continue to hope there’s someone with superior IQ out there somewhere.
My all-time favorite, and one that leaves the hearers stunned, especially insensitive bankers, arrogant politicians and real estate tycoons, in this: “Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.” Now most of us have practical experience with this one, and it is a good one to have tattooed on some body part as a constant reminder that we’re always in or next to deep water!
So with these words of superior wisdom from our Polish Prophet, I shall conclude with this final advice: “Do not ask God the way to heaven, he will show you the hardest one.”
Bud Hearn
August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Pulling the Plug on Grandma
The word spread quickly, “They pulled the plug on grandma today.”
Such news traveled seamlessly through the wireless gossip channels of tiny American communities. It sent a chill of fear and loathing, mixed with the bile of disgust and helplessness, throughout the land. The books of Orwell sold in prodigious quantities, attesting to the angst and anger of an aging and impotent citizenry. Who would be next? There was a collective shudder throughout the land. It knew…them!
Even now the ghost of grandma hovers in the sterile and heartless corridors of the halls of Congress. Grandma, so easily dispatched with a wink and a nod by “The Panel”, roams the hills long after the last mourner has departed the pile of red clay littered with withered flowers.
You see, grandma was a victim of the merciless decision of “The Panel,” an appointed advisory group of bloated bureaucrats set in motion by a cruel and mercenary administration in the year 2009. Its ruthless and lethal legacy has not abated through countless generations to the current time. No one is safe from its capricious conclusions on the issues of life and death for individuals.
A bit of history will help. Burdened with a $17 trillion budget deficit, an atheistic think-tank of career bloodsuckers on the American Treasury designed an insidious device for paying down the reparation deficit. It was called QYAL, which in turn was implemented by an appointed “advisory panel,” the CER (now referred to as “The Panel,” the word death having been dropped early on as divisive.) It was the “Court of Final Appeal” by citizens desiring medical assistance to prolong life. Its rulings were non-reversible, a “death warrant” one might say, and its directives were sent to the appellant’s attending medical staffs.
Of course, Americans have long endorsed extreme measures of extermination. Public hanging was the favorite prior to 1888, supplanted thereafter by electrocution. Apparently public lynching in the South inflamed the nation’s conscience and retribution moved from the streets to the death chamber where “Old Sparky” sat, a subtle reminder of the torture that would be meted out to malcontents and murderers.
But it was itself a form of supremely severe punishment, as was attested by the first “test” case, Bill Kemmler, who was subjected to two jolts of 2,000 watts of AC current lasting 17 seconds each. He finally died, but not before he lit up red, convulsing, with flames shooting from his mouth and ears, blood gushing from his head and arms. “They’d done better with an axe,” one witness exclaimed.
The process improved with age and proved a financial boon to lawyers begging courts for appeals to this cruel and unusual punishment. In time this hideous torture was later replaced by lethal injection, a more humane treatment, but having the same result.
But back to grandma. “The Panel” had denied her plaintive pleas with insolent indifference and mocking condescension, glancing at their watches, thinking of the juicy steak lunch that awaited them in the Senate dining room. Besides, what possible reason did this shriveled and desiccated skeleton have to substantiate her appeal. No, she had ceased to add to the GDP, and only became a drag on society. She was no longer an “economic unit,” the sole criteria for judging longevity now. “Request Denied.” The words echoed from the empty room. “Next case.”
And so it goes these days. Yet government-speak has successfully disguised this capricious euthanasia, making it acceptable by a compliant and government-dependent populace. This sleight-of-hand was drawn from a portmanteau of the past, when a new word for “electrical execution” was coined to placate adversaries of the death penalty. The word? Why, “electrocution.” Clever, huh? Almost humane. Almost!
The appropriate euphemism has yet to emerge from the current process of population control, but it soon will. May I offer a simple suggestion of the harmless combination of the words euthanasia and execution, forming “euthocution.” Who, then, will be to blame for grandma’s passing? No one…the patient died of natural causes.
And perhaps the tombstone might read, “Here Lies Grandma, Unplugged.”
