Monumental Stupidity

It would be impossible to believe that those of you reading this could have so isolated yourself as to be unaware that the federal government is currently experiencing a 'shutdown'. Many may not know from the coverage however that the 'limited essential personnel' that remain on the job constitute some seventy-five percent of those employed by the nation's largest employer. It should be additionally noted of the remaining twenty-five percent of federal employees sent home, all have had their pay deferred through such shutdowns and later recompensed.

A degree of hardship still remains for many federal employees across the country who are living paycheck to paycheck or from federal contractors. In most cases however, these hardships are only temporary and those experiencing them will be made whole in the end.

Strangely however, those who appear to suffer the most under these politically-engineered battles, whether they be a shutdown or sequester, appear to be simple citizens, and not employees of the Feds. This materializes itself especially in the case of those choosing to take advantage of our national parks or monuments.

We've all heard the past stories about the cancellation of White House Tours for schoolchildren, tourist trips ruined by locked museums, and vacationing families barred from national parks. This week however, the impregnable barrier was in Washington DC, and was faced by war veterans that were barred from monuments in the nation's capital that celebrated their exploits.

In one of the most monumental cases of poor public relations (pun intended), a group veterans from Mississippi Gulf Coast Honor Flight were barred from crossing barricades set up around the World War II Memorial yesterday. This group of intrepid warriors however, who had faced far fiercer fortifications during their time in uniform, stormed these sorry ramparts and soon celebrated a well-deserved victory within the confines of a space dedicated to their own previous efforts and the memories of their brothers-in-arms.

For those who've never heard of this worthy organization before, Honor Flight is a group of non-profit organizations around the country that arranges trips for veterans to be transported to Washington in order to experience the memorials created to celebrate their service to the nation. Along with the chaperons (who pay for their own trip costs in order to volunteer their service), Honor flight otherwise picks up all of the costs involved for the veterans on what is normally a day-trip for this purpose.

Poorly executed political brinksmanship led representatives of the two major political parties to attempt to lay blame for this sorry example of strategy on each other. Those serving in well paying jobs as elected officials attempted to deny access to those whose service to the nation was far greater; for no better reason than simple political advantage. Such blatant failure to perform their duty only added insult to injury by denying access to those whose service to the nation was performed honorably, was committed for no better reason than trying to win an election 13 months away. The current Commander-in-Chief's sorry approval ratings could do nothing to turn the tide in the propaganda battle, since they could only be celebrated in comparison to even worse numbers for both parties in the national legislature.

Wednesday yet another Honor Flight disembarked in DC, this one filled with those from the Kansas and Missouri areas. Surprisingly, instead of being met with the breached barriers of yesterday's successful assault, these troops were greeted instead with open gates as the conquering heroes that they deserved. Many of those whose misdeeds had caused this situation by surrendering their responsibilities for the last year now performed a complete about face in the last 24 hours. In a show of political expediency that they seemed incapable of achieving only days before within the legislature, some now desperately attempted to regain the political high ground through a public reversal of tactics. The performance of such a tawdry displays of strategic showmanship however, only showed many of them as unworthy to polish the boots that these former warriors once wore.  (Even the French were ashamed.)

Next week the group visiting is instead expected to be from Northwest Ohio. That Honor Flight Group is currently assessing the strategic objective and the timing of their own assault, since according to the National Park Service “any attempt to access them will result in being arrested for trespassing”, except for Arlington National Cemetery. Assuming that one side or the other has still not shown either the tactical ability or the moral courage to end this conflict honorably; I'm afraid that Congress's continued pattern of petty politics and false appeasement will do little but illustrate their monumental stupidity.

Update:
This effort was later picked up and reprinted by the: 

 

The Inalienable Right to Stupidity

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the Rights that we have in this country as human beings and as citizens of this great nation (in fact, more than there usually is after NYC's Mayor Bloomberg decided to try and save New Yorkers from large soft drinks).  Some are worthy, some are even inspiring; but some are tedious and boring, some are simply bogus, and some could even be considered rather far-fetched.

No discussion of Rights in this country of course, is ever possible without first mentioning "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"  (or Property, depending on whether you go with Jefferson's original, or the sanitized version that ended up on parchment) that has come to define the message in the Declaration of Independence. While this was certainly a sound base to build upon, by the time the Founding Fathers had gotten around to writing the Constitution, many of the same people who signed the Declaration had become rather cynical about what would happen to their Rights when having to replace the looser Articles of Confederation with the stronger central government outlined in this new document.  They were wary and distrustful of the amount of power now being place in the hands of that new government.  (Pretty smart guys those Founding Fathers.)  

