expect government properly, competently and seriously
In the 2017 book, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, the author, Jonathan Allen, relates that as the election returns came in and results piled up against the Democrats, former President Bill Clinton settled on the comment that, “It’s just like Brexit” meaning mostly that the result was 1) unexpected and 2) American voting trends followed voting trends in Great Britain.
This week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is watching his government officials resign and when his officials resign, they give a press statement on why.
On Monday, the Honorable Rishi Sunak, MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer (more or less the Secretary of Treasury in the US) resigned and stated that:
“The public expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.“
From which it can be understood that Mr. Sunak feels that the current government in Great Britain fails at all three.
Maybe the US again will follow GB just like Brexit.
Maybe we will all stand up and demand that our government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.
Gun control?
Control the guns?
Inflation?
Gas prices?
Real immigration reform?
Cost of living?
Cost of a place to live?
We got real problems and we have a government who cannot play well in a sandbox at recess.
Seriously!
Right now I don’t care which party is in charge just so long as they manage to grow up and conduct government properly, competently and seriously.
Anyone who can say that they will going forward gets my vote.
I have got to get off this political commentary track and back to the beach and words.
This is not what I intended this blog to be.
Maybe if I ignore that lack of proper attitude, competence and seriousness in our Government I will be better off.
Why do I feel that is what they folks in Government are counting on?
combination of silence panic upheaval that I didn’t choose
Adapted from the line:
There was a lot of big talk during the pandemic as we used that eerie combination of silence and panic to re-evaluate our priorities. Fear of change evaporates when everywhere you look there is upheaval you didn’t choose.
Ms. Williams writes, “To regret that a decision wasn’t made sooner can be seen as reverse “what if?” thinking; even while it is painful to think of time wasted and bad situations endured, it is psychologically protective in that it reinforces the decision.”
The people of America responded to the news of Kennedy’s assassination and the continuing televised reports of every subsequent happening with a state of shock that went beyond mourning to something approaching melancholia, a serious collapse of self-esteem. With the assassination, something more than a man had been lost, something more abstract and more compelling – a part of America’s faith in itself as a good society.
The line, something more than a man had been lost, something more abstract and more compelling – a part of America’s faith in itself as a good society, hit me.
America’s faith in itself as a good society.
I admit much of that faith was a hypocrisy.
But it was a useful hypocrisy.
Recent political turmoil over, well, politics and Covid and any number of other issues of late have ripped the scab off the hypocrisy and left folks, not wondering if we have lost a part of America’s faith in itself as a good society but now QUESTIONING even if America was, is or can be, a good society.
I like to think that Mr. Lincoln was right when he said the United States was, “… the last best hope of earth.”
Maybe Mr. Lincoln is right, its just that the bar to being recognized as the last best hope of earth was a lot lower than I ever thought.
Again, the passage quoted from Ms. Godwin is about the United States after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The time has come for Americans of all races and creeds and political beliefs to understand and to respect one another.
So let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence.
Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law, and those who pour venom into our Nation’s bloodstream.
As Mr. Lincoln put it in his December, 1862 Annual Address to Congress, “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May) by Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
It seems that a Mr. Scott Stallings felt something was off on his game and he decided he wanted to use some older golf clubs that he owned but that were back he lived.
Mr. Stallings called a friend back home and asked him to ship the clubs out which the friend did at a cost of $400 to over night the clubs.
I got no problem with any of this.
The headline.
The thought behind the headline.
The action taken by the friend.
The desire of Mr. Stalling’s to have his old clubs.
It really just all kind of sums up my thoughts on the subject in the first place.
In full, Mr. Stallings said:
“I think all golfers are certifiably insane to an extent because we know something is good, and there is always kind of the double-edged sword of always trying to get a little bit better. I tried this other set for about a year and went back to it last week and ended up third in approach to the green and I have no idea what I am this week. Feel like I’m doing something right,” said Stallings, who has shot 67-66-64. “Definitely have seen significant improvement in my iron play.
“I had some nice weeks, but just kind of inconsistent through the middle of the bag for me. Nothing is wrong with the way the club is made. It’s just as far as the way I deliver it in there. I think I match up a little bit better with the older ones.
laughter, singing rang again, all the sounds of the earth were like music
Adapted from James Thurber’s Further Fable, “The Bears and the Monkeys.”
I have used this fable of Mr. Thurber’s before.
I will most likely use again and if I don’t use it again, I will read it again and most likely often.
The fable is an analogy on the red scare of the McCarthy era when folks were afraid to think for themselves and wake up to find out they were accused of being a communist.
It was better to let someone else do the thinking for you than risk being labeled being part of the red threat or a pinko commie sympathiser.
So they thinking went according to the monkeys.
When I first read this probably 50 years ago when I was a kid, I think I was able to grasp the meaning that folks do not want anyone telling them what to.
Maybe I was thinking along the lines of Mr. Lincoln’s “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”
I thought the story noble in its’ irony.
I read it today not in with humor but with horror.
I read it today and feel that the irony now goes over most folks heads.
I read the line, “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” and I hear folks yelling, “YESSIR, THAT’S IT!”.
As Mr. Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn, “Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”
BOY Howdy 😦
I still somehow have hope.
Maybe its more I want to refuse to be hope-less.
But I do hope that one day folks will break the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and begin playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And folk’s laughter and gaiety will ring through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing begin singing again, and all the sounds of the earth will be like music.
The Bears and the Monkeys.
In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”
The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.
Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”
So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.
“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”
Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.
MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.
No Haiku For You 