Please Pass the Podium
by Johnny American
Copyright 2015 by Johnny American
Please feel free to copy or distribute as you wish,
Especially to your elected officials.
Table of Contents
Chapter1: Politicians
Chapter2: Technology
Chapter3: Schools and Education
Chapter4: Minimum Wage
Chapter5: Illegal Immigrants
Chapter6: Obnoxious Behavior
Chapter7: Income Taxes
Chapter8: ADHD
Chapter9: Lazy-ass Americans
Chapter10: Business and Brand Loyalty
Chapter11: Offensive Material
Chapter12: Gun Control
Chapter13: Police
Chapter14: Energy
Chapter15: Restaurant Menus
Chapter16: Defense
Chapter17: Banks and Credit Cards
Chapter18: Charitables and NonProfits
Chapter19: Drivers
Chapter20: Christmas
Chapter1: Politicians
I might as well begin with one of my biggest pet peeves, and that involves Politicians...especially career politicians. There’s an old saying that goes like this: If you’re not a crook when you go into politics, you’ll be one when you get out. I firmly believe that. There’s just too many temptations, too many offers, too many friends and cronies, too many special interest groups that expect “paybacks” for their political contributions. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. I don’t think Lobbyists and Political Action Committees have any business trying to influence our country’s leadership. Our leaders were elected and sent to Washington to represent Us, the individual voters, rather than big corporations or specific groups. And although it’s true that you can’t satisfy all of the people all of the time, you can at least try to satisfy someone besides yourself and your buddies.
In the days following the founding of our country, an elected official left his farm or business and travelled to the state capitol or our nation’s capitol to represent the people that lived in his territory; to make their needs and desires known to the rest of the politicians who were gathered to discuss such things. And afterwards, he went back home to his farm or business and worked that, until the call came back out to return and discuss other things of importance to the people. But the key phrase here is “represent the people”. Somewhere along the line it became popular to let someone else run your farm or business while you stayed in the capitol to cater to special interests, and forget about those who had cast their vote for you... so that you could represent them.
Today, at least in my experience, it’s hard to find a politician who will ask you what you need, or ask you what you want. More likely, they’re going to Tell you what you need or want, and they’re going to do it in such a convincing way that you will walk away thinking that’s what you wanted all along. An experienced politician can do this with a straight face, and probably have no remorse for doing that. But when he explains to you that “this is what’s best for you,” he actually means “this is best for me and my pals.”
And realistically, you can go talk to a politician, especially when he or she is running for office. They might even visit your hometown. But here’s the thing...you can attend a “rally” with hundreds or thousands of people present, and hope to make your voice heard... or you can attend a fundraising dinner— at $1,500 a plate— and almost guarantee that your voice will be heard. Now, how many of you can afford a $1,500 dinner? Or $3,000 if you include your spouse? Right. Corporate big-shots get their time with the politician, while Johnny American sits at home sharing a $15 pizza with his spouse and kiddies. So the mass of individual voters that the politician needs to get elected...their voice is not heard. You, Mr. Lifetime Politician, are too busy or too greedy or too wrapped up in your own special-interests circles to hear him and his ideas.
But Johnny American is the working man, the backbone of America, the one you promised to represent, the one whose vote you needed, yet you can’t seem to find the time to talk to him and ask him what’s important. He can’t call you because your line’s always busy or you’re out of the office or your secretary responds for you with a form letter.
My most recent experience with this had to do with a problem facing hundreds or thousands of people from my state. I identified the problem and in my opinion, a senator or someone with authority should have been able to fix the problem with a single inquiring telephone call to the right people. I envisioned that with that phone call, people would snap to attention, punch the correct button on a computer keyboard, and it would all be fixed within minutes. So I contacted the senator’s office through his email, the recommended procedure. His response to me, when he finally did get back to me about three months later, was that this problem was caused by the other political party, and he’d see to it, if re-elected, that this policy would be overturned...and that a new policy (favored by his political party) would replace the existing one.
“Are you serious?” I thought. “You never once lifted a finger to try and help your people, you just blamed it on the other party and went about your re-election campaign that was based on “representing the people.” I pointed this out to him with another message, but never received a response. Go figure. So I waited some more, and still nothing. Finally fed up, a call to the news media had the problem fixed within a couple of days.
The point here is that after a few years in office, even the most patriotic, well-intentioned politicians are likely to join the machine. This particular man has done a lot of wonderful things for our state in days gone by, but nothing lately, IMO. Too busy, I guess. And why are politicians always trying to be Politically Correct? In other words, say things that won’t offend anyone. In the end, you don’t take a stand on anything, and it’s just more of the same wasted time in office while our country and states suffer because You Don’t Want to Offend Anyone, thereby hopefully getting more votes from all groups of people for your next run for office. Why don’t you grow a pair and say it like it really is. Then maybe you’ll gain some respect, and might actually have a bigger support group than if you tried to be PC and satisfy everybody (or nobody). Politicians. Huh!
