Skyscrapers and Senators: Help Wanted
I was reading the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, two rags upon which I base my illogical views of the world, and something struck me odd. It was not an epiphany by any means, but an irony that screamed loudly.
The folks in Dubai, the people who cannot afford to buy shoe laces for their laceless shoes, have built a building 2717 tall. It was called the Burj Dubai. It’s empty. There aren’t enough people in the country to fill the first floor. But it is the tallest building in the world and now they are broke. North Korea, that mountainous prison north of South Korea, also has a 105-story building. It, too, is empty and it was begun in 1987. I don’t know how tall it is, but maybe it’s the second tallest in the world. Their people are hungry and locked in the largest prison in the world, free from such worries as education, free thought, and biscuits in the morning. They have two really large superlatives to brag about. Both of them are buildings. Both countries are broke. Neither can identify, let alone intelligently solve, their problems.
On the home front, the Democrats and the Republicans are fighting over healthcare, immigration, and the length of their Christmas vacations. Of these one hundred senators, all of them vote along party lines. None of them vote for ideas, or seek bipartisan participation in solving problems, as much as they seek to discredit each other’s political party. Instead, they are the problem, demagogues whose rhetoric ranges far and wide, ignoring solutions. One senator charged 100 million dollars just to talk about healthcare. Neither party, not one of the one hundred senators, truly cares about the two-year-old baby girl living in St Paul, Minnesota without adequate health care, afflicted by the fifty-dollar aspirin her parents are forced to pay in our hospitals. Nor are they willing to address the eleven million illegal immigrants living within our borders. It’s not the immigrants living here that bothers me but that we’ve arranged it so they aren’t, can’t, or won’t pay their own way. Get real. It’s not as if we are going to evict eleven million people.
There is no one to solve the problem. It’s just Republicans not wanting to be caught with a Democrat, and vice versa. Appearances are horrific. What would the people back home think? Especially if you tried to solve a problem, rather than beat someone up? It’s people spending money without thinking where the money is coming from when the bill comes due. Do we need a 230 million-dollar bridge in Alaska that serves fifty people? Do we need the new million dollar bike path in Monterey? Do we need guns in Afghanistan? What don’t we need? What can we do without?
Do we need to build a skyscraper in Wade, Montana, population zero? Dubai did. North Korea did. What does it take to solve real problems like immigration, healthcare, and how to pay for these wars? Is there anyone willing to work? The Beatles said it best, “Help!”