I'm Tired

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, I normally reserve the weekend for postings of serious import. While I do not consider myself someone who should be taken too seriously and I certainly don't take myself seriously, I believe that each of us has an obligation to attempt to make the world a little bit better place to live in. These weekend postings are part of the way that I fulfill that obligation. There are times however when the aggressive ignorance and stupidity of my fellow man simply wears me out. Let me illustrate:

Locally In Toledo
The city of Toledo is trying to hamper businesses operating in the area of real estate, ambulance service, and convenience stores while touting itself as a business-friendly community. Having gotten off to this stellar start, the mayor then appears to be standing in the way of one of the few things in this area that offers the potential of increases in employment by refusing water to a development for over two years. He says that by extending a water line 40 yards, he would be giving away a city asset (even thought the water rates for such extensions usually end up at twice the standard city rate). Meanwhile, he rails against the Toledo Public Schools for taking the same stand regarding tax revenues that they would lose from an abatement he is asking for a pet project known as the the Marina District, a downtown riverfront development. He tells the TPS that they should give away the only dog they have in the fight (about $30 million in tax revenue) and let him pay what he wants (about $7.5 million). While these nonsensical events play themselves out, this same mayor just hired a new economic development director, at a salary of $90,000 per year. The problem is that the city council only allocated $75,000 for the position.

On a State Level
Our state government just confiscated the last of the tobacco settlement to use for an economic stimulus package. In the end, it appears that not one dollar of a settlement wrestled from the tobacco industry to use for the burden that long term medical care for smokers was going to impose on the state will actually do so. So much for the altruistic motives touted in this legal monstrosity. Meanwhile, the Ohio Attorney General (Marc Dann) just resigned for having gotten caught running his office like a frat party in "Animal House". It also appears that there are some questions over the use of some of his campaign money. (I am shocked!)

On the National Level
My God, where do I even start? The Democratic Party (You remember, the one who wanted every vote to count?) is meeting to decide how badly they will disenfranchise Florida and Michigan for not letting Iowa and New Hampshire vote first. Will history come to know this as the "Cutting In Line" decision?

Hilary Clinton is becoming more shrill every day while defending what I believe is actually her right to fight for the presidential nomination until the convention. While promising not to say that everyone is picking on a girl, she is anyway. The defense performed by her womanizing husband, railing against former friends and complaining about a media bias that he took advantage of for years, while playing the 2008 version of "Stand By Your (Wo)Man" would be funny if it weren't such a farce.

Barrack Obama hasn't fared much better, proving himself the most gaffe-ridden candidate since Dan Quayle. He has said that we should deal with Iraq by offering them the same thing that they turned down in 2006. He has confused whether it was his uncle (difficult, as his mother was an only child), or his great uncle (who was in the navy at the time) who freed Jews from concentration camps that were in fact freed by the Russian Red Army. Could this be a Freudian slip or just another blunder? He then said negotiating with Khrushchev in 1961 helped defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He topped it off with stating that he campaigned in 57 states (though campaigning in those extra 7 states could have caused a slip of the tongue from exhaustion). Columbia and Harvard must be grateful that his degrees were not in history or geography.

The Republicans haven't acquitted themselves much better. Not that John McCain actually appears to actually be a Republican, he seems more Republican-lite to me. His positions are so confusing to me now that I'm not even sure where he is on most things, but I do feel that he's wrong on at least half of them. As for the age question, it's become so ridiculous that I am waiting for him to do Jack Palance push ups on the campaign trail as proof of his abilities. He may in fact be a good and honorable man, but I believe that we need more than that in a president. We need someone who can steer the ship in the right direction, and I don't believe he's that guy.

So what does all of this have to do with my original premise of being tired? Well, doesn't all of what's listed above wear you out? Doesn't it make you want to pull the covers over your head a little longer to keep it all away just a little bit longer? It did me. Then my sense of the ridiculous took over, and I remembered the Madeleine Kahn song from "Blazing Saddles" appropriately titled "I'm Tired" and pictured at the top of this posting. It allowed me to crawl out from under the covers and face the world around me. I found the U Tube link to the song and decided that I would share my cure with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au5f6pMgN2s

(By the way, I apologize for kinda throwing this one together at the last minute, but I'm tired.)

Have a great weekend.