Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Gnat Brains

It’s been a long few weeks. I feel brutalized, tormented and disgusted as I watch our Congressional delegates wrangle endlessly on C-Span, Fox News and CNN. They should be banned and substituted with the Three Stooges. At least we could get a laugh.

With a dark perspective we can get laughs from this congressional circus. Take from context some of the ranting by California Crown Jewel, Nancy Pelosi. Waving her arms like a crazed lunatic, she bellows such leftish nonsense words as the left is trying “to save life on this planet as we know it.” Wasn’t this administration’s mantra all about “Change?” Life as we know it currently will not survive on this planet!

The right hand is fist-pumping the air. It’s cheering the fact that the conservative base, terrorized by the Tea Party, is “now on the offensive, we’re winning and the foundation of our economy is at risk.” This is the same crowd that cannot dredge from the party’s dregs a viable candidate for a Presidential challenge in 2012. Are we better off?

The debt debate continued unabated until this week. It provided some bete noire entertainment. A bloody truce has been called, each side declaring victory. Like the NFL and players union, they’ve given us a break from the mundane to the insane. They’ve halted the acrimony, at least publicly, that fuels that august but impotent body. The nation has been pulled from the edge of the fiscal abyss once again by the sacrifice of tomorrow’s revenue. Have you unloaded your gun, and do you feel a little better about the continued solvency of this country? That’s what I thought.

I often live vicariously in these crucial monetary debates. This time I tried to understand the inherent differences by reconciling my left-leaning hand with my right-leaning one. Somehow they can never get together to applaud the consensus.

What consensus? My wayward left hand is all about ‘now,’ living by the philosophy of “spend now, for tomorrow you may die.” For years it has had control of the other hand. The culture of its ecosystem has deep roots. Which portends that my children may go hungry soon and live in poverty and tattered rags.

My right hand is more circumspect, but a pretty dull dude. Its mantra is: “Interest is dead money.” It’s all about rainy days and delayed self-gratification. It claims that the budget dictates. It threatens to bludgeon us with discipline. But sometimes, in some dark, sleazy bar, I find the left and the right drinking together, often drunk, riotous, incoherent and spending lavishly. Each blames the other on the morning-after hangover. It’s an insidious nightmare. I’m old beyond my years.

My left and right hands have never agreed on anything publicly. I live in a private hell trying to reconcile their childish behavior, their pouting and penchant for publicity. Currently the right hand controls the pen, hence the checkbook. But until recently the left hand had pretty much decimated the checkbook balances with its profligate, spendthrift ways. For the time being it seems the prodigal son has ‘come to himself’ and is heading home. Corn husks didn’t suit him.

I’ve tried to distill the essence of this debt debate. How did we get here? We didn’t order corn husks…we ate ‘high on the hog’ for years. How do we get out? Tighten the belt. What are the consequences? Higher taxes. One only has to look at their personal profligate habits to see it plainly. Age has a way of abandoning the macro for the micro. The consequences are ugly indeed.

Which brings me to the subject of gnat brains. They have no brains! They have a nervous system, an instinct for survival, that’s all. Their main source of food is nectar. On the Georgia coast they live quite lavishly on the nectar of human blood. An abundant flock occupies Washington and Wall Street. They are the blood-suckers of human nectar…the green kind. In terms of living for the ‘now,’ they have no equal. Life cycles are short for them.

Gnats with no brains live in many places. Often we have opportunities to anesthetize ourselves from these creatures before there’s no blood left. One can only hope the chemical formula will work in 2012.

Enjoy it while you have it!


Bud Hearn
August 4, 2011

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