Disintegration Man
November 17, 2011 Leave a comment
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for Sale
November 13, 2011 Leave a comment
My pursuit of happiness is being restrained by the Health Care Mandate Law. I now see myself as an indentured slave under the oppressive masters of the Health Care Mandate and the massive debt burden created by our so-called representatives. My children and I are now being shackled to the enormous costs of mandatory health insurance and a gigantic Federal and State tax burden. Government grows at the expense of its people – rich or poor.
Every time activist congressmen and judges stretch the meaning of our very concise U.S. Constitution to fit their unconstrained social agendas it costs the taxpayer money and liberty. Soon neither will be left. It is no wonder the Obama-ites want the rich to pay more – most of the American people and small businesses are tapped out.
For me, happiness is not an expensive health insurance policy written with thousands of pages of small print as a federally mandated law, a law written out of Stage One thinking – without a thought of the damaging repercussions, a law enacted by representatives who hadn’t even read the bill before passing it (Nancy Pelosi: “We have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.“). If you think this is happiness then I also have some insurance that you should buy.
BTW: It’s all OK, isn’t it? Just keep using your democracy to vote away your life, liberty and your pursuit of happiness in exchange for stacks of noble-sounding demogogically derived bureaucratically tyrannical securities. In so doing you are choosing dependence over liberty and therefore, loss of choice.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep…his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C.S. Lewis
Where Do You Start?
November 11, 2011 Leave a comment
A Tale of Two Foot Races
Race Number One:
Eight men enter a race. They are roughly about the same height and weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men enter the race knowing that there will only be one winner. It was for this outcome that they had prepared themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years.
Months prior to the track meet the eight men are told of the rules: A runner must run in qualifying heats. If the runner is successful in those heats the runner will then be allowed to compete in the final race with the other qualifying runners; a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will be disqualified as having a “false start”; the commands “Ready”, “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly; each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified; runners will be timed and the first runner to cross the finish line will be the winner of the race.
The runners all agree and sign off on the rules before the race.
On the day of the race, after running in the heats, the eight qualifying runners come to the starting line. They know that they must run straight ahead in their own lane to reach the one-hundred meter line. They know that if they jump the gun twice they will be disqualified from running. They know that they must sprint as hard as they can to cross the finish line first. They are knowingly competing for first place. The race before them has now become the culmination of years of exhausting training and dedication to finishing the race and receiving first prize.
When the race is announced the runners shed their sweats and come to the starting line. They will then position their legs into the starting blocks and place their hands stretched just hugging the starting line. Seeing the runners in place behind the line the track official then says, “Ready”. Then after a moment he says “Set”. The runners then come up to a set position waiting for the starting pistol to go off. When it does the eight men jolt from their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their feet will carry them.
At the finish line the winner is the one who breaks the tape. There is also a second, a third and fourth place finisher. The runners-up congratulate the winner for his speed and, implicitly, for his fidelity to the rules and his commitment to the sport of racing.
The first three finishers receive medals, adulation and wreaths of honor from the thousands who have come to watch a fair race between those who have so vigorously prepared themselves. The experience of the race has bolstered each runner’s self-esteem. The cheering crowd is also moved by each runner’s self-sacrifice, dedication and self-discipline. This spectacle has confirmed the crowd’s understanding of playing by the rules and aspiring to excel within those rules. Everyone who witnessed the race that day is stirred to motion – a motion to go home and try harder.
All eight men later return home. They are now more dedicated than ever to prepare for another day of racing and to receiving the crown of victory.
Race Number Two:
Eight men enter a race. They are roughly about the same height, weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men entered the race knowing that everyone will be a winner. It was for this outcome that they saw no need to prepare themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years. They just had to show up.
Months prior to the race the eight men are told the rules. They are told the rules are subject to change at the time of the race based on the current ad hoc articulated reasoning of one superior intellectual with unquestionable virtue. A runner must run in qualifying heats but this will not be a constraint. Whether or not a runner is successful in those heats he will also be allowed to compete in the final race with other qualifying runners; a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will not be disqualified from running. Instead he will be given another chance; the commands “Ready” and “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly, though any sincere attempt to cooperate with the official will be accepted; each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified unless, of course, their background is such that they have never stayed within the lines; runners will not be timed because such keeping of minutes would be discrimination against slower runners. The first runner to cross the finish line will wait at the finish line so that everyone will be considered a winner of the race. This must be done at any personal cost to the first one crossing the finish line.
The runners agree and sign off on the rules before the race.
