Sugar for Sugar, Salt For Salt

[dweller]

Go Down In The Flood Gonna Be Your Own Fault
by Christopher Cooper

This won't take long. And it won't be much fun. But duty and decency demand that we do it.

Sometimes you buy a cantaloupe because it looks good and you have enjoyed some fine ripe cantaloupes in your time, even though
a buck and a half for a little melon that went three for a dollar within living memory seems pretty pricey. And you leave it on the
kitchen counter for a few days, because it's a little green, but it softens and gets a better color so you slice it open, but it's mushy
and rotten and smells like feet and tastes like vomit and you remember other, similar, corporate grocery chain cantaloupe
experiences and vow as you heave the mess into the compost not to get fooled again.

Maybe you've bought a car. Reasonable mileage, no rust, convincing salesman who chatted you up about your hobbies, agreed with
your prejudices, and made you feel you were a pretty clever guy for choosing this vehicle from his selection. But you couldn't keep it
aligned, it ate tires, the brakes, exhaust system and radiator didn't survive the life of the payment book, and when you tried to sell it
three years later every seventeen-year-old who looked at it was astute enough to reference the oil blown past the rear main seals as
his reason for declining your “Best Offer Over $500 Dollars” prayer.

Some of you lady readers married men whose virtues are now no more apparent to you than they were pre-nuptually to your
mothers, friends or even relatives of the groom himself. True, he was a successful inseminator but, sadly, the children look
disturbingly like him. Of you, people say, “She could have done so much better.” What were you thinking? What can you do?

Or let's say a whole country was riding a foaming crest of good times, new cars, low interest rates, affordable gas, electronic
gadgets and a We're Number One world view that was maybe weak on history, geography and empathy, but sure did by God show
the big stick to the heathen foreigners. Such a people might toss a coin in a contest between a dorky, dull Democrat and an insipid
dry drunk Texas fratboy Republican whose every and many failures had been rendered moot by family money and connections.
They might not be paying much attention.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0915-28.htm

dp

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. It's too bad that the people who need to read things like this

never see things like this.