Bud Hearn
August 20, 2009
Such news traveled seamlessly through the wireless gossip channels of tiny American communities. It sent a chill of fear and loathing, mixed with the bile of disgust and helplessness, throughout the land. The books of Orwell sold in prodigious quantities, attesting to the angst and anger of an aging and impotent citizenry. Who would be next? There was a collective shudder throughout the land. It knew…them!
Even now the ghost of grandma hovers in the sterile and heartless corridors of the halls of Congress. Grandma, so easily dispatched with a wink and a nod by “The Panel”, roams the hills long after the last mourner has departed the pile of red clay littered with withered flowers.
You see, grandma was a victim of the merciless decision of “The Panel,” an appointed advisory group of bloated bureaucrats set in motion by a cruel and mercenary administration in the year 2009. Its ruthless and lethal legacy has not abated through countless generations to the current time. No one is safe from its capricious conclusions on the issues of life and death for individuals.
A bit of history will help. Burdened with a $17 trillion budget deficit, an atheistic think-tank of career bloodsuckers on the American Treasury designed an insidious device for paying down the reparation deficit. It was called QYAL, which in turn was implemented by an appointed “advisory panel,” the CER (now referred to as “The Panel,” the word death having been dropped early on as divisive.) It was the “Court of Final Appeal” by citizens desiring medical assistance to prolong life. Its rulings were non-reversible, a “death warrant” one might say, and its directives were sent to the appellant’s attending medical staffs.
Of course, Americans have long endorsed extreme measures of extermination. Public hanging was the favorite prior to 1888, supplanted thereafter by electrocution. Apparently public lynching in the South inflamed the nation’s conscience and retribution moved from the streets to the death chamber where “Old Sparky” sat, a subtle reminder of the torture that would be meted out to malcontents and murderers.
But it was itself a form of supremely severe punishment, as was attested by the first “test” case, Bill Kemmler, who was subjected to two jolts of 2,000 watts of AC current lasting 17 seconds each. He finally died, but not before he lit up red, convulsing, with flames shooting from his mouth and ears, blood gushing from his head and arms. “They’d done better with an axe,” one witness exclaimed.
The process improved with age and proved a financial boon to lawyers begging courts for appeals to this cruel and unusual punishment. In time this hideous torture was later replaced by lethal injection, a more humane treatment, but having the same result.
But back to grandma. “The Panel” had denied her plaintive pleas with insolent indifference and mocking condescension, glancing at their watches, thinking of the juicy steak lunch that awaited them in the Senate dining room. Besides, what possible reason did this shriveled and desiccated skeleton have to substantiate her appeal. No, she had ceased to add to the GDP, and only became a drag on society. She was no longer an “economic unit,” the sole criteria for judging longevity now. “Request Denied.” The words echoed from the empty room. “Next case.”
And so it goes these days. Yet government-speak has successfully disguised this capricious euthanasia, making it acceptable by a compliant and government-dependent populace. This sleight-of-hand was drawn from a portmanteau of the past, when a new word for “electrical execution” was coined to placate adversaries of the death penalty. The word? Why, “electrocution.” Clever, huh? Almost humane. Almost!
The appropriate euphemism has yet to emerge from the current process of population control, but it soon will. May I offer a simple suggestion of the harmless combination of the words euthanasia and execution, forming “euthocution.” Who, then, will be to blame for grandma’s passing? No one…the patient died of natural causes.
And perhaps the tombstone might read, “Here Lies Grandma, Unplugged.”
Bud Hearn
August 20, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Life on an Average August Evening
I’m sitting at a sidewalk table at sunset at Marcello’s Pizza and Subs, a neighborhood joint that for 26 years has been a tradition in Buckhead. The first Miller Lite draft went down quickly, so I ordered another. Marcello, the joint’s proprietor and The Emperor of Pizzas, sits with me, discussing the economic conditions of the planet. In between spurts of genius, we comment on the orange ball descending over the distant oak trees creating a magnificent sunset as music from The Godfather plays softly.
“Marcello,” I said, “things are moving too fast… life is like a roll of toilet tissue—the closer to the end it gets, the faster it goes.” He laughed and allowed, in his less-than-perfect Italian English, that the sunset didn’t seem to move too fast, every second had its own beauty, no wasted motion.
