Thomas Edison's Broken Bulb

Went to another writing workshop today, friends.

I'm kinda getting used to the way these things run, & have learned to "go with" what strikes me. Today we were presented with a table full of postcards. We were asked to select one & write a travel diary entry that would represent its story. The card that "struck" me was a picture of a broken lightbulb. I knew why, even as I walked back to my seat, & could hardly get to my pen/paper fast enough. What flowed from my pen was not exactly what one would call a 'travel diary entry,' but I wrote "my truth" in the moment nonetheless.



Thomas Edison's Broken Bulb

Time crashes forward as waves in the surf. We are a remnant of life once lived, now drowning in bureaucracy, swallowing, sputtering, choking.

Will we find, on the slick coral, purchase to propel ourselves loose? Will we ever twist free of that which ensnares us?

Bureaucracy cannot, must not filter its tentacles into our lives so deep, such that we trap ourselves within our own collective power.

God help us! Prevent this suicide from on-high, from within.

Else, like the broken bulb - or Atlantis - our culture will lie in shattered ruin at the bottom of the ocean floor.


Yep. My truth.

I do NOT like the "new light bulbs" that the Federal government is forcing me to now use.

I do NOT appreciate the intrusion into my personal space, my home, my way of life. That should NOT be the government's role in American life, and I resent it. In my humble opinion, it's the beginning of that proverbial slide down a 'slippery slope' into a dark place in history, maybe even to the bottom of the ocean floor.

~~

Don't Tread on Me.

~~~

People of WISCONSIN Must Win~

" 'Walker wants to end collective bargaining,' is the wail.

Actually, what the governor wants to end is the scandalous practice of powerful unions raising millions and running phone banks and get-out-the-vote operations for politicians who thank them with wages, benefits and job security no private employer can match."

Dovetailing into my most recent post, Patrick Buchanan's piece from Taki's Magazine:

"Why Scott Walker Must Win"
The anti-democratic methods President Obama’s union allies are using in Wisconsin testify to the crucial character of the battle being fought.

Teachers have walked off in wildcat strikes, taking pupils with them. Doctors have issued lying affidavits saying the teachers were sick, a good example of ethical conduct for the school kids.
Thousands of demonstrators have daily invaded the Capitol, chanting, hooting, banging drums. Hundreds have camped out there and refused to leave so the Capitol building can be cleaned.

Is this democracy in action? Is this what 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green went out to see that Saturday morning in Tucson?

Picketers have carried placards with the face of Gov. Scott Walker in the cross hairs of a gun sight. He has been compared to Hitler, Mussolini, Mubarak. Democrats have fled the state to deny the elected Wisconsin Senate a quorum to vote.

Such tactics cannot be allowed to triumph in a republic.

Why is the Left behaving with desperation? Because it senses what this battle is all about. Not just about pay, but about power.

The Republicans are not only resolved to guarantee government workers pay a fair share of the cost of their pensions and health care. They are in a purposeful drive to disarm and demobilize the tax-subsidized armies of the Democratic Party and end sweetheart deals between unions and the poodle politicians they put into office.

“Walker wants to end collective bargaining,” is the wail.

“The senators who fled will come home heroes, and Walker will have broken the hearts of the people who put their faith in him.”

Actually, what the governor wants to end is the scandalous practice of powerful unions raising millions and running phone banks and get-out-the-vote operations for politicians who thank them with wages, benefits and job security no private employer can match.

Since the 1960s, government unions have been able to sit behind closed doors with the politicians they put in office and write contracts, the cost of which is borne by taxpayers who have no one at the table.

They call this collective bargaining. A more accurate term is collusive bargaining. And Walker means to put an end to the racket...

...When government unions sit down with the politicians they put into office, the relationship is not adversarial. It is not healthy. It is incestuous. And taxpayers must pay the cost of their cohabitation.

Gov. Walker also seeks to end the practice of having the state government collect union dues from state workers.

Indeed, why should a Republican administration collect dues for the benefit of union bosses who constantly labor to see to it those Republicans are not re-elected? Let the unions collect their own dues.

Walker would also require public service employee unions to hold annual elections by secret ballot to determine if state workers want the union to represent them, or if they would prefer to have their deducted union dues put back in their paychecks.

Legislators submit to voters every two years.

Why ought not unions to do the same?

In Wisconsin, the die is cast and Walker cannot yield.

For if he yields, the state and its 3,000 cities, counties, towns and school districts will be forever at the mercy of these unions.

If he yields, it will be a triumph for the tactics of intimidation, wildcat strikes and mass demonstrations to block legislative action.

The senators who fled will come home heroes, and Walker will have broken the hearts of the people who put their faith in him.

If Walker yields, governors and legislators across America will read the tea leaves and back away from taking on government unions. That means higher and higher taxes, as in Illinois, and eventual sinking of the states into unpayable debt and default.

The correlation of forces is in Walker’s favor. Time is on his side. When you are holding a winning hand, you do not offer to split the pot.

After his opponents invaded the Capitol, called him Hitler, fled the state, and tried to shout down and shut down the legislature with raucous demonstrations, what other cards do they have left to play?

Walker has recalled Ronald Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers as an example of how a strong leader must stand up even to a popular union when it is wrong.

There is an earlier example. When the Boston police went on strike and criminals ran amuck, and Sam Gompers came to the defense of the cops, Gov. Calvin Coolidge sent a telegram to that founding father of the American labor movement, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”

Scott Walker cannot lose this fight, because his country cannot afford to have him lose it.

