By GORDON GLANTZ
@Mananging2Edit
GORDONVILLE – And in Switzerland … the government is voting on whether to give every citizen $2,800 a month in guaranteed income.
Go ahead and yodel.
I’ll wait.
Key word there, for all you anti-immigration types, is “citizen.”
Sounds like enough motivation to get on the path to citizenship.
But we are talking about a government that is not dysfunctional. Switzerland, after all, is ranked in the top 10 in happiness and in several key economic areas.
The reality is that our alleged democracy — from which Switzerland strays a bit with a federalized yin and yang that gets more democratic on the local levels, where it really matters – features “leaders” who let we the people suffer while they can’t agree on the time of day.
Even with Swiss Army watches.
Can you handle more?
Good.
Time for some more bad medicine (Don’t worry. The pills are on the house here in Gordonville, where we have single-payer, socialized medicine.).
What Is: There is a lot of vitriol out there, blaming President Barack Obama for the shutdown.
And What Should Never Be: Straying from the point.
Only the House, not the president, has the power to shut down the government.
And that is what happened here.
They are the ones who put people out of work and kept World War II veterans from their monument in Washington, D.C.
The haters will point to Obama’s 37 percent approval rating.
Let us point to the 28 percent approval rating of the Republicans that have conspired to block him at every turn since Day Uno (yes, the bastardized Spanish is intended to annoy).
That is one percentage point more than those of who believe Sasquatch — slave name Bigfoot – might be a for-real dude.
Sounds crazy, but I actually had more belief his wandered around the forest – I saw him with my own eyes on that episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” – than I ever approved of the modern-day GOP.
And that goes back to before it was hijacked by the Tea Party.
What Is: Yawn … They are still playing baseball.
And What Should Never Be: Anyone caring.
I mean, if you live in those metropolitan areas with teams still involved, fine.
Here, in Philly, where the Phillies were pretty much caput when they went into the tank right after showing a pulse before the all-star break?
Nah.
I know none of our teams are much to write home about, but we have three others going.
We have college football and college hoops on the horizon.
I can understand loving baseball, even though I only like it as a friend, but I don’t get all these Philadelphia people getting so hyped up about the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Seemed like there was more of a need for suicide watch hotlines in the Delaware Valley than the western part of the state, where they are rightfully more football-obsessed, when the Bucs got bucked from the field by St. Louis from the playoffs.
If the shoe were on the other foot, do you think anyone in the Pittsburgh area would be losing sleep over the Phillies?
What Is: One of the sad byproducts of the shutdown is that real issues, namely gun control, are not being addressed by our misleaders.
And What Should Never Be: The eye off the ball, kind of like it is when the Second Amendment is misunderstood.
There he goes again? Yep, there I go again.
This is one of those issues I won’t debate for the sake of it and walk away agreeing to disagree. I was always for gun control, but the massacre in Newtown, Conn. – which miraculously prompted GOP leaders with NRA monies in their war chests to suddenly to take note of black kids in Chicago and Baltimore – is where I drew the line.
Put this in your pipes and smoke it: We account for 5 percent of the world’s population but 80 percent of the deaths in the planet’s 23 richest countries.
Rich, despite our current recession/depression? Yes.
Morally bankrupt? Affirmative.
What Is: Many who call themselves “Christians” (said with a southern twang for effect) weigh down the GOP with “morals” issues.
And What Should Never Be: Conservative Christians.
I’m mean, they can be. It’s a free country. Just don’t be in my face.
The two concepts – Christianity and conservatism — just don’t equate.
It’s like that short dude from “Game of Thrones” trying to play center for the 76ers.
OK, they could probably use him down low. Bad analogy, but it’s early in the morning and I’m a night person.
You get the point.
It’s like stating that all men are created equal and then having to pass a Civil Rights Act to start to make it happen nearly 200 years later.
OK, that happened.
But you get me here.
How about this one? These conservative “Christians” are among those standing firm against Obamacare (also the Affordable Care Act for the ignorant among us).
Forget the supernatural stuff about dying and being resurrected. Take the historical Jesus and what he is purported to have represented.
Ask yourselves, did he heal for profit?
If the answer is no, you are “Christians” in name only.
What Is: A chap named Peter Baker has a book coming out claiming that George W. Bush, presidential disgrace that he was, had a tepid relationship with Dick Cheney that turned completely cold after Bush refused to pardon Scooter Libby (no one called “Scooter” should be pardoned, just on principle).
And What Should Never Be: Thinking anyone is all evil.
I guess Bush has some redeeming qualities after all, as Cheney is all evil.
If the book is accurate, that is.
Baker, a reporter for the New York Times, did work in Moscow. They could have brainwashed him and sent him back as a spy.
What Is: John McCain was quoted as saying his party, the GOP, has done the American people a “disservice.”
And What Should Never Be: Finding a GPS that helps you back to being yourself.
Once upon a time in America, I used to say that McCain would be that one Republican I would consider voting for as president.
I didn’t agree with everything (whisper: I don’t agree with everything Obama stands for, either), but he was a maverick.
And that label, while sounding cool – and American – is not something to be taken lightly.
Those were stripes he earned.
But then, after W. backstabbed McCain out of the way in the 2000 primary, he did himself a “disservice” once he got the chance to run for president in 2008.
He picked Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate, letting the Tea Party genie out of the bottle.
Now he is trying to stuff it back in.
It’s nice that he sees the errors of his ways, but once it’s out …
Good night, John Boy.
What Is: Haven’t heard much from Syria lately, have you?
What Should Never Be: Forgetting to knock wood.
Seems like the process of quelling the violence and eliminating chemical weapons, without putting one American in harm’s way, is working.
Give Obama some credit, or would you rather harp on the murky Benghazi scenario some more?
As for what happens in Syria, and these other Arab countries allegedly going through spring, I’m not overly interested.
Let’s say I’m neutral.
Like Switzerland.
ingordonville 