With this being a week between holidays, I am assuming that much of the content for the Toledo Free Press is being put up early to provide an opportunity for its employees to enjoy these last days of the year.
So it is at least with a piece that I put together this week, "2011 the Year of the Bureaucrat". While many are looking back at the year that was with fondness or regret, I am looking forward to the year coming with a touch of fear.
Since so much of this content being posted prior to the normal publication date, it's difficult for me to call out any specific pieces of interest this this week's TFP; but I expect that anyone who looks will find much to their liking.
While I'm at it, I would like to express my gratitude to Tom Pounds, publisher and Michael Miller, editor-in-chief, for including my efforts in the TFP in 2010. I would further like express my wishes for a Happy New Year to Mr Pounds, Mr Miller, and everyone at the Toledo Free Press for their kindness, their friendship, and their tireless efforts in producing an outstanding product.
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."
from 'The Mourning Bride' by William Congreve
One would hardly gather from looking at me today that I was a long distance runner in my youth, and a pretty decent one. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the competition was as much about beating yourself as it was about beating the other competitors (something that I also enjoyed about golf at one point in my life).
These days it would probably take someone chasing me with a weapon that could do me significant harm before I would run three blocks, let alone three miles. And while I don't think that I was a particularly gifted runner, especially by today's standards, but I did have a trick that I used to get through me the shortness of breath, the heavy legs and feet, and the occasional bout of shin splints that I still use today.
Long before the Walkman or Mp3 player was invented, I was able to carry music in my head while doing something else. This was beyond the condition of having a commercial jingle in my head that I couldn't shake, though I am as guilty as anyone of suffering from this as anyone else. It was an ability instead that allowed me to carry a song in my head as a distraction from what is going on to me and around me and let it go while hearing nothing but the music. In the day, two Blind Faith tunes were particularly effective, "Sea of Joy" and "Can't Find My Way Back Home". Add in the earlier song by Cream "Sunshine of Your Love", and the three miles was behind me before I knew it.
The music has changed over the years, but the process has remained the same. Even now when I have access to the latest technology, I find myself falling back on this in moments when wearing ear buds seems inappropriate. Using music inside my head allows me to get outside of it, and outside of the often contentious situations that surround me.
By now you are probably thinking, "interesting Tim, but what does this have to do with anything?" The connection was one that I made today when reading the newspaper (I am evidently one of the few remaining dinosaurs that does so) while listening distractedly to some political punditry being spouted on cable TV (you know, multitasking).
It seems that within but a week of the preponderance of election results being announced, that the two bullies in Washington (D's and R's) have one again returned to angry rhetoric.
R's: "You just wait! Now that we'll be taking power in January, we're going to show those D's what they did was wrong. Not only we will enforce our will for the next two years, but we'll get even bigger and stronger by winning in 2012."
D's: "You just wait! With the R's taking power in January we're going to show everybody just how bad things were before we came along. We're not going to give back anything we gained in the last few years, and when 2012 comes around, we'll get the power we just lost back."
Little of the rhetoric being spouted is about really fixing any of the problems confronting this country. Oh, they may try and nibble around the edges a bit; but no party, and no individual representing either party now seems to want to step up and push forward with real solutions.
Meanwhile, bureaucracy will continue to grow, though perhaps at a slightly slower rate. Government spending will continue at its out of control pace and debt will be run up at a clip that would leave a shopaholic dizzy. Taxes will continue to increase and to be piled upon fees and licenses, in a confusing and confiscatory pattern designed to do little more that feed the bureaucratic Frankenstein that has been created (and cannot apparently be killed). Regulation will be piled upon legislation in a continuing effort to keep citizens cowed, knowing that with all of the rules out there, the likelihood that they are in violation of one or more is almost certain.
Government 'as usual' is already back in Washington, because or in spite of the voters having recently spoken.
What I am proposing is that we pipe a little music in to help these bureaucrats and lawmakers to get outside of their heads and back into the real business at hand. Perhaps if we could get them to forget the pain that they feel when looking at their opponents, they would find it easier to do their real jobs. Perhaps if we could get them to stop feeling the pain of raising money and running for office again, legislators could find the time to read the legislation that they're voting on before they have to do it. Perhaps if we could get them to stop worrying about competing with each other and simply run the course, they could actually remember why we sent them to DC in the first place. Perhaps if we could lighten the mood of bureaucrats wading through 78,000 pages of Federal Register regulations they could use a little common sense in dealing with people rather than rules.
