The Song that Never Ends

Are you tired of the government making personal decisions for you? When I was watching the news and trying to figure out what it meant to have the government bailout those large incompetent greedy companies, I thought about how I would spend the 700 billion dollars. I know how I would spend 80 million dollars because I have felt the need to make plans in case I win the lottery. I figure I’ll have about 40 million after taxes because I’m not able to spend taxpayer money in any Willy Nilly way. (What did Willy and Nilly do to deserve such a negative legacy?) Anyway, I plan to pay my taxes so that leave me with about 40 million. The first thing I would do is buy a place for all my friends mothers to live. It would like an assisted living facility only there would be wonderful food and entertainment. The staff would treat the mom’s and dad’s (if they lived as long as the mom’s) with respect and courtesy. There would be no talking to them like they were children and they would be able to put salt on their food. There would be a bus to take them to the theater, movies and out to eat—even if they had to go in a hospital gurney. And there would be full time competent nursing care for those who could no longer be independent. We could probably get a genius grant from the some company because this would be an innovative experiment – if we needed additional funding. Oh, and yes eventually the children would occupy the house – that is just the reality. But aging might as well be luxurious and entertaining instead of bleak and humiliating


That is the public service piece of how I would spend the money. Moving on to the fun part. I would buy a house in Italy—I am especially fond of Umbria and Verona but it’s a country where you can’t get a bad meal (except in a few tourist places near the Mediterranean). It has to be a villa big enough to house at least ten couples, (with everyone having their own bath – and although I would never invite ten at a time you never know what kind of entertaining you might want to do that would require overnight accommodations. The kitchen would have a pizza oven as well as the kind of equipment that, God forbid you couldn’t go out for dinner, you could still have a great meal. Of course there would be a pool as well as a mineral bath fed by natural warm springs, tennis courts, a pitch and putt course, movie theater, bowling alley (for friends from New Jersey) and a massage therapist on duty 24/7. There would have to be a private plane for travel to and from anywhere in the world but I think leasing per trip makes much more sense. I don’t need to have a car with a driver on staff but it would be nice to have someone available for trips to the city – any city. I would spend like the CEO of some big corporation .

It would be awfully nice to have someone to do my laundry, clean my house, fudge my taxes and take my car to be inspected. but those are things I don’t have to have won the lottery to do. I need to learn to think bigger. OK I’ve got it. Since there will be no money left in the US treasury to fix education, implement an adequate health care plan, help single mothers—who decided to have their kid -- (Palin line item vetoed that in Alaska so I don’t think we can count on much assistance from that side of the aisle), work on programs which create opportunity for women or continue to fight many more wars (that’s a good thing), I could use my lotto winnings to create a national lotto where the winner would be a social program rather than a person. It would be like what they do on American Idol only different. Here people could buy a ticket for $1 and if they won, they would donate that money to the government program of their choice. Yes, I agree that if some people would be reluctant to just turn that money over to the government ... maybe it’s not such a great idea. How about if we look at the last ten years and pass a law that any CEO who has been compensated well above what they deserved (I’m happy to make that decision or we can all agree on a number, say 6 million—that’s pretty generous), has to give that money back to the taxpayers, or even the shareholders of the company they raided, or they can pick a social program but it can’t be their country club. Even if they started a foundation to help children—I don’t care if they help with a disease (after the bailout there won’t be any money left for research grants), or education or health issues, just as long as they invest in helping this country become a better place instead of buying extravagant houses, private planes, and absurdly opulent parties. They are not allowed to have benefited from the fact that they appointed their Board of Directors and the Board of Directors determined what that their severance would be millions of dollars in overgenerous compensation.

Which brings us back to how I would spend the piddly little $80 thousand I didn’t win. Actually, when I was working in my first political campaign my salary was $50 a week, which they never paid me so I asked them to raise it to $100 – which they also didn’t pay me. There it is again, I wasn’t thinking big enough. I’m going to change that right now and as long as I didn’t win 80 mil, I might as well not have won 700 billion dollars – which I could also spend in much more reasonable and thoughtful ways than the people who have been in charge and are responsible for this devastation. The first thing I would do is buy a place for all our aging mothers and fathers... It’s like the “Song That Never Ends”.

