01-May-2009
The bumper sticker has been around for a long time now. It has suffered some setbacks given the nature of various glues and how those glues can bond with plastic bumpers in ways they never did with chrome bumpers. But they’re still funny on occasion, and still a nice way for someone to wear a particularly goofy or kinky or quirky view out in public. The other day, though, I was out on a walk and came upon a car in a parking lot with a bumper sticker that was so gut-wrenching I think I stood there for a full minute or so just staring at it: My Daughter Was Killed By A Drunk Driver.
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I got a kick out of a news clip I saw on television showing some Somalian pirates dividing up their zillion dollar ransom on the deck of a freighter. Since neither checks nor credit cards are acceptable to the Somalians it was all in cash. I’ve been on a freighter at sea. It’s windy. It’s not a good place to be sorting cash. These are not smart people.
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Can you really be a swashbuckler with an AK-47 and not a sword? What about the eye patch? The only thing you could see on that young Somalian pirate brought to New York for trial was his grin. Clearly, pirates have been vastly downsized.
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Speaking of television, our old TV finally started giving out after seventeen years so we had to get a new one. Used to be, when you needed a TV you went into a store, found one that looked good, and bought it. Not today. I started the process with my son-in-law’s television issue of Consumer Reports. From there I moved on to a similar edition of Money from my son. After that, it was research: plasma, LCD, LED; 720p, 1080p; Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, etc.; screen size: 32”, 37”, 40” or bigger ; and, last but hardly least, price: a decision range of $500 to $3500. Then, of course, where to buy: online or in a store – Best Buy, Crutchfield, Amazon. Not as easy as it sounds since most online venues offered free shipping. Truthfully, I didn’t put in this much effort the last time I bought a new car.
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I think we could make a huge dent in our recession if we sent a couple of Ford and Chevy dealers down to Cuba. Much has been made – usually admiringly – over the years in news features about how Cubans keep their old American cars going with little more than wire and a lot of prayer. Really – some of those cars are more than fifty years old. That’s older than my car.
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This other little thorn in my thoughts is kind of painful. I walk, you see, not only for exercise but to keep persuading myself there are still places for me to go. I walk by public buildings, though, and I look up and I see the U.S. flag and then I see the Illinois flag and I’m okay with flags. But the third flag bothers me more and more with each passing year. The third flag? That black flag so many of them have with POW-MIA on it. Some things just need to be put away. That’s not the same thing as saying they should be forgotten. I mean, the POW-MIA flag came out of the Vietnam war but that was almost forty years ago. Are there really people who believe that any of our soldiers who are still over there aren’t either over there willingly and living a decent life, or dead?
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Speaking of the annoyances of war, I also get annoyed when I see Illinois license plates signifying that the holder of the plate was a prisoner of war. This is something one announces with pride? To paraphrase an old saying from classical literature: You come back from battle either carrying your shield, or on it.
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Many things happen during a recession, but I’m convinced that great social change is not one of them. Again and again these days, however, you hear the econopundits raising the prospect that this recession is going to fundamentally alter the very nature of American life. Those pundits need to be told that someone always says that in the middle of a recession. But it hasn’t happened yet and I’ve been through about a dozen of them, official and unofficial.
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Kindle thoughts (don’t have one yet): Reading can get you through many things, but it won’t get you through a power outage once your battery runs out. I like walking into a house with lots of books on bookshelves, books, magazines, and newspapers scattered about. How impressed can I be with a Kindle on a coffee table with the owner telling me it holds 322 books, three newspapers, and twelve magazines? Part of the joy of reading is lending someone that book you couldn’t put down. Are you going to lend someone your $400 Kindle that contains the entirety of your library? What happens if you lose your Kindle? Drop it? Leave it out on the deck in the rain?
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Is there a better way to start a swine flu panic than by having dozens of officials from dozens of countries telling us there’s no reason to panic? Excuse me a second. I feel a sneeze coming on. I feel a sneeze coming on!!!!!!
G. K. Wuori © 2009
Photoillustration by the author
