Cold AM Thoughts

It's about 9 degrees here now, 9 degrees below zero!  If it hit at the airport or wherever the official temperatures are kept, that will break the record for this date.  Schools are closed, even both of mine!  I can't wait for my run, in a short while......

I know Brooks Patterson, the Oak Co executive, flies off the handle quite a bit.  He says things that he might well mean, but probably shouldn't say.  That's the case with his recent diatribe about Detroit.  Although the Detroit newspapers are filled with letters, from Detroiters and suburbanites both, condemning Patterson's words, I wonder how many people really think as he does.  But more to the point, at least to me is this--why is there so much outrage and reaction to Patterson's mere words, but so much silence to the number of murders that go on, every day!  Go ahead, pick up a Detroit newspaper and you'll find a story of the latest one.  Now, you may have to look closely.  Apparently there are so many, that is, murder had become so commonplace, that the stories are buried back on, say, Page 11A.  And how many of these murders involve kids?!?!?!  That's where our outrage should be.  But, no, more people are offended by some guy's anti-Detroit words than kids being killed.  What's happened to us?

I see the Farm/Food Stamp bill is set to be passed by Congress.  It raises again the question, when is a "cut" not a "cut?"  Of course, the answer is when it involves government, esp Congress.  In the past four years, farm subsidies spending has increased from about $600 billion to almost $1 trillion, just short of that.  So, after about $376 billion in increases, Congress agrees on a compromise "cut," a "cut" of $8 billion.  I won't belabor the point by detailing the specifics of the "automatic" subsidies that kick in if revenues fall to 86% of current levels.  (Hey, I think my wife has had a 14%--or more!--cut in pay over the past few years.  Where's her "subsidy?")

I see the Free Press ran a piece on the current "income inequality" issue created by the Democrats.  Again, I wonder if any of those writers/editors would be willing to assuage the "income inequality" by combining their incomes with those of some minimum-wage earners and then splitting the pay, 50-50.  Nah, I don't wonder. Of course they wouldn't.  It's always the other guy who should do that.  And, just once, I'd like to see a story or at least some statistics, not about how big the supposed gap is, but how much better or worse off people are who supposedly are fall behind.  That is, to use this analogy, a typical US urban worker was making less money in 1900 than he was in 1880.  But, because prices had fallen so drastically due to innovations in industry, that lesser money could purchase more goods.  And the variety and quality of the goods also improved.  (Can we discount the reformer's zealousness in The Jungle?)  Is that the situation today?  I'd like to see similar statistics.  After, how many of these so-called "poor" have cell phones, big-screen televisions, and more?  How many of the so-called "shrinking middle class" have homes that would have been unimaginable when, well, my parents were considered middle class (or, for that matter, that I can't afford)?  Yes, there's income inequality in this nation and the truly poor deserve assistance in a nation so wealthy.  Yet, I suspect, as Paul Harvey used to say, a "rest of the story."  And I also suspect the Democrats are politicizing yet another issue.  (Oh, c'mon, Ron.)  I would guess a smart Republican could easily defuse the issue, but......

In a similar vein, I wonder why the completely outrageous money given to professional athletes, Hollywood-types, hippy rock stars, and television personalities is never questioned.  It's never on the table.  Some guy playing baseball is paid $15 million a year??????  I'm not arguing he's not worth it (or worth it, for that matter), but it sure seems obscene.  I don't listen to much of contemporary noise, er, music (or what passes for singing), but from what I do hear, I wonder how those noisemakers, er, singers, make what they make.  I don't care, per se, what money these folks get--as long as it's legal--esp since it has little impact on my life.  But I just wonder why nobody ever targets these outrageous salaries.  In fact, they are widely celebrated, with the middle class fans wanting to spend even more to pay these folks--sports signing, concert tickets, etc.

I chuckled as I went through a list of Grammy winners from the other night.  It was a cursory glance, just to see.  I don't think I recognized many names, maybe a couple, but the big winners--nope.  And I felt no sense of loss or deprivation.

Now, out for that run...after I get Ash her breakfast.