Month: May 2008

Tomorrow’s holiday grew out of the practice which country folk called “Decoration Day,” where they’d go to the cemetary, decorate the graves of loved ones, and honor their memories. That practice still goes on, but Memorial Day grew to a national observance honoring dead military veterans. Naturally, you can’t honor the dead and ignore the living, so they’re a major part of the affair.

They’re also some of the most dedicated participants — not for their own sakes, but because they served alongside those whose bodies now lie in the cemetary. What makes a man throw himself on a live grenade in order to save his buddies? There’s an inexplicable bond of brotherhood among those who face death shoulder to shoulder.

Twice before in this blog I have provided this link to a beautiful slideshow honoring those who serve in the military.

I am anxiously awaiting my check from Uncle Sam so that I can sign it and send it back to him, thus reducing my taxes for next April 15th.

My economy doesn’t need stimulating. I already go through money like a paper shredder. There is an endless line of payees waiting for me to fork over some dough as soon as I can earn it.

Why is the govenment passing out checks? This is just a big, big version of “walking around money,” where a candidate’s henchmen would go around buying votes at election time.

Is this supposed to help the economy? It reminds me of two images:

(1) One is that of a storekeeper who goes out on the sidewalk and passes out money in hopes that some of the recipients will go into his store and spend it there, thus helping his business.

(2) The other is of a man who dips water out of the deep end of a swimming pool and pours it into the shallow end, and then wonders why the shallow end doesn’t get any deeper.

In other words, it’s our money already. The gummint doesn’t have any money to pass out. Either they take it from us first, or they borrow it and give it to us and we have to pay them back later in taxes.

(Edited on May 11th to add: I see that Walter Williams made nearly the same observations in a recent article. Apparently he and I heard the “swimming pool” image from the same source.)

Recently I was at my older son’s house and commended him for how nicely he had trimmed his bushes. Then I pointed out a pet peeve of mine and suggested that he do something to keep the rose bush from encroaching upon the sidewalk where people approach his front door.

It’s something I’ve observed for all of my adult years, at least. We plant bushes or trees so that they will please us. Then we let them take over so that we have to yield to them.

I see it in pet ownership, too. The animal is supposed to serve the owner, but the owner allows it to make him (and me) miserable.

When the Clampetts mistakenly got the message that all of their money was gone, they thought they must have been spending it too freely, so they began tightening the belt every way they could. In one scene, Elly Mae comes into the kitchen with a possum on her shoulder, saying that she needed some feed for her critters. Granny exclaims “That’s the problem right there: back home, we was livin’ off the possums; now the possums is livin’ off of us!”

Some people, such as animal hoarders, are just sick and psychologically twisted, and they are beyond helping themselves. For the rest of us, though, there is an ongoing need for clear thought as to who is supposed to be living off of whom.