Conservative? Liberal? Who, Me?

Reader comments on this column have labeled me ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ but the most accurate claim might be ‘stupid’. One overly sensitive reader vowed never to waste another morning reading this dribble, disgruntled with my audacity to kindly request that the forwarding of multiple emails be discontinued because they were too frequent and the conservative views too easily predictable.

And yet, I’m never dissuaded from submitting another piece of literary babble on whatever topic flashes before my farsighted pie-eyed vision.

Let me assure you, not all of the submitted columns find their way to Hernando Today’s Voices page. There are times my ranting is justifiably trashed for they contain senseless, inconsiderate and/or a less than knowledgeable bunch of words. On a really bad day, nasty is a fitting description.

So, I wish to reinforce reader conclusions that I am indeed a flim-flam apolitical bumpkin.

Let me get Barney Frank out of the way. Did someone say, “Please!”? During the bizarre exchange between Bill O’Reilly and Sen. Frank, when the Senator was picking his fingernails, O’Reilly’s fears that universal healthcare reform would lead the nation into bankruptcy were not unexpectedly simply dismissed by Frank.

During a previous confrontation between the two, Frank denied the fact that prior to the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac he had said the two home mortgage lending giants were “fundamentally sound” “not in danger of going under” and future investment prospects were “… going forward – very good”. This was prefaced with Frankism hindsight that Fannie and Freddie were “not the best investment these days – going back”. Today, potential cost to taxpayers is $400B in bailout funds.

If guilty of anything, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is justly criticized for refusing $700B in federal stimulus funds unless they could have been used to pay down state debt. When denied, the same fate followed his request to pay down $577M in school bonds. Subsequently, a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling forced him to accept the funds, saving over 7,000 teaching positions, 700 prison guard jobs and stopping the early release of 3,400 prisoners. Upset, he did a disappearing act.

Sanford’s habit of trysting the nights away to satisfy carnal cravings is a personal matter. Besides, since when is there a separation of politics and morals? Ask Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Mark Foley, Gary Hart, Eliot Spitzer and Strom Thurmond. Think too of Larry Craig’s leg. They sing in harmony, “If you can’t be with the one you love, Love the one you’re with.”

A not-so-interesting topic on the Internet are discussions that claim President Obama is the ‘anti-Christ’ with a key reference to the Chicago Republican campaign headquarters Zip Code 60606. Based on the prophesies of Nostradamus, previous interpretations have made the same claim of George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Rush Lambaugh, Vladmir Putin and Bin Laden. It’s all piddle prattle.

I gave up on psychic predictions forty years ago when, as foreseen in the ‘30s by the Sleeping Prophet Edgar Cayce, the Great California Earthquake failed to happen in 1969 just as Atlantis didn’t pop up out of the Atlantic Ocean in the vicinity of the Bimini Islands.

Should I now be concerned that the world as we know will end on 12-21-2012? I’ll have to ignore the predictably horrible movie ‘2012’ to be released on Friday the 13th in November.

NASA has actually stated there will be a magnetic polar shift in 2012 – of the sun, as happened in 2001. Not so scary when you read the official NASA website. Of course, you can’t trust the government. We never landed on the moon!

Of entertainers, Michael Jackson’s tragic end was unfortunate but with all the TV coverage, I hadn’t watched a single program that honored the troubled child-man until I happened upon the mainly staged memorial tribute when 11-year-old Paris Jackson gave the sweetest tear-filled farewell to her daddy.

I’ll listen to Michael’s music throughout my life but I haven’t been enticed to follow the prescribed tendency of others to overkill playing his music catalogue. The tunes of the King of Pop will endure time as surely as those of Elvis, The King.

Speaking of music, I had a conversation with a young lady at Discover Card handling a balance transfer to a lower than 14% interest rate to cover a $5K charge to replace the engine in my 14-year old truck. After listening to music-on-hold, I forewarned her that I was about to fill her ear with my personal choice of music – a clip of the techno-dance song ‘And She Said’ by Lucas Prata. She laughed with appreciation and said, “I needed that!” She wasn’t aware there’s a good 30-year difference in our ages. She didn’t know it, but it was the Rae way to make it a nicer day.