The older I get the heavier and less forgiving gravity becomes, the more effort I have to put into keeping my chin up. People discus me. The person is beautiful. I love the person. But when you group them together, they are scarier than a cloud of locus.
This country was built on certain ideas, many of which are spelled out very clearly in the Bill of Rights. For those of you who didn’t go to a fantastic public school like I did, here is your Bill of Rights:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
These are just ten of twenty seven amendments to the constitution. Originally, they thought there would be no need to ever amend the constitution because it was so perfect. It is almost foolish when you think about it. Reminds me of when Charles H. Duell supposedly quit the patent office.
I’m no lawyer, but one of our best amendments is the first one. It says that the government should not create a state religion (because at the time, the United States was not yet a Christian nation) and that everyone is free to practice their own religion, or lack thereof. Then, of course, the freedom of speech, assembly, press, and to petition the government. So many good ideas wrapped up in only forty-five words.
Without the proud strong people of this country who don’t like to run around making a mess of things, who like to remember this country from whence it came, the liberal yahoos would make such a mess of this Constitution and Bill of Rights so as to make it unrecognizable. Thank god we have good strong proud Americans with conservative ideas towards these sacred documents.
And it makes me scratch my head, and rub my neck in confusion with the most recent back lash against the religion of Islam. I try to understand why some people in this country hate Muslims, burn the Koran, and want to stop Muslims from building Mosques, not just in lower Manhattan, but in other parts of this country. I guess I get that Osama bin Laden was a Muslim to some degree, and so they hate him and everything he stands for, including his religion, but don’t you remember Hitler? He was a Christian. Am I saying that Christians are like Hitler? Well, no more so then Muslims are like bin Laden.
Everyone understands that building a mosque near ground zero is a sensitive subject, but it shouldn’t be. Every soldier overseas is fighting for that mosque, and the other mosques that have been met with resistance. Every Muslim has every right to practice their religion anywhere they damn well please. They have a right to do it outside the steps of any church or synagogue. And even if you hate Muslims as much as those people who protest at the funerals of fallen soldiers, or the Neo-Nazis marching through Skokie, well that’s your problem. This country, as you know, hold certain truths to be self evident, and if those truths aren’t evident to you, go read the constitution again. Then, after that, go read the Koran. You know we know more about Mary, Jesus’ mother, from the stories of the Koran than the stories of the Bible? As the New Testament was a continuation to the Jewish Old Testament, the Koran is a continuation to the bible.
I just hope that more level headed educated people will begin to step forward and voice their support for the ideas this country was built on and to let our Muslim brothers and sisters know that in this country, they have not just the right, ideologically, but legally, to practice their religion.
The November elections are quickly approaching, and I call on all officials running for office, Republicans and Democrats, to publically voice their support for our first amendment, which includes Muslims’ right to practice their religion.
On the other hand, nobody reads this damned blog anyway.
***
President Obama: “Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.”
Monday, September 13, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tom Waits, Cigars, Old friends, and Agents
Some nights I enjoy a drink. I put on Tom Waits, pour a drink, and even sometimes for the hell of it, light a cigar. I’ve got a few friends who claim to be experts on cigars. They drum them against their ear, they refuse to use anything other than a match to light them, and they pretended to be sad when Alejandro Robaina died, even though they had never smoked one of his cigars. I know nothing about cigars, and in fact prefer cigarettes. But lighting the cigar for me is like putting on a tie. There is no real purpose to it except to class up the joint a bit. I’m rambling again.
The drink, I can enjoy. A few mouth-fulls of 10-15 year old whiskey are always very pleasing on a cool summer night after it rains: When you can still hear the thunder rolling away and the rain is already evaporating off the pavement. That’s the time when I pour my drink and put on a Tom Waits record. Mr. Waits has such a vast discography and sound spanning nearly half a century. He started his career with a somewhat normal acoustic, singer/songwriter feel and his most recent albums sound like dark electronic blues from a future that I never want to see. My favorite of his albums though are the ones that seem to mix Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Those jazzy, raspy albums like Small Change and Foreign Affair. I’ll even put on Nighthawks at the Diner from time to time.
