Welcome friends!
Well, it looks as though the latest political and economic crisis engineered by the bright lights of the Republican Party has finally abated so we can all breathe a sigh of relief over that. Thankfully, President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate did not buckle under the Republican threat to bring the American economy to its knees unless we met their demands and rolled back laws previously enacted by Congress and signed by the President or engaged in other dangerous anti-democratic outrages and tomfoolery. What a spectacle, right? But I suppose it’s what the people who vote Republican time and time again demand. No sense blaming the messengers. The fact of the matter as I’ve pointed out in many previous posts is that a large swath of the American public appears to have no real understanding or appreciation of our democratic political system and seems to be interested in democracy only to the extent that it gets them what they want when they want it. According to these people, mostly conservatives these days although that certainly wasn’t always the case, if you don’t get satisfaction through normal democratic procedures then you’re perfectly justified using any means available to get what you want, including such harmful and short-sighted stratagems as shutting down the government, wrecking the economy, and basically just trashing the place. The sad news is that we’re apparently destined for another round of Banana Republican political shenanigans, posturing, and destabilizing brinksmanship this January and February. Oh well, no sense wallowing in depression and fear. Life goes on. No, I think for this post I’d like to set aside all my various political and economic concerns for a little while and instead continue with my periodical critical commentary on some popular holidays. This time out I’d like to take up a distinctively American holiday that seems to me to have deteriorated significantly during my lifetime: Halloween... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