In spite of the reassurances of some of the finest minds in the nation at the time as to the limits and restraints placed by that Constitution on this new federal government in "The Federalist Papers", they wanted written guarantees as to Rights that would be protected before signing on the dotted line.  A list of twenty such rights was handed back to the nation by James Madison (Jefferson couldn't help, as he was in France at the time), twelve of which were voted on, and ten later passed to became the first ten Amendments to this new Constitution and came to be known as the "Bill of Rights".

With all due respect to the efforts of 'The Father of the Constitution', who I suspect is now whirling like a dervish during his dirt nap when considering some of the feeble attempts put forward masquerading as Rights in this country, I am shocked ... shocked I tell you, by the big one that even he apparently missed.  I'm not sure for example, that 'affordable housing', 'a living wage', or 'free contraception' would have made any list that he would have submitted to Congress (even if it had been available).  Having just gone through a war with the greatest empire of his time over the Rights they believed that they were entitled to 'by their Creator' ... and won it, I doubt that he would have been amused by such mundane concepts, let alone submit them for serious consideration.  In so doing however, he was in fact denying the people of this country the one fundamental Right that even the Declaration's troika failed to list  .... The Right to Stupidity.

Come on now, admit it.  We're all falling back on this Right far more times than any of us would like to admit (and far more than the ten listed in the Constitution).  Have you bungee jumped lately or jumped out of an airplane with nothing between you and certain death but an over-sized handkerchief? How about ordering that triple cheeseburger with the large fries (you know, the kind that makes your cholesterol go up before the first bite)?  Smoke two packs of cigarettes a day for thirty years and still don't think you're setting yourself up for lung cancer?  Drink a quart of vodka every week, but you aren't concerned about the condition of your liver?  Hitting the tanning booth three times a week, but aren't worried about those new freckles that you're getting? How about when you told one of your friends that despite all the warnings, you were still convinced that you'd get your money back out of Social Security?  See, there you go ... Stupidity.

You know, quite a lot of stupidity that we deal with today has to do with government in one way or another.  After all, it's government that tells us that with each new law or regulation, it can protect us from evil banks, greedy corporations, and predatory merchandisers; and we all know that that's just plain stupid.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not objecting if the government wants to check out the hot dog factory from time to time to make sure that it hasn't become a science experiment.  Nor am I upset that if they want to check to make sure that the teddy bear I just gave my grandchild isn't stuffed with material used to clean up hazardous or radioactive waste.  I'm even OK with a few rules for those in the stock market to make sure that they're not lining their pockets with my money while trading off of inside information.  It defies all logic and reason however, for government to think that we're stupid enough to believe that it can protect us from our own stupidity.  (OK, that issue may still be up for grabs...)

The truth of the matter is that if members of this and previous Congresses, along many of the recent occupants of the White House hadn't kept bailing individuals, corporations, and foreign countries from the results of their moronic actions, perhaps there would be less stupidity in the US, if not the world today.  At the very least, making them pay in full for the stupidity of their actions would have resulted in a 'thinning of the herd' that would probably have raised the average and collective IQ in this country considerably.

Of course maybe the real consideration here is that government simply doesn't like having competition.  It doesn't take an Einstein to look at the imbecilic nonsense committed in Washington DC on a daily basis and come to the conclusion that they would prefer a monopoly on stupidity; and that based on their fear of competition they will do all in their power (no matter how stupid it appears) to reduce the number of players in the game.  

The hard truth however, is that with or without government intervention we will remain the constant victims of our own stupidity.  (Are you paying attention Mayor Bloomberg?)  One could even make the case that continued efforts to protect us from our ill-advised behaviors will in fact increase them through a half-witted (though often astonishingly creative) push back against increasing government interference in the exercise of this fundamental Right.

One might even go so far as to say that a government consisting of professional politicians wishing to serve as our elected officials should be wary of tampering with the inalienable right to stupidity, and  should instead be celebrating it.  What other hope do they have in the never-ending quest for a return to their well-paid positions than to count on the stupidity of the American voter.

 
    

Capitalism Run Amok

I've been having a little trouble sleeping nights lately (and no, it's not the result of a guilty conscience ... unfortunately).  While much of the TV on late at night makes pretty bad look pretty good if you don't have cable, some of the 'Commercials for Insomniacs' are actually quite amusing.  I am learning more a about American popular culture from these examples of Capitalism than I do from watching the news.

