Soup from a Nail Revisited

My fifth grade teacher told our class the tale of a man who during the Middle Ages would travel from village to hamlet claiming to be able to make soup from a nail.  The townsfolk would gather around a caldron, presumably in the town square, which they’d fill with water and build a fire underneath.  All would draw near as the stranger produced a nail from his vest pocket, muttering some incantation before dropping the nail in.  He’d stir the “soup” with a ladle and proclaim, “Yes it’s coming along nicely.  If only we had some cabbage to flavor it.”  One of the locals would scurry off to fetch an oxcart of cabbage; the scene would be repeated with turnips, or beets, or whatever they ate in those days.  The man would then divert everyone’s attention long enough to slip the nail out of the caldron, again mutter some magic words, and – voilà: soup from a nail.

The moral of course is that he did not in fact make soup from a nail; he made soup in spite of the nail, which was a simple prop to divert attention.

As much as we may like to think we’re too clever to fall for some ruse that obvious, we are often too quick to draw a line from cause to effect.  A forklift operator takes a corner too sharply and damages some shelving.  He was listening to loud rock music through his ear buds, so that must be what caused the accident.  But, he was also wearing a blue shirt at the time, so maybe blue shirts cause accidents.  He had a cheese Danish for breakfast that morning.  Could the cheese Danish be the culprit?

We are bombarded with these messages in advertising.  A man drives this or that brand of car and he gets the girl; a woman’s adoring family smiles approvingly because she gets their clothes cleaner with this or that laundry detergent; a wife gazes at her husband adoringly as they walk hand-in-hand because he asked his doctor about this or that prescription drug.  You want to be like these people?  You buy the product.

In this election year, there will be a veritable blitzkrieg of recycled “soup from a nail” arguments.  There were more jobs when this party was in office, therefore they created jobs.  The deficit was smaller when the other was in charge, therefore they must be more financially responsible.  Another candidate was able to obtain “bi-partisan support” for his referendum, therefore he can get people to work together.  They will pounce on every “hot button” issue with this convoluted logic.  As I’ve stated repeatedly: it’s all smoke and mirrors, it’s sleight of hand, it’s confounding.

It’s soup from a nail.

(P.S. The forklift operator crashed because he’d been up half the night playing Fallout 4 and binging on energy drinks.)

With No Precincts Reporting, CNN Projects Obama Winner

New York, NY - In an unprecedented move, CNN has projected President Obama to be the winner of the 2012 presidential election, without a single vote having been counted.

“I knew we were going to win”, a smiling Amy Oosterhaus of Duluth, Minnesota said.  “I knew it.  And, since CNN has already projected him to win, it means I don’t have to bother going to vote.”

”It’s supposed to be cold and rainy that day”, she added.

When asked how the news agency could project a winner in a race this close when polling places haven’t even opened, a CNN official who requested anonymity responded thusly: “It’s easy.  We’ve looked at pre-polling in four or five counties and districts in toss-up states and through the use of special algorithms, determined Obama will shade Romney enough to pull out the victory.”

"It’s not that difficult”, the source continued, “in fifteen minutes I could tell you the brand of toothpaste you use, the number of sport coats in your closet, and the last time you ordered a pizza online.”

“Americans are pretty predictable”, he concluded.

 

News organizations have traditionally striven to beat the other to the punch, so to speak, in predicting presidential election winners, projecting outcomes with as few as 10 – 15% of the results in, but this is the first time one has gone this far out on a limb.

A Romney campaign spokesman laughed off the prediction, stating Fox News projected Romney the winner Wednesday before last, then – in an obvious bet-hedging move - preemptively alleged vote rigging in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Like Sheep to the Slaughter

Well, the 2012 Mr. President Contest is officially underway. As I intend to view this charade with utter disgust and cynicism, I can’t give you the inside scoop on anything. Haven’t watched a debate, couldn’t tell you what any of these clowns are pretending to “stand for” this time around.

But, I did catch this. During an exit interview at one of the primaries, a reporter asked a voter, “Who are you supporting?” “Candidate X”, she replied. “Why”, the reporter asked. “Well I didn’t know much about him, but he won today”.

Translation: “I have no idea who this guy is, or what he claims he’ll do if elected, or if he just mowed down everyone on his cul-de-sac with a chainsaw, but a lot of people like him, so I’m going to vote for him”.

