About damned time
Where the heck have I been lately? Why aren’t there any new blog posts?
Darned if I know—we haven’t been anywhere in months, and don’t have a single trip planned, and still life has been busy.
Of course, I just spent 2 weeks glued to the TV watching the Olympics, or whatever NBC decided to show instead, like the history of the second world war or a story about a basketball team from 12 or 16 years ago. I guess the Olympics weren’t interesting enough for them to show.
One thing we did do is go to a couple of great concerts–we saw John Fogarty in Saratoga at the Mountain Winery, then we saw Neil Diamond at HP Pavillion.
Now what do I talk about? Politics? Yuck. The Republicans make impossible promises–they will cut taxes and balance the budget with chimerical spending cuts that never occur. The Democrats talk a good game, but all they ever do is talk, and they let the Republicans walk all over them.
The people who call themselves conservatives , which used to mean people who wanted the government out of our lives, now seem to want a Christianist theocracy, where everyone is free to believe that there is no evolution, dinosaurs were on the Ark with Noah and God didn’t make Adam and Steve, although I know both Adam and Steve, they used to live in our guest house. Wonder who did make them?
The serious Berkeley liberals think corporations make 80% profits on sales, and should give it all away. Hard to agree with that position, either.
The rest of us, sitting in the middle of the road, think that the a guy with a quarter of a billion dollars should pay more than 13% on his $22 million income. Think that the government should get out of everyone’s bedroom. Don’t want to carry on wars on the other side of the world for the benefit of Halliburton and Dick Cheney. Don’t understand why we still have Air Force Bases in Japan–they’re a rich country, are they paying us for their defense? Why not? How about Germany? If we have to maintain a base in Ramstein to protect Europe, why don’t we get a 30% discount on everything when we travel to Paris or Frankfurt, to show some appreciation? We could afford French style free health care for everyone if we didn’t have to pay for our own defense.
I have lots of questions, but nobody seems to know the answers to any of them. Why do I get charged $800 for an ambulance ride, but when the insurance company pays the bill they only have to pay $100 or so? Why are state employees still retiring on excellent pensions in their early 50’s? How can I get one of those state jobs where you make $125,000 and don’t have to show up, but are only given to guys who get termed out of the legislature?
So maybe I don’t want to talk about politics after all. There don’t seem to be any answers–we all just shrug our shoulders at the lies and the dysfunction and hope that somehow it will get better.
Here’s my favorite John Fogarty song–taken with my little pocket camera.
Totally Unauthorized 