The alternate title for this blog is “What if we shut down the Government and no one notices?”
So if your true love isn’t a welcher you should receive today 7 partridges and the attendant pear tree, 12 turtle doves, 15 French hens, 16 colley birds, 15 golden rings, 12 geese a laying and seven swans swimming, so enjoy. If you don’t own an aviary this could be a horror show. Speaking of horror….
On the brink of a new year I have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how I will remember to write the 19 at the end of the check writing experience. I was just getting used to the 18. But there are so many things to think about and worry about too. This is also day ten of a (gasp) government shutdown. The great fear of politicians today really should be shutting down the government and no one notices. Imagine the terror of a government shutdown. The mail is late or not delivered to the right places; garbage piles up in the streets; the DMV is closed most of the time and non-functional when it is; traffic is backed up and grid lock occurs in major cities; barbarians are menacing the gates if we have any and invasion is imminent; people are getting sick from food born pathogens and contracting diseases that we had managed to wipe out before; there is violence in the streets; cats and dogs are getting married – oh wait. That was going on while the government was running. Half a million unessential workers are laid off. At some point someone might get the bright idea that if they are unessential maybe we don’t need to have them at all. We could set up a government program to ease the minds and heal the psyches’ of those poor folks who when asked what they do must reply, “I am a non-essential Government employee. That has to be hurtful and debilitating. Facebook should consider calling someone none-essential “hate speech”. Anyway, New York State is paying for the parks there to be open and maybe someone will get the idea that states should run the National parks. Just because Teddy Roosevelt set up National Parks doesn’t mean we still need them. Remember Teddy was also the first “America First” promoter after the Civil War and that is considered bad form today. He also was the first president confronted with the possibility of War over illegal immigrants, but that is another story. At any rate the government is closed and I’m still getting mail, and illegal immigrants are still coming over the border so what has changed?
Well NPR is sniffing. Not in their usual haughty Thurston Howell the Third manner, but really sniffing at the hint of garbage smelling up the National Mall. Oh the horror of walking down the mall and being accosted with the sight of unpicked up garbage bags. NPR never sniffed at the concept that in San Francisco seeking sanctuary also means wending ones way through piles of defecation on the side walks since the homeless have the right to go wherever they want to. Human dignity and all that. .Of course they would never sniff about that or around that because that is the home and the power base of folks like Pelosi and Feinstein. Stuff only stinks if it is in the Nations Capitol or somewhere where Republicans gather, like say, oh, Walmart. Anyway Pelosi is sniffing the frangipani and the night blooming jasmine in Hawaii while Feinstein tweets about investigating immigrant deaths at the border but refusing to mention the death of Police officer Singh in California at the hands of an illegal immigrant and his merry band of chain migration hoodlums. Something definitely stinks there. Face book, that marvelous paragon of free speech in the meantime has decided that using the word illegal immigrant is hate speech. Something stinks there too. Maybe the new year will bring us the downfall of Facebook as a functioning company when folks that use it realize that it’s only product is them and their information.
Speaking of information, I was trying to find something catty to say about Shumer whose influence can be measured by the fact that if you word search “Schumer” you get Amy; Paul Ryan whose claim to fame was being a “deep thinker” but who never dug up a thought that made any sense; Mitch Mcconell whose claim to fame is finally removing hemp from the Federal Register of Controlled Substances (another essential government service). So think of it. You can add to your Christmas wish list those cool hemp shirts and sandals that you have always wanted. We can’t keep illegal immigrants from the country but by God we were good at keeping hemp products off the shelves. Thank God for courageous legislators who actually work about 30 days out of the year. Men like Mitch can get something done in those thirty days. That leads to another thought. If Congress works only about thirty days out the year, I mean really works, as in passing legislation, isn’t the Government as it is defined as being by the Constitution pretty much shut down most of the time?
Since I am bloviating about these political types I have to mention the former Speaker of the House John Boehner. He was interviewed by politico and said “I get the question every day: What was the proudest accomplishment of your time in Congress?” Boehner told Politico. “And I think it’s that I walked out of there in October 2015 as pretty much the same jackass I was when I walked in almost 25 years earlier.” But me thinks the former speaker is being modest. This jackass is like Balaam’s jack ass. Silent for years in the House he suddenly finds that he can speak and he is speaking all over the place about the wonders of marijuana and the great profits you can make if you invest in start up marijuana businesses. So fluent is he with the language now unlike his mute political days, he is even writing a book. His title? Wait for it—– “Notes From a Smoke Filled Room”. I think we know what kind of smoke it was too.
Mean while the only person in the Government that does seem to work everyday and sometime 24 hours a day is considered a vulgarian. He is boisterous, venal, poisonous, inveterate in his lying, and somehow just not a very nice guy. The working hard to keep promises he made at election time is considered immature. That pretty much sums up the attitude of the “government”. By that I mean the government that never shuts down and is also not elected or accountable to anybody. They are the ones that make the rules and are always there no matter who gets elected.
People will ask why I am writing on the last day of the year a blog like this when I am supposed to be writing about mercy. My answer is that one has to understand that politics as usual and as has been practiced for about 50 years is corrupting of mercy. The great “wall debate” is just a part of it. All the social welfare nonsense that is thrust down the throats of people that didn’t want it and who are now addicted to it is part of it. The self righteous “entitlement system” and the entitlement mentality that goes with it is part of it. The religious sycophants that chant about justice and peace are a part of it too. The system that corrupts compassion and meekness and humility and patience,takes what were once called Christian virtues and turns them into a fun house mirror caricature of the real thing. These are the folks that call a wall immoral but the destruction of all morality systematically is called progressive. That is demonic and pathetic and it is time that it is shut down.
So on that note, that happy note – blessed continuing Christmas. Falalalalalala.
