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The week of April 7 marked 35 years that humble has made this radio program for you. --- Around 1820 shows. He was a kid of 42 when he started driving to Orono every week to make this program.

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Rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for June 23, 2013

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Rants June 23, 2013

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1. Even old people who still don't know the difference between an ipod and an ipad are aware that it is possible to hide a tracking device in a vehicle so its location can be pinpointed at any time. Which is why we sneer at current crime programs when the heroes are baffled after a crook steals their car or van. When the system was a new feature in some kind of car, a man who was on a ferry half way between Rockland and Vinalhaven thought he would test it out, so he called in and asked them to locate his vehicle. There was a long pause before the techie replied, "It's on a very long bridge in Maine."

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2. The way I understand it, the magic box our friend Jo attached to our television set the other day enables us to watch programs for free. I called our cable company and told them to cut off the 21 channel part of our cable television package. Since then they have called us two or three times a day, probably because they want to know why we don’t want to pay $20 a month to watch people sell us jewelry or exercise machines. The magic box shows promise and should pay for itself in a year. The magic box is very much like your solar panels that give you free heat and free electricity. The only element that will gouge us now is the cable that brings the Internet into our homes. --- Without which life in this civilized world is, as everyone knows, impossible. Yes, the magic box is now a way of life in our home and I can’t say I’m comfortable with it yet. When you watch the first of the 32 Columbo programs on the magic box, and you can line them all up and watch them in order, there is no break every five minutes to bring you a message from a pill-pushing sponsor who would either remove or replace stiffness in aged joints. One hour programs only last 42 minutes. No butterflies flutter about on your screen touting the nutrients in a dog food that looks so good the children beg to try it. No more will you have the opportunity to wonder how every insurance company in America can give you a policy that is $700 cheaper than any other insurance company in America. There is something sneaky and un-American about watching commercial-free television. One has the disturbing feeling that one has joined a cult. --- That one is participating in some dirty illicit act that will someday bring a knocking at the door just before dawn. A skeptic might also well ask what you’ll do after you’ve watched all 32 episodes of Columbo and all 132 episodes of Monk at least twice. You are then in no better position than your neighbor who has watched every one of the very bloody NCIS program six times. --- You might have been told that deciding for yourself what you want to watch on commercial free television can be compared to drinking beer or wine: after a year or two you don’t even notice the nasty taste and you wonder why everyone else isn’t doing it.

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3. Are you ready for The humble farmer question of the week? Listen closely. A minister who is about to officiate at an outdoor marriage ceremony (which is being held next to a lighthouse) finds that a stiff off shore breeze is blowing his tunic wildly around his head. He solves his problem with 18 or so inches of duct tape. This marriage ceremony took place in A. West Palm Beach, Florida. B. Malibu, California or, C. Port Clyde, Maine.

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4. I replied to a female friend’s email with these words. “If you had not jumped to the incorrect conclusions, the world of letters would have been deprived of a nice column which I hope will be printed in the paper tomorrow. So here's one more thing for which I owe you. Now I notice that the meaning in my post was neither cloudy nor capable of misinterpretation. If either the man sent the article to me or he wrote the article, and his name isn't on the article, the only logical option is that he must have sent it to me. I am belaboring a point here which I would never do one on one with my wife. It is ok to do this with friends but with your wife it is much more prudent to say nothing because there is nothing to be gained by being right in a discussion with your wife.”

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5. Many years ago one of my boyhood friends moved down to Georgia. When I next saw him a few years later he told me he'd joined the KKK. An uneducated man, he probably just naturally fell in with the way things were so he'd feel comfortable with his friends in the workplace. --- And perhaps be less likely to have a plank accidentally drop on his head. Any Maine boy who served in the military in 1953 will tell you that his shipmates from the deep south would often nonchalantly chat of lynchings or signs at the town line saying who had better not be in that town when the sun went down. Taylor Branch has written thick books about what happened in the South in the 10 or so years following 1953, so what was heard on the mess deck by young Maine sailors back then were gross understatements. When I read that a business in Georgia was moving to Maine I couldn't help but wonder if southern managers bring their work ethic with them when they come up here. It might be too much to expect people to change the way they think in only 60 years, but what they say out loud has thankfully been regulated by legislation.