Even small-town politicians, who are more accessible than Senators and Representatives, often think of themselves as being better that the common folks that they’re supposed to represent. Our small town had a referendum on the ballot to allow (or not allow) liquor by the drink. It was bashed by local leaders as not being good for the people... evil... alcohol was bad for everybody. I asked one of them truthfully, “Didn’t I see you last weekend in the next town over, enjoying drinks and having a big time?”
“That’s not the point,” he replied, pointing his finger into my face. I never did find out what “the point” was, but now we can have a drink with our meals in our local restaurants, if we so desire. Politicians!
But to keep them in check (a reality check, really), I believe that elected representatives of the people should earn, at a maximum, the average wage and benefits of the people they represent. If the average wage in my area is $30,000 a year, then that’s what my senator or representative should make. If the average in your area is $90,000 a year, then that’s what your politician should make. Not the $174,000 they currently make. That puts them out of touch with the people who voted them into office. Same for insurance, vacation and retirement benefits. So about medical insurance: If the average family in your hometown pays $1200 a month for insurance, then that much should be taken out of your senator’s paycheck every month for insurance. This way, he’ll know how the people in his area live. Vacation? 10 days a year if that’s the average in your area. And they should
n’t get a lifelong pension for putting in eight years as a politician, that’s just about the dumbest thing that we Americans have ever allowed to happen. This will never be changed, because who makes the changes? Oh yeah, they do. In recent years, some of the congressmen from my state have been busted for bribery, prostitution, and other things. They have even been caught abusing the $40,000 a year that we give them to use for postage, and the hotel rooms that we pay for them to stay in when our state house is in session. I ask, when is it enough? That’s MY money you’re spending.
And speaking of waste, can any of you tell me why the White House needs THREE Calligraphers? You know, the people who do the fancy writing for invitations to a Gala or whatever affair the White House is hosting? I’m not picking on Calligraphers specifically, except as an example of the waste we have in our nation’s capital. I want those calligraphers to have jobs, but I want them to find jobs in the private sector. I don’t want to pay $300,000 worth of salaries plus benefits every year, plus whatever retirement system they have going, for penning some fancy invitations to a function in Washington. I could see their purpose at one time. In dealing with heads of state, fancy accoutrements probably account for something. But in this day and age, there’s plenty of COTS (Commercial, Off The Shelf) software that will do very nice Calligraphy...for a few hundred bucks. Any font, any size, on any kind of paper. Matter of fact, my five-year-old computer came with Calligraphy fonts pre-installed with MS Word. So, there’s a five year old computer, with a printer, plus paper and inkjet cartridges...a total five-year investment of about $600, and I can print all the fancy invitations I want. Or, we could pay (for the same five years) one and a half million dollars for salaries, plus benefits, plus paper and ink and fancy pens. Personally, I’d choose the printer. Folks, we’re wasting money. And, it’s not the government’s money, That’s My Money!
Ok, so it’s yours, too. So what do you think about all the cooks and kitchen staff at the white house? Maybe a little much? So I propose that we buy each new First Lady a nice new set of pots and pans and let her do the cooking. Call in the executive chefs only once a week.
I know that Pomp and Circumstance has it’s place, especially when we have distinguished visitors at our capitol. In fact, when we have company at our own house, we dismiss the paper plates and eat on real plates. But, we also hold spending to a minimum, especially when we’re broke. After all, it’s my money!
Chapter2: Technology
I was born in 1950, and during my lifetime, I’ve seen a lot of new technology. I’ve seen radios go from using heavy, bulky power supplies and old-fashioned vacuum tubes, to transistors, and then to integrated circuits. That’s right, I was here when transistor radios first became a popular consumer item. And technology just keeps getting better and faster and smaller. When I was attending college, every student in our engineering classes had a slide-rule. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a wooden stick in three parts, and each part had numbers on it. The middle section would slide between the outer two sections, and depending on the math functions you were interested in, you used the numbers on the outer sections compared to the numbers on the sliding center section to calculate the answer to your problem. To a trained person, this slide rule could produce accurate (for the time) results. Nowdays, folks just pick up a calculator and punch in the numbers, and the result is displayed for you to read. Very accurate and inexpensive. And the calculator is a result of the space race.
Ironic that slide rules were used to to originally calculate thrusts of rocket engines and spacecraft orbits. We had big computers, but they were rare and more of a gigantic novelty that something that every engineer could have in his office. But when calculators first became available to the common folk, they were priced so high that the company I worked for allowed the employees to buy one, and they took the money out of your paycheck every week for four weeks to pay for it. I think they were about $75. Today you can get the same calculating power for $4 or less at just about any store. But back then, it was a big deal. And back then, a calculator was used verify your calculations or to provide accuracy to a calculation that was carried out to a lot of decimal places...it was not meant to be used instead of your brain. I think that these palm-sized machines are great, but before we become too dependent on them, we need to know how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and other math functions with a paper and a pencil, before we use calculators. We’re dumbing our youth.
