What’s next, a swarm of locusts?
I suggest we all be on our best behavior from this day forward. Otherwise, I am fearful the world may be coming to an end. Just look at all the recent adversity and troubles that have come my and your way.
Trouble #1: American politics: No matter what pros and cons one might see in our election year 2020 candidates for president, indeed there should have been at least two individuals from our entire pool of United States humanity including both genders, all races, and all religious backgrounds that would give us an intelligent choice between two people who possess desirable characteristics including, vital intelligence combined with a rock solid education, unquestionable ethics, a history of proper and morally sound behavior, an other-directed focus always asking “What is best for all citizens of America” as opposed to what is best for my own selfish interest, extensive life experience, and a robust supportive attitude regarding our US Constitution.
Instead, we are forced to choose between two goof-balls with personal agendas, destructive personalities, who are morally and ethically bankrupt. Our political system has robbed us. We do not have the kind of choice we deserve. Our political system would serve us well by pitting two high caliber and desirable candidates against each other for the election. As voters we should be experiencing a difficult time making a choice because both candidates should be highly superior regardless of party affiliation.
The question WHO SHOULD WE VOTE FOR has been replaced with WHO SHOULD WE NOT VOTE FOR? Instead of deciding which is the best candidate, we must decide which is the most repugnant candidate and then vote for the other loser.
Our population in 2019 was 328,239,523 citizens and yet we cannot come up with even two viable candidates for president. That tells us something is wrong with our political system.
Trouble #2: Covid-19: A lot has been said and written about Covid-19. I am not going to add much to that which has already been written except to emphasize that Covid-19 has forced us to stay home as much as possible. In effect we are prisoners at our own homes.
My wife and I have made a concerted effort to comply with the stay at home order. We have been spending our days on activities inside our home and outside in our yard. My wife loves gardening and spends hours outside tending to the beauty she has created on the postage stamp size portion of our planet that is our home and responsibility.
While we too are tired of being a prisoner at home, we have not complained about this understandable safety tactic mandated by government. We just stay home to keep ourselves and everyone else safe.
Trouble #3: Unhealthy Air Quality: I can’t believe it. Here we are prisoners at our own home apparently having taken for granted what little freedom we had which allowed us to roam around both inside and outside our home.
Now we have thick, dangerous smoke invading the air we breath. This new predicament has robbed us of our ability to enjoy being a prisoner outside in our yard. We now must stay out of our yard and inside our home.
I, for one, am not going to take my freedom to roam around the inside of my entire home for granted. I have already seen a suggestion that in the near future, we may need to pick a room to set up for clean air and stay prisoner in that room like a prison solitary confinement cell.
Trouble #4: What next? My pal Larry lost his prescription eyeglasses in the backseat of our last Uber on our way to Harbor Lights Restaurant for a couple of their famous strong pours. I could understand losing eyeglasses if we were on our way home from having enjoyed some scotch and water or a couple of Manhattans, but we were stone-cold-sober on the trip from home to the restaurant. How could we lose a pair of glasses? More Trouble; thats what.
Trouble #5: It has not happened yet, but if there should be a Trouble #5, I am moving into my closet.
To end my piece with an upbeat and positive notion, allow me to close by quoting an old adage, “This too shall pass.”
All packed in a nutshell. The closet might be an option for the asteroid that is expected in November – and no kidding: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/us/asteroid-earth-november-2020-scn-trnd/index.html
Trouble 5 might make Trouble 1 obsolete. And it might make us all come out of our closets 😉
Trouble no. 5: Millions of Americans wait patiently for college football to start about Sept. 1st each year. There are five major conferences with fifty teams total. Two of the conferences, the Big Ten (14 teams) and the PAC 12 which includes UW have canceled their seasons because of Covid. The Big Ten may start playing about Oct. 20, but maybe not. That leaves the ACC, the SEC and the Big 12. Those conferences are playing limited schedules. The problem: All of the top fifty teams have an average 100 players; 100 x 50= 5,000. Those young men live together on campus, practice together and play football together. That might be a representative group of young people. So, how do you prevent the spread of Covid in that large a group? Some teams might be crippled by necessary quarantine as the season goes on.
Fans all around the country are frustrated and disappointed by the decision to cancel some seasons, and curtailing others. Keep in mind that teams like Michigan and Ohio State (Big 10) have stadiums that hold 100,000 screaming fans. College football will recover from Covid, but probably not this year. What will I do on Fall Saturdays with limited or no college football? Joe, is there room for two in your closet? I will wear my mask.
Larry,
At some risk of stooping down low enough to express myself through word-play, I must tell you I got a KICK out of your Reply.
Regarding your closet question. After taking your inquiry under advisement, I have commenced a closet remodel project.
There will be room for the two of us and you will be delighted to learn my remodel design will include a wet bar with storage for a case of Chiva Regal – Aged 12 Years along with the fixings for Manhattans including Luxardo Cherries. Of course designer bar stools are planned for the space.
The design includes a mural of the view from a water side table at Harbor Lights.
If the end of the world comes, we will go out in style.
Joseph Boyle
If you carry your bifocals in your tee shirt pocket while you’re scrounging to pick up trash in Ohio’s parks, they will fall out and you will almost for sure never, ever find them.
Dana,
For a guy like you, losing your glasses is no problem. The next time you pick up trash in the Ohio parks, just keep your eye open (Your right eye), for some glasses among the other litter.
Pick them up and put them on. Who knows, you might get lucky. They could be your glasses.