Did you know that that there are elastic waistbands that women can buy to get the layered look without the layers?  While no one has explained to me why women want to look layered without being layered, I was able to grasp that one of the reasons for the purchase of this extra 12" waist band was so that when a woman bent over she didn't expose her waist, or worse yet, the exterior of her posterior.  While I can certainly see the desirability of limiting the display of 'Plumber's Syndrome", I was nevertheless struck that the same could be accomplished (without spending the $20, plus shipping and handling) by not purchasing shirts cut so high and tight they rode up and pants so low-cut and tight that they rode down.  (This is undoubtedly why I am neither an expert on fashion, nor a rich inventor/entrepreneur.)

Did you likewise know that you can buy devices that make slicing, dicing,and chopping far easier than it would be with an ordinary knife?  (Of course you did, since such devices, in one form or another, have been around for years.)  I can't really poke too much fun at this one, as I found myself purchasing one of these technological wonders many years ago in order to be able to fragment vegetables more efficiently ... and create Julienne fries 'in a snap'.  (The fact that I had never heard of Julienne fries before buying this device, and therefore didn't even know if I wanted them, seemed inconsequential at the time.)  While I must admit that the device did in fact slice potatoes, carrots,and onions admirably, and far faster than I could do in manually with a knife (even one of those fancy new knives that slice empty cans of refried beans before creating wafer thin tomato slices), I was still somewhat dubious of the process.  Of course after you added in time required for assembly, tear down, and cleaning; neither method actually proved faster than the other.  

Over succeeding years, I found that by the time I dragged the damn thing out, figured out how to reassemble it, found the proper cutting blades, and finally began to cut, I had lost interest in the vegetables requiring dis-assembly (and sometimes the will to live); so I parted with it through donation to a charitable organization (tax-deductible recycling).  I still have one of those 'slap choppers' collecting dust in the back of a cabinet, but seldom use it.  It likewise did nothing to truly expedite the vegetable dissection process and the memories of the sore hand that I got using it further remind me of why it too should be recycled.

But these forays into personal consumerism and rampant capitalism are educational as well.  I have recently learned that the only way that I'm going to get eight golf balls or a bowling ball out of my carpeting is to buy a $500 vacuum cleaner.  This model of modern carpet cleanliness is capable of maneuvering around furniture that I don't own, getting under tables that I don't posses, and is capable of vacuuming around corners by turning on a dime.  Of course, I like to vacuum in straight lines so I get those 'clean lines' in the finished carpet, and if the power it contains is half of what it brags about, I suspect that it would suck the dime up long before turning on it. I'm also told that it's very easy to carry up and down stairs, but since I live in a one-bedroom apartment, this ability seems of little practical benefit.

Then again, if the vacuum cleaner didn't make me a big enough sucker (and I suspect it would), I could always add to the volume of air movement in my residence by buying one of those massive air cleaners.  According to the nice lady on the infomercial, they exchange the air in a room at least three times an hour (though no one ever seems to explain what they're exchanging it with).  In fact, these devices confuse me.  While I'm trying to live a bit 'greener', dedicating myself in small ways to cleaner air, I can't help but wonder if such a unit wouldn't exchange the air before I had done my efficient best to use it.  Additionally, I'm not sure of the trade off between the pollution generated in order to power the unit with electricity vs the promise of cleaning the air with it is a fair exchange.  I fear I will not be able to reach a logical conclusion to this dilemma until presented with properly documented fact one way or the other.

As for women's undergarments, let me only say that I had no idea that so much scientific development was going into them; or that women could talk about them for hours on end in spite of the fact that they used to be called 'unmentionables'.  It seems that women are willing to buy articles of clothing that manipulate their bodies in ways that would surely get the average man arrested, even if he was married to the one in question.  The parts that aren't being pushed up are being pushed in.  Whatever real or imagined body parts or body faults that a woman has, according the show's hosts, should be quickly surrounded by elasticized material, manipulated, and re-displayed through methods that have already been outlawed as torture by the United Nations.  

And while corsets seem to have for the most part been done away with (except decoratively of course), most of the functionality of women's undergarments seems to have been taken over by the scientists that created the Ace Bandage, and with much the same material.  Perhaps most intriguing in this meat manipulation process (sorry ladies, but that's what it is) is that it's done in a mostly misguided attempt to gain the ability to wear styles of clothing that no one, let alone supposedly mature women, should wear.  While I have always been fascinated with women, like the making of sausages and laws; I suspect that this is a process probably better not viewed too closely, too often, and certainly not on television late at night.

