Ground Hog’s day marks the ‘middle’ of, the further north you go, a much longer, er, ‘heating season.’
Still, early February remains the ‘half-way mark’ (and if you do the math it’s six weeks until March 21, regardless of what the famous Pennsylvania rodent sees or doesn’t see…)
In the off chance that he doesn’t ‘see his shadow’ the ‘just around the corner’ proclamation still leaves us looking at a big honkin’ window. Could be three weeks, could be five and a half…depends on how far south you live…
Which brings us to the opposite side of the equation. If you live far enough north ‘heating season’ can last until the beginning of June! (Again, regardless of what the rodent sees…)
With the darkening approach of another ice-hard Saturday night in western Maine, the man on the telephone was pleading for help, again. His tank was nearly dry, and he and his disabled wife needed precious heating oil to keep warm. Could Ike help out? Again?
Ike Libby, the co-owner of a small oil company called Hometown Energy, ached for his customer, Robert Hartford. He knew what winter in Maine meant, especially for a retired couple living in a wood-frame house built in the 19th century. But he also knew that the Hartfords already owed him more than $700 for two earlier deliveries.
The oil man said he was very sorry. The customer said he understood. And each was left to grapple with a matter so mundane in Maine, and so vital: the need for heat. For the rest of the weekend, Mr. Libby agonized over his decision, while Mr. Hartford warmed his house with the heat from his electric stove’s four burners.
With nearly half of US households on some variety of ‘food assistance’ it is rather, er, ‘misleading’ to talk about a single struggling home, er, renter in the Boonies of Maine. (The article advises ‘the Hartfords’ moved there a couple of months ago from the Pacific Northwest.)
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have never been economic powerhouses, all three have ‘tourist centric’ economies. If the tourists don’t come, they starve.
So the on-going ‘depression’ has really spread things thin for those who rely on the ‘kindness of strangers’.
Worse, yesterday’s ‘politically motivated’ jobs report isn’t helping matters either.
You can’t ‘massage’ a bad economy away. You can no sooner lie your way to prosperity than you can print your way out of debt!
Yet they are attempting to do both!
Worse, you are supposed to believe their lies while they loot the country for everything they can grab!
(I mean, why lie if there’s nothing in it for you?)
Sure, we are, er, ‘surrounded’ by spineless ‘yes-men’ but the ‘nothing for nothing’ rule still applies.
Yeah, there’s a definite downside of being the ‘bearer of bad tidings’ but that downside multiplies a hundred fold if you are the bearer of a lie!
‘The public trust’ is an oxymoron if there ever was one but the French Revolution teaches us what happens when you, er, ‘disrespect the fate of the common man’…
It is then that you receive schooling in your own mortality.
Most would opine that we need not go that far to effect change (revolution) but ‘some’ would opine that we are already well beyond a remedy of ‘words alone’.
Some (like my humble self) would point to the last Great Depression and complain the reason we suffered from a repeat so soon is directly related to our failure to ‘properly punish’ the miscreants who caused the last rupture!
(Truth be told, good citizen, the criminals who crippled the global economy the last time got away ‘scott-free’, it was ‘assumed’ that the 90% marginal tax rate would serve as sufficient punishment.)
Sadly, they were, er, ‘mistaken’, much to our current chagrin.
Thus the ‘need’ to completely overhaul the system and how it works.
It is also well known that ‘convicting’ a wealthy individual and slapping them in irons is a ‘temporary measure’ at best. If you’ve got enough ‘clout’ you’ll serve a little time in ‘minimum security’ facility and you’ll be ‘pardoned’ by whatever executive (state or national) is departing office.
This, as the old saying goes, ‘will not do!’
Naturally, I belabor the obvious when I point out the ‘necessity’ of cleaning house prior to rebooting the system.
There will be ‘no change’ if we accept a new order designed by the same people who ran the old order into the ground!
We cannot, as a species, afford to lose the battle for basic human rights again!
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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