Let Us Eat Cake

Yesterday I was with a friend who works for a Democratic Senator. We were talking about the multitudes of crisis which face our country. And I was surprised when she confessed that until McCain (or whoever—probably not McCain) selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, she was not going to vote. So I guess you think that Sarah Palin being a woman made all the difference in the world and now she has had some kind of “kitbitka” (you remember that’s a word that means an old small Russian wagon but we thought it sounded like “a miraculous recovery” so we changed the definition -- and she’s going to vote for the Republican ticket. Quite the contrary. She will vote for Obama because she will not vote for someone who believes in creationism, eliminating Roe vs Wade, goes to a church where they speak in tongues, and shoots helpless animals for sport from a helicopter. She confessed, “I’m sorry to say that I don’t really like either candidate as a possible President. I simply don’t think either is prepared to be the leader we need today. But how, in this day and age can you vote for two people so out of touch with what’s going on in this country –culturally and technologically”.

Oye Vey! In Elizabeth Drew’s essay, “How John McCain lost me” she lists many reasons why she is no longer supporting her old friend. All the reasons are insightful, but I found this among the most interesting:
McCain's recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man. In fact, it's not clear who he is.

When I read this kind of stuff I find it incredibly upsetting, so let’s talk about the Emmy’s and who was the best and worst dressed. Now there’s something I can sink my teeth into. I do remember what some of them were wearing, now if only I could remember some of the names of the celebs. I'll try. I know there was a short dark haired woman who kept hiking up her dress and I know that this same woman had to take a golf cart from the parking lot to the event because someone screwed up her limo. Can you imagine. It's your worst nightmare. And I know that sparkles, or maybe it’s sequins , no it’s metallic fabric is back in. But in my closet it never went out. Oh, and both the Daily and Colbert shows won because they are funny and in fact, they are the places where most people under thirty get their political news—papers, magazines, and TV news are just not cool and too much work. Alex Baldwin is also Emmy award winning funny, but not in the same way. He's kind of mean funny -- but likeable. Mean appears to be the new nice. “Mad Men” was best drama, “30 Rock” was best comedy (but only on TV, in reality it’s just another GE media business. And someone named Bryan won for something called “Breaking Bad”, which I’ve never seen. But then I’ve never seen “Lost” or “Gray’s Anatomy” or “Survivor”. I’m kind of a “Cold Case”, “Bones” and “House” girl. I wonder what that means?

That was a refreshing break from the hum drum of politics. So where were we. There is a PBS poll on the internet that asks if Sarah Palin is qualified. It will come as no surprise that the numbers suggest she is – or the Republican technology is better than the Democratic technology. But I love a good survey almost as much as a good piece of cake or a vanilla malt, so I think I’ll spend most of my time exploring food instead of polls. John McCain has changed his mind several times about the bail out. Barack Obama has not really talked about it. Sarah Palin is cute, still has nice glasses and doesn’t ever leave the script. (Hey, Jordan is good at reading a script, so I guess she could be President). And Joe Biden is in some blue collar place probably yelling at someone with a blue collar. That pretty much brings us all up to date. Let’s talk about something far more interesting, like the wedding I went to this weekend. My niece Nora got married to a wonderful man named Bryan who is a successful entrepreneur. Thank God neither of them is employed by any stock related enterprise. She looked beautiful and they worship one another. The wedding was in a lovely space, all redesigned to meet their needs and the food was both elegant and creative – my favorite was the NJ diner table at cocktails preceding the dinner. The bride wore white, the groom wore a tux and the bridesmaids were in black with every dress being different --one even sparkled. It was a refreshing break from talk of the financial crisis, the gas crisis, the housing crisis, the war, and the election. As I watched these two wonderful people share their vows, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a world they will grow old in and what the lives of their children would be. Then I thought—stop that foolish troublesome thinking and go get a piece of cake.