I feel like expatriating today. I guess it all started when I heard my name appeared in Il Nuovo Cimento. That’s not anything big, but it is illustrative of my experience with Europeans. They read what you write and think about it. In America, people tend to read what somebody else says about something taken out of context that you wrote, put a label on you, and plaster their conclusions all over the Internet.
Today’s headlines from newspapers in the Wild West fall into three broad categories: (1) You need to see these hot shows, (2) Some guy running for office is making appearances and telling you things he thinks you want to hear, and (3) Al Sharpton thinks Glenn Beck is a race baiter. I made a last-minute decision not to attend Beck’s event in Washington, DC this weekend. Many of you may have inferred I really wanted to attend, not to see the mystery speakers; not because I love Hitlerian spectacle; but to stand up and be counted as somebody willing to try different things to, as local talk show host Matt Mittan likes to say, put the federal government back in its Constitutional cage.
My reasons were primarily financial, but I wish I could have claimed to back out because of media intimidation. Why go to all the effort only to be held up as a racist enamored with Sarah Palin or hypotized by Glenn Beck? Who could logically reason there is anything wrong with scenarios like making your kid keep good grades while working through high school so he can pay for an underprivileged kid to go to college while he stays home?
As for the mystery speaker, I assume they could quote scripture warning of spiritual darkness in high places or referring to work ethic. My fantasy mystery speakers would be Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi, coming out of the closet saying, “We cut you all the rope we could. We made caricatures of your silly socialist notions in the bills we passed. And you only wanted more. Well, that strategy isn’t working, so now it’s time for Plan B.”
And so, electronically expatriating to another West Country, I discovered Cornwall, England is going to be cutting positions and reducing salaries of public executives to save about $25 million pounds a year. In America, budget crises are usually dealt with by funding new recreational facilities and programs.