(I am coming to believe that like many other areas of scientific study, women's underwear falls into two schools of thought.  The 'Victoria's Secret'  school of undergarment design holds that "less is more", and charges more for the less that they provide.  The 'Ace Bandage' school on the other hand, believes that "covering more showing less" is the answer, and charges far less than the Victoria's school for the more making it appear that there is in fact less being covered.  It's not a perfect theory, but it's a working one that works for me.)

I may be an unreconstructed capitalist, but some of this scares even me.  The fact that there are multiple channels dedicated to consumerism on such a scale is bad.  The fact that in these tough economic times, there appears to be a great many people with a day pass on the crazy train with 'disposable' income to buy this carnival crap is worse, and may in fact prove that Capitalism has finally run off the rails.  I'm not sure whether to give the process a standing ovation, or pull the covers over my head so I don't have to watch any more.

But if you'll excuse me now, I need to get back to the the show I was watching.  The electronics hour starts in 15 minutes and I have my eye on a deal on a 73" HD, 3D, surround sound TV that if I pull the trigger on it, they probably won't be able to get through my front door anyway.

Put The Rock Down Stupid!

One of the few things in life that constantly surprises and annoys me is my fellow man's capacity for aggressive ignorance and stupidity. This ability (or perhaps more accurately liability) crosses all local, state, and even national borders and can be found in every race, creed, and color on the planet. Likewise, it's influence can be found in almost every phase of everyday life. Science and Religion, Finance and Politics, nothing can seem to escape its all-encompassing grasp.

Here in the US, there seem to be locations where this condition seems to affect larger percentages of the population (hot spots, if you will) to our joint detriment. Cities along the western coast of the United States for example, from Seattle to Los Angeles comprise one of these areas; with the areas surrounding the San Francisco Bay seeming to be a local focus for such behavior. (This can be no real surprise to anyone however, as the desire to live on an active seismic fault line can rarely be considered anything but stupid.) 

The level of stupidity seems to diminish as you move east through the country, with only a few concentrations of it in the mountains and the Midwest. Boulder seems to fit the bill in the high country, and unaccountably Toledo, Ohio seems to act as a magnet in the Midwest. The rest are easily identifiable, and tend to cluster in the vicinity of universities and state capitals. Stupidity again increases as the Atlantic Ocean approaches (Is there a relation between water and stupidity? Perhaps a government study is in order.), but the stupidity in the East is often overwhelmed by an appalling level of anger that seems to pervade this particular coast. (Perhaps the stupid people there are upset that they have no active fault lines, I don't know.)

The absolute Mecca of stupidity however is to be found on the East Coast, in Washington DC. Much like that city revered in the Muslim religion, stupid people who are able, often make a pilgrimage to this fountain of ignorance and stupidity. Many even give up valuable careers in the real world and spend a great deal of their own money in order to obtain positions of employment there, perhaps for no other reason than simply to be near what for them is hallowed ground. And it is in Washington that stupidity raises itself beyond any mere amateur standing and even beyond the professional level. No, it is only the all-stars who can play and survive in this league, and anything less is brutally weeded out every couple of years.

Now I would be loathe to mention any of this and quite frankly wouldn't care about such arcane practices and apparently misguided religious fervor except that the aggressive stupidity of those in Washington has had an increasing impact on my attempts to avoid stupidity in my own life. While I may be as guilty as the next man in my ignorance, I would like to hope that at least some of mine is inadvertent. With a few rare others that I know, I attempt to avoid acts of random stupid behavior that seem to plague society. 

This attempt, which is as difficult as tip-toeing through a mine field, would be a great deal easier if those reaching this "Elysium Field" of blissful ignorance were not randomly throwing rocks into the area around us as we made our weary way through life. The resultant detonations caused by this interference multiply and magnify the missteps that we are oh so carefully trying to avoid, and make choosing a clear path forward just that much more difficult. So hey, if you idiots want to hang together great, but the rest of us would really appreciate it if you could find ways to LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE!

Now as the coming election approaches, many of you are going to take up the challenge of voting and present a stupid person with the opportunity to fulfill their heart's desire. I won't ask you to keep them from going, but I will beg you on behalf of those of us continuing to make our way through life's demilitarized zone to try and maintain or slightly reduce the level of stupidity in DC as you make your choices (you know, kind of like reducing your carbon footprint to save the planet). And for God's sake, do what you can to keep them from picking up rocks as they go.


Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal and execution is carried out automatically and without pity. - Robert Heinlein


UPDATE:
One of my fellow bloggers has taken a different tack on this question, blaming karma instead of ignorance. I recommend its reading as a slightly different take on what many of us are beginning to recognize as an impending issue of major proportions.