On the day of the race all of the runners come to the starting line. They know that they should sincerely try running down to the finish line. There will be prizes and the appreciation of well-wishers to look forward to. They are knowingly going to try for this reason. This race is now the culmination of years of knowing that the battle is just showing up.
When all the runners are in their starting blocks and their hands are behind the starting line the track official then says, “Ready”. After a long moment of reasoned judgment the official says “Set”. The runners come up to set position. When the race official shoots the starting gun the eight men come out of their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their preparation has trained them.
At the finish line everyone becomes a finisher, even those who left the race due to being out of breath. There are congratulations all around for having showed up to such an event.
At the awards ceremony all the runners receive medals and kudos from the thousands who have come to watch a race between people who have showed up for a race where the outcome was predetermined to be fair – fair as defined by a few judges of superior intellect and of unquestioned virtue.
Later, all the runners returned home and rested from another day of showing up.
*****
A Tale of Two Foot Races: Equal Opportunities vs. Equal Outcomes by Sally Paradise © Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
Hinterland of Youth
November 6, 2011 Leave a comment
Hinterland of Youth
On that rapidly growing dark afternoon of November 23rd, 1972, two friends called on me. They came to take me to Mauston, Wisconsin, a nether-land up north. The trip would be a get-away weekend of exposed anima with just the guys. We were headed to a hunter’s cabin on loan to us from a local town alderman. The three of us, Jack Kerouac, Bill Caulfield and me, Tom Merton said goodbye to my parents. We then hit the road and headed north on I-90, leaning forward into the “next crazy venture beneath the skies.” So Jack began the scroll of our trip.
Just across the Illinois-Wisconsin border and somewhere on an isolated back road Bill had Jack stop the car. Bill got out and went around to the trunk. I watched him not knowing what he was doing. He pulled out a small insulated lunch bag. Apparently Bill hid the bag in the spare tire cove of the trunk. He returned to the front seat, opened the bag and handed me my first cold beer – a Pabst Blue Ribbon. I figured then that Bill had made off with a six pack from his father’s beer refrigerator in his family’s basement.
I tasted my first beer in the backseat of Jack’s ’69 Ford Galaxie. I slurped it slowly thinking it smelled strangely familiar, something in the order of wet wheat-germ or chilled sweat. I dug its mystic cold smarminess.
As we drove north drinking beer we listened to Bill’s eight track tapes. The eclectic collection included Woodstock, Jethro Tull’s Hard as a Brick, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, the Beach Boys, Jimmy Hendrix and many others. I had to beg Bill and Jack to get them to listen to my Chicago CTA album and to my Simon and Garfunkel Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album. When I did get to play them, I do so with the Marantz turntable sitting next to me on the back seat. The road yielded to the beat.
After three hours and thirty-one minutes of driving and several “Nature’s calling” stops we arrived at the cabin, about ten miles outside of Mauston. It was around 10:30 pm. The cabin was dank and cold. We found the thermostat and switched on the furnace. There was a small hutch filled with firewood and so we started a fire going in the brick fireplace. Not long after that we hit the bunk beds strained from the day’s massive carb-loading and the red-eyed myopia of night driving.
The weekend at the cabin gave me new insights into what the body can and cannot handle. Drinking alcohol for the first time in my life and without reservation had me revisiting the first seventeen years of my life from the inside out. My stomach doesn’t suffer fools well. In the morning my brain pummeled me with its version of smashing clay pots filled with forget-me-nots on my head.
It was during this next morning that I came up with a throbbing new insight: I told Bill and Jack that we should buy milk shakes to coat our stomachs before drinking again that night. They mumbled an agreement and we drove to Dairy Queen that afternoon. We drank large vanilla milk shakes in hopes of staving off the stomach sucking creatures of the night. The ultimate effect, though, was thorough expurgation. I was to find out later that a more prudent trade-off was to not drink so much that one would up running around in twenty degree weather in their underwear howling at the moon.
One of the more sober highlights of our weekend was using a .38 special to shoot at beer cans and bottles lined up on a fence behind the cabin. The gun belonged to Bill’s father. His father was a Brink’s truck guard. As I learned Bill had secretly taken the gun and some ammo from his father’s bedroom. We used the gun to shoot at bull’s eye targets nailed to unsuspecting trees. The exhilarating effect of shooting a handgun though quickly wore off. I wanted more and more fire power. I eagerly wanted to shoot a shotgun or a bazooka or a cannon or an ICBM – anything that provided a flesh-shaking ear-deafening “KER-POW!!!!”
