Serving the Metropolitan Area
Since 1872
July 5th
SLANTED!
By
Jack Parnell - retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate
Syndicated by Acme Features
Few years back, I watched my successor
in the House, Congressman Mayhew, sworn in... shook his hand, wished him luck,
packed the dogs and a change of clothes into the truck and headed West. Rather
as folks did during the Great Depression, I s'pose, or, more recently, as some
try making it to Hollywood to land a spot on the "You Bet Your Car!"
I took this little detour (large
detour, truth be told) on my way back to Parnell County, Kentucky... I went to
Branson. Always thought Yaakov Smirnov one hell of a funny Russian and, though
I may draw heat on this, I'll also cop to a soft spot for the Platters, even if
they haven't had a top-forty hit in forty-something years.
In the fifties and early sixties
between Elvis (back from Germany with his balls lopped off) and the Beatles,
the Platters were just about the only pop vocal musicians to even hint at
something wrong, just under the surface... their songs roamed darker
perceptions at the margins of those lazy, hazy, Eisenhower years. Homages to
smoke and sunsets, fog and twilight. I believe Mr. Stephen King came to more or
less the same conclusion... the harmonies are damn sweet but, if you listen to
the words, you're likely to find something off, something just a little
disturbing.
To use the title of one of their best
(after "Twilight Time", perhaps) something a little slanted.
Still humming Platters' tunes, I stopped
off a ways north in Springfield for a bite to eat; driving all the way into the
downtown... mostly deserted, as so many downtowns are these days, less like a
location for the Simpsons than for a minor Stephen King movie (or an original
Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" from back in the fifties, in those days
of black and white).
Springfield, you see, used to be where
they made the Zenith televisions; black and whites first, then, until about a
decade ago, the color. They were, in fact, the last TV company left in the
United States after GE, Philco, Sylvania and all the others ran off... finally
Zenith shut its door, too, and turned out the light. They make Zenith TVs in
Mexico now, I think, or maybe they've moved on to China.
Take a slow drive through an American
community... keeping your ID close at hand, as you'll likely be stopped by
police searching for contraband heart medicine... and you will find prematurely
retired steelworkers and electronics assemblers (now well up in their 70s, even
80s, some) mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. Jobs kids used to do... kids
who, by now, have copped to the fact that they're likely as not to still be
flipping burgers or temping at QualMart when they reach the middle age
A smart fellow, Bill Wolman, wrote
this book about "The Judas Economy", being as middle management
replaces itself with cheap foreigners too. Now I'd be last to
deny an Ethiopian statistician or Pakistani cardiologist (even an unappreciated
Russian comedian or computer nuclear genius left over from the KGB) gainful
work. But... after the termites finish gnawing, you see, ain't enough left from
those indentured workers' paychecks sent home to slap a coat of paint over
their relatives' cinderblock shanties and, meanwhile, people over there have to
do without doctors and videogame repairmen and such, and wind up blaming us
for this exodus.
As Mr. Wolman argues, it's become a
waste of money for Americans get an MBA, engineering, medical or technical
degree, and that is why, through the Coalition, I intend to keep alive the
spirit of that legislation I introduced into Congress, only to see it tabled in
Committee.
I proposed, during my tenure in
Congress (and still believe it necessary) that we slap on... not exactly a tax
or tariff, but... let's call it a re-import surcharge on the difference
between... say... two-buck-an-hour Tijuana wages (not to mention the
twenty-cent Chinese) and those ten dollars once paid that laid-off American
citizen. One third the difference goes straight to the foreign worker - half in
the currency of his own country, the rest in scrip redeemable through the
purchase of American exports so Juan, Apu or Yakov can afford a box Queetos or
a Florida orange now and again. So's all them little girls sewing shirts for
Kathy Lee or shoes for Nike can get legal CDs by that American Idol
little girls scream for, now that they've stopped screaming for last year's
model. A second third goes into a fund to keep unemployed Americans putting in
a fair day's work for their own communities (not sleepwalking through phony
social service or retraining scams), keeping up the healthcare (as opposed to
health insurance), emergency rent and mortgage assistance so's to keep
more neighborhoods from becoming vacant, bank-owned kathouses.
(This still leaves the runaways with a
33 1/3% savings if they absolutely have to run away... which
makes the difference between Catfish and all that high-Commonist bulldada
elephant-men rail against, as if the measure of national greatness is its
quantity of sick children, or unemployed people hanging out in burned-out
cities or in jails.)
And then? Well, I'd have to admit
final solutions to unemployableness will require a little of this and that... a
whole lot of tinkering and experimentation and the inevitable screwups. I might
ought to have my head examined for wanting to step into a place so deviously slanted...
better to hole up on Miller's Ridge with the dogs and boys, the shotgun, coupla
Roger Miller CDs and a case of Wild Turkey. But that would be, to paraphrase
Richard Nixon, wrong!
It would hurt, seeing some homegrown
Yaakov Smirnov yukking it up onstage in Budapest or Buenos Aires, cracking
red-to-redneck jokes about the mean, bumbling Americans like he used to be.
So, I'll go head to DeeCee if needs
be, but, all things considered, I think I'd rather hang out in Branson.
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