I would therefore like to install speakers in Congress and all of the bureaucratic offices in Washington, in the hopes that we could use music to soothe the savage breast and help to distract these folks from their non-stop encroachment on what's left of freedom and liberty in this country. (Besides, they can justify the whole thing as part of the economic stimulus.)
If that doesn't work, with the technology already in place we can pipe in some Enya to put them to sleep and keep them out of trouble, or some Bjork tunes to drive them screaming from their respective buildings.
If we can't provide them with some peace and sanity through the use of music, perhaps we can provide ourselves some by keeping them out of trouble for at least a brief period.
(I apologize for the lateness of today's posting, but the piece I originally wrote ended up going to the Kansas City Star as an op-ed submission ... with no guarantee of publication, I might add. If it doesn't get used however, you will probably find it updated and here soon.)
"There's nothing to winning really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, and agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever."
- Alfred Hitchcock
I thought about this on the day after the election, as Republicans and Conservatives (they are overlapping, but not congruent terms) were celebrating their electoral victory. Don't get me wrong, I was happy that they won (Conservatives, not necessarily Republicans). Unlike the president and most of the 'slipstream media' (so named because they appear to be dropping further and further behind in the wake as a legitimate news source), I did in fact take this victory as a repudiation of the policies (not necessarily the people) of the last two years.
It certainly appeared that the American people in general and the Tea Party Movement members in particular were fed up with a government interested in passing sweeping omnibus legislation without knowledge of its contents and against the strong objections of voters. Since this is a representative republic, those voters appeared more than willing to reject representatives who don't represent, and turned out elected officials who chose party solidarity over meeting their job description.
I was also pleased with the humble tone that at least that prospective Speaker of the House John Boehner took in speaking about the victory. It actually appeared that he understood the limited license that had just been granted, for this was not as much an endorsement of the Republicans as it was a repudiation of the Democratic agenda of the last two years.
While many of the Democrats do not appear to be good losers in this contest, I wonder how many Republicans will be good winners.
This is not about turning out more Democrats (including the president) in two years as the current minority leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell, seems to believe. Neither is this about running up a score in either the House or the Senate. Mr McConnell seems to be confusing elections with some form of athletic contest where the concern of those on the sidelines is nothing more than which team wins.
While I am sure that there are some in the country who may believe that way, recent elections have shown them to be the minority. How else do you explain the regular turn over of Congress in recent years? The American people by and large are not fanatics for one side or another in the game (and are increasingly looking for a 3rd alternative), but instead want government to serve their needs.
True, there is certainly some debate and confusion as to what those needs are, how they should be served, and what role government should play; but that's what's really being contested in recent elections.
Republicans, after years of laboring in the minority, got their chance to set the agenda in 1994 when after writing their "Contract For America" they took control of the House and Senate and proceeded to squander it.
After a few months of grandiose speeches and token efforts, things went back to business as usual and government continued to grow in scope, scale, and level of personal encroachment. Republicans sent to Washington not only stood by and watched it happen, they often caused it. They got the White House back as well in 2000, which you think would have allowed them to do what voters actually sent them to do, but the budget and government continued to grow and become ever more intrusive.
Little surprise then that by 2006 voters had gotten fed up with more of the same and turned them out, and by 2008 had repudiated their lack of principles decisively.
Now only two years later, they find themselves returning to control of at least one House of Congress. What will they do and how long will they do it for?
Will Republicans stand on the principles that they espoused in campaign speeches while seeking office and gaining the favor of Conservative and Independent voters, or return the the parasitic policies that both they and the Democrats seem to favor; regardless of the increasing damage that it does to the taxpayer host? Will they attempt to walk back some of the over-reaching of government that both parties are responsible for over recent years or make merely token efforts that can be noted by the media and pointed to in their next re-election campaign?
As they consider these questions, as well as their duties and responsibilities, Republicans (and Democrats as well) might do well to remember the words of long-time Alabama football coach, Paul "Bear" Bryant:
"When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don't repeat it."
With this being a week between holidays, I am assuming that much of the content for the Toledo Free Press is being put up early to provide an opportunity for its employees to enjoy these last days of the year. 
