Jack's Rant January 27, 2011

Old Man River…

As of January 27, 2011 there are three senators in their 80s, 18 in their 70s, 37 in their 60’s, 31 in their 50s, and only 12 that are under the age of 40 years of age.

I’m speaking as a person in my 60’s, but, these old guys in the senate are OLD! Moreover, they are old and OUT OF TOUCH!

At my age, I have problems keeping up with new technology that changes daily, yet alone the social network that propels it. We need young fresh innovative people in office, not these died in the wool career politicians that have no idea what a Facebook page is, yet alone Snype.

And here we have an electorate whose average age is 61 years old.

These guys are so old that when they fart they pass dust!

What brought this to mind was watching the State of the Union Address earlier this week and looking on a sea of old, worn out (some appearing to have drunk to much) senators and representatives of the people, who have no business representing anyone, other than the retirement community that they should be settled in.

We wonder why Washington is so out of touch with us until we begin to look more closely at who is representing us, and, unless you can’t do the math, it’s electorate from the 20th century who doesn’t understand today’s electronic media. (In fact, some of them are still amazed by the invention of the light bulb!)

When the “founding fathers” formed the new nation, George Washington was 44, Thomas Jefferson was 33 and John Adams was 41. Now one might argue that people didn’t live as long as they do now. The exception was Ben Franken who was 71 and entertaining women of pleasure when in Paris! But the simple fact is the founding fathers were by average under 40 years, unlike today where we have an out of touch congress so obsessed by their own personal gains and profits that they have totally neglected the popular.

I am a baby boomer, and as such we have a huge clout in how Social Security and Medicare is managed. We are all over 60.

But I have to tell you, I don’t think it’s a good idea that the country be governed by a bunch of people my age or older managing the affairs of the younger generation.

They need their own representation. I do not believe that the founding fathers ever thought that one would ever hold a political office more than a few years, as it was their view that this was akin to jury duty; something you did for your country and then moved on.

Clearly, by the looks of the Senate, and to a lesser degree, the House of Representatives, we have career “old fogies” that are not in touch with the modern American dream, nor the mandate of our founding fathers who established them.

If ever there is a time for total over-haul of the people that represent us, it’s now!

Where’s Tomas Jefferson when you need him? HA!

Jack's Rant January 10, 2011

“Second Amendment remedies” – Sharon Angle, a Tea Party candidate for Congress, Nevada

The second amendment gives all Americans the right to bear arms. In this country there are 9 guns for every 10 people. Now that’s not to say that 9 out of 10 people have guns. Many people have several, or an entire armory of guns. Both are rather scary if you ask me. Eluding to “remedies” as using your gun to eliminate anyone who disagrees with your political view is as despicable as Adolph Hitler’s reign of terror in Germany.

Sarah Palin had on her website cross hairs over Democratic members of Congress who she felt didn’t comply with the views of her, or her Tea Party members. Take aim, fire! She does hunt elk after all. We aren’t entirely sure what Dick Chaney hunts, but that’s for another blog.

One of Palin’s cross hairs was over Gabrielle Giffords, Democratic representative in the state of Arizona. And someone did just that this last Saturday. Took aim and fired.

If anything could be said to be positive out of this tragedy is that it has generated a huge national awareness. A mentally disturbed person decided to go on a shooting spree. News at eleven.

The political discourse has become so toxic, including a South Carolina congressman shouting out “You lie” during President’s Oboma’s state of the Union address, that it appears to be a tacit approval for anyone to act in any manner they please without regard to manners or civil behavior.

This last political campaign was by far the most disgusting, vile, unethical campaign season I have ever witnessed in my over forty years of being a registered voter.

Is this what our country has become? So toxic and vitriol that unless you behave as a Visigoth on a rampage that you will not be elected to office?

Or worse yet, follow the campaign slogan of a wanta be politician that it is quite all right to resort to use your “second amendment remedies” if the rest of the electorate doesn’t agree with your view.

Clearly this is anarchy. It is fueled not only by many talk show hosts, but reinforced by not only political candidates and their campaigns but by members of Congress as well.

I ask myself, where does this end? Or is this just the beginning.

Almost 150 years ago this country was engaged in a civil war. Civil, that’s what they called it, but was anything other than civil. Over 618,000 lives were lost during that conflict. It was the worst war ever fought on US soil and more people died in that conflict than in any war that the USA has been engaged with since. In fact, if my facts are correct, lost in any war, prior or since.
Now we are engaged in a national debate that asks the question: has this toxic rhetoric, spoken from any faction, right, left or center, gone too far.

Hello? Has no one been paying attention? The horse is out of the barn! The cat is in the cradle, the wolf is in the hen house!

Yes, this has been TOXIC since the 2008 Presidential campaign.

So toxic that it can not be buried in a landfill, nor can it be sealed in some erstwhile salt mine in Utah. This is unacceptable behavior of our politic. And until our elected officials elect to behave in a civil manner, to one another and to the people who they represent, then we may indeed be engaged in another, much more violent and better armed civil war.

Maybe I need to go to Walmart and rearm myself. HA!

Jack's Rant January 5

News article:

You've probably heard the news by now: Mark Twain is getting an extreme makeover. An Auburn University professor, Alan Gribben, has decided to whitewash the 219 instances of the N-word right out of "Huckleberry Finn," and while he's at it, he's going to remove "Injun," too, for good measure. The new and supposedly improved version is to be published by New South. The impetus behind it? To get the book back into the many classrooms from which it's been banned in recent years.

As I channel Mark Twain once in a while, this is what he said to me…

“Now, upon notification of this news, I must remark, that it is an understatement for me to say that I was less than pleased that someone, yet alone an academic, should take on the dubious task of editing any work of mine for any reason, yet alone “Huckleberry Finn”. I reckon that because of their stature as a member of the educated elite, they have a God given right to edit any work; that they, in their wisdom, chose to do so. But, I must confess, if that is their case, it is a fright to think what else they might focus on their editorial skills.

“Now another might think that this is good idea; as there are many words that offend people today, and I can only speculate that there might be many that might offend future generations. In my own defense, it would be impossible for anyone of my time, other than Jules Vern perhaps, to predict what those words might be. I must admit, that what I have written, in all of my works, is in the vernacular of my time.

“It does, howsomever, make me shudder in my boots in my feet and my thumbs in my vest, to consider what other volumes they might set upon to do the same.

“Censorship, in any fashion is the first step to revising not only the past, but the history therein recorded, fiction or not. For anyone to take it upon themselves to revise, for their own personal taste, is as objectionable and as disgusting as an attorney keeping his hands only in their client’s pockets.

“As having had to deal with many lawyers with their hands in my pockets, I can assure you with total conviction that, although you may conger that it is something as that will not occur again, it becomes as habitual as smoking a cigar.

“My advice, to anyone considering lighting up that fire of taking it upon yourself to revise, for any reason, history, facts, or fiction, is that you douse it down with haste, ash out, and allow another generation to decide for themselves the value of that work, with knowledge of the prior language used in that era.

“If we continue to review the past, as if it is for some future historian to reconsider to their current moral standard, then we are asking of ourselves for a history of untruths.

“As I am recalled to say: ‘when you tell the truth you never have to remember anything’.”

If they only knew the truth to begin with! HA!