So it rained the other day, I put on Small Change, put three fingers of whiskey in my glass and lit up a cigar. I called a former student of mine. She was the student that I wished all my students were like. She read and wrote, that’s all. Occasionally she would go for long poetically painful walks up and down the coasts of this country, but she’d always be reading and writing while doing so. Since graduating a decade ago, she has married, divorced, settled down, married again and now has a couple of children. Her husband reads and writes just as much as she does!
I wrote her a letter awhile back and never heard a response. Normally I am completely unbothered by such things, but Tom and my whiskey put a telephone in my hand. She is doing quite well! She has a job teaching writing, and so does her husband. She even received a phone call from an agent who had read a few of her stories in some magazines. He asked her if she had anything worth publishing. She had just finished a novel! Now, agents are people who don’t read and write a lot. They read and judge a lot. But, they’re just trying to make a living, too. But for an agent to seek her out and ask if she had anything he wanted to read, I am quite happy for her! Most people bang down agents’ doors begging the agent to read their work! But this time he found her! Her husband is also a very talented writer and is on the verge of getting his novel published.
I’m glad I called! There was so much good news. My first agent was my brother; my second agent was my first wife. My last agent might as well have been Saint Christopher himself.
The drink, I can enjoy. A few mouth-fulls of 10-15 year old whiskey are always very pleasing on a cool summer night after it rains: When you can still hear the thunder rolling away and the rain is already evaporating off the pavement. That’s the time when I pour my drink and put on a Tom Waits record. Mr. Waits has such a vast discography and sound spanning nearly half a century. He started his career with a somewhat normal acoustic, singer/songwriter feel and his most recent albums sound like dark electronic blues from a future that I never want to see. My favorite of his albums though are the ones that seem to mix Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Those jazzy, raspy albums like Small Change and Foreign Affair. I’ll even put on Nighthawks at the Diner from time to time.
So it rained the other day, I put on Small Change, put three fingers of whiskey in my glass and lit up a cigar. I called a former student of mine. She was the student that I wished all my students were like. She read and wrote, that’s all. Occasionally she would go for long poetically painful walks up and down the coasts of this country, but she’d always be reading and writing while doing so. Since graduating a decade ago, she has married, divorced, settled down, married again and now has a couple of children. Her husband reads and writes just as much as she does!
I wrote her a letter awhile back and never heard a response. Normally I am completely unbothered by such things, but Tom and my whiskey put a telephone in my hand. She is doing quite well! She has a job teaching writing, and so does her husband. She even received a phone call from an agent who had read a few of her stories in some magazines. He asked her if she had anything worth publishing. She had just finished a novel! Now, agents are people who don’t read and write a lot. They read and judge a lot. But, they’re just trying to make a living, too. But for an agent to seek her out and ask if she had anything he wanted to read, I am quite happy for her! Most people bang down agents’ doors begging the agent to read their work! But this time he found her! Her husband is also a very talented writer and is on the verge of getting his novel published.
I’m glad I called! There was so much good news. My first agent was my brother; my second agent was my first wife. My last agent might as well have been Saint Christopher himself.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Strangers
When I started this damned thing, I never had any intention of it becoming prolific. So far, so good. My good friend Laura had won a “Prolific Blogger” award recently, and I send my congratulations. She has recently granted me the “Creative Writing” award (God knows why). I don’t think I’ve been very creative in damn near thirty years. I just keep rehashing the same stories. But since I’m clever, and have oodles of charm, I can pull it off quite well.
The thing that keeps me writing though is people. Not my friends or family, at my age most of them are dead anyhow. Instead, it is the people I happen to meet from day to day either at the grocery store, the post office, or coffee shops. One of my closest friends, Adam Richards, and I met at a coffee shop.
Yesterday, I was walking into my favorite little coffee shop and out came a group of damn rowdy kids, not one over fifteen. They came out yelling, “Oh my God! It’s fucking Theo! Hey Theo! Do you remember us, do you?” Normally, maybe it’s my age, I would try to figure out how I know those dam rowdy kids, but instead, I said nothing, and shooed them away with a scowl. I assumed Adam was in the shop and seeing me walk down the street, coached those damn rowdy kids into harassing me. Instead, Adam was late, and my curiosity grew to find out if I really knew those damn rowdy kids. I quickly walked back outside to find them getting on their bicycles, preparing to ride away. “Hey there! How do I know you?” They laughed, one yelled, “You don’t!” and they threw up their middle fingers as they rode off. I, without hesitation, threw up my own middle finger, and lit a cigarette. Despite being a retired college professor and novelist, this was my reaction. Oh well.
