Wednesday, February 27, 2013

My Sequestration Requestration

I have a requestration:  that the word "sequestration" be banned from everyday life... starting, of course, immediately after I finish writing today's rant. 

Now, I realize that "requestration" isn't a real word.  I just made it up.  But as I obviously live in a world where reality has no meaning, it's a word that works for me.  Anybody out there know what "sequestration" -- as it applies to all this doomsday stuff you're hearing on your TVs -- really means?

Here's the definition from www.m-w.com :

Definition of SEQUESTRATION

1
: the act of sequestering : the state of being sequestered <a jury in sequestration> *
2
a : a legal writ authorizing a sheriff or commissioner to take into custody the property of a defendant who is in contempt until the orders of a court are complied with
b : a deposit whereby a neutral depositary agrees to hold property in litigation and to restore it to the party to whom it is adjudged to belong 

Examples of SEQUESTRATION

  1. the sequestration of a jury
  2. During their sequestration, jurors were not allowed to speak to reporters.

First Known Use of SEQUESTRATION

15th century**
 
Okay...it would seem none of this has anything whatsoever to do with all the penis-waving*** and chest-pounding that's apparently eating up every elected official's valuable time in Washington, correct?  So, out of frustration, I clicked on the link for the Kid's Dictionary, and here's what it said:
 
se·ques·tra·tion
Pronunciation: secondarystresssemacronk-wschwas-primarystresstramacr-shschwan, secondarystresssek-
Function: noun
: the act of sequestering : the state of being sequestered****
 
Consequently, the bottom line here is that "sequestration" was the first college word a flunky found in a dictionary, who then said, "Hey, Mr. President, let's use this one, none of these voters will know what it means anyway."
 
I always enjoy it when our federal government redefines our reality...and, as this happens all the time, my consciousness is the happiest place on earth.  Too bad for you, Disney World.
 
But if The Powers That We Elected are going to do that, why not go all the way?
 
They could have called it flooperization, or frustrationquation or The End of The World.*****  My philosophy is, pretty much, if you're going to risk looking ridiculous, go all out and KNOW you're going to look ridiculous.  Risking anything suggests uncertainty and fear, but if you go for the Big Loss, you'll be much more comfortable and will probably live a lot longer. 
 
Okay, so no ... the word doesn't begin to describe what's happening in Washington.  Of course, to choose a word that aptly describes a situation, one must be able to comprehend what the situation IS ... right?  So, what exactly is going on, you ask?  What IS happening in Washington (I mean, other than Congress and The President going on vacation while The World is Ending?).  Let's see a show of hands ... anybody out there know? I sure don't.  But I do have a few theories:
 
1) The woods are on fire, and two firemen aren't putting it out because they can't stop arguing over which hose to use.
 
2) A plane is crashing into the side of the mountain because the pilot's hands are around the co-pilot's throat and not on the controls.
 
3)  A lot of millionaires (aka: "elected officials") are only pretending to work, because we the American People had an election to decide who would be the most useless in a crisis, and these are the idiots who won.
 
4) A lot of millionaires are confused over which Lobbyist of the Month is holding which puppet string.  (There's just SO many to keep track of, you know?)
 
5) A series of severe, mindless budget cuts will automatically trigger at the end of the week because nobody ever got around to putting out an actual budget (even though I think ... I THINK ... that's part of the "Elected Official" Job Description).
 
6) Each side is secretly building a Death Star to destroy the other side.******
 
So, maybe I'm being a tad unrealistic.  Maybe "sequestration" works as a word to describe this mess because no real word with any real meaning can describe the meaningless insanity that is torching the trees and flying our planes into mountains. 
 
For the sake of this argument, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat.  I'm not anything.  I think everybody's the problem because I also think everybody's the solution.  I personally believe that the reason nobody can come up with a reasonable solution to our budget crisis is because all that's on the table are tax hikes and spending cuts, and NEITHER WILL ENTIRELY SOLVE THE PROBLEM.  Even a combination of both won't solve the problem.  Our real problem is we aren't collecting the taxes that are already owed us. The Tax Gap******* in this country is the real problem.  We don't need MORE taxes.  We need to collect the TAXES THAT ARE OWED US.  Of course, with the Dept. of the Treasury facing budget cuts like everybody else, fat chance we're going to collect more of THAT money.  This country is full of liars and cheats when it comes filling out tax returns, and guess what?  Even if there were no liars or cheats, we have a growing population vs. a shrinking number of jobs that produce ... uh ... income .... that would then generate the ... uh ... income TAX.  (And because we like to give people child credits as a reward for having more children, our population isn't going down anytime soon). 
 