Amid the deserted parking lot of the shopping center there was motion. Bobby, a burly 30-something brute sits hidden in his black Chevy Blazer like a viperous reptile. He boots cars. The sign at the parking lot clearly warns, “No Parking, Cars Will Be Booted or Towed.” Non-believers in the written word continue to park their cars there, look around innocently and stroll to Hal’s next door to buy expensive food and drink. They have no idea how expensive their evening will soon become. Neil Diamond began to sing for me.
Many came back to find the yellow boot restricting their departure ~ costing 75 bucks to remove it. Bobby was making a killing from this cottage industry. Life was getting better by the minute for Bobby.
Next door at Freshens Yogurt Shop teenagers come and go, but not before standing at the ATM to extract some of daddy’s remaining funds. Often it took two or three of them pooling their money to get enough to buy that “low-fat” yogurt. Clearly some had not restricted their diet to just fat-free yogurt. But then they have the rest of their lives to diet.
As it got dark a yellow jeep cruised in, stopping within inches of my table. It seemed like a bully on the block, and I was about to say something until the driver got out. I always wait to see what they look like before confronting them about indiscretions. Tonight this paid dividends.
He was about 40, bald, tattooed, wearing an all-black tank top with a black karate belt around his waist, and body-fat content less than zero. It was clear that he didn’t go in for sissy food like yogurt. I always make friends with this type. Come to find out he’s the guru of Craig’s Xtreme Training Camp. His card has a red skull and crossbones motif ~ he looked the part.
“Dude, how extreme is your training camp?” I inquired. He was friendly and went on to tell me he made men out of boys, Terminators out of women. He had assembled a field of old truck tires, ropes, chains, sledge hammers and other assorted torture devices and used them for whipping city folk into shape. I didn’t inquire what shape they were when they graduated. I invited him to the island to deal with some of my flabby friends. He drooled at the image!
His last name wasn’t American. He was probably from the Czech Republic, Serbia or another of the extreme Eastern Europe bloc countries where torture is still condoned without constraint. I made a friend and plan to use him on the next contentious inquisition with the banker.
Marcello soon left me with Jacque, a Greek immigrant, and Maria, the waitress who keeps my table available and supplied with abundant sausage ziti and Miller. Lavish tips insure this treatment. The sunset had long since faded, replaced by the blue, red and yellow neon of beer signs. They continued to incite my thirst and I saw no reason to cease the support of such venerable American institutions.
The younger crowd began to arrive. Since age and youth have few mutual interests, I left, thinking, there’s nothing like a quiet, neighborhood August evening to reinvigorate the spirits. The Eagles were singing, “Take it Easy,” as I strolled out.
I promised myself I’d do just that!
Bud Hearn
August 13,2009
“Marcello,” I said, “things are moving too fast… life is like a roll of toilet tissue—the closer to the end it gets, the faster it goes.” He laughed and allowed, in his less-than-perfect Italian English, that the sunset didn’t seem to move too fast, every second had its own beauty, no wasted motion.
Amid the deserted parking lot of the shopping center there was motion. Bobby, a burly 30-something brute sits hidden in his black Chevy Blazer like a viperous reptile. He boots cars. The sign at the parking lot clearly warns, “No Parking, Cars Will Be Booted or Towed.” Non-believers in the written word continue to park their cars there, look around innocently and stroll to Hal’s next door to buy expensive food and drink. They have no idea how expensive their evening will soon become. Neil Diamond began to sing for me.
Many came back to find the yellow boot restricting their departure ~ costing 75 bucks to remove it. Bobby was making a killing from this cottage industry. Life was getting better by the minute for Bobby.
Next door at Freshens Yogurt Shop teenagers come and go, but not before standing at the ATM to extract some of daddy’s remaining funds. Often it took two or three of them pooling their money to get enough to buy that “low-fat” yogurt. Clearly some had not restricted their diet to just fat-free yogurt. But then they have the rest of their lives to diet.
As it got dark a yellow jeep cruised in, stopping within inches of my table. It seemed like a bully on the block, and I was about to say something until the driver got out. I always wait to see what they look like before confronting them about indiscretions. Tonight this paid dividends.
