This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

If you have never seen the film, “A Face in the Crowd,” it is a must-see. It explains a lot about politics and broadcasting. It explains Joe Scarborough and Miki Hard to pronounce to a tee. In the film, a no-good drifter played by Andy Griffith becomes a country philosopher TV personality. Quickly, powerful political forces begin to shape and mold the boy. Then the audience is astounded when their homespun hero is exposed as a contemptuous fraud. Sound familiar somehow?  

Joe and Miki went down to kiss the giant red ass. Sorry sir, I won’t let it happen again.  “Marsha! Marsha! Come back Marsha!” We’re talking about a lot of money here on the table. It would be hard to turn my back on millions of dollars for a principle. But I’m willing to try. But then, their running as fast as their Buster Browns would carry them down to Florida has such a poor look about it. And chances are it won’t change anything, anyway. He’s dumb, but not that dumb.

It will take more than a Laurel and Hardy handshake and smiling congratulations to set things right. Just because you were a Republican Congressman turned liberal pundit is no reason you can’t change your spots again. William Shatner was Captain Kirk then he became TJ Hooker crime busting policeman. You can’t always tell the players without a scorecard. They sell beer, baked beans or politicians. They also tell the news who don’t.

But if the pregame warm-up is any indication, it is going to be like drinking from a fire hose. Not since, The Wacky Racers has there been such a convention of misfits, odd balls, absurdities and screwballs as assembled by the King. When on that fateful day when the modern world ends, and this new dark age comes upon us. What do you suppose will happen to the Wacky Racers when they shout “go?” They will scatter in sixteen different directions all at once, stepping all over each other.

The pages of history are filled with the hides of reformers broken on the wheel. During the French Revolution they killed so many government functionaries. It was difficult to find someone who knew how to operate the Parliament. Let’s see, you guys stand over there and then I bang this gavel, like so. Okay, if you have a motion. Then you raise your hand and wait until I call on you. Here is where you always get into trouble. The zeal and naivety of the reformer.

Do away with the Department of Education. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Who will do the reports? How will we know how the nation’s education is proceeding? Who will be accountable for the millions and millions of dollars? Just send it to the states with no accountability? No, look-see to check if the money is being spent properly? Who will sign the checks without an Education Secretary? Just trust to the states! Just send millions of dollars to Mississippi and Alabama and trust that all will be well. 6 + 6 = Blue. And on the seventh day, God rested!

Caesar is a kind of salad, and Pluto is Mickey Mouse’s dog. Comet is a kitchen cleanser and BOGO means two for one! Look! We have the Ten Commandments and a freedom shrine posted in every dilapidated classroom! Look at this history book, “Happy slaves sang joyfully in the fields under the care of their beneficent masters.” I can only imagine what the textbooks in Utah would look like.

With no oversight they can put anything they like into a text book. Bigotry, superstition and the prevailing granddaddy of them all, Religion.  “It was then that George Washington knelt down and prayed to Jesus.” Science still has many questions they can’t answer while religion has none. Evolution is theory propagated by an extremist sect of scientists who have closed their minds to scriptural wisdom. It’ll be fine. Thanks to modern technology they can still be taught some simple English phrases.

As simple as a pyramid with no room at the top. The world needs more Gammas, Delta’s and Epsilons than Betas and Alphas. Your kids should consider a good trade school. Lots of good paying work in that field! My kid’s going to Harvard, but your kid should look into trade school. The stratification of American education as some are educated as Alphas and others educated as Epsilons.

No need to teach about the Labor Movement or that horrible Scopes trial. No need to mention the Scottsboro Boys or Jim Crow. Nothing about Darwin, Lenin or Marx. Nothing about Fidel, the Bay of Pigs or Che. Only the facts, dates and statistics and never the causes or reasons behind them. How are you going to teach them, without dulling them into submission first? You want them leaving school promising to never ever read another book ever again.

All you need is the condensed version. George Washington and his cowboy army whooped up on the Britts and Indians. Then White people settled America, while Jesus looked on smiling. America prospers best with a smaller government. Poor people are just lazy. Government can’t solve your problems. I like being an Epsilon, without Epsilon’s the world’s trash cans would overflow, and hamburgers would go uncooked. A monopolar opinion in a monopolar world. My country right or wrong! God save the King! And for Joe and Mika, Double God save the King!

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.” –  Winston Churchill