This was the first time I had ever shot a gun. In my hand the cold hard steel loaded with more cold hard steel sent a hot rush of testosterone through my extremities. I had to pull the trigger to release the pressure or I felt that I would have exploded.
The cabin, being a hunter’s paradise, was filled with Playboys – Playboys which included Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield. This was not the first time I had been exposed to these magazines. Men seemed to keep them in places where boys would find them. All I needed besides the Playboys was a smoking jacket and a pipe. Instead of those Hugh Hefner type accoutrements Jack supplied me with Tiparillos. A blanket would be my smoking jacket.
At night Bill and I looked at the collection of Playboys by the light of the glowing fireplace. Reading the ‘articles’ warmed our sensibilities and the centerfold’s siren call would make drooling cave men of us all. Well not all of us. I found out a year later that Jack was gay. I realized then why he would want two guys alone with him up at the cabin. I do remember being especially thankful at the time for Marilyn’s company and being curious about Jack’s ambivalence toward the women who were stapled down for our viewing pleasure.
The weekend in Wisconsin with the guys worked out all of my unexercised stupidity. And it all happened under the gauzy star-filled night pointed at by thousands of towering conifers just outside of Mauston, Wisconsin. Fire-in-the-belly embers would burn through the fabric of my being leaving my satin youth singed. The weekend was a rite of passage of sorts which thankfully didn’t regress into a Lord of the Flies sequel.
If I had a time machine I would not go back to Mauston and the cabin. I might, though, go back to that Thanksgiving dinner, say “Thank you” to my parents, push away from the table and go take a long nap, not waking up until November 24th, 2011. I wouldn’t miss the self-obsessed oblivion of those in-between detached days.
Where do I go when the music starts?
October 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Where do I go when the music starts?
When I blow my horn and jazz blurts out?
Maybe I am holed up in the right hemisphere with the shades drawn
– the motel existential.
Maybe I go underground and then
Maybe, man, I am submersed head-to-toe in liquid sublimity –
Me being all lava-in-a-lamp like.
Where do I go when the music starts?
I go with it.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
Sowell Man Friday
October 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Here are just a few insightful quotes from Thomas Sowell’s new book, The Thomas Sowell Reader. I highly recommend this down to earth book by Thomas Sowell, economist. These quotes are to be found in the chapter Random Thoughts. As you will see, the quotes are apropos for today’s political scene and the profligate Left.
“Many of those people in the so-called “helping professions” are helping people to be irresponsible and dependent on others.”
“Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.”
“People who cannot be bothered to learn both sides of the issues should not bother to vote.”
“”Funding” is one of the big phony words of our times – used by people too squeamish to say “money” but not too proud to take it, usually from the taxpayers.”
“Envy plus rhetoric equals “social justice.”
“The national debt is the ghost of Christmas past.”
“Historians of the future will have hard time figuring out how so many organized groups of strident jackasses succeeded in leading us around by the nose and morally intimidating the majority into silence.”
“Those who want to take our money and gain power over us have discovered the magic formula: get us envious or angry at others and we will surrender, in installments, not only our money but our freedom. The most successful dictators of the 20th century – Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – all used this formula, and now class warfare politicians are doing the same.”
“No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.”
“Too often what are called “educated” people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings. Those whose whole careers have been spent in ivy-covered buildings, insulated by tenure, can remain adolescents on into their golden retirement years.”
“Some ideas sound so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas sound so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operations of the free market are among the second kind.”
“Much of what are called “social problems” consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they concluded that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.”
“Egalitarians create the most dangerous inequality of all – inequality of power. Allowing politicians to determine what all other human beings will be allowed to earn is one of the most reckless gambles imaginable.”
“The people I feel sorry for are those who do 90 percent of what it takes to succeed.”
“Have you ever heard a single hard fact to back up all the sweeping claims for the benefits of “diversity”?
“A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and the scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.”
Cindy Wity 
Twinkle Twinkle Little Occupiers
November 18, 2011 2 Comments
We are the ninety-nine percent.
We spent our wad and out it went.
We have school debt we thought we might pay.
But now we hope to protest it away.
We are the ninety-nine percent.
We occupy pointless dissent.
We scream and we yell at Wall St. greed,
While anxiously awaiting the next Twitter feed.
We are the ninety-nine percent,
Useful idiots, Mr. President.
Obama, Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn
Please provide us with your political porn.
We are the ninety-nine percent.
We want to smoke pot and pay the rent.
We are one percent happy and ninety-nine not,
We don’t “rightly” have what others have bought.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
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Filed under poetry, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, Writing Tagged with capitalism protests, Obamanomics, Occupy Wall St, Poem, Poetry