Spent the weekend reading news stories driven by folks whom I would consider 'comfortably well-off' grasping for a few dollars more (don't tell Clint Eastwood I'm appropriating a movie title, okay?)
Sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp and that's not a bad thing, I think we should live out loud and dream larger than we actually are. Who better to set the bar for us than ourselves?
Sometimes we fail, but as long as we learn from that 'failure' we can look forward to eventual triumph. I get sad when, after we fail, we learn to cheat better because we then cheat ourselves and demean everyone in the process.
We had it happen in CT in recent days when a State Senator resigned his post and 'accepted responsibility' but didn't really do anything of that sort. From what I've read, he thought his married daughter was getting the short end of the relationship stick, in a number of ways, from her husband so he spoke to an acquaintance about having a conversation with his son-in-law. There was a quid pro quo involved, but what the concerned Father didn't know was the acquaintance was being monitored by Federal law enforcement officials and the law of unintended consequences ensued. The State Senator ended up between a rock and hard place, but in his apology he sounded like it was all the hard place's fault.
We have so many public figures, not just politicians, who've had the shame gland removed years ago, so remorse is an emotion they can only read about but never experience. All any of these folks do when they now get caught is reinforce the reasons why fewer and fewer of us care.
Most of them are my age cohort which is embarrassing. As a generation, we had our moment.
I haven't been able to explain to my son and daughter why I was willing to trade clean air and my beliefs for a BMW-but I did. Thankfully, they no longer ask. The only thing left to negotiate, as is demonstrated every day in a hundred ways, is the fee.
Which we can always invest in a my favorite selection on Greed's jukebox.....
"Show me an upright, respected man.
I'll have him licking my boots when I put money in his hand.
There's no one alive who can't be purchased or enticed.
There's no one alive who won't sell for a price."- Ray Davies, 1977
Gimme another quarter for the jukebox, okay?. It now costs a dollar?
Whoa, Strange days, indeed.
-bill kenny
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