Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Are you strange...


Yesterday my daughter was driving her youngest daughter home when Olivia asked her mother if she thought her father, that would be me, was strange. Surprised Jessica asked Olivia what she thought. Olivia said she thought her grandfather was indeed strange. She then thought for a moment and asked her mother if she, her mother, was likely to be strange when she got older. Now completely taken aback Jessica could think of nothing to say. Olivia ended the conversation by saying, “That would be embarrassing”!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Jesus, Mary and Joseph at the Social Security office


I spent three hours waiting in the local Social Security office recently. I was there because the lady at the 800 number said I had to go since she could not resolve my problem, namely no longer getting a monthly check.

I had already tried the web page with no luck. The local SS manager had come to my Rotary Club in Nashua a couple of years ago and strongly recommended we do everything over the net. She said that SS had fewer employees that year than they had in 1960 and more people were retiring in a month today than they were then. Well, I tried to no avail.

I actually located a telephone number for my local SS office and called. The lady that eventually answered said that appointments were currently running out eight weeks. I could make an appointment and hope I lived that long or I could come in and take my chances.

I decided to head into the office.

I had actually waited in an SS office in Nashua, NH a few years back when I made my arrangements to collect Social Security. What I found locally was not dissimilar. The outer office looked like the reception area in a county lockup. You pressed some buttons on a computer screen then collected your number and sat down to wait.

The receptionist was locked up behind darkened glass, no doubt bullet-proof, and the seats were full of very odd looking folks. Not all, by any means, were elderly. My number was called, I explained what I thought might be the problem to the receptionist, and I was told to take a seat and wait until I could be called into the “inner sanctum” and meet with a specialist.

People fidgeted, some walked around, some held loud and confused conversations with the receptionist and each other. The security guard watched it all and occasionally rose to stand next to a particularly upset customer.

Who were all these people? It finally dawned on me after listening to a young fellow explain how he had to get rid of his sister as his SS payee because she refused to spend his money on the drugs he needed.

These folks are on Social Security Disability because they are crazy, alcoholics, and/or drug addicts. Seriously.

I would recommend Social Security be empowered to have nice offices with friendly staff for old people with problems with the old age pensions.  There could be other offices for the drug addicted and the crazy where people yell and scream and explain about the poisonous chemicals on their toilet seats put there by Martians.

It’s enough to make a guy consider aluminum foil for a hat!

Some I like, some I don't


Some things about Ron Paul’s politics are so attractive to me I almost want to kiss the old geezer. The non-interventionist foreign policy, ending our role as policeman to the world, and the decriminalization of drugs seem just so sensible. And who hasn’t shaken their mental fist at the Fed?

On the other hand, he’s also in favor of cutting government to the point where it will not be able to help anyone that truly needs it. The mentally ill already wander around getting very little help and under Dr. Paul they, along with everyone with a special need, would be left to fend for themselves. He’s an advocate of the gold standard. The guy thinks paper money is phony money. He wouldn’t support education or half a dozen other important federal initiatives like health and research.

In addition, this fellow is as old as the hills. He’s sharp, no doubt about it. But if I had to bet on him lasting through a first term as President I would have to think about it twice.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Happy New Year, American voters


The holidays are over, my brief relationship seems to have ended, so I'm back and I'm cranky, very cranky.
Just so we are clear: the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary election are a racket to boost the economies of both states at the expense of the nation as a whole. This comment comes from a guy who lived in NH for 30 years and tripped over more presidential candidates than most.

Once, having breakfast in a diner in Milford, NH, we were visited by three candidates while our eggs got cold. My brother John, from Massachusetts, finally asked if we ever considered shooting them.

And I have to admit it was fun sending my daughter out to get info for her school report by visiting with an unknown presidential candidate from Arkansas (Bill Clinton). Retail politics the pundits call it and it is a ridiculous concept in this day and age.

Do you really think all those fat, white, well-off, pig farming, ethanol producing social conservatives from Iowa are making a choice for president that the rest of this nation will follow? So far they have been wrong every time.

The local TV stations make a ton of money off the candidate’s ads. So their talking heads go wild spouting the critical importance of every statement, misstatement, and declaration of a group of people who will end up as foot notes to foot notes in history books. Whichever candidate is spending the most at the time is seen as the new front runner.

Everyone with a grain of sense has known since 2008 that Mitt Romney would be the Republican Presidential candidate in 2012. There is no mystery, no question. But that approach does not generate ad dollars and the false hope required to get these candidates to spend all that money for nothing.

New Hampshire and Iowa will never give up this golden goose that fills second rate motel rooms and greasy diners as well as newspaper and television coffers voluntarily. The national parties and the voters as a whole will have to finally put this dog down.

Restricting national political campaigns to a 6 month period with one national primary would be a good start.