~~~

Obama's Budget Bluff: Dick Morris

Too searing not to post. Emphases mine...

OBAMA’S BUDGET BLUFF
By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
02.14.2011

The Obama Administration and its acolytes on the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission are propagating the myth that it is Social Security and Medicare that are driving the deficit over $1.5 trillion. Discretionary spending, they plead, is but a tiny part of the budget, not much worth fooling with.

...This formulation is a myth! The fact is that this deficit has been caused by a rapid runup in discretionary, non-defense spending and in welfare entitlements like Medicaid and food stamps. The key to cutting spending and slashing the deficit is not to focus on Social Security or Medicare, but on the real culprits – discretionary spending and welfare entitlements.

The following chart, taken from Revolt!, illustrates this key point:

INCREASES IN SPENDING UNDER OBAMA
Category 2008 2010 %Incr
Welfare $260 $400 54%
Domestic $485 $682 41%
Medicare $456 $528 16%
Soc. Sec. $612 $700 14%
Defense $612 $690 11%

Obama and the Democrats are playing a game... By pretending that the most politically popular programs – Social Security and Medicare — cause the deficit, they insulate the whole array of less popular government programs from cuts. They hide appropriations for EPA, PBS, highway construction, the Department of Education and like behind Social Security and Medicare reform.

But it is the core spending on the bureaucracy itself that is driving this deficit, increasing by $200 billion in the two Obama years. And it is Medicaid and food stamps and other welfare entitlements, up by $140 billion that are also culprits.

In the past two years, we have added 80,000 federal workers, 11 million food stamp recipients and $50 billion in Medicaid costs under Obama.

When baby boomers start to retire in greater numbers later in the decade, we will need to focus on Social Security and Medicare...

...Revolt! itemizes many other proposed cuts. It is not hard to bring the deficit down to less than 4% of GDP by 2014 by cutting discretionary and welfare entitlement spending.

Its just that liberals don’t want to do it.

~~~

Lt. Col. Allen West: the enemy we face.

During a panel discussion sponsored by the Hudson Institute last January, retired Army Lt. Colonel Allen West, who did combat duty in Iraq, responded to a Marine who asked the question, how do you answer people who say that terrorists are following a "warped" version of Islam?

The panel consisted of a number of former military personnel, who fumbled around trying to answer the question. Col. West finally stepped forward answered the question directly and truthfully. Listen to the words of a former military man who understands the nature of the enemy we face:



Notice again Col. West's straightforward assessment: "This is not a perversion. They are doing exactly what this book [i.e., the Qur'an] says."

Lt. Col. West was elected to Congress in November, to represent Florida's 22nd congressional district. He will be the first African-American Republican congressman to represent Florida since 1870.

~~

Go WEST!

~~~

~The Mule~

Brothers Hughie & Teddy saw an ad for a mule in the Starkville Daily News in Starkville, MS. Bein' in need of a mule, they bought it for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the mule once he received their check in the mail.

A week goes by; the farmer drives over to Hughie & Teddy's & says, "Sorry, fellas, I have some bad news. The mule died last night."

Hughie & Teddy replied, "Well that's too bad. Just give us our money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went & spent it already."

They said, "OK. Just bring us the dead mule."

The farmer asked, "What in the world y'all gonna do with a dead mule?"

Hughie said, "We gonna raffle him off."

The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead mule!"

Teddy said, "Shore we can! Heck, we don't hafta tell nobody he's dead!"

A few weeks later, the farmer ran into Hughie & Teddy at the Piggly Wiggly, "Hey. What'd you fellas ever do with that dead mule?"

Surprised at his ignorance, they said, "We raffled him off like we said we wuz gonna do."

Hughie said,"Shucks, we sold 500 tickets fer $2.00 a piece & made a net profit of $898.00"

The farmer said, "My Lord, didn't anyone complain!?"

Teddy said, "Well, the feller who won got upset. So we gave him his two dollars back."

Hughie & Teddy now work for the Obama Administration.

~~~