Today, I met a young woman at the post office. Since we were at the post office, we were standing in a line. She was mailing a birthday present, and I was buying stamps. We got to talking, and she told me that she had just quit her job. I congratulated her, and asked her ex-profession. Human Resources, she said. She told me that she was sick and tired of firing people. “Oh you’ve worked here your whole life?” She said. “Well, you’re fired. Sorry! Oh you’re child has a terrible disease?” She said. “Well, your family just lost their health insurance. Sorry!” She was the most interesting woman I have met this week. She wasn’t older than thirty-five: A spring chicken! I hope she will find something she enjoys more, or at least that these American companies will decide to start hiring people again instead of firing them. Then perhaps, my HR friend may find some joy in her work. Who knows.
Do you enjoy meeting strangers as much as I do? Do they help with your writing? Now with all these computers laying around, how does one find characterization inspiration?
The thing that keeps me writing though is people. Not my friends or family, at my age most of them are dead anyhow. Instead, it is the people I happen to meet from day to day either at the grocery store, the post office, or coffee shops. One of my closest friends, Adam Richards, and I met at a coffee shop.
Yesterday, I was walking into my favorite little coffee shop and out came a group of damn rowdy kids, not one over fifteen. They came out yelling, “Oh my God! It’s fucking Theo! Hey Theo! Do you remember us, do you?” Normally, maybe it’s my age, I would try to figure out how I know those dam rowdy kids, but instead, I said nothing, and shooed them away with a scowl. I assumed Adam was in the shop and seeing me walk down the street, coached those damn rowdy kids into harassing me. Instead, Adam was late, and my curiosity grew to find out if I really knew those damn rowdy kids. I quickly walked back outside to find them getting on their bicycles, preparing to ride away. “Hey there! How do I know you?” They laughed, one yelled, “You don’t!” and they threw up their middle fingers as they rode off. I, without hesitation, threw up my own middle finger, and lit a cigarette. Despite being a retired college professor and novelist, this was my reaction. Oh well.
Today, I met a young woman at the post office. Since we were at the post office, we were standing in a line. She was mailing a birthday present, and I was buying stamps. We got to talking, and she told me that she had just quit her job. I congratulated her, and asked her ex-profession. Human Resources, she said. She told me that she was sick and tired of firing people. “Oh you’ve worked here your whole life?” She said. “Well, you’re fired. Sorry! Oh you’re child has a terrible disease?” She said. “Well, your family just lost their health insurance. Sorry!” She was the most interesting woman I have met this week. She wasn’t older than thirty-five: A spring chicken! I hope she will find something she enjoys more, or at least that these American companies will decide to start hiring people again instead of firing them. Then perhaps, my HR friend may find some joy in her work. Who knows.
Do you enjoy meeting strangers as much as I do? Do they help with your writing? Now with all these computers laying around, how does one find characterization inspiration?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Neo-Luddite
A young friend of mine owns a laptop computer. She asked me if it would be wise to also purchase a desktop computer. She is a silly thing. I'm still not sold on the idea of computers. Sure, the Internet has brought more information than you could ever want to know to damn near everybody in the world, but they still scare me. Don't mind me though, this is coming from an old man who doesn't know if his own TV works or not and just recently bough a microwave, but only for the idea of instant popcorn.
What's so scary about computers? People don't need to know anything anymore. Why learn French or Spanish when you have a translator? Why learn how to drive over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house when you have a computer that triangulates your position using the Global Positioning System? There's no need to remember peoples addresses or telephone numbers anymore. Hell, nobody writes letters anymore. Instead they have those black cell phones glued to their ears talking away about nothing. "I'm going to be late. I'll see you at 6:16PM instead of 6:15PM" Bluetooth? Miniature cell phones you stick directly into your ear so you can walk around talking to yourself. People with blueteeth: You are insane.