He was about 40, bald, tattooed, wearing an all-black tank top with a black karate belt around his waist, and body-fat content less than zero. It was clear that he didn’t go in for sissy food like yogurt. I always make friends with this type. Come to find out he’s the guru of Craig’s Xtreme Training Camp. His card has a red skull and crossbones motif ~ he looked the part.
“Dude, how extreme is your training camp?” I inquired. He was friendly and went on to tell me he made men out of boys, Terminators out of women. He had assembled a field of old truck tires, ropes, chains, sledge hammers and other assorted torture devices and used them for whipping city folk into shape. I didn’t inquire what shape they were when they graduated. I invited him to the island to deal with some of my flabby friends. He drooled at the image!
His last name wasn’t American. He was probably from the Czech Republic, Serbia or another of the extreme Eastern Europe bloc countries where torture is still condoned without constraint. I made a friend and plan to use him on the next contentious inquisition with the banker.
Marcello soon left me with Jacque, a Greek immigrant, and Maria, the waitress who keeps my table available and supplied with abundant sausage ziti and Miller. Lavish tips insure this treatment. The sunset had long since faded, replaced by the blue, red and yellow neon of beer signs. They continued to incite my thirst and I saw no reason to cease the support of such venerable American institutions.
The younger crowd began to arrive. Since age and youth have few mutual interests, I left, thinking, there’s nothing like a quiet, neighborhood August evening to reinvigorate the spirits. The Eagles were singing, “Take it Easy,” as I strolled out.
I promised myself I’d do just that!
Bud Hearn
August 13,2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Distance Between Us
She exploded violently...it had been a long time coming.
She rose furiously from the table and hurled the napkin at him. “Goodbye,” she said, her anger vocal and visibly blazing in her blue eyes. Flinging a defiant glance, she turned and stormed out, vanishing into the night.
He didn’t move. The intensity of her outburst had momentarily stunned him into inertia, and he thought, “Where did that come from?” He quickly recovered and became defensive, thinking, “Well, two can play that game. Besides, what did I do?” But he knew. Her wine glass, with a perfect, red crescent imprint of her lip, seemed to mock his hypocrisy.
She drove home, longing to clear her conscience of the creeping guilt of such impulsive action. The music seemed only to intrude upon her confused thoughts and she found no solace in it. “Why had she not been more diplomatic,” she wondered. Did he deserve it? Yes, but then again, maybe she’d been too hasty, her timing off. She was conflicted in her conclusions, wondering about the distance between them.
He remained frozen at the table, riveted by the wine glass with her lipstick. The uneaten remains of their dinner set a gloomy tableau. It had been a strange night. He’d noticed lately the awkwardness in their conversations. Was it he, or she? Had their relationship run its course?
His thoughts were blurred, indistinct. He scanned the usual causes of his reticence. True, business could have been better, it always could. And yes, his hip had been painful, he lamented. What had caused the estrangement? Questions without answers, he concluded, but not without consequences, her red lipstick staring at him from the glass.
Still seething when she arrived home, she moved through her bedroom, took his picture and flung it into the trashcan. “Good riddance,” she said aloud. Swiftly she ripped the remaining pictures of him ~ of them ~ from the wall, leaving noticeable scars. One was the vacation in Aspen, another in Paris, another in St. Barths, and she reflected on the fun and love they’d shared. A flood of emotion swept over her as tears fell. “Dammit,” she said, “what happened to us, what caused this distance between us?” She sat bewildered upon her bed and wept.
In the days following he became pensive, detached, moving meaninglessly through life. He kept the wine glass with her red imprint on the kitchen island, hoping it might offer a clue to what went wrong. She later retrieved his pictures from the trashcan, thinking, “Well, no reason to discard perfectly good frames.” The pictures lay flat on the cabinet, not yet relegated to a drawer. Nearby the phone remained, silent, unused.
Hours passed, then days, and afterwards weeks. Both remained recalcitrant in their decision, neither quite knowing what to do. After all, their relationship had been intimate for over three years without incident. Occasionally they saw one another…the beach, the supermarket, the gym. Secretly their hearts yearned for reconciliation in these awkward encounters, but somehow the situations did not present opportunities to speak.
Often he thought, “We’re acting like stupid kids,” and several times he considered texting. Once he did, typing in “Hi, whatcha doing,” but reconsidered and deleted it. On several occasions she dialed his number, hoping he would not be there, but apprehensive should he answer. He never answered, and she never left a message. After all, a lot of time had passed, and the distance between them grew.
