A Rock and a Hard Place

There is a dark and ominous cloud on the horizon of American political life. It's off in the distance, bleak and menacing, and for the moment at least, a year away. But make no mistake, it's out there, large and getting larger with each passing day, gestating into a level five storm of epic proportion. I know it's coming, despite the mind games I play inside my head trying to pretend it isn't there. I know...that as sure as night follows day, in November of 2016, I will walk into a voting booth and be asked by my country to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It will be the political version of Sophie's choice, the mother of all conundrums, a rock and a hard place of galactic difficulty, the devil or the deep blue pantsuit.

Not very long ago, it would have been unthinkable that someone as boorish and superficial as Donald Trump would be considered presidential material; he of the orange hair, the serial trophy wives, the limited vocabulary, and slimy business dealings. Generally speaking, reality television has not been considered the preferred career path for someone who aspires to become the leader of the free world. But this is 2015 and apparently anything is possible. When my finger is poised, trembling, over the lever a year from now, I will try to imagine The Donald sitting across the table from some dignified head of state saying, "By the way, you do know that I'm way richer than you, right?" A more appropriate slogan for his campaign would have been, Make America Groan Again.

Then my eyes will be diverted to the name beside the capital D...Hillary Clinton. At this point drops of sweat will be forming on my brow as I contemplate the hole in the space time continuum that might open up if I actually pull the lever for this fiendishly clever, real life Lady Macbeth. The specter of such an accomplishment-free, pathological liar running lose in the White House for the next four years is surpassed in horror only by the specter of her husband becoming first dude. The promise of a smooth transition to Chelsea in 2024 will be of little comfort to me as I consider rubber-stamping phase two of the Clinton Oligarchy.

It's usually at this point of my recurring nightmare when I wake up soaked in sweat, clutching my pillow in a death grip. But in November of 2016, I fear that it won't be a dream. I will actually have to decide between these two. Of course, I could always boycott the election altogether, or write in someone else, but I've never liked either of those options. Both of them seem like abdicating my civic responsibility. So, I will choose. As surreal as it sounds, I would vote for Hillary, basically because a Trump v. Clinton ballot is a Hobson's choice. The world is simply too fragile a place to entrust to a man like Donald Trump. The Presidency isn't a trophy that one places on a mantle right next to the gold framed photograph of Mike Tyson. It's a deadly serious job meant for someone who is, well...deadly serious. Hillary is at least deadly. Perhaps wearing the weight of being the first female President might temper her more foolish tendencies. Maybe actually having already lived in the place for eight years might have given her a respect for the White House and a finer appreciation of it's limits. Or not.

What a Trip!

Just got back from the Smoky Mountains. It's at these times when you wonder how it is that three days with your kids goes by in a flash, but a 7 hour car trip home seems like an eternity. It's after the trips when you miss them even more than you did before you left. Odd, that.

Anyway, it was a wonderful three days. There was a lot of this sort of thing going on...

Even more of this...

And this...

An plenty of this...

 

I surprised all present, (especially myself) when I opted out of the Zip-lining. It occurred to me that since the braking system of this particular activity required primarily only one thing...a strong right shoulder, I might not be the ideal candidate at this particular time. As soon as I announced my intentions not to participate, Pam immediately checked my forehead to see if I was running a fever.

So, the fastest three days of the year are over. We are back home, and Kaitlin and Patrick are back where they belong. We will see them again over the Holidays, then there will be the long absence that always begins on Janurary the 1st and ends some time during the summer. Hopefully someday, we will become accustomed to it. For now, I'm just grateful that I am able to bring everyone together for these sort of trips. I am never more proud of my kids and what they have made of themselves than I am after seeing them up close for a few days. 

One month until Thanksgiving. Sigh....

Friday Rocked

Friday was absolutely stellar. Patrick and Sarah arrived around 10:30 and we finally got to meet THIS guy

He is beautiful and very, very large. His front paws are as wide as my fist and he towers over Jackson who adores him and follows him all around the cabin. Adorable. 

After our burrito breakfast we decided to head into town to take on the toboggan ride. We pulled into the parking lot, bought our tickets and walked right in. Pam didn't have a thirty minute line wait to screw up her courage, so she was thrown off stride. Great fun. Faster than I remembered. Sarah survived.

Then it was off to the go-kart races. Despite my clear instructions to the field to wreck the new girl, no one did, and she survived unscathed. If I had two more laps I would have caught Patrick, but there's no point crying over spilled milk. 