The latest craze is the iPad. Plenty of jokes have already been made about the name's similarities to feminine hygiene products, so I'll skip those. But can't people see it is nothing short of an entire waste of money? Why must we buy all these unnecessary things? The iPad is a giant touch screen laptop, is it not? You already have a laptop, do you not?
Despite all of my blathering, there is one thing beautiful about all of this: The young friend of mine who wants two computers. Even though she is as sucked into computers as much as the rest of the crazies out there, she is one of the few people who still write letters the old fashion way. She takes the time to hand write letters and licks stamps and envelopes and patiently waits by the door for the mailman to bring a response. Bless her heart.
Writing and receiving letters are one of the great joys of my life. It is up there with music, blue skies, delicious food, good health, cigarettes, and the Norway Maple tree.
Now it is time I get off of this damned machine before I get any dumber.
Enjoy your day. Take notice of the pleasantries in life. Walk outside and take a whiff. Take a pen to paper and write a friend a letter. It doesn't even have to be a good letter. Just take the time out to do so.
What's so scary about computers? People don't need to know anything anymore. Why learn French or Spanish when you have a translator? Why learn how to drive over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house when you have a computer that triangulates your position using the Global Positioning System? There's no need to remember peoples addresses or telephone numbers anymore. Hell, nobody writes letters anymore. Instead they have those black cell phones glued to their ears talking away about nothing. "I'm going to be late. I'll see you at 6:16PM instead of 6:15PM" Bluetooth? Miniature cell phones you stick directly into your ear so you can walk around talking to yourself. People with blueteeth: You are insane.
The latest craze is the iPad. Plenty of jokes have already been made about the name's similarities to feminine hygiene products, so I'll skip those. But can't people see it is nothing short of an entire waste of money? Why must we buy all these unnecessary things? The iPad is a giant touch screen laptop, is it not? You already have a laptop, do you not?
Despite all of my blathering, there is one thing beautiful about all of this: The young friend of mine who wants two computers. Even though she is as sucked into computers as much as the rest of the crazies out there, she is one of the few people who still write letters the old fashion way. She takes the time to hand write letters and licks stamps and envelopes and patiently waits by the door for the mailman to bring a response. Bless her heart.
Writing and receiving letters are one of the great joys of my life. It is up there with music, blue skies, delicious food, good health, cigarettes, and the Norway Maple tree.
Now it is time I get off of this damned machine before I get any dumber.
Enjoy your day. Take notice of the pleasantries in life. Walk outside and take a whiff. Take a pen to paper and write a friend a letter. It doesn't even have to be a good letter. Just take the time out to do so.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Operation Glory
I have asked my granddaughter what I should write about. She shrugged. She’s six years old. I asked her if there was anything she wanted to know about me. She shrugged again. Then she perked up and became very exited! She asked me if I had ever fought in a war. I haven’t. She pouted and shrugged again. She left to go watch Television.
Officially, in accordance with the United States Constitution, I have only been alive for one war during my seventy-four years on this planet. That, of course, was the Second World War: The West’s second attempt at self destruction. I was ten years old when that war ended. It was my childhood. It’s what I grew up with, it’s how we played. My friends and I would charged up hills and shoot at invisible Nazis. When I turned eighteen, I signed up for the Army and was shipped off to Korea. I turned eighteen in December of 1953. The cease fire had been signed in July of that year, and the way things had gone, I never thought it would last. I’m still surprised that it has lasted this long, but it’s a good thing it has.
When I arrived in Korea, Operation Glory was just about to get underway. If I was a young boy, hungry for war and glory, when I arrived in Korea, I was a peace loving pacifist when I left. For those of you who don’t know: Operation Glory (ha!) was nothing more than the exchange of dead bodies between the north and south. They gave us back 4,000 dead US Army and Marine Corp soldiers. For those bodies, we gave them about 13,000 of theirs. It took damn near six months. I still don’t know how I ended up in the middle of all that. They say there are no Atheists in foxholes, but after the shells are done falling, and you’re still alive, it’s a hard thing trying to find God underneath all those bodies.
Before 1955 came around, I was discharged, was back home, and found a job as a bartender at jazz and blues club in Chicago. I wasn’t very good at carrying strangers’ caskets, and I was a worse mixologist.
