LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

 

The truth will set you free.

 

— Bumper sticker of the week: IÕm against the death penalty. Look what happened to Jesus.

— Quotes of the week: ÒI got my first full-time job, but itÕs weird. I could swear I was making more money in college, working for my parents as their daughter.Ó Melanie Reno

 ÒWhen weÕre unemployed, weÕre called lazy. When the whites are unemployed, itÕs called a depression.Ó Jesse Jackson

— You canÕt be all that you can be if youÕre dead. War kills young men and woman and ends the dream.

— Decency: I learned about decency from my father. Respect everyone. Hold the door for anyone older than yourself. Pay attention to character, not color. Try to help people out. Keep your head up and say hello to everyone. While I ended up being much more liberal than he, and definitely have walked a different road, I feel good about having learned some of the basics about being a human being from my father.

— My first post-election skirmish: It was on a casual shopping trip in downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas. A lady who owned one of the shops was talking to a guy out on the sidewalk. She was saying how terrible it was that the Democrats won everything, and how the liberals were going to let all the child molesters out of prison. So much for my pledge to stay calm and not rub in our victory. I said, Lady, if youÕre going to talk about politics and liberals and Democrats, at least make sense. I reminded her that the last time we had let a child molester out of prison, he turned Republican, got elected to Congress, and molested the White House pages. Somehow, I donÕt think I made her day.

— What is Òthe truthÓ: More and more IÕm thinking that Òthe truthÓ is nothing more than our minds trying to find some certainty in this uncertain world. ÒThe truthÓ never transfers very easily from one person to the next. It usually takes a little persuading, often by force, some stretching of the facts, and countless repetition of the story, to establish a Òtruth.Ó Still, there are some things that are hard to refute:

¥ You wake up in the morning, youÕre eventually going to take a dump.

¥ If two men are talking, sex will eventually enter the conversation.

¥ You cannot make a profit without cheating someone.

¥ A politician will never answer a question directly.

¥ Anyone claiming to know Òthe truthÓ is probably selling something.

¥ ÒThe truth is plain to seeÓ was the motto of Neanderthal man.

¥ Truth is not in the eye of the beholder, itÕs in his or her mind.

¥ ÒThe truth will set you freeÓ has resulted in a lot of dead people.

— I should have been a city manger. I could have easily done nothing for $110,000, plus benefits. In fact, IÕm pretty sure I would have been really good at it.

— For all the good leadership weÕre led to believe we have, Galesburg and Knox County are in one hell of a mess. SomeoneÕs pulling someoneÕs leg.

— The Democratic agenda:

¥ Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

¥ Establish some level of universal health-care.

¥ Do not renew tax cuts for the rich.

¥ Raise the minimum wage. It has not been raised for ten years. Congress has raised their salary seven times in those ten years.

¥ Equal access to education. You make the grades, you go to college, guaranteed.

¥ End lobbyist influence and dramatically lower the allowable contributions by individuals, lobbyists, special interest groups, etc., to say $100 per year.

¥ Work on a balanced budget and reducing the national debt.

¥ Make it hard and unattractive for big business to ship all our jobs overseas.

¥ Promote and finance alternative energy sources.

¥ Undue everything Bush has done.

—Happy Thanksgiving. Republicans and turkeys have not fared very well this year. Oh well.