So, the "income tax" has become a joke, and needs to be replaced.  Some intelligent people have suggested a flat tax for everybody ... but I don't believe that would fix the problem either, because it's still based on income nobody seems to have anymore, and, well, there still would be cheats and liars filling out tax returns. 
 
The only obvious solution is a federal SALES tax, which would replace the income tax.  Maybe everybody doesn't have income they're willing to declare that the government can tax, but EVERYBODY buys stuff.  I'd like to know that my brother ... poor as he is, collecting Social Security, would still have to cough up his fair share by paying tax on all that booze and all those ciggies he's buying over at the food mart.  And I'd like to know the drug dealers are paying their fair share when they purchase all those cars, boats and vacations their lucrative, formerly tax-free gains have enabled them to buy. 
 
This is common sense ... and therefore has no place in Washington, I do realize. 
 
So, forget that.  Instead, let's all sit on our hands and watch the Big, Meaningless Washington Reality Show play out on TV.  As a federal worker, I don't even care anymore if sequestration happens.  Let whatever's gonna happen, happen, so we can move on with our lives.  Frankly, I'll bet this is going to be a replay of the whole Y2K doomsday scenario where everybody expected the world's computers to crash on Jan. 1, 2000, and then NOTHING happened.   
 
 
*Yeah, okay, that cleared it all up nicely.  Thank you for playing.

** And the last known use of the word "SEQUESTRATION" will be, God willing, the 21st century.  Isn't it dead YET? At the very least it's in a coma, and somebody somewhere must have the authority to pull this plug.

***Yes, I do realize there are women working in DC ... but I also believe that they are issued penises when they take the oath of office so they won't feel left out.

****And we wonder why our kids are so screwed up.

*****The Media would have you believe it's the End of the World, so it must be true.

******Everybody thinks they're Luke Skywalker ... but the trouble is everybody is really Darth Vader, and that's before he turned back into Anakin the Good Guy. 

*******The "tax gap" is basically the ridiculously huge chasm between what people already owe in taxes and what they've actually paid. Here's a newsflash ... you might be paying your taxes, but your neighbor probably isn't. Your neighbor is probably earning money under the table and not declaring it as income.  Your neighbor is probably on a payment plan during which he will continue to claim 8 exemptions on his W-4 and then cry to the government about how he can't afford to pay what he owes.  Your neighbor might even be a drug dealer who has never paid a dime for the privilege of living in the greatest country on earth ... and his sister is probably collecting thousands in Earned Income Credits and Child Tax credits as our government's reward for working a little and breeding too much. 

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Groundhogs and Puppies

Happy Big Ugly Rodent Day!

As I have always been a fan of the irrational and ridiculous, Groundhog's Day has always been one of my favorite pointless holidays.  Asking a primitive-brained mammal to forecast weather is like asking my brother (another primitive-brained mammal) to analyze my stock portfolio.*  Of course, if I were going to offer a full comparison, I'd invite Fox News over to the house with TV cameras to tape the excitement... during which, of course, my neighbors would be dancing around on my front lawn and passing out in the snow.

(Given that 90% of my neighbors are over the age of 75, there could be 9-1-1 calls and upsetting lawsuits to follow.)

Also, asking Punxsutawney Phil or Buckeye Chuck or Sockittome Sam** to assure me Spring is only a couple weeks away is laughable.  With the exception of last year (the never-to-be-forgotten "Year Without Winter"), spring NEVER comes early to Northeast Ohio.  When that over-bloated groundhog (beaver, squirrel, sea otter - would we really notice the difference?) predicts "six more weeks of winter," most Clevelanders will pray he honestly means it.  "Really? Only six weeks? It'll all be over in March?  Do we dare to dream the dream?"

Speaking of delusional dreaming ...