Officially, in accordance with the United States Constitution, I have only been alive for one war during my seventy-four years on this planet. That, of course, was the Second World War: The West’s second attempt at self destruction. I was ten years old when that war ended. It was my childhood. It’s what I grew up with, it’s how we played. My friends and I would charged up hills and shoot at invisible Nazis. When I turned eighteen, I signed up for the Army and was shipped off to Korea. I turned eighteen in December of 1953. The cease fire had been signed in July of that year, and the way things had gone, I never thought it would last. I’m still surprised that it has lasted this long, but it’s a good thing it has.
When I arrived in Korea, Operation Glory was just about to get underway. If I was a young boy, hungry for war and glory, when I arrived in Korea, I was a peace loving pacifist when I left. For those of you who don’t know: Operation Glory (ha!) was nothing more than the exchange of dead bodies between the north and south. They gave us back 4,000 dead US Army and Marine Corp soldiers. For those bodies, we gave them about 13,000 of theirs. It took damn near six months. I still don’t know how I ended up in the middle of all that. They say there are no Atheists in foxholes, but after the shells are done falling, and you’re still alive, it’s a hard thing trying to find God underneath all those bodies.
Before 1955 came around, I was discharged, was back home, and found a job as a bartender at jazz and blues club in Chicago. I wasn’t very good at carrying strangers’ caskets, and I was a worse mixologist.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
A Dream
I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamt that I was a young man again and that I had traveled through time to the year 2030. It wasn't until I saw a whole lot of propeller driven airplanes crashing all around me, that I started to ask the people that happened to be around me what year it was. I saw my younger brother, he was alive and young again, he was crying. I ran to him to ask him what was going on. He ran from me and disappeared into the crowd. After the planes were done falling, everyone got on one knee and started to pray. A loud speaker explained that prayer was no longer an option, but instead kindly reminded the crowd that prayer was mandatory.
I took a knee, and out the corner of my eye looked around in horror. Everyone had there heads down, and eyes shut hard. In my ear an echoing Orwell was saying, "I told you so."
I ran for it. I ran across a field and they chased me.
I escaped. I hitchhiked.
I got into a car driven by an old man. I asked him what was going on, why everything had changed. He didn't know what I was talking about. He couldn't remember when things had been much different. He pitied me and thought I was crazy. But the old man drove me far out to the country so it would be harder to find me. I asked him about the possibility of time-travel. He told me I was crazy.
The old man driving the car was me.
We found a small town with a well developed main street. We went window shopping. When the loud speakers turned on again, and kindly asked us to get on one knee, we did. We prayed to God.
I took a knee, and out the corner of my eye looked around in horror. Everyone had there heads down, and eyes shut hard. In my ear an echoing Orwell was saying, "I told you so."
I ran for it. I ran across a field and they chased me.
I escaped. I hitchhiked.
I got into a car driven by an old man. I asked him what was going on, why everything had changed. He didn't know what I was talking about. He couldn't remember when things had been much different. He pitied me and thought I was crazy. But the old man drove me far out to the country so it would be harder to find me. I asked him about the possibility of time-travel. He told me I was crazy.
The old man driving the car was me.
We found a small town with a well developed main street. We went window shopping. When the loud speakers turned on again, and kindly asked us to get on one knee, we did. We prayed to God.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Too Many Zeros
Let me make one thing clear: I am damn near as liberal as they get. It baffles me that this country does not have the greatest public school system in the world. I'm surprised how ignorant people are about health care. I'm dumbfounded that people even care if the LGBT community wants to marry one another.
However, despite all of that, I want to apologize to our future generations for our lack of fiscal responsibility. As a younger man, without much money, my father would often tell me, "It's not how much money you make, it's what you do with it." And he lived that advice. I tried to live it to. I also would fantasize about what I would do with certain sums of money, but my fantasies always stopped right around at $100,000,000USD because it always proved too hard to think of much more money than that. Now a days, we have musicians and sports stars who will eventually make, or who already have made, that much money.
We have billionaires who gave $4,000,000USD to Haiti, and they are called heroes. If you are worth $30,000,000,000USD you will make over $4,000,000 every day just from an interest rate of 8%! I'm rambling. I apologize, readers. Let us now get back to the matter at hand: Fiscal Responsibility.