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6. One day while on an airplane, much to my surprise my seatmate pulled out a salad. Most anyone would carry aboard some little sweet or goodie to eat instead of a salad. I couldn’t contain my amazement and I complimented her on her healthy choice. Don’t you agree that too many people don’t give a fig about what they eat? And here was a woman who obviously cared about not only how she looked, but about her health in general. As she ate that salad you can imagine how I ranted and raved about how she impressed me and how great if this country would be if more people followed her example. As you can believe, she ate every last green leaf of that salad, and then she washed it down with two little bottles of gin.

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7. It is not usual for people who have not read much or people who have not ventured far from their home town to know the difference between communism and socialism. This was called to my attention by a letter to the editor written by a person who obviously didn’t know the difference between the two. Even as there is a difference between fascism and socialism, there is a difference between fascism and communism. And, I have a raft of friends in Holland, Sweden and Norway who will tell you that there is a big big difference between their socialism and the communism of China. Whether anyone in this greatest country in the world likes it or not, the standard of living is higher in Holland and Denmark than it is here in the United States simply because the people have gone to the polls and voted in socialism. We are not surprised that so many untraveled people do not know the difference between all of these -isms, but we are distressed when they use the terms without knowing what they mean. We encourage our friends to study these terms or to even visit other countries so they can see for themselves what communism or fascism or socialism is. The person who wrote the letter that got me started on this said something about what we could do to feel safe from terrorists. Many of my friends have pointed out that if they wanted to feel safe from terrorists, they would stop creating them by invading other countries and shooting any native who tries to defend his home or school or place of worship. Please remember that we are not fighting and shooting people to root out terrorists. We're over there to support our ammunition business.

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8. You might have read in the paper that "Most Republicans opposed the tax increases and advocated for deeper spending cuts, especially in public assistance programs. Many Democrats wanted to spend more on education and roll back state income tax cuts enacted by the GOP-led Legislature in 2011" When you read things like that do you get the impression that one party seems to support wealthy people, and that the other party seems to support small business owners and people who work for an hourly wage? Does it make you wonder where some of your friends hear things that encourage them to consistently vote against their own economic interests? Did you recently learn that public assistance to hourly wage earners who are paid so little that they need food stamps, is how the government subsidizes the corporations that pay those low wages? Does this mean that an unknown but probably very large portion of corporate America is on welfare? And isn't it interesting that the two groups of people with low wages (those who earn barely enough so they can't get food stamps and those who fall below the line and do qualify) bicker between themselves instead of voting out the folks who profit by this unfortunate arrangement? Doesn't it make you wonder?

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9. When you read that our governor said he’d rather let state government shut down than sign the budget did you get the feeling that you’d heard something similar before? The bottom line in this, and any similar legislative struggle, seems to be who gets your tax dollars. Will the legislation benefit small business owners and hourly wage earners or the large corporations that have their dark-suited representatives continually haunting the hallowed legislative halls? Because my stock portfolio is somewhat less than a million dollars, I am unfortunately not dependent upon stock dividends for my livelihood --- so I have always supported the team that works to increase the income of my Maine neighbors who do not own second homes on Bermuda. The handful of folks who ski in Austria winters and sail the Maine coast summers also own the media, so is it surprising that many honest, hard-working Maine people can be convinced to vote against their own economic interests come election time? --- And even write letters to newspapers cheering on the folks who are systematically robbing them? Oh, did you remember where you’d heard about this shutting down business before? You may recall a recent presidential candidate who got very rich by getting control of a company and then doing anything that would put money in his own pocket at the expense of many people --- who wanted no more than the opportunity to work hard every day for fair wages. In short, breaking it up, selling it off, shipping it elsewhere, shutting it down. Is it not instructive to see what happens when the state of Maine is also run just like a business?

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