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A brief “News Poem” on the pending shutdown of Minnesota’s state government.
Running a state is no big piece of cake
It takes lots of courage through give and through take.
At the end of the day when they’ve all had their say
Our elected officials all want it their way.
But today there’s no center, just angry decree –
“Shut it down, lock it up, throw away the key!”
It’s one thing to complain about the economy – anyone can do that. But what should be done to fix it? Longtime readers know that I believe that our economic situation is a Managed Depression and that only a fundamental restructuring will end it. This is my Six Point Plan to do exactly that. It describes action by the Federal Government, which is to say that it is a political platform – meaning it is incomplete and taken from a certain perspective. If you have questions, please follow the links.
A slow drippy blah day isn’t a lot of fun, but it’s what greeted my son at the start of Summer Vacation this morning. “Miss school much?” I ask him, knowing the answer. This is the season of constant recess, but more importantly the recess where he can pick which friends to hang with. That makes a big difference.
All during the year he had one complaint when I saw him after school. “They were at it again,” the frustration bubbled out, “We spent most of recess arguing about the rules to Foursquare rather than playing it!” There are some kids in his class who are either wannabe bigshots or control freaks or … it’s a public school, they take everyone. And they can’t even organize a simple game of Foursquare (Boxball to me as a kid) without a huge argument over which silly rules like School Bus, Poison, Hold, and so on apply.
What’s funny about this is that adults are just kids who grew older, sometimes up.
As nooze stories go, it has all the elements necessary to become an out of control frenzy – sex, a rising star, and the shiny-kewl allure of an internet fad. The scandal involving Rep. Anthony Weiner was bound to be horribly over-played, and it has been. Yet there is so much missing from the breathless hours already reported that it’s worth looking at much deeper.
What we was lost immediately in the frenzy was any sense of humanity and, as could be expected, a complete lack of introspection by those involved in the “reporting”.
Sixty seven years ago the Allied forces assaulted the beaches Normandy. Many small details blasted into those moments creating memories that defined the lives present – both survivors and casualties. Back home, my dad was only 10 years old, following the war in morning papers and newsreels. What he remembers most vividly from that day was the radio broadcast that evening when the Liberty Bell was tapped gently with a hammer, seven times, as if to spell out L-I-B-E-R-T-Y returning to the world. It was one of the few times in the last century the fragile and precious bell sounded. But that day it was needed.
It may seem like a small gesture, given the blood running heavy enough to crimson the surf on the shore of France. But it gave meaning to the people who were not there. Little things like this define the moments that make up the memory of a culture, a people with shared history and talk. Little things, small personal details, are what burn into our personal memories and make them real.
Little things are the stories that make up our lives.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 