What do I think?

Cash for Clunkers, Quagmire, and hanging tomato planter

by Barry Bauer

The Cash for Clunkers program seemed to be a good idea, but it had flaws. The people who really do own clunkers didn’t trade them in because they couldn’t afford it. That’s why we’ve been seeing what appear to be fairly new cars being turned in. Fairly new meaning anything around five years old (that’s how long it takes to pay for one anymore).

After the transaction the cars are crushed and recycled which seems okay, but then Germany has a similar program and reportedly they’re sending them to Africa which needs them badly. We have charity organizations in this country asking for donations of cars all the time for the needy. Wouldn’t that have been a better idea?

As always hindsight is 20/20, but this program wasn’t any better thought out than any other program coming out of Washington nowadays.

* * *

The Detroit Lions finally lost their first exhibition football game in two years, and they did it the old fashion way.

I never saw so much mis-tackling since the final game of last year’s regular season. This game was very reminiscent of that performance. For a minute I thought I had put the wrong tape in and was watching their last game in 2008. I’ve been taping them for over fifteen years, and they all look pretty much alike.

Detroit’s special teams couldn’t catch or tackle anybody which makes me wonder why last year’s special teams coach was retained as well as his assistant. Do you suppose we didn’t get rid of enough people from last year’s most memorable team in pro football history?

I don’t know what the offensive coordinator was thinking when he had a rookie quarterback throw on first and ten while inside their own fifteen yard line. Shouldn’t they have run a couple of plays on the ground first?

It’s also kind of strange that their third string quarterback, Drew Stanton, is the only one that had two decent games in a row; and he supposedly has problems with his mechanics, whatever that means.

* * *

I read a newspaper column the other day and ran across the word, “quagmire.” A quagmire can be defined as a predicament, and that’s what he’s calling the mess we’re in over in Afghanistan. It can also be described as quicksand. Once you’re in it, it’s hard to get out. I find that rather funny because all we’d have to do is remember the ten years we spent in Vietnam (all for naught) or even talk to the Russians and we could have avoided all of this. The Russians already went through being caught up in a quagmire for ten years in Afghanistan, and they didn’t change a thing. They finally threw their hands up in frustration and left the country. It didn’t help them that we were supplying arms to the Afghanis. Their goals were no doubt different from ours (at least I hope they were), but the results remain the same – you can’t do a thing with a country full of fanatical people short of doing the unthinkable which is dropping the big one on them.

It’s unfortunate the World’s largest known supply of oil lies beneath these countries. For now we have to deal with them, but I’d give them a little more room than what we’ve been giving them. A smart man will go out of his way to avoid a rattlesnake.

Leave it to us to go over there and try to change their politics or religion and that’s simply not possible.

* * *

I just finished my third Garrison Keillor book, Lake Wobegon Days, and it was not a good one. There were too many footnotes, and at one point in the book there were 95 of them – one right after another. It got to the point where I was reading two stories in one book. I prefer reference footnotes and not a bunch of ramblings.

I have other Keillor books to read but I need a break from him, so I went downtown to the St. Johns Book Exchange and picked up a book by an old reliable author, Andy Rooney, called Word for Word.

Finally, an author I can understand.

* * *

While the government is trying to push through a national health care program it’s probably a good time to take a look at the two social programs we have now.

Social Security and Medicare are both going broke. In fact part of the scheme is to cut back on the Medicare benefits we receive to help pay for national health care. Does that make sense to you? Social Security recipients won’t receive a cost of living raise for the next couple of years’ and when you consider that the Medicare Drug Program is co-paid by Social Security benefits, we’ll see a drop in our checks.

I can understand the concerns that constituents have and tried to express to Congress in recent town hall meetings.

They’d have better luck talking to the wall, and that’s about the best thing you can say about our federal government anymore.

* * *

Our hanging tomato planter is doing well, but we won’t be able to put up any canned tomatoes from them. It’s more suited for just picking one or two once in a while and serving them sliced up for dinner.

I have two thoughts from this experience; one is to only plant one tomato plant in it because it isn’t big enough for two. And the next time I do it I’ll attach a water tray to the bottom to keep the dirt moist.

The planter dries out too quick otherwise.

Until the next time . . .

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