LEAVE IT TO PEEVER


­­ Bumper sticker of the week: I think I know.

I thought I knew.

I guess I didn't.

­­ Quote of the week: ''Another problem we face today is the gap between rich and poor... The number of billionaires in this country is increasing while the poor remain poor, in some cases getting even poorer. This is very unfortunate. On the global level as well, we see rich nations and poor ones. This is also very unfortunate. It is not just morally wrong, but practically it is a source of unrest and trouble that will eventually find its way to our door.'' An Open Heart, The Dalai Lama.

­­ Playing golf alone seems like it would be a lot like having sex alone: If something great were to happen, there's no one to share it with.

­­ You know you're from the country if:

--You know what 4-H is.--

You pick up your mail at the post office.--

You can recognize five different types of farm machinery.--

You know everyone's name in your high school graduation class.--

You walk to the cemetery on a date.--

You look forward to the county fair.

­­ In the Buddhist tradition, there are three types of laziness, and wouldn't you know it, I have all three.

­­ It would be easier being a female:--

You never ejaculate prematurely.--

Nothing critical can be cut off with one clean sweep.--

If you forget to shave, you can conceal it.--

You can sleep your way to the top.--

Having children is easier than hunting, fishing, and drinking beer all day.

­­ The Register-Mail did a good job on the reporting of large corporate farms receiving handouts from the government for doing nothing. I was proud to have a subscription and to have been enlightened on such taxpayer robbery. Immediately after the story, editorial writer Jeff Rogers proclaimed it is fine and inevitable that corporate farms should be subsidized for not growing crops that could help feed the world. I suppose a lot of farmers read the paper. Anyway, he states, ''It is not unfair, it is the way the industry has evolved.'' My answer to him is that it is an unfair, unwise, ill-conceived, corporate, Republican conceived idea run amuck. It needs to be changed. Small farmers are more productive, environmentally more astute, and more sustainable than their corporate counterparts. These large, mega-farms will crack under the strain of their own selfishness and greed.

­­ The Boy Scouts must be running for office. I see their yard signs popping up here and there. Actually, I think they're running from themselves. They appear to want to take their divisive, exclusivism approach to the public for our approval. The Scouts have always mingled their message with religion and morality. Now they have moved on to bigger and more exclusive messages: be leery of gay men, they may be pedophiles. The Boy Scouts is one of those organizations the world has passed by. We are better off with fond memories of the Scouts of yesteryear than we are of hoping they will provide any type of reasonably inclusive, friendly, courteous, kind, compassionate leadership for our children.

­­ Sir Giuliani. What a joke. Ask the homeless people who have been trying to live on the streets of New York, or in the shelters he has decimated with his right-wing rules and lack of funds, whether he deserves a Sir. Or try his wife, who he has so gallantly cheated on. Ask her whether there should be a Sir Giuliani. But in all fairness, people can change. I once knew a Robert who is now a Roberta.

­­ W. George. He sure is good at delivering one-liners. ''Good will triumph over evil.'' ''There's not a corner dark enough to hide in.'' Twiddle dumb must be writing his speeches. Such inflammatory statements clearly show the limitations Bush has as a leader. He would rather plunge our economy into depression and spend the lives of our young men and women on this senseless rhetoric than show some restraint and try to negotiate and mediate some type of settlement. Leadership like this is dangerously out of date.

­­ Speaking of leadership. The House adjourns and runs home, all the while telling us to be brave, don't panic, and please, go out and spend money. This is some of that ''Do as I say, not as I do'' style of leadership. Under attack, the President hides, the Vice-President is yet to climb out of the foxhole, the Congress runs home, and the Senate talks turkey, while we nightly bomb a defenseless and probably the poorest country on earth. They're talking about making the White House into a fort, gun sales are booming, gas masks are the current fashion statement, and the nation is nuts over one guy having died from anthrax. God Bless America. We need it.



Uploaded to The Zephyr Online October 24, 2001


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