Rants April 8, 2012

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1. Someone sent me an email that says that President Obama is an illegal alien. It must be true because the man who sent it to me earns over a million dollars every year and anyone who earns that much money must know things I don’t know. But when I told my friend Sue that President Obama is an illegal alien, she said, “Better an alien who was elected by a majority of the people --- than a citizen who was not.”

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2. A Maine newspaper recently ran an article on state employees who are double-dipping. I personally have nothing against people who collect a pension after 20 years and go back to work either there or somewhere else for another 20. Can you name a Senator or Congressman who was voted out or retired and wasn't earning even bigger bucks heading up some professional lobbying association in Washington before the dust had settled on his desk? I couldn't even single-dip. I could never work a regular job, so how can I knock those middle-aged "retired people" who, even though they don’t need the money, can work 8 hours at what I would consider to be an impossibly tiring job. You and I know many people who have retired from the prison or the post office or the military who jumped right into another job. One of the men I respect the most in this life collects a pension from --- I think --- three jobs. He is a very smart man. He is one of these people who have to work. They would die if they could not work. We need these people. Unlike the billionaires who are manipulating Congress today, these double dippers pay taxes. Leave them alone.

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3. “Open For Business" is a slogan embraced by a political party in Maine. So they might consider the closing of several Maine newspapers by Richard Anderson to be sad news indeed. Ray Gross at the Courier Gazette was one of the first people to pay me for writing a newspaper column. And it was Ray who, at national conventions, introduced me to newspaper editors and publishers from all over the country. Ray was instrumental in syndicating my humor column. It was Ray Gross who pushed me through a crowd of newspaper people at the White House so I could shake hands with the President of the United States. Although I don't understand the financial aspects of suddenly shutting down newspapers and putting workers on the street, I do know that sometimes there is more money to be made in quickly closing down a business and scraping in all the chips on the table than in keeping it open. Making money is the goal of being "Open For Business" and if you have to shut down your business to be “Open For Business”, the effect on the community or on the lives of others does not enter the picture. If you've had your eyes and ears open lately, you might have heard that a man who is running for President got very rich doing just that. I have written for Richard Anderson's business. Although he didn't pay me for my work as Ray Gross did, and although my weekly rants didn't warrant hard copy, my sentiments did appear on line in Village Soup as long as I bothered to post them. But I will never forget Richard Anderson for another reason. On September 12, 2001 he was kind enough to pick up a hitchhiker who was holding up a huge "The humble Farmer" sign on the Canadian-Maine border. I was on stage in Montreal entertaining the members of a national association when some fanatical Saudis took out the World Trade Center, and because my flight to Portland was grounded, I had to hitchhike home the next day. Richard very graciously brought me all the way from the Canadian border to Camden. It was the first time I'd ridden in a car that had the cell phone wired into the car's four speakers, and a man doesn't forget things like that.

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This week I celebrate 34 years of making this program just for you. 52 x 34 = 1768 programs.

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4. You have heard me talk about the advantages of implementing the Kenyan training program for runners here in our schools. Once each child has had the Kenyan training program for runners, no child will be left behind and 10,000 runners will all cross the finish line claiming victory at the same time. This was brought to mind by an email I got that promised to put me at the top of Google searches. Suppose 10,000 people who own bed and breakfasts in Maine all respond to this advertisement. Doesn’t it make you wonder how all 10,000 bed and breakfasts can appear on the top line when Maine bed and breakfast is Googled?

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5. Marsha and I got into a big motor home with friends and went down to Key West for a few days. I like Key West. It is different. Don’t you think it is interesting that I also like Smogen and Monhegan? Key West and Smogen and Monhegan are all islands. Marsha packed food and clothes. I didn’t bother to pack much of anything which was a mistake because I forgot to bring a belt or suspenders. Most of my pants are so small that I can navigate without a belt, but the pants I took to Key West had about an inch of slack around the waist. Yes, I know. I could have corrected the problem with a piece of rope, but I didn’t think of it at the time. So I walked the streets of Key West for two days with both hands hanging onto my pants so they wouldn’t fall off. Anyone who saw me probably thought, “Look at that old fool trying to dress like a teen aged kid.”

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6. Will you permit me to make a point here? According to the way I understand Euclid, a point takes up no space. We read that a line contains at least two points, neither of which exist. How would an engineer share a piece of cake with his little sister? He would cut it into two pieces, take the biggest piece for himself, and then, when sister went crying to mother, very correctly say that, measured from edge to edge, sister’s cake had exactly the same number of points in it as his did.

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7. What is the purpose of education? Are some children wasting their time and their teacher’s time by going to school? Let us consider the case of a man who was trapped under a trailer that dropped on him. According to my newspaper, he had been living in a motel with his girlfriend and children after being evicted from an apartment by their landlord. A judge gave the man a few weeks to make the trailer habitable for his family before serving a prison term for stealing. Had school consolidation and No Child Left Behind been implemented 30 years ago, do you think it would have made a bit of difference?

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8. An 88-year-old man from Dover-Foxcroft told me that he firmly believes that living in Florida in the winters adds 10 years to your life. --- Unless you're black and carrying a bag of Skittles.

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9. The email said, “Look rich with Rolex from $199.” It made me laugh when I saw it. Who in their right mind would pay $199 for a watch when you can get a good one for $12 most anywhere? And who wants to look rich? A couple of my friends look rich, and when they went to Cannes to the film festival someone stole their rich kid looking bag with credit cards and money and who knows what else in it. What do you think these Frenchmen hold that film festival for? The bag I carry when I travel looks like something a Steinbeck character would have thrown off a bald-tired truck half way between Oklahoma and California. Nobody would steal my bag. And if they did all they’d get would be a pair of dirty drawers. My wife told me that my bag belonged to her first husband from Amsterdam, so it has been around for a while. Why would anyone want to look rich? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to be rich and look poor?

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10. I got a hoax email that said that cell phones could touch off an explosion if it were to ring while you were gassing up your car. I’m not in the socio economic group of people who can afford cell phones, and they don’t always work on the coast of Maine, but it is my understanding that millions of people have cell phones and millions of people buy gas. So, if cell phones could cause an explosion, wouldn’t we be seeing pictures of it every day on the evening news? What would be interesting is a study indicating how many automobile accidents are caused by people talking on cell phones. It is a common thing nowadays to be passed by a car, only to see the same car creeping along 3 miles down the road. And the first thing you say to yourself is, “cell phone.” And, sure enough, when you pass them, that person has a phone pressed to an ear. I suppose that this is inevitable in our changing times. Twenty years ago when you’d see a car wrapped around a telephone pole in broad daylight, you’d say to yourself, “… cat got under the driver’s feet or dog jumped on the driver and barked at something.” Nowadays the function once served by loose animals in cars has been taken over by cell phones.

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