An example of my concerns has to do with a purchase my wife and I made at a small boutique market. While we were paying for our merchandise, the clerk behind the counter was telling us about how she was a senior in college and was going to graduate with an 3.0+ average, when the power went out, and her plugged-into-the-wall calculator died. This college senior with a 3.0 could not make change for a ten-dollar bill. I kid you not. My wife told her how much change we were expecting back, and that’s what she handed to us out of her drawer, but isn’t it sad that she was preparing to graduate college, yet she couldn’t perform a simple math task? Yup, she grew up depending on a calculator to do her math for her.
Another time, we were in Wal-Mart and they had a computer glitch while the woman in front of us was checking out. Time passed, people were getting restless, until the CSR came by and explained that we would have to wait until the computer finished rebooting before we could check out. Really? You don’t have a back-up plan? I looked around and every check-out line in the store was getting longer and longer as angry patrons lined up wanting to check out. That got me to thinking, okay, you don’t have prices on your merchandise, you don’t have an old-fashioned cash register and if you did, who would know how to use it? Obviously, you don’t have any alternate plan to sell your merchandise when the computer crashes or the power goes down. So what’s going to happen when a glitch hits a server somewhere out in Nebraska or Georgia, or India, and it takes the whole internet system down?
Help me think this through...You won’t be able to buy groceries because the grocery stores all use automated checkouts, and when the internet or the power went down, the computer rebooted. You could go to the bank and get some cash out of your account, but oh, wait! The banks are all automated, and they won’t let you have any money unless they can take it out of your electronic account immediately, and that part’s down as well. So, maybe we’ll travel to the next town over and buy groceries. Except, we need gasoline, and the gas station only uses computer-controlled pumps and that computer’s down...even if the pumps worked, you don’t have any cash and the card-swiper wouldn’t work because it’s linked to some clearinghouse in a foreign country via the internet. Well, you can’t buy groceries or gasoline, so you might as well go the the doctor’s appointment you have in thirty minutes, but you can’t get there on time because the traffic lights through town are computerized and traffic’s a beast and the lights are all screwed up. So you finally make it, but your doctor can’t retrieve your MRI file from the radiologist across town, because the file can’t be sent over the broken network...I’m just saying that technology’s nice, but sometimes we rely on everything working correctly all of the time. We don’t allow for a single-point failure, yet it can, and does happen. Think about the entire northeastern United States going dark several years ago, total blackout in the middle of winter, because somewhere in some obscure corner of our country, a computer glitch took out the entire New England power distribution system!
One Christmas, every chair and sofa and folding chair and footstool in our living room was filled with the younger generation, and they all had their heads buried in their cell-phones, texting. I asked them “Why don’t you all put those phones up and talk to each other?” The reply? “We are talking to each other!” I shook my head in wonderment as I left the room.
We certainly need technology. It’s good for our Defense. It makes life easier. I love my microwave oven and my flat-screen TV (which unfortunately were manufactured overseas.) I’m proud of our technological advancements. We
just need to use state-of-the art with caution and restraint. And listen, now matter how great your electronic entertainment collection is, make sure your kid gets some time outside to play with something simple...a ball and a bat or a bucket or a stick or whatever is handy in your yard or neighborhood.
Chapter3: Schools and Education
I firmly believe that our government, bad parenting and our school system are the main reason for the Dumbing of America’s children.
Now don’t get me wrong. For the most part, we have a bright and intelligent bunch of kids in our schools today. And the rest of them, well, let’s just say that most of the rest have potential. They’re just not using it.
Nimber 1, our government is concerned about every child in America feeling good about themselves, and believing that all children are equal in their capacity to grasp an education, leaving “No Child Left Behind”. Well, guess what? They aren’t all equal. I wish they were. But too often, we slow down the educational processes and the intellectual challenges to our students so that everybody can be on the same page and nobody gets left behind, which to me means “No child gets ahead.” When I was in school, if you either couldn’t (or wouldn’t) learn, you were put into a special program that allowed you to progress at a rate that was suitable for you...and the rest of the kids from your class went on to get an education. We shouldn’t have to slow down the learning process for everybody because “Billy” doesn’t get it. Our children need to feel challenged, not bored, in the classroom. I have a grandson who asked to be transferred to a different school, because there were too many distracting and “slow” kids in his classroom. Not to be picking on the slow kids, but my grandson was bored from just sitting while the teacher spent the majority of her time helping the same couple of kids day after day, the ones who should have repeated the previous grade and learned the material before moving on. He recognized that he wasn’t learning anything. He’s now in a private school and is challenged every day. And I believe that if your child is in a private school, you ought to get the money that our government sends to the public school for your child, to apply toward private school tuition. The public school system doesn’t want that to happen, because they know they’re going to lose not only their brightest kids, but lots of money when everybody begins bailing out. So what does that tell you?