Joseph
Cuteness has its place in column writing— colorful cuteness, the obvious laugh. Your “Trouble #2 to #5” generally fill that bill. The notion of you moving into your closet for the end of the world is classic colorful cuteness. “Trouble #1” is another matter. Dismissive comments on the upcoming election between Biden and Trump are just cantankerous and ill-considered. In what history may well deem the most important single vote since 1933, with far-reaching implications even beyond that, you offer nothing but universal derision evenly slathered on both candidates and on the electoral process itself. My own support of Biden as the vastly better candidate has been declared. My condemnation of Trump’s lying and personal self-aggrandizement, not to mention his criminal use of America and her institutions for private gain are well enough known to shout out his administration-wide corruption. Your unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge this puts you squarely in Trump’s pocket, and not as any fair commentator on this election and indeed the electoral process itself, which far excels your petty view of it. Making more needless smoke doesn’t help.
William Elder,
On Tuesday, September 22, 2020, at 9:00p, I plan to watch KCTS Channel 9’s TV program, Frontline – The Choice 2020 Trump vs. Biden.
On Tuesday, September 29, 2020, at 6:00p, I plan to watch KCTS Channel 9’s TV program, PBS Newshour – Presidential Debate 2020.
Other debates will follow. I do not watch TV, but I own one, so I will dust it off and try to gather more information about our current pathetic presidential election.
The information I gain will do one of three things.
#1. Confirm my position regarding who I think is the least objectionable of the two candidates.
#2. Cause me to switch my vote to the other objectionable candidate because he is the lesser of the two evils.
#3. Leave me totally confused which might cause me to move to New Zealand to see if it is the greatest country in the world.
I hope everyone watches these political analysis shows. I am told these shows are non-biased.
Our future and that of our children, and grandchildren depend on our ability to cast an intelligent vote.
Joseph Boyle
Mr. Elder,
I thank you for sharing your point of view. I am sorry that my point of view disappoints you.
My main points are as follows:
(1) The population of the USA is approximately 328,239,523. One would think we could come up with two excellent candidates for president out of such a large number of possibilites, but we have not done so.
(2) Here we are in what is often said to be, “The greatest country on earth” with Trump as one of our presidential candidates. You have already done an admirable job of suggesting why he should not be elected. I do not disagree with your comments.
In the greatest country on earth we should be able to come up with a candidate for president who is much more desireable than Biden. You support Biden as a choice so allow me to suggest why we should not elect him.
Two reasons.
#1 He professes to want to take money from hard working Americans and give it away in the form of FREE everything to citizens who are not hard working. His concept is called Socialism.
#2 Biden plans to effectively eliminate our Second Amendment, a Constitutional right we have which allows us to protect ourselves, families, friends, neighbors, and total strangers from evil.
All who vote for Biden, assuming he is successful in accomplishing his campaign promise to crush American freedom, will have blood on their hands for all the unnecessary deaths that occur because innocent victims will not be able to protect themselves having lost the right to bear arms.
Mr. Elder, I sense that you are a gentleman and obviously a scholar. No one has ever called me a gentleman and I did not even complete kindergarten.
While you and I differ in our opinions, we seem to be able to manage our discourse in a civilized manner. I thank you for your part of that achievement.
Joseph Boyle
Mr. Boyle,
Thanks for your kind response to my comments about your recent column.
It is not your point of view that disappoints. It is your apparent willingness to vote for Donald Trump after living through the last four years of his Presidency. Rarely has a day gone by that he hasn’t said or done something that demeans the office and clearly shows his unfitness to hold it. His incompetence he tries to hide by lies and misinformation so blatant as to make schoolboys blush. These have been backed up by self-congratulations so false and distasteful that decent parents want to wash out his mouth with soap. Fraud, dishonesty, and selfishness Trump waves around as his standards, his flags of allegiance. These he salutes, while sullying our national norms and traditions and calling those who have stood up for them “losers” and “suckers”. His list of egregious behaviors mark him well as the shame of those who initially voted for him. But to do so again defies reason and judgment, particularly for one, like you, who writes so warmly and sympathetically about our community.
As to your point #1— I have to agree. Seems like out of three-hundred million of us, we ought to have been able to find two better choices. Trump I have covered as he deserves. Biden has experience, intelligence, and character, and the ability to bring us together in divisive times— something we badly need. I did not start out on Biden’s team, but came to it as did one major party did, Democrats, by selection among good candidates. Republicans, on the other hand, are no longer a principled major party as they once were. They’ve become rag dolls in the hands of a spoiled brat.
You spoke of Socialism, attributing the intended insult to Biden. Problem here is you confuse Socialism with taxation. Both self-styled socialist states and their detractors levy and collect taxes to pay for what their citizens demand— Norway to Germany. Authoritarian states likewise collect taxes, then spend it on what the authorities want— a Mexico wall, bigger military, parades in D.C., for example. Nineteenth Century capitalists contributed mightily to a definition of Socialism they liked— actually lothed. That old notion has been repeated endlessly, like the words to an old tune. Socialism as practiced today is less charged than what you claim: “a theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production,distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as as a whole.” Things like Social Security, “common defense”, fire and rescue services, highways and bridges, etc. Nobody likes paying for such necessities. But ask Trump how many of those things he wants to get rid of. Ask yourself.
I feel some guilt at your managing to minimise television in your life— good on you!— and now you feel some duty to watch because I have taken issue with your positions. I don’t think it’s an even trade off. Perhaps the guilt is something I’ll just have to live with. That is how absolutely vital I think this election is, not only just to me, but to America as a nation, as a way of life, and yes, as a worldwide ideal!
Go well and be safe!
Mr. Elder,
Thank you sir for your well thought out comments.
Good luck to us all following our next presidential election. We are going to need it.
I look forward to the day when our political process puts William Elder and Joseph Boyle on the same side.
Joseph Boyle
me too.