TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

Ready for an insanity test?

ADVERTISEMENT

By Raleigh Whiteman | Highlands Today

Published: April 29, 2009

It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started:
During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the director what the criterion was that defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

"Well," said the director, "we fill up a bathtub, and then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

100 days ago

My opinion is that actually today is the 100th day of President Obama's term of office. Regardless that other learned men say that it was not necessary for him to take the oath of office correctly, these two very educated men would not have gone to the trouble of re-doing the oath on Jan 21 because of errors in the days before.

After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama took the oath of office again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday nigh, January 21st at the White House; a rare do-over.

Politics and freebies

As a conservative Republican, I have mostly believed that I differ in my politics and beliefs from the liberal Democrat in that although I know that there are many who deserve and absolutely need some form of welfare relief, I also believe that the welfare system is far behind in enforcing the rules by which those who are receiving welfare are policed.

My thinking is that the Democrats have been very liberal in keeping those receiving welfare on welfare so that they have their votes in their pockets on election day, and so far the Republicans have remained quiescent in letting them do so, while they depended on the affluent, well to do, working population to overcome the threat.

It did not happen this year and we now have, arguably, the most liberal Democrat the country has ever experienced, including FDR.

Big spenders, them Democrats

During the past 100 Democratic days, they have handed out more than a trillion dollars to help banks, home builders, automobile makers, insurance companies, individuals and many others who have indulged in bad business deals, over-produced automobiles, built too many houses, loaned too much money to non-qualified buyers, and allowed the stock market and investment firms to do anything they wanted without fear of getting caught. It is throwing good money after bad, which will lead to more very large unpaid loans and a deficit, which may cause the total collapse of our economy.

As you are reading this column our president has almost completed his first 100 days of his fledging presidency. We may not like many of his actions in the past 100 days, but as far as I can remember I have not seen any one else suggesting what else could have been done in attempts to help the banks, auto industry, insurance and private enterprise in some form of recovery besides bankruptcy and failure.
Somehow, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, made it work.
Was it WWII?

Raleigh Whiteman, of Lake Placid, is a contributing writer to Highlands Today. You can reach him on the Internet at rwwhiteman@comcast.net

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT