Too Long, But Maybe Not Forgotten

It has been a while, a long while, since The Gentleman [of Manonaplane] put ink to paper, or finger to iPad, as is the case.

It may be that I was too ambitious in my previous attempts to publish every day, much like my dog who seeks to lick the scraps off the dirty plates in the dishwasher only to get her head caught. Or maybe I just did not have anything useful to say [not likely]. Perhaps, like all of you, especially those of you kind enough to read my posts in the past, I had grown tired of the constant barage of negative material to write about (I think of that great line from the Crowded House song: "[like] try to catch a deluge in a paper cup").

Well, I think both were true.

I have since taken on a new job which is both busy and challenging (and much removed from the supervision of some more than morally challenged individuals), I have 4 children to raise and, yes, I have largely grown bored of finding myself writing, much as a record, scratched and rutted finds its needle unable to skip to a new line, the same things.

That said, as "the election" approaches, I find myself asking: "is this the best we can do?".

What is that line from the song of 1970's fame: "clowns to the left, jokers to the right, here I am". Only here we are. We await a verdict on what is worse, not what might be better. We stand, like 8th graders on opposite sides of the gymnasium at a school dance, not knowing how to begin a conversation, let alone merge to complete a graceful or, even as only teenagers in their braces and acne can do, an awkward movement of dance and togetherness.

We, the majority of this fine nation, have allowed ourselves to become marginalized by a radical and self-serving, often self-immolating, few (sound anything like Islam to you?). We have allowed what should have been a triumph in the election of our first African-American president to fall to a door-to-door activist, who had never held a job prior to his brief stint in the daycare center we call Congress. We tainted that potential glorious legacy, erasing perhaps the painful legacy of a black and white past, with a man who thinks hard work should benefit those who choose not work ("I made this"). We gave up our ideals to a sound bite, a liar and a hypocrit.

Now, before you going crying to the teacher that I've pulled your hair or pinched you cheek, if you know me, and have half a brain (I am willing to give half-a-halves credit), then you know there is no one across the proverbial "isle" that I think any more highly of, though many rival in their loathesomeness (Hello, Harry, Nancy, Sarah P, Al, Chuck, and Maxine, to name a few).

We have chosen to allow this election to be an indictment of have and have not.

Is it really that easy?

If it is, and we are happy with editorialists, not journalist, like Rachel Madow or Glen Beck, to report their opinions to us as if it were news and not the babblings of mental midgets who see their constant teleprompting as a means to escape from Oompa-Lumpa Land; well then, we get what we deserve (at a minimum we should demand someone do something for Rachel, that poor homely creature). 

I am no liberal, but I also think the only party I want to attend involves friends and bourbon (didn't we learn the value of tea and politics when we threw those posers, the Brits out of here 200 plus years ago?).

 I'll pay more tax, if you will get to work and stop demanding things for free. I'll give you a few more percentage points if you promise me you won't waste it in graft (yes, Congress, graft, there is no other word for it.) and pet projects, white albatrosses and unicorns. I'll do my fair share, but if you want more, or worse, demand more, then do me (us) a favor, move to France. There you can have everything you want, as long as all you want is nothing.

Well, au revior, for now. 

I think I'll try to stay on this, once a week. Nothing too ambitious (sound like anyone else you know? B. O.). And, by the way, if you don't like what I have to say, feel free not to come back.