OK, I Give Up

If you've read this blog for a long time, you may have noticed that I hate Walmart. However, I regard it as a necessary evil, on occasion.

What I hate is the fact that Walmart has deliberately gone into smal towns and driven so many small retailers out of business. I used to be able to shop at home and find most of what I needed. After Walmart came to town, home-owned businesses couldn't compete and many closed. Now, if an item can't be found at "Wally-World," it is necessary to go out of town to shop.

For years, I have resisted shopping for groceries at Walmart, even though I realized that it would be a bit cheaper. I like my hometown grocery store and remained faithful even after it was sold to an out-of-town owner because they didn't change anything or replace any employees. I was still comfortable going there. Parking is easier and the sackers still carry groceries to the car. Everyone who works there knows me and is very friendly.

I think I could go to Walmart two or three times a week for ten years and never be recognized as a "regular'. Furthermore, my local grocery offers even more services. They will cash my check without asking me to show my driver's license, they sell stamps, and have a "mailbox" into which I can drop my utility bill payments and they will mail them for me. Of course, I haven't needed the last few services since I discovered the internet, but still...........)

Now, unfortunately, in light of the economic downturn, and at the urging of my son, I have bowed to the inevitable. I have started buying all of my groceries, except meat, at the local Super Center. I am astonished at the amount of my savings. And, most of the store brand, Great Value, items are quite good, which adds to the savings.

So, who says old people can't embrace change? I still don't like Walmart, but I'll hold my nose and shop there, and keep intoning, "Change is good. Change is good." Sigh.

Stay tuned.

One Year Out Of Four

I have been listening to campaign rhetoric for many, many years, and there is a certain sameness to it all, don’t you think? When I was a mere child, as far back as elementary school, I heard the grown-ups discussing what this or that candidate promised to do for the country. Hopes are always high that significant change will be made and we will all be better off.

Now that I am much older, I look back on past presidential campaigns and realize that the promises are about the same and the results are about the same, too.

After the election, the winners are fast out of the gate, and quickly make small changes that are easiest to make. These make a big splash, if only because they are the first ones that have been made since the first year of the last presidential term. The candidates all seem to think that they can talk a good game, make a couple of quick improvements the first year, then relax for the next three and the voters will be satisfied.

Sometime during the third year of their terms, they get revved up again, and start talking “change”. But it is always the same thing they talked about before their first term that they have been ignoring for three years. Ever since I was too young to understand what it was, politicians have been talking about universal health care. They have given it different names, like “socialized medicine”, a term coined by the Republicans to scare the bejeesus out of the voters, and it still seems to work for them. The Democrats use the phrase “single payer” to assure the public that the government as nanny is still alive and beating in the generous hearts of the party of the common man.

When they are finally elected, they take one look at the problem and throw up their hands because they are appalled at the difficulty and expense involved. In other words, they give up too soon.

The promise to create more and higher paying jobs looks much more difficult to the person who has just been elected on that promise. So, it will go by the wayside, too, along with the banking and housing problems, which may get a bandaid or two. And, let's not even talk about Iraq.

And, so it goes. Pretty soon, after a couple of decades of identifying new problems and failing to fix them, we have the current situation. An overwhelming list of ills and no cures in sight.

How can we make sure the people we elect will keep their noses to the grindstone and diligently try to make the changes that they promised to make during their campaigns? I don’t know. Some people suggest that we lengthen the term of office of the Presidency to six, seven or eight years, and limit them to only the one term. This idea has some merit. I must admit, the more I think about it, the more I warm to the notion.

This would mean changing the election laws as they apply to the presidency, but how hard could that be? HAHAHAHAHAHAH! Sometimes I crack myself up. But, I digress.

Really, now, we can’t have campaigns that last five or six years due to the length of the terms. So, we’d have to put some limits on them. That couldn’t be a bad thing, could it? It would certainly leave the person holding office plenty of time without the distraction of having to do fundraisers non-stop for their next campaign for the second term. There wouldn’t BE a second term. He/she would have one shot at it. If no significant change was made, the party in power would pay for it in the next election. This would tend to make the party hold the President’s feet to the fire, wouldn’t it?

Think it over for a while. I’d like to return to the subject of the one-term presidency in a later post, and would like to hear your ideas on the subject. Don’t be afraid to disagree. There’s nothing I can do about it except, maybe, pout a little.

In the meantime, I’ll be “fleshing out” my thoughts on the subject, too.

Until later.