While we live, let us live
Hopefully, some of our readers will recall Curmudgeon’s statement at the end of last month’s report…
…to wit: “I want you to help me build a great balloon and we will fly to Raleigh and straighten out the future of North Carolina!”
Using the history of the great French balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, Curmudgeon suggested that they work together to accomplish this feat beginning with the construction of a great wicker basket which would hang beneath a balloon of their choice, and armed with the latest satellite data on wind speeds and direction; on a nice day they would all fly to Raleigh, land as close to Government House as possible and try to talk some sense into the lawmakers of the state.
But they forgot that being a lawmaker in North Carolina is not a full time job except for bureaucrats like the Secretary of Human Services, Aldona Wos, who has been granted, until February 10, to meet demands from the US Department of Agriculture and if she fails, the state could lose $88 million dollars in the money it receives to manage the food stamp program; this means the poorer folk are not only denied help with food but it added to the burden of lack of health care because the state refused to join the US Government in running an insurance site.
“We are reminded,” said Curmudgeon when addressing the group the other day as temperatures and wind chills were below zero (this weather problem caused Mallard Duck, the ignorant icon of the Right Wing – political, not bird – comic section of the local paper, to again point out the problem with having global warming when it’s so cold outside!), that this is the year of the short session of the House and Senate in Raleigh – ”
He was interrupted by Mrs. Storekeep, who asked: “What is the Short Session?”
“Why,” he answered, “the General Assembly meets in regular session (or the “long session”) beginning in January of each odd-numbered year, then adjourning to begin again the following even-numbered year – this time it’s 2014 – for what they call the ‘Short Session,’ usually lasting about six weeks – unless the Guv calls them into special session but that’s doubtful because that puts an extra strain on the state budget.”
“So,” said Mr. Storekeep, “that means by the time we finish construction of the basket and sew the balloon proper they wouldn’t be there when we got there. Right?”
“Well, our waiting for final plans until the weather clears and the pols are in session seems to me a minor discomfort compared to the some 23,000 families, many of whom have been waiting for more than three months to receive stamps that should be processed within thirty days.”
“Entirely the correct thing to do,” said Ginger Muffet who is the brighter half of the Muffet Sisters.
“I think,” continued Curmudgeon, “that we should meet on George Washington’s correct birthday, that of February 22, and find out just what the weather has in store for spring and perhaps by then we can make an attempt to drive to Raleigh on that hated highway, I-40, to confront the powers-that-be.
“And while we are at it, we’ll take time to visit the great art museum that the state – at least for now – continues to keep open. By then we will know what the power-brokers are up to and perhaps make it a day or two of civil disobedience, that remarkable salute to freedom that until the other day, the newest band in the state – we call them the Jerry Manders – saw fit to entrap the citizenry.”
“Why do we not have a holiday each for George Washington and for Abraham Lincoln?” asked Dolores Muffet.
“Because,” answered Curmudgeon, “in 1968 the congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, by moving the observance of three existing federal holidays (Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day) to be on Mondays from fixed calendar dates to designated Mondays, and by establishing Columbus Day, also to be observed on a Monday, as a new federal holiday. It was, as I remember, an attempt to make a weekend of shopping to liven up the economy for the 1970s.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” said Mrs. Storekeep.
*Sic transit gloria mundi; thus passes the glory of this world.
Peter Loewer has written and illustrated more than twenty-five books on natural history over the past thirty years.
