“We must learn from history,” Professor Unwert proclaimed. “To quote a rather famous ‘man’,” he remarked with a grin, “‘The poor will always be with us.’”
Hot summer day, it was. But summers were always hot. No sense in complaining about the weather. Nothing can be done about it.
Thinking in cliche’s was easy. The easy way was the best. “Occam’s Razor!” Professor Unwert chirped. “Never use a complicated method or explanation when there is a simpler one available.”
Professor Unwert’s class looked on, attempting their best to appear as if they understood. The point for most was to get through the hour without being called on. To go to lunch. To sit, to commiserate with friends. To see what mom had packed for them. No, that was high school. This was university. Now, they were grown-up, on their own, so to speak.
Ah, but where to go?
It was so hot outside. Summer sucked. Winter was the coolest season of the year. Everyone was saying that now. The word “cool” has so many positive meanings. Summer was like constant air-conditioning–if you could afford it. It wouldn’t be half bad, if public nudity were allowed. But such displays had been declared a moral crime in the 50s and what with the government’s promotion of, “the new moral generation”, it wasn’t healthy or wise to have thoughts about nudity.
“The nude body is a provocation.” Or so the slogan went. The aphorism was posted everywhere, it seemed, on billboards, on welcome screens, even in the shower rooms at the gym.
The coolest pace to be at lunch was the fridge room. You had to pay, of course. That was the way all cool things occurred–paying. And to pay, you had to work. Work made you cool–at least for the moments when you could pay. Unfortunately, pay was low and prices high. But it had always been so, so there was no use in complaining.
Professor Unwert told his class, “The object of the new doctrine is to get everyone to work as hard as possible so that our nation can become rich and we can finally relax when we are in our late 80s.” The full retirement age had just been raised to 88.
“Eighty-seven is just too young and too burdensome for our fine young people,” Professor Unwert complained. “Our nation could afford to give 65 year olds full Social Security benefits a century ago, when most people died before age 65. But now! The situation is impossible. The younger generation can barely afford fridge room time at lunch! We must lower taxes and save our young people from the burden of supporting Eighty year olds who are perfectly capable of working until they are 88–or even beyond. I know some of the men out there will agree,” he said with homespun charm.
**********
Best, Mike B)
****************************************************************** The American Geophysical Union, issued a consensus statement in 2003 declaring, “Natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures.” The world is now warmer than it has been at any point in the last two millennia. If current trends continue, by the end of the century it will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years. Will you let the "current trends continue"? http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
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