They busied themselves in their individual pursuits…he with business, she with friends and some light travel. But always nearby was a phone, a safe means of breaking the ice, if for no other reason than to satisfy their curiosity that the end had really come. Yet neither could find the courage to make that call. The distance between them persisted, and the vanity of their conceits consumed their days.
The longer the standoff, the more congruent became their individual assessments of the breakup. Until at last, unknown to each other, they reached the same conclusion. Emotions had lost energy and faded into oblivion. What once were inconsiderate slights and occasional neglects became trite and meaningless, and their latent feelings stirred.
A wind blew down from the North, auguring a change of season. It seemed to be the very thing that was needed to revive any fire that remained in their relationship. The wind spoke to their hearts, and they felt it, unable to define its voice. But now they could define that unspoken breach in their relationship. And always the phone remained nearby, silent, unused.
Who would be the first to blink, to reach out and cross the fragile threshold of reconciliation? The thought tortured them in this season of change. And they gazed in grief at their silent phones, thinking, so near, yet so far, the distance between us…..
Bud Hearn
August 12, 2009
She rose furiously from the table and hurled the napkin at him. “Goodbye,” she said, her anger vocal and visibly blazing in her blue eyes. Flinging a defiant glance, she turned and stormed out, vanishing into the night.
He didn’t move. The intensity of her outburst had momentarily stunned him into inertia, and he thought, “Where did that come from?” He quickly recovered and became defensive, thinking, “Well, two can play that game. Besides, what did I do?” But he knew. Her wine glass, with a perfect, red crescent imprint of her lip, seemed to mock his hypocrisy.
She drove home, longing to clear her conscience of the creeping guilt of such impulsive action. The music seemed only to intrude upon her confused thoughts and she found no solace in it. “Why had she not been more diplomatic,” she wondered. Did he deserve it? Yes, but then again, maybe she’d been too hasty, her timing off. She was conflicted in her conclusions, wondering about the distance between them.
He remained frozen at the table, riveted by the wine glass with her lipstick. The uneaten remains of their dinner set a gloomy tableau. It had been a strange night. He’d noticed lately the awkwardness in their conversations. Was it he, or she? Had their relationship run its course?
His thoughts were blurred, indistinct. He scanned the usual causes of his reticence. True, business could have been better, it always could. And yes, his hip had been painful, he lamented. What had caused the estrangement? Questions without answers, he concluded, but not without consequences, her red lipstick staring at him from the glass.
Still seething when she arrived home, she moved through her bedroom, took his picture and flung it into the trashcan. “Good riddance,” she said aloud. Swiftly she ripped the remaining pictures of him ~ of them ~ from the wall, leaving noticeable scars. One was the vacation in Aspen, another in Paris, another in St. Barths, and she reflected on the fun and love they’d shared. A flood of emotion swept over her as tears fell. “Dammit,” she said, “what happened to us, what caused this distance between us?” She sat bewildered upon her bed and wept.
In the days following he became pensive, detached, moving meaninglessly through life. He kept the wine glass with her red imprint on the kitchen island, hoping it might offer a clue to what went wrong. She later retrieved his pictures from the trashcan, thinking, “Well, no reason to discard perfectly good frames.” The pictures lay flat on the cabinet, not yet relegated to a drawer. Nearby the phone remained, silent, unused.
Hours passed, then days, and afterwards weeks. Both remained recalcitrant in their decision, neither quite knowing what to do. After all, their relationship had been intimate for over three years without incident. Occasionally they saw one another…the beach, the supermarket, the gym. Secretly their hearts yearned for reconciliation in these awkward encounters, but somehow the situations did not present opportunities to speak.
Often he thought, “We’re acting like stupid kids,” and several times he considered texting. Once he did, typing in “Hi, whatcha doing,” but reconsidered and deleted it. On several occasions she dialed his number, hoping he would not be there, but apprehensive should he answer. He never answered, and she never left a message. After all, a lot of time had passed, and the distance between them grew.
