Maybe tomorrow I'll have something better, but this will have to do for now!

Maybe I should share with you a conundrum on this Tuesday, December 21, 2010. It was a note written in my high school yearbook. "They both stood at the gate. She wanted to ask him but she didn't know how. For he was the farmer and she was the cow." I told my old buddy Ike that riddle one day and several weeks later in the wee hours of the early morning he looked at me and then he blurted out as he sipped his super strong cup of Community,. "But what does it mean? It's driving me crazy." He was joking, of course, and I am too. That was actually written in my book and it has been a source of a joke from time to time. Sadly, I've been told many things over the years that were not so subtle. Too easy to understand. "No, you not only don't to to pass go and don't get to collect $200 but you don't get to go at all!" Maybe not in those exact words but we all know what it means to receive negative feedback and it can be really hard on us, especially when it is not expected. Even after all these years my wife often misunderstands my highly nuanced quips. She at times takes them literally and that usually does not make for a good conversation. It's almost always too late to say that I was only joking but I say it anyway, because most of the time that's what I was doing, joking only. But it does remind us all of the power of words. Words can build up and encourage or they can tear down and discourage. And, like the old comedian said many years ago, "Show me a home where the buffalo roam and I'll show you a dirty house." If I told my wife that joke she would then say, "What are you saying, that I don't keep a clean house?" See what I mean? I am aware that at this very moment the delete key is furiously being pressed, but then again, I can't write a winner every day. Right? In my case, I've never let the fact that I really have little to say stand in the way of saying a lot.

Keeping up with the hypocrisy on all sides of the political spectrum should require that airsickness bags be issued for every citizen. Many of our so called solid conservative brothers and sisters stuffed their earmarks of pork into a massive spending bill and then came out against the bill calling it outlandish. Many of these same so called solid conservatives want to freeze and in many cases reduce the pay of federal workers since studies show them to be paid much higher than the going rate for the same job in the private sector. But here's the rub: It turns out that these same folks have lavished their own private staffs with huge pay increases over the past year. Back where I come from someone would perhaps say something about how this kind of thing would almost gag a maggot. But, I'm way too dignified to go there. However, I continue to pronounce a pox on all their houses because at the root there seems to be quite a lot of rot. (I actually thought lot of rot was a fair assessment.) That pox on all their houses phrase originated in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet where the dying Mercutio actually said, "A plague on both their houses.", condemning the warring factions that led ultimately to his death. This phrase was later restated as a pox and it is typically applied to warring factions whose rivalry brings ruin to others. And just so you know, the ruin to others in this case is you and I, the average American taxpayer who has to live with all these daily reports of outrageous shenanigans from most of our politicians.

The so called Bush tax cuts presents a somewhat humorous amount of flame flowing from a variety of people. Those who favored allowing the taxes to be reimposed on people with higher incomes claim that not doing so is a give away to the rich. Often this is stated as if the monies all belonged to the government to begin with. In other words, they own it all and we get only to keep what they decide we should have. You may think this to be somewhat of an absurd analysis, but I assure you that just that premise itself makes for a huge difference in one's point of view. Does the government own all the money or does the individual own his own money and we are taxed in order to provide for government services? The latter is very different from the viewpoint that government gets to decide how much we get to keep. But here again, there are plenty who claim they know the difference but in reality they sure don't show it in their behavior. The more Americans get to keep of their own money, the more they make their own choices in terms of spending, investments, and in coming up with solutions that people want and will pay for. Unleashing the power of American ingenuity is one of the primary missing elements in many of the proposed solutions today. But as our President has previously said, elections do have consequences, and perhaps he too can read the handwriting on the wall. (That handwriting on the wall metaphor comes directly from The Bible, Book of Daniel, Chapter 5.) Perhaps he can. Or perhaps not. We will have to wait and see. Meanwhile, stay vigilant my friend, because we do, with God's help, want to hand down our best to our children and grandchildren. Amen.                         ......More later.