The Super Bowl is tomorrow.  For folks in Baltimore and San Francisco... and New Orleans ... Green Bay ... Indianapolis ... Pittsburgh ...  Boston ... Denver ... and at least 10 other cities ... it's the pinnacle of reality television.  For sports fans in Cleveland, it's like watching science fiction.  I would expect to see Darth Vader herding Ewoks down Ronald Drive before ever watching the Browns scoring touchdowns in February. 

My sister, Barbara, lives in San Francisco, and hasn't stopped bitching about her team since Christmas. Every time they'd win a game, she'd call me up and begin every conversation with, "Well, the fucking 49ers won again."  She obviously hates football.  And when she says stuff like this, I tell her I'd hate her if I didn't love her so much.  I try to explain to her that saying this to me would be like me telling a starving, homeless guy how much I hate lobster.*** But, I do get her point ... San Francisco is glutted with crazy people**** on a good day, so a major sporting event in their tiny little town resembles the day the power failed in Jurassic Park and all the dinosaurs got out.  For somebody just trying to go to work or shop at the grocery, it's a commuter's worst nightmare.  So, I kinda get why she's annoyed.   But here in Cleveland, we'd weep with joy over the prospect of being thusly inconvenienced because, dammit, we never win ANYTHING.  All of our sports teams universally suck.  If a nationwide competition would be held to see which town's sport franchises suck most consistently, that's one championship we'd have a shot at actually winning.  Cleveland's really a wonderful little city with a lot going for it, but decades of losing have polluted Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River with rolling fumes of inadequacy and inferiority.  Seriously ... if you stand next to either one and close your eyes, you can hear the voices floating in off the water ... particularly Stillwell Angel's from "A League of Their Own" chanting, "You're gonna lose!  You're gonna lose!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FUB8SrlQAE

Consequently, I won't be watching the Super Bowl. To me it's like being a chubby, pimple-faced high school girl being invited to watch the quarterback nail the head cheerleader (right after he spits on me and makes canine references).  Fun?  Not so much.  And I don't care about missing the commercials because ... well ... I won't.  If they're any good, they'll be on YouTube five seconds after they air.  And nobody misses pizza, wings and beer in Cleveland because, c'mon, you can't miss something that's always around.  What's special about any of that in this town?  You and I both know I just described a typical Friday night.  Or Saturday night.  Or Sunday night.  (But never during the week, because that's when we exist on donuts and french fries).  Just like San Francisco now has to deal with Green Police who lurk around at night checking everybody's trash bins for recycling violations, I predict Cleveland will someday have Grease Police who knock on our doors to make sure we're all eating something green.

So ... what will I be watching? Why, Animal Planet's "Puppy Bowl", of course!  Every year I watch stupid young animals romping around on a green surface playing tug of war with a toy while smacking each other in the butt... and then I change the channel to watch the puppies instead.  I'm especially a big fan of the annual "Kitty Halftime Show."  It's good, wholesome entertainment without all the bad lip-synching, wardrobe malfunctions and goofy explosions that make the usual halftime shows so worth missing.

You say I'm wasting my time?  Watching a bunch of puppies peeing in the red zone? (While some lucky guy in a referee uniform throws a yellow flag, holds up a little dog and announces there's been a personal foul on the field?  Ha ha ha ... I chortle every time!) 

Yeah, maybe it's a huge waste.

But c'mon ... my TV is on this morning, and I just saw a bunch of old guys in top hats holding up an obese marmot and telling us all spring is coming early this year.  If I'm going to waste my time, at least let it be on something that is cute, warm, fuzzy and loveable in a universe that is almost never any of those things.  




*"(Grunt) ... Hey ... this is your Brother Bill ... You need to buy more beer."


**I made that one up.  I think.  Practically every state has their own, so I can't possibly keep track of them all.  I don't think they have groundhogs in Hawaii ... maybe somebody in a grass skirt just holds up a pineapple?  I'll bet a pineapple would be a lot smarter than a groundhog.  Or my brother.


***Actually, I don't hate lobster. I love lobster. In fact, one of the many reasons I'm single is because I never met a man I loved more than a dead lobster, or who treated me better than a dead lobster.


**** Go ahead ... visit this link and tell me all their silly green technology hasn't rotted their brains:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2013/01/5_reasons_your_should_move_to.php