They busied themselves in their individual pursuits…he with business, she with friends and some light travel. But always nearby was a phone, a safe means of breaking the ice, if for no other reason than to satisfy their curiosity that the end had really come. Yet neither could find the courage to make that call. The distance between them persisted, and the vanity of their conceits consumed their days.
The longer the standoff, the more congruent became their individual assessments of the breakup. Until at last, unknown to each other, they reached the same conclusion. Emotions had lost energy and faded into oblivion. What once were inconsiderate slights and occasional neglects became trite and meaningless, and their latent feelings stirred.
A wind blew down from the North, auguring a change of season. It seemed to be the very thing that was needed to revive any fire that remained in their relationship. The wind spoke to their hearts, and they felt it, unable to define its voice. But now they could define that unspoken breach in their relationship. And always the phone remained nearby, silent, unused.
Who would be the first to blink, to reach out and cross the fragile threshold of reconciliation? The thought tortured them in this season of change. And they gazed in grief at their silent phones, thinking, so near, yet so far, the distance between us…..
Bud Hearn
August 12, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Money for Nothing....
“Look at that, look at that, money for nothing and chicks for free, easy, easy…." Dire Straits, Grammy Winner, 1985
“Cash for Clunkers”…what a concept, money for nothing!
America, c. 2009, and the ugly regime of totalitarianism has flung the closet door open and invaded the psychic body politic. No more work, just show up with your clunker, get $4,500 free.
You know the drill: limp your gas-guzzler down to the local Government Motors showroom, swap that perfectly debt-free junk for a big note payment for a sissy-looking hybrid that emasculates your gender. That’s right, trade off that big, wide front seat with precious memories for hands-off bucket seats. I dare you…lose your identity and look like everybody else. Is that what you really want?
Think of what you’re giving up for a measly pittance…a real 8-cylinder, fuel-injected five-in-the-floor 0-60 in 5 seconds engine with straight pipes and 112 octane testosterone ~ a ride that will burn Mr. Firestone’s rubber off the tires before you hit the County line or third gear. Will you give this up?
This insidious stimulus program, dreamed up by the Orwellian Congressional androids, seems harmless on the surface, just like its relatively insignificant cost of $2 billion when compared with the $6.6 trillion of debt The Treasury has printed this year. Read between the lines here. Allow me to explain a contrarian’s cynical viewpoint.
First, the real definition of “clunker” is “an old, run-down vehicle or machine, a thing totally unsuccessful and irrelevant.” Think of the applications here! A clunker-owner for the “bad-enough-for-cash” list has to be eligible…the gas-guzzler for “clunker-cutoff” is 18 mpg. Over that, you get lucky.
The calculus used to make these determinations is as imprecise and useless as algebra is to a country boy. Government statisticians can only get to a plus-minus 92.11567% standard of accuracy, having reduced the possibilities down to what an 18 mpg equivalency is, reductio ad absurdum.
What is it? Well, a 6” movement is .0001 mile. At 18 mpg it will burn ½ drop of petrol, and there currently are 117,064 billion gallons of recoverable oil reserves on the African continent alone. The US population is 307,085,556 (oops, now 557). Knock yourself out with the multiple algorithmic iterations this will produce.
This hypocrisy is like “straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.” Yet this is what we seem to be doing in the US. We throw good money out to incentivize a short-lived sugar high. Will the country benefit from an aura of affluence while living under the veneer of verisimilitude? Plus, there’re significant downside effects.
Your clunker will soon end up with the other 250,000 rusting carcasses in the car graveyard. The junkyard mortician will have administered a lethal slug of sodium silicate which, like acid, will eat the guts and memories of the once-proud reminder of America’s automotive prowess. Moreover, 164,000 “shade-tree” mechanics will be on welfare, or dope, and 4.5 million people in the auto-repair trade will be homeless and on free health care and food stamps ~ angry, armed and dangerous! Really, do you want to be part of that?
Of course, only a scoffer of on-the-surface panaceas can find real meaning written between the lines of this stimulus bill. Word is that in the proposed universal health bill there’s a requirement that all citizens 65 and older be required to consult with a physician regularly for some sort of “health assessment.” Is it becoming clearer now?