And there - in a nutshell - is the single biggest problem with our society: We have become sheep.

Yep, mindless, gullible sheep, with our respective sheep snouts shoved up the anal cleavage of the sheep in front of us, blindly following with no thought as to where we‘re going, or why.

Our sheep-like nature isn’t limited to politics. Oh no, we’ll follow anyone, if we think enough other sheep are. Some athlete pitches this or that brand of deodorant or beef jerky, and sales soar. Some chuckle-head reality TV star is seen carrying a tie-dyed purse, and the shelves empty. Face it, we’re sheep. And - we don’t even attempt to hide it.

I’m not even suggesting this is new. We’ve actually been sheep for some time now. During the 1950’s, Buffalo Bob Smith hosted a very popular TV show called Howdy Doody, who was actually a puppet. Bob wore a cowboy outfit - sort of, and guess what? Sales of cowboy outfits soared. In the early 1960’s, the Beatles took America by storm, and suddenly everything British was in vogue. We’ve been sheep for decades.

If I were very cynical, I might suggest that it’s no accident we’ve lost our ability to think for ourselves. I might suggest that we’ve been conditioned since pre-school to be sheep. After all, a society of sheep - no matter how hackneyed and deserving of ridicule - is a lot easier to control than a society of free-thinkers who will make informed, educated decisions, and demand substance instead of superficiality, results instead of rhetoric.

In a few months, we will elect someone to be our nation’s leader, at a time of deep crisis, probably far more dire than any of us can comprehend. We can choose based on tweets, and image and sound bites. Or we can go to the polls and cast a vote for whomever we think will cause the least amount of damage over the next four years. Or, we can rise up, each in our own way, each in our own voice, and proclaim:

I refuse to be a sheep, I will not be a party to this mockery, and I want my country back.

Now.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

I’d like to preface my remarks here with the following disclaimer: If you still believe in Santa Claus, stop reading - now.

Okay, then. To get to the issue at hand: I have come to believe that the way we elect our government officials is a lot like how we lie to our kids about Santa. At first, when they’re way young, we want them to believe. We tell them to believe in this jolly old man in a red suit that comes down the chimney (even if we don’t have a chimney), and brings us toys and stuff. Hell, we want to believe it ourselves. We want to reclaim a tattered remnant of our innocent youth. And, that‘s completely understandable.

As the kids get older, however, it becomes more difficult to sell the lie, to get them to swallow the whole jolly old man from the North Pole routine. They start asking questions. They hear things from other kids. They wonder how elves make smart phones and High School Musical DVD’s in a workshop with a hammer and nails. Eventually, you fess up: “Yes it was your Father and I all along. Don’t look at me like that - we spent enough on you to buy a new BMW 535i“.

We weren’t just lying to the kids all those years; we lied to ourselves. We wanted to believe we still lived in a world where a person’s word meant something, where character still counted, where the good guys win in the end. Where everything could be cured with gingerbread men and tree trimmings.

And every couple of years, we engage in that same fantasy, as we march out of the polling place, head held high, proudly displaying our “I Voted” sticker, believing we have made a difference. Confident we have made the “right choice” because our party, or our movement, or our platform is the best for us and our fellow Americans.

You can almost hear the sleigh bells, and smell those chestnuts roasting on that open fire.

I submit that regardless of the person or party you vote for, it is not the right choice. And, I submit that deep, down inside - you already knew that. You choose what you perceive to be the lesser of however many evils, although in your heart of hearts, you know none of them would spit on you if you were to burst out in flames in front of them.

For the majority of my adult life, regardless of the political affiliation of those in the white house (and state house, and house of delegates, and senate), several things have happened:

Millions of American jobs have been lost to other countries.
The personal wealth of the average working-class American has steadily dropped.
Housing, fuel, and heath care costs have sky-rocketed.
Our infrastructure has slowly crumbled.
Many of our streets have become increasingly unsafe to walk after dark.
Our national debt has increased.
Our quality of life has suffered, and
We can no longer seriously consider ourselves to be an economic superpower.

Yet we persist in not only tolerating, but engaging in these semi-annual dog-and-pony shows foolishly believing that the ship will be righted if only “our guy” wins. Our entire political process is about two shampoo and auto insurance commercials away from becoming a really bad reality TV show, because nothing any candidate says during the campaign has any relevance whatsoever once the polls close.

