The debate last night in Oxford, Mississippi, between John McCain and Barack Obama, sounded more like a bickering session than a debate, a rehashing and squabbling over the same things we have been listening to for the past 18 months.
It was a repetition of the same abysmal mediocrity we have been hearing. McCain in his dull monotone voice, repeating the same ole rhetoric was very boring. Obama, more spiritedly energetic, kept rudely interrupting McCain and acted like he wanted to lunge at him, as Obama kept repeating the same old socialist line of taxing the rich to take care of the poor. I did not listen to entire program, but turned it off before they finished. I was so tired of listening to the same old stuff.
Several weeks ago, I wrote a story about lincoln logs. Last week, while playing with my 3-year-old grandson trying to erect a lincoln log house, I watched him as he tried to fit the logs together. He kept trying to put a flat-sided log into a grooved space and couldn’t make it fit. I decided to watch him try to figure it out. He struggled with it for several minutes, then threw his hands up and said, “this is serious.”
This is a preview of
The Glaring Omission Of Talk About Freedom In Political Speeches (Issue 75)
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This past weekend my two grandchildren spent the weekend. Sunday morning I asked my 8-year-old Olivia to pick up the Sunday newspaper in my front yard. She opened it, saw the comic pages, took them out and relaxed on the couch reading Blondie.
It reminded me of my teenage years visiting my grandparents and reading the Sunday comics. My maternal grandparents lived in a very large house with a wrap around veranda. On Sunday mornings, we would lay a quilt down on the front part of the veranda, spread out the comic pages and have fun reading while my mom and grandmother spent the morning in the kitchen preparing the elaborate Sunday dinner. The smell of fried chicken and baking floated down the large hallway to the area of the front porch where I lay on the quilt reading comics.
My grandparents’ large house was situated on a hill with a lot of acreage, surrounded by many barns and out buildings. Most houses back then had large hallways down the middle that served as a breezeway for cooling because no one had air-conditioning back then. Interestingly, the small north Georgia mill town line of city limits ran through the middle of their house. Therefore, one side of the hallway was in city limits and the other was outside city limits in the country.
On the city side was a very large garden where I can recall picking wonderful strawberries and eating as I picked them. On the other side were fields of cotton as far as I could see. On the city side, there were several barns and a pasture area where all the cows grazed. On the country side, were several barns that housed the horses, mules and farm equipment. A very large yard separated the house from all the surrounding buildings. On one side of the house was a large tree with a circular table built around it. I have such vivid memories of making homemade ice cream, turning the crank under that tree.
The big meal of the day was noontime, always called dinner, and a large dining table was laden with delicious food as all the family and grandchildren gathered around to enjoy it.
After the noon meal, everyone gathered on the veranda. Neighbors and other families came to visit to talk about current events, their crops, the weather, and politics. Frequently, the grandchildren would sit on the edge of the veranda with our legs dangling off the edge listening to all the discussions. I was no exception as I sat and listened to all the talk about current events of that time.
As I reflect back on those times I’m reminded of the Greek Porch philosophers, referred to as the Stoics, where so much was taught from one generation to another. These times I speak of were during the 1930s and early 1940s. It was the late 30s when the book Gone with the Wind was published and one of my aunts brought a copy to the Sunday afternoon family gatherings. I was so intrigued by the discussion of the book and couldn’t wait to read it. I recall discussions about relatives who fought in the Civil War, which was the era written about in Gone with the Wind.
Years later, now living in the 21st century and observing my grandchild read the Sunday comics as I did at her age, when she finished, I decided to read the comic page. In the current issue, Dagwood was expressing his competitive spirit by preparing for a tennis match with his friend Herb. Talking to Blondie, he explained since he had not played in a long time, he needed to tape up his knees so he would not have to jump around much, and if he lost the match, he could blame the loss on bum knees. He laughed and said, “It’s absolutely fool proof.” Then the doorbell rang and his friend Herb appeared with both his knees taped up. Dagwood was so surprised his strategy had been duplicated by his opponent for their tennis match.
This brings to mind what is currently happening between the two presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, battling to be the winner in the upcoming match in November.
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We Must Start Talking About Freedom (Issue 73)
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The presidential campaign seems to have taken on a new life after the conventions and selection of vice president for each presidential candidate. But despite the spurt of energy and interest, it has not spawned any new or different ideas. Except one thing . . . a lot of rhetoric and interest in lipstick. A lot of lip service to lipstick. A ping-pong game with a tube of lipstick.”
Sarah Palin began the lipstick trend by mentioning it in her convention speech. Then Barack Obama paraphrased the famous saying, “a rose by any other name is still a rose” by saying, “You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
One might be interested in checking back and reading the article I wrote a couple of months back about wild hogs in the Okefenokee Swamp and how to capture them by enticing the little pigs. But not with lipstick.
It might be more apropos for the candidates to talk about piggy banks in relation to how the economy has gotten so bad. Americans are losing their homes and scrambling through their piggy banks to meet the rising cost of groceries. More talk about “mess kits” instead of makeup kits in what has become known as “lipstick politics.” Wow! What a diversionary tactic away from the real bread and butter issues today’s Americans are facing.
Taking their campaign issues from the ridiculous to the sublime, it seems as though both candidates have so mired themselves into a makeup issue, they have steered themselves away from the real makeover issues of change both were so hot to trot about.
I’m reminded of the fact that political government is a con game. Keep your eye on this ball while they are juggling with something else. Never has this been more glaringly apparent than this recent round of wrangling over words, back and forth, dominating the news over pigs with lipstick. Not even a Hollywood scriptwriter could have come up with anything better to point out the con game of diversionary tactics than the candidates themselves . . . a tube of lipstick.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive.” This is not fiddling while Rome burns, but painting lips, to disguise what falls out of the mouth. If it were not for the seriousness of the matter, it would be downright comic. And no doubt fodder for the late night comic scene.
On the other hand, it offers nothing in the way of solutions to the problems this nation faces on the fast track to socialism and the erosion of individual freedom and dismantling of personal property rights . . . faster than the Democrats and Republicans dismantled all their fancy props at their convention sites.
If I were a songwriter looking for a title to a new song I would seriously consider, “How Dumb Thou Art.”
Now I don’t think the American people are dumb, but very smart, just being led down the wrong path in the frenzy of hype now so pervasive in this campaign. We are still free, able and capable of thinking. Our memory seems a bit short, as we listen to so many political speeches absent any discussion about our most precious possession, which is individual freedom. The question is, why are we tolerating the domination of talk about pigs with lipstick, ignoring any discussion about freedom? Is all the talk about lipstick on pigs just a diversion away from all the pork in Washington?
Let Freedom Ring!
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Let’s Do The Twist With Lipstick (Issue 71)
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