Soon you’ll be evaluated by contrived statistical analysis to determine what treatment, if any, will be available for your clunker body. And believe me, if you are not relevant, you can kiss your new hip, knee or heart goodbye. No, you will be offered some derisory stipend to take “early retirement” with some sodium silicate on the side. The economic highway has no room for irrelevant Medicare blood suckers.
No sir, I’ll not sell the soul of my ‘88 Benz, that Thoroughbred 560 SL! It will die of natural causes, sitting in its proverbial pasture, lookin’ good, grazing on its own memories and speaking always of its glory days.
Money for Nothing? I don’t think so. May you have the same courage!
Bud Hearn
August 6, 2009
“Cash for Clunkers”…what a concept, money for nothing!
America, c. 2009, and the ugly regime of totalitarianism has flung the closet door open and invaded the psychic body politic. No more work, just show up with your clunker, get $4,500 free.
You know the drill: limp your gas-guzzler down to the local Government Motors showroom, swap that perfectly debt-free junk for a big note payment for a sissy-looking hybrid that emasculates your gender. That’s right, trade off that big, wide front seat with precious memories for hands-off bucket seats. I dare you…lose your identity and look like everybody else. Is that what you really want?
Think of what you’re giving up for a measly pittance…a real 8-cylinder, fuel-injected five-in-the-floor 0-60 in 5 seconds engine with straight pipes and 112 octane testosterone ~ a ride that will burn Mr. Firestone’s rubber off the tires before you hit the County line or third gear. Will you give this up?
This insidious stimulus program, dreamed up by the Orwellian Congressional androids, seems harmless on the surface, just like its relatively insignificant cost of $2 billion when compared with the $6.6 trillion of debt The Treasury has printed this year. Read between the lines here. Allow me to explain a contrarian’s cynical viewpoint.
First, the real definition of “clunker” is “an old, run-down vehicle or machine, a thing totally unsuccessful and irrelevant.” Think of the applications here! A clunker-owner for the “bad-enough-for-cash” list has to be eligible…the gas-guzzler for “clunker-cutoff” is 18 mpg. Over that, you get lucky.
The calculus used to make these determinations is as imprecise and useless as algebra is to a country boy. Government statisticians can only get to a plus-minus 92.11567% standard of accuracy, having reduced the possibilities down to what an 18 mpg equivalency is, reductio ad absurdum.
What is it? Well, a 6” movement is .0001 mile. At 18 mpg it will burn ½ drop of petrol, and there currently are 117,064 billion gallons of recoverable oil reserves on the African continent alone. The US population is 307,085,556 (oops, now 557). Knock yourself out with the multiple algorithmic iterations this will produce.
This hypocrisy is like “straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.” Yet this is what we seem to be doing in the US. We throw good money out to incentivize a short-lived sugar high. Will the country benefit from an aura of affluence while living under the veneer of verisimilitude? Plus, there’re significant downside effects.
Your clunker will soon end up with the other 250,000 rusting carcasses in the car graveyard. The junkyard mortician will have administered a lethal slug of sodium silicate which, like acid, will eat the guts and memories of the once-proud reminder of America’s automotive prowess. Moreover, 164,000 “shade-tree” mechanics will be on welfare, or dope, and 4.5 million people in the auto-repair trade will be homeless and on free health care and food stamps ~ angry, armed and dangerous! Really, do you want to be part of that?
Of course, only a scoffer of on-the-surface panaceas can find real meaning written between the lines of this stimulus bill. Word is that in the proposed universal health bill there’s a requirement that all citizens 65 and older be required to consult with a physician regularly for some sort of “health assessment.” Is it becoming clearer now?
Soon you’ll be evaluated by contrived statistical analysis to determine what treatment, if any, will be available for your clunker body. And believe me, if you are not relevant, you can kiss your new hip, knee or heart goodbye. No, you will be offered some derisory stipend to take “early retirement” with some sodium silicate on the side. The economic highway has no room for irrelevant Medicare blood suckers.
No sir, I’ll not sell the soul of my ‘88 Benz, that Thoroughbred 560 SL! It will die of natural causes, sitting in its proverbial pasture, lookin’ good, grazing on its own memories and speaking always of its glory days.
Money for Nothing? I don’t think so. May you have the same courage!
Bud Hearn
August 6, 2009
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