Then it was back to the cabin for some relaxing and coffee. Everyone except Kaitlin, poor girl. Every spare minute she can be found grading papers and entering grades. She is a phenom in the classroom but the work never ends. So proud of her, I don't know what to do.

The afternoon also featured me getting beaten by my son and his girlfriend at cutthroat. I'm not sure what it says about her that she is so efficient with a pool cue. 

After a fabulous dinner of sausage, apples and potatoes, it was back to the Alpine Coaster, for our nighttime ride. It was during the wait in line when I noticed THIS...

Ok...sure, for the average person with pending shoulder surgery and bulging disks, this is probably a legitimate warning. But I am the exception, since I am blessed with superior metabolism and abundant charm that make me immune to these sort of one-size-fits-all edicts. Today brings zip-lining, which I'm sure will have similarly worthless warnings.

Meanwhile, I'm smelling Pumpkin spice French Toast.....

It's All Good

This is the view that greeted us when we arrived at our cabin yesterday afternoon. Pam just had to have iced coffee.

This morning, it's still beautiful, and my coffee is hot.

We had the day to ourselves, the two of us. We went out to dinner at the same Mexican joint we went to on the same arrival night last year. Then we bought groceries and came back home. All the while we were getting text updates from Jon and Kaitlin, keeping us updated on how many times Jackson had vomited in the car...four. They finally rolled in around 11:00 last night. Two birds in the nest.

Patrick, Sarah and Oliver are in route at this hour and should arrive in a couple of hours.

It is impossible to explain just how happy it makes me to be able to do this for my kids. Words are insufficient. We only all get to be together in the same place and time a few times a year. So these times are precious. Many words and pictures will follow here in the coming days. I will do so not for you, but for me, so that I can look back and remember it all in a few months and years when these times might become even more rare.

But for now, all I care about is breakfast burritos which I believe are on this morning's menu.

Here's an Idea!!

When the subject of politics comes up in life I have always had many more questions than answers. Instead of knowing, with anything approaching certainty, what should be done to alleviate poverty, I wonder why it is that the 22 trillion dollars we have already spent fighting the War of Poverty declared by Lyndon Johnson fifty years ago hasn't done the job. Lots of questions, precious few answers.

But today, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Progressives are right when they assert that the real problem is that the government doesn't spend enough. Let us assume first that every social pathology that currently plagues us in these United States, in fact, has a workable remedy that can be brought to bear if only we had the resources to proceed. Then, the question becomes...how much money would be enough, and what will have to become of tax rates in order to provide enough?

Much is made among the left about the 90% top tax rate during the booming 50's. The question is often posed, "The economy boomed when the rich had to pay 90%!! That proves that it's possible to soak the rich!" What isn't mentioned is the fact that virtually nobody actually ended up paying 90%, because rich people could afford to hire very clever accountants who found loopholes in our impossibly complex tax code to avoid the best intentions of policy makers. Not much has changed in that regard since the 50's. When the state of Maryland tried a millionaires tax a few years back, proponents promised it would raise 100 million dollars in revenue. In fact, it resulted in a decrease of 257 million instead, since the specter of the new tax reduced the number of Maryland's millionaires from 8,000 to 6,000. Apparently, rich people aren't complete idiots.

So, if Progressives really want more revenue with which to solve our problems, they need to offer up some sort of workable plan of how much they want and how they plan to collect it. Their answer can't involve the words, "raise taxes on the rich", without some guarantee that the rich won't merely avoid those taxes with world class accounting. In my opinion...there is only one way to accomplish this and that is with a complete ellimination of our tax code and the adoption of a flat tax with no deductions for anyone. We can debate what that flat rate should be. We can even debate whether to include everyone or carve out exceptions for people under the poverty line etc..., but our current Rube Goldberg contraption of a tax code is beyond repair and any attempts to wrangle more revenue from the rich from it will be futile. 

But here is my hunch. Even if it could be proven beyond debate that a flat tax rate of say...17% would increase revenue beyond the wildest dreams of every big government leftist alive on this planet, they would still be against it. My hunch is that the only thing more important to the left than more money for government is their desire to punish the rich. What's the point of taxation if it cannot be used as a cudgel against the "winners of life's lottery" as President Obama likes to call them. The existence of income inequality in America requires the leveling hand of wealth redistribution by a benevolent state. The only trouble is, under our current tax system, nothing is getting leveled except economic growth.

