This little story came to contributor
johndamos at The Smirking Chimp in an E-Mail. He knows not where it originated nor who wrote it, but my thanks to him and to them, whoever they are.
The Story Of Butch the Rooster
Sarah was in the fertilized egg business. She had several hundred young pullets (young female chickens) and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.
She kept records and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.
This took a lot of time, so she bought some tiny bells and attached them to her roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so she could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now, she could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.
Sarah's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen but, this morning she noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When she went to investigate, she saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.
To Sarah's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job, and walk on to the next one.
Sarah was so proud of old Butch, she entered him in a Show and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize" they also awarded him the "Pulletsurprise" as well.
Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?
Vote carefully in the next election. You can't always hear the bells.
(If you don¹t send this on, you're chicken …… no yoke! )
Good for ol' Butch! Clever story and bipartisan, too. Sad to say that whether the bells are ringing or not, whoever obtains POTUS has a mess on their hands. Most of the POTUS seekers are blaring sirens and can only contribute to the offenses. The best of the candidates, even if that person does their job perfectly by my standards, will be facing a daunting, super-human task. There is a limit on what a president can do and we voters have high expectations that can be extremely contrary from one voter to the next, one hearing bells, the other silence. An ideal potentate can be ruined by opinion and opponents. We humans want the absolute best in a leader, but we are too fickle and divided to ever be successful in the selection. Perhaps one day there will be computerized, completely neutral, POTUS and congressional, digital surrogates to take us out of this bastion of corruption and deceit.
ReplyDeletemike ~ I agree on all counts. It's the trend I want to see though. What next spring's primary will show is going to be important. If people don't get behind Sanders in their millions, then I shall realise, at last, that the ordinary working class, or as known in the US, middle class, of this country don't really want what they say they want. I'll then give up caring. I wish I didn't now, but I do.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading that establishment Dems are almost all getting behind Hillary Clinton, which means (I think) that the delegates, essential to the party nomination, are likely all to be in her favour. We the People might be able to overcome an almost inevitable outcome of this, but only if there is a truly phenomenal ongoing uprising of support for Bernie Sanders. "The fix" may be in (I don't doubt it). It'll be up to the people to realise this and to show they've had enough "fixes" this time, and come out en masse to give Bernie a landslide in the primary. That result could not be ignored, even by DNC and delegates, surely?
Obama had a similar pre-DNC-convention (2007 into 2008) standing against Hillary as Bernie does now against Hillary. Will Bernie trump Hillary, too? And that's only on the Dem side...we have the ever-so-troubling, American horror story, Repub side as contenders...universe forbid the Repubs should take the Whitehouse, particularly should they keep their margin in congress. Republicans are notorious for their casting of ballots regardless of their disappointing candidates, usually out-numbering Dems 2:1, and add to that, the more liberal among us will vote fringe, other-party, taking votes from the DNC nominee, whether Bernie or Hillary.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping twists seen in the UK and Canada are repeated here, but I have my doubts. On the plus side, these next four years are the lead-up to the Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto conjunction in late Capricorn and early Aquarius. Whoever wins the 2016 keys to the Whitehouse may seem victorious, but lose in the long-run.
I try to invest just enough hope to care, but never so much that I risk anything more than disappointment. My observations of human nature have never provided a basis for anything more than hope and potential.
mike ~ We watched the Republican debate this evening (the main one, not the also-rans) on CNBC. It was a little more "sensible" than the first Rebuplican debate. At least they were asked fairly reasonable questions - though there was an objection or two on that score.
ReplyDeleteThese people just look at things through different lenses from ours, I guess. Each of them had maybe one good answer with which I could agree, but had the same person answered on some other issue, it'd have cancelled out all the good.
Yes, whatever happens in 2016 will really be an overture to 2020 and beyond. If Bernie wins the nomination it'll be a winning of the first battle; the second battle with the Republican nominee would be hard but not impossible. Same for Hillary Clinton, for different reasons. The war will continue, though, whichever way the cookie crumbles. Like you, I think 2020 onward will be the decisive time for the USA.
I'm trying not to care as much......