I submit that all we’re doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We know the ship’s going down, but it is the ship we’re on, and, well - we want it to look nice. We see others rearranging deck chairs, and there’s a certain comfort in being part of a group - any group. Even if that group is about to plunge into icy, shark-infested waters. At least we won’t go alone.

And the band plays on.

2008: A Blurry Retrospective

Well, the year 2008 has finally died an agonizingly slow, horrifically painful death, and 2009 is finally here, taunting us with hushed promises of economic recovery, scientific advances, and one-size-fits-all Snuggies. And while there were many, many developments and newsworthy stories in 2008, I would like to focus on three in particular:

One, I became ANOTHER year older, and I think that is grossly unfair. I believe that once you reach my age, you should only age, say six months per year. Of course younger folks, with their boundless energy, firm, toned bodies, and complete control of their respective bladders, should continue to age at the usual rate. This would have the added advantages of alleviating the baby-boomer burden on the Social Security system, AND requiring that you only buy birthday gifts for us dinosaurs every other year.

Secondly, we held another Mister President Contest in 2008, and of course Barack Obama - playing the role of Young, Idealistic Reformer won, beating out John McCain, playing the role of Crotchety Old Geezer Who Spends His Days Watching Barnaby Jones Re-runs And Chasing Stray Dogs Off His Lawn. This was truly an epic Mister President Contest, the campaign having begun in 1993. (I know it seemed MUCH longer but it really wasn't; Google it if you don't believe me.) Of the myriad images and sound-bites from this gargantuan competition, the one that will always haunt me is that of an army of Thirty-something women in stretch pants and running shoes zipping up and down the streets of my neighborhood at a mall-walker's pace, hanging leaflets on my door "reminding" me to vote for Obama.

There are no words to express the presumptuousness of this act.

My only regret is that I apparantly missed Jeff Probst ceremoniously extingushing Senator McCain's torch. (If anyone has a video clip of that, please shoot it to me. Thanks!)

But, all is not well in the wake of this Mister President Contest. Apparantly Hillary Clinton, playing the role of the Slam Dunk Democratic Nom- Whoops Maybe Not has amassed a campaign debt of approximately $680,000,000,000. This is equal to the combined Gross Domestic Product of several Caribbean nations, and Oprah's "Cookie Jar" fund. It's also almost 3% of what Senator Obama raised. In fact, if you take the money spent by all the contestants combined, convert it to Susan B. Anthony dollars and stack it in a cornfield in Nebraska, it would actually be visable from the International Space Station! Honest!

I have a proposal to eliminate this gross expenditure. Beginning with the 2012 Mister President Contest, all candidates would be prohibited from campaigning until election day. On election evening, whichever television network that bid the highest would hold a three-hour Mister President Contest Special (to be co-hosted by Jeff Probst and either Fergie or Kim Kardashian) wherein every candidate would have three minutes to express their views and make their empty campaign promises. Beginning with the final hour of the Mister President Contest Special, every registered voter - having previously received their unique voter personal identification number via mail - would either go on-line or call an 800 number to vote. Then, one by one, the losing candidates would have their torches extinguished by Jeff Probst until only the winner remained. Think of the advertising dollars this would generate! A thirty-second spot would easily cost ten times that of the Super Bowl!

Then, either Fergie or Kim Kardashian would place the ceremonial tiara on the head of the Mister President Contest winner and hand them the ceremonial roses while a Bert Parks look-alike sings "Here He Comes, Mister President". (I'm getting a little misty-eyed just thinking about it!)

Finally, I'm sure everyone has heard that the fact that 2008 was a leap year caused several computer glitches that wreaked havoc with many on-line sites, including Twitter, Digg and whatareyouwearingrightnow.com. I also have a simple proposal to eliminate this problem: do away with leap year altogether and replace it with the Leap Second. That's right, beginning in 2010, every minute would be increased by one second, thereby eliminating the need for a leap year, with it's extra day, and what all.

I know what you're thinking: Wouldn't every clock, watch and sun dial around the world have to be re-calibrated to deal with this extra second? The answer is an emphatic no. As no one is ever on time for anything anyway, the extra second would hardly be noticed. Trust me; I've done the math.

So, here's hoping that 2009 will see all your hopes and dreams realized. I know my new year has started on a positive note. I just love my new Snuggie!

One size fits all, you know.