Sunday Morning Panelists of Ponderous Punditry

I love politics because I love common endeavor.
The most important things we do to form civilization
are the things we have hammered out together.
A good heart is a fine thing to have, but some things,
such as health care, defense, education, caring
for the aging, require common endeavor.

I wear out the news channels on our television.
We subscribe to cable, not because we want
742 channels, but because some of those we do want
come with higher numbers. Today, however,
I turned to one of the Sunday Morning Panels
on Ponderous Punditry, featuring people who have
never once in their whole, long, arid lives ever gone
outside the Beltway in Washington except to
give a speech on what people think in Washington.

I could not take it!

President Obama gives too many speeches!
He should have been speaking all summer long!
The public option for health care is dead!
The public option is a very bad, good idea!

Some of those Panelists of Ponderous Punditry
have tried running for office themselves.
They were spectacularly unsuccessful, or if not
unsuccessful, spectacularly wrong.

I think I know why a younger generation than I--
and all generations are younger than I, now--
get most of their news from John Stewart on
the Daily Show, and learn irony from Steven Colbert.

I think often of the time when Mari and I went
with Daniel to Washington, D. C., as part of
a contest in which he was an essay finalist.
My enduring impression was men's suits.
It was like being imprisoned in a Men's Wearhouse.
There was no escape from dismal conformity.

My text for this morning's meditation
is from Henry David Thoreau:

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."

Comments

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy. Those were skills to be learned and practiced. I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop. He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes. He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade. Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore. The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up. I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth. I knew how to do that. Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down. On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

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