In my opinion, a flat tax with no deductions solves two big problems. First, it gets the government out of the business of dispensing favors through tax policy, and secondly, if done right, will increase revenue to the Treasury...which should satisfy the left and the right. Would I be willing to pay more in taxes under a flat tax? In a New York minute, primarily because while my tax bill might go up, my accounting bills would disappear...sorry Carl. But more importantly, Washington would no longer be a magnet for lobbyists. And that would be worth it, no matter the cost!

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

Optimist or pessimist? Is the glass half full or half empty? Is that a light at the end of the tunnel or a train?

Last night, Pam went out into the garage to take her car to the grocery store to shop for our big trip to the Smoky Mountains this week. We have been looking forward to our little fall family reunion for months now, all of our kids...and their dogs, together for three days in a beautiful cabin in the hills outside of Gatlingburg, Tennessee. Only her car, our chosen vehicle for the trip, wouldn't start. Not only that, a couple of days ago some strange warning light on the dash lit up furiously to inform us that the Anti-Lock Brake system was not functioning properly. What the heck?? Her car hasn't given us any trouble in forever and suddenly three days before we're planning a 600 mile trip...THIS? What horrible timing!

Umm, actually it's fantastic timing. The timing could not possibly have been better. Can you imagine how panicked I would have been if the Anti-Lock Brake system warning light had flashed for the first time while I was navigating one of those hairpin turns in the Smoky Mountians? How horrible would it have been to wake up at 3000 feet of altitude with failing brakes? Or even worse, try discovering that your battery is dead on the first night of your vacation?? So, this morning my trusted mechanic will go over the car with a fine toothed comb before I leave for Tennessee. 

This is how life works sometimes. Things happen that at first glance seem poorly timed or unfair, but upon closer inspection prove to be beneficial. Whether the twists and turns of life are good or bad are largely dependent upon our attitude. Car trouble is just an example of a thing that happens, and is neither good nor bad. The older I get the more I find myself dividing things that happen into two categories...eternal or temporary....

TEMPORARY.                                                                                            ETERNAL.

Car trouble.                                                                                My wife

Shoulder surgery.                                                                        My kids

Stock market fluctuations.                                                          My family and friends

Bad weather.                                                                              Music

Finances.                                                                                    Faith 

Politics.                                                                                       Baseball

Politicians.

Electioneering.

If something falls into the temporary category, I try not to lose too much sleep over it, because in the grand scheme of things, there's not much I can do about it anyway. Stuff in the eternal category demands my attention, blood sweat and tears, because these are the things that matter. If something goes wrong there, my job is to move heaven and earth to make it better. Well, maybe not baseball...but I just can't put the most eternal of games in the temporary column, it just wouldn't look right!

So, I choose to see the glass as half full. I'm able to fix the car before we leave, saving me from plunging headlong over a cliff to certain death because of a break failure. 

Definitely half full!

All In For Autumn

                                    

                                            

Today is the day when I finally get around to getting rid of the summer plants and replace them all with mums and other more seasonally appropriate stuff. As you can see, Pam has already taken care of the inside of the house. This morning it was 42 degrees outside when I came downstairs so I fired up the fireplace. Maybe if I'm lucky Pam will whip up some pumpkin spice pancakes at some point over the weekend. In the Dunnevant house, we are all in for autumn.

We are also less than a week away from our much anticipated family cabin adventure in the Smokey Mountains which can only mean one thing...my wife is in full organization mode. A couple of days ago all of us received an e-mail with an attached Google-Doc, asking us to make comments/suggestions/vote  in reference to the attached menu offerings for the weekend. Here were our choices:

Breakfast A

-Pumpkin Stuffed Oven Baked Pumpkin French Toast, syrup

-sausage links

Breakfast B

-Breakfast Burritos

-hash browns

-fruit--oranges, bananas...?

Lunch A

-Hawaiian Ham&Swiss Rolls with poppy seeds

-tomato soup

-grapes

Lunch B

-Reuben dip

-rye bread

-apple slices

Dinner A

-White Chicken Chili(bring frozen)--or Slow Cooker Beef Chili

-Cheddar Biscuits

-Dessert: Apple Crisp w/ice cream

Dinner B

-Grilled Smoked Sausage w/ onions and peppers

-cheesy hash brown casserole

-panned apples

-Dessert: Cappucino Brownies w/ ice cream

Sweet Treats for Coffee/Tea a time or late night snacks:

-Molasses Crinkles?

-Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies?

-Pumpkin seeds( make these together after carving Pumpkins)

-Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

.......I love my wife.