George Washington’s iPhone

BudLiteGood morning, y’all. On the anniversary of the great SnowJam 2014, I’m going to take the opportunity to wax eloquently on the current state of non-public servants running for political office, and the ones who play them on TV. For those of you who don’t remember, on January 29, 2014, the collective officials of the state of Georgia decided that ten pounds of cure was worth more than an ounce of prevention, and decided to do nothing to help the working man.

Now, I’m not going to recount the hundred of things that our elected officials should have done to prevent the situation that caused people to get out of their cars on I285 and go to the bathroom in public view. In their defense, the folks trapped in their cars had no hope of getting to the next exit in time. It was all very well documented. From the response to this last week’s dusting, it looks like Nathan “Canwemakea” Deal has learned his lesson. For a while anyway.

There’s an old saying that, “A Republican is just a Democrat that’s never had anything bad happen to him”. I’m not suggesting that Governor Deal has converted, I’m just saying that mobs of folks with pitchforks and torches around the Governor’s mansion after the last debacle might have opened his eyes a tad as to what “serving the Public” is supposed to mean. We’ll see.

Anyway, the next group of people who want to serve the public by destroying the government were on the tube again tonight. Minus The Donald. Well, not really minus The Donald, they were just on different stages. I set up the Rec room as usual for the potluck supper, even though I figured the turnout would be lighter. I figured at least I’d get a good meal out of the process, even if the show wasn’t going to be as entertaining. I mean honestly, would the Barnum and Bailey circus be as entertaining without the ringmaster? Heck no, that’s why he’s got a job. Maybe it’s the same for the Republicans. They need a ringmaster to keep everyone interested. Maybe The Donald is the only thing keeping Ben Carson and twelve and a half million viewers awake. I’m just saying.

I filled my plate and headed up to the office to re-watch the documentary, “The Best of Enemies“, again. I can’t afford to drop any more IQ, and watching the two intellects of Buckley and Vidal throw verbal barbs at one another is very stimulating to me. I was headed back to the buffet for second helpings when I ran into the antithesis of intellect, Yuri Stinkherr. Yuri inquired as to why I was not watching the debates tonight with the rest of the crowd. Yuri felt that the candidates were actually having some very substantive policy discussions tonight. I believe I replied, “they’re all peas from the same pod”, or something to that effect.

Yuri took exception to my remark, and used his prodigious size to block my attempt at reaching another piece of cornbread. I took a step back, preservation being the better part of valor, and asked Yuri what was wrong. Yuri said there was nothing wrong with him, he was just tired of folks disrespecting candidates who were just trying to get us back to the values that the Founding Fathers had given us.

Well, I’m old, I’m tired, and Yuri looks like Gronkowski, that fellow that plays for the Patriots. I needed to speak slow and convincing, kind of like my life depended on it. I asked Yuri if he had a cell phone, and he pulled an iPhone 6 out of his pocket. Next I asked him what did he think would happen if he had walked into The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and passed his iPhone around for the Founding Fathers to see? I opined that he would probably be burned as a witch because the Founding Fathers had no concept of what the future was going to bring in technology. Yuri caught my point, without arguing that the iPhone in 1787 would just be a lump of plastic.

I finished off by saying I had no interest in people who wanted to take us back to an earlier time. I want to hear from candidates that are preparing us for the future, whatever it holds. I grabbed my cornbread and retreated to my office, feeling almost eloquent. I turned on Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley again and immediately felt intellectually stunted. Well, it was nice while it lasted. 

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