Rants April 1, 2012

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1. I just looked at a web site video that said, "Air pollution is making you sick." But first I had to watch a commercial for weed spray.

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2. Ever hear of Montana Slim? Montana Slim recorded such classics as I Wish I Was Single Again, and Give Her Back Her Hearing Aids -- Grandma's Courtin Again. They are worth a listen on YouTube and I plan to play them on my radio program this week. My friend Alden asked me if I'd put some Montana Slim on a CD for him. I just finished capturing Montana Slim singing A Little Log Shack I Can Always Call My Home. Montana Slim lived on 180 acres in New Jersey before he moved to Orlando.

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3. There’s an awful lot of overlap between Republican talking points and business talking points. If a company records a huge profit, that’s “good news,” even if they did it by laying people off or breaking a union. I heard about this from an MIT chemist over 5 years ago. He said that the U. S. was going to be outstripped by other countries because the U. S. companies kept their eye on the bottom line for the quarter instead of what was going to happen 5 or 10 or 20 years down the road. He said that this is the way it worked when he started with a company 30 or 40 years ago. A chemist with a PhD right out of MIT had a few months to putter around and find something that would make the company long range profits. The company would then give the project the green light, and the company would profit year after year. Now, he told me, if the company has to look good for that quarter, they might fire 200 chemists so the bottom line for that quarter will look good for the stockholders. Of course, that destroys the company down the road. It is this shortsightedness that many of us can't understand --- the drill, baby, drill. Whatcha gonna do when the well runs dry? Shouldn't we be saving some of that oil for future generations? Why should oil companies pay no taxes and get incentives to drill? You don’t even need to give financial incentives to individuals to get them to put solar hot water heaters and solar panels on their homes. Just show them how it can save them money and encourage them to do it.

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4. May I tell you about a recent spam email that attracted my attention? It says Lou Gentile talks with spirits and you can hear it live. It says, Don't believe? Lou has been doing this type of communication for many years and within the last 2 years has been letting people experience this first hand with 100% success! End of quote. It is my understanding from the little I read that the gifted Mr. Gentile makes a lot of money going around saying what people want to hear. I don’t know what you think of communicating with the spirit world, but perhaps you agree with me that it at least warrants being a topic for our superficial consideration. For thousands of years billions of people have spoken words to an entity that they have never seen and because billions of people have done it for thousands of years it is a normal, socially acceptable behavior. But --- nowadays when one person claims he hears a voice talking back it suddenly becomes paranormal activity and a lot of people who pray every day would say that Lou Gentile is crazy.

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5. Wee Gates? Como Estas? Hur star det til? Kaip Gevoicheck? You might have heard me say that I’m getting cranky in my old age. Almost anything and everything is now capable of making me cranky. Someone calls. If I’m sitting right on top of the phone and can answer it on the first ring, I say, “Robert Skoglund. Sorry to keep you waiting.” If the salesman one the other end who wants to sell me something says, “Hi Robert. How are you?” it makes me cranky. If there is something I can do for you, please tell me what it is but don’t call me on the telephone to ask me how I am because it makes me cranky. When I bump into acquaintances on the street and they say, “Hi Robert. How are you?” I say, “Sick, tired, old, weak, and ugly.” If you don’t think that’s a nice thing to do, remember that in answer to the question I could clutch at my chest and drop, coughing, to my knees.

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6. Many, many people embrace the extreme positions of the Taliban and evangelical Christians, although it would be difficult for a man from Mars to distinguish between the two. Their common bond is the unshakable belief that they are the only folks with the answer and may everyone else burn in hell. Do you want to be around when those two groups go toe to toe? Is it isolationism that brings out this fanatical religious extremism? Can it be stoked by a sense of poverty, helplessness and the inability to seek medical care? Most of the people I know who work for minimum wage and vote for the party of the billionaires don't realize that there are countries that do not tolerate poverty. Their distant cousins in those countries know enough to vote against poverty. Here, people who do not understand elementary economics are moved to support a candidate who will take away their food and healthcare but makes them feel all warm and fuzzy by throwing out the words "freedom" and "greatest country in the world." This from Salem in 1692. "And now Nineteen persons having been hang'd, and one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were Members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear'd; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more acccused..." The Salem witchcraft trials might have been the rock on which our early theocracy shattered, but how long do you have to watch TV before you realize that there are many with bland, smiling faces who would reassemble the pieces and set up a scaffold on the town square?

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7. You've heard me say it many times but I'm saying it again. If I had to start over, I'd have my driver stop the Rolls before the stadium where I'd stand on a platform and encourage 50,000 weeping people to go home and climb on the mortgaged roof to await salvation. "And if you send me a check for $666.00 first, an extra special blessing is in store for you." In two states where Santorum triumphed, Oklahoma and Tennessee, Santorum was supported by voters who said their choices were influenced by religion. We're talking here about choosing a President for the United States. Our culture war has left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders’ “values” and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of economic policy. Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where’s the outrage at corporate and ecclesiastical manipulators?

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8. Shed no tears for me when I tell you that I could never afford to have children. Marsha’s oldest granddaughter visited us for a weekend so I was able to realize the same grandchild benefits at a fraction of the cost and effort. And, for the first time in my life I was able to aid in the development of a young, receptive pre-school mind. Take, for example, teaching a little one to name the body parts on a stuffed moose. This is the --- nose. This is the --- mouth. These are the ---- eyes. This is an ---- ant-ler. So this other one must be an --- uncle-er. And then there is the mess generated by water colors and play dough. Do you know what happens when you get too old for play dough? You’ll read Aristotle.

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9. When I was a little boy my father used to read me a story. All I can remember about the story is that the old woman who lived in the hut at the edge of the forest said, “I have seen seven oak forests grow up and I have seen seven oak forests rot down but I have not seen your brothers.” She might just as well have said, “I have lived here fourscore and seven years but I have not seen your brothers.” In both cases, it is an interesting and creative way to articulate the passage of a large amount of time. “Yes, I’ve known him since Moses was a pup.” All of this came to mind one day when I drove through Rockland. I have not seen oak forests grow up and rot down and I have not even lived fourscore years. But --- you’ve been around a while when you see a huge digging machine knocking down an old building that they put up to replace a store where you used to shop.

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10. Did you hear about the Rockland fellow who was the 500th person to walk past a gas station one morning not too long ago? They were doing some kind of promotion at the gas station, and when he walked by the manager trotted up to him and shook his hand and congratulated him and told him that he had just won 100 dollars worth of gas. And the fellow said, “Gee. If I’d have known I would have brought a can.”

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11. David wrote: "After reading some stuff by Humble the other day, a friend of mine didn't know how to spell euthanasia, so Google search directed him to Asian Teen Porn."

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12. I saw on the news that a carwash was robbed of $100. Many, many times many many pictures of the carwash were flashed on the screen. “Here is the carwash that was robbed last night. Police say …thus and so.” As a man who spent a few years in advertising businesses on television I realized that the $100 that was stolen was advertising money well spent. You remember a few years ago a woman sued McDonalds when she burned herself with hot coffee. The paltry millions that McDonald’s paid out in damages was nothing compared to what they gained by having the big yellow M on the nightly news for weeks. Anyway, if I owned that carwash, when the reporter came over to interview me, I’d say, “Yes, they got away with $100 and I wouldn’t be surprised if they could get more than that if they’d come back next week.”

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