Andrew Jackson, our 7th President of the United States, made it his goal as president to remove the national debt. He's the only president to do so. The year before he took office in 1829, the debt was over $67,000,0000USD. By 1835 it was $33,733.05USD! What a feat! Can you even imagine? Today, the debt has not been under $2,000,000,000USD in over one hundred years! And today, the debt is at damn near $13,000,000,000,000USD. It is one great big ponzi scheme! This is not O.K. Not even Old Hickory can help us now.
Clinton had it right for a little while: A government surplus, slowly paying down the debt. It was the best he could do. But then BushII lost his veto pen and his RNC handbook and signed off on every piece of legislation his Republican Senate passed. Those past eight years were scarier than the movie 28 Days Later. In that movie raging human zombies rip the world apart and humanity falls apart. During BushII below average students from this country’s top universities take over our government and country, remove all the checks and balance, invade Iraq with troops that don't know how to say "hello" in Arabic (As-Salaam-Alaikum) and make a total mess of the place. This includes the Nation Debt.
Don't get me wrong, Obama has not much helped in this situation either, but damn do I feel bad for the man. He's doing what the presidents before him did, even Jackson, when there is a problem, such as if the last administration had made a mess of things, you throw a lot of money around in hopes that it fixes things. Two years after Jackson all but removed the national debt, our country was hit with a depression in 1837. The Debt went from $33,733.05USD in 1835 to $10,434,221.14USD in 1839. By 1844, when this depression was finally easing, the Debt was at $32,742,922.00USD.
This lack of fiscal responsibility is nothing more than a status quo, but damn don't I seeing it biting us in the ass pretty hard eventually. And so again I say to our future generations: Please forgive us.
However, despite all of that, I want to apologize to our future generations for our lack of fiscal responsibility. As a younger man, without much money, my father would often tell me, "It's not how much money you make, it's what you do with it." And he lived that advice. I tried to live it to. I also would fantasize about what I would do with certain sums of money, but my fantasies always stopped right around at $100,000,000USD because it always proved too hard to think of much more money than that. Now a days, we have musicians and sports stars who will eventually make, or who already have made, that much money.
We have billionaires who gave $4,000,000USD to Haiti, and they are called heroes. If you are worth $30,000,000,000USD you will make over $4,000,000 every day just from an interest rate of 8%! I'm rambling. I apologize, readers. Let us now get back to the matter at hand: Fiscal Responsibility.
Andrew Jackson, our 7th President of the United States, made it his goal as president to remove the national debt. He's the only president to do so. The year before he took office in 1829, the debt was over $67,000,0000USD. By 1835 it was $33,733.05USD! What a feat! Can you even imagine? Today, the debt has not been under $2,000,000,000USD in over one hundred years! And today, the debt is at damn near $13,000,000,000,000USD. It is one great big ponzi scheme! This is not O.K. Not even Old Hickory can help us now.
Clinton had it right for a little while: A government surplus, slowly paying down the debt. It was the best he could do. But then BushII lost his veto pen and his RNC handbook and signed off on every piece of legislation his Republican Senate passed. Those past eight years were scarier than the movie 28 Days Later. In that movie raging human zombies rip the world apart and humanity falls apart. During BushII below average students from this country’s top universities take over our government and country, remove all the checks and balance, invade Iraq with troops that don't know how to say "hello" in Arabic (As-Salaam-Alaikum) and make a total mess of the place. This includes the Nation Debt.
Don't get me wrong, Obama has not much helped in this situation either, but damn do I feel bad for the man. He's doing what the presidents before him did, even Jackson, when there is a problem, such as if the last administration had made a mess of things, you throw a lot of money around in hopes that it fixes things. Two years after Jackson all but removed the national debt, our country was hit with a depression in 1837. The Debt went from $33,733.05USD in 1835 to $10,434,221.14USD in 1839. By 1844, when this depression was finally easing, the Debt was at $32,742,922.00USD.
This lack of fiscal responsibility is nothing more than a status quo, but damn don't I seeing it biting us in the ass pretty hard eventually. And so again I say to our future generations: Please forgive us.
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