Um, you don't use electrolysis, do you?

Neanderthals Are Alive and Well
By Joseph Walther



I am moving onto something else, folks. Please understand. I haven’t lost empathy for those devastated by 9/11 and, more recently, Katrina. I am, however, uncomfortably bloated as the result of a non-stop diet of name-calling and blame delegation. Of course, the national and local pundits insist that they are only interested in keeping all of us dweeby citizens informed. Political bias and prejudice, as well as media ratings, have nothing to do with their endless blather. Just ask them.

Let me tell you this. Terrorists attacked us on September 11, 2001. It was not George Bush. Neither was it God getting even with America because some gays wanted to get married. It was a group of murderers using religious zealotry as an excuse. It’s going to happen again because the United States Congress follows the path of least resistance. It is easier and less dangerous to be reactive rather than proactive. Terrorism provides a healthy supply of knee-jerk reaction and it seems to be what we dummies want. After all, we keep reelecting the same mental midgets term after term.

Here’s something else. Katrina was a natural disaster. George Bush did not cause it. Again, neither was it God getting even with us because some homosexuals were going to be exposing themselves on Bourbon Street. The levees broke under the stress of a category IV hurricane and because the local government, with the aid of its Congressional delegation, was more interested in pork than prevention. George Bush’s culpability in all this has to be restricted to his usual slowness to comprehend disaster when it happens. He can’t help this because he’s just stupid in such matters.

Finally, we all share some of the blame. We, not the U. S. President or the U. S. Congress, have turned this country into a legal quagmire in which the lawyers and the courts rule. We reward political mediocrity with perpetual reelection. Unfortunately, we don't seem bothered that Congress can't tell the difference between moving fast and going somewhere. We, as well as Congress, fail to realize that loyalty to a principle is not the same as loyalty to a person. We continue to tear our moral fabric apart because of legitimate disagreements over matters of principle. We want instant gratification, all the while proclaiming our innocence at not accepting responsibility for our actions. George Bush doesn’t hate black people because he is not a racist. He does not hate poor people, either. The latter, however, makes him uncomfortable because he is clueless when it comes to poverty.

George Bush is a president who means what he says, when he says it, insofar as he understands it, based on what his aids have told him about it. Even then, he hears what he wants to hear and his memory is selective to say the least. Maybe he’s too busy talking to that “Higher Authority” he often speaks of. Regardless, this does not make him racist, uncaring, heartless, or criminal. It just makes him a national embarrassment and a potential danger to himself. If Laura doesn’t start insisting that he begin thinking before opening his mouth, these kinds of things are going to continue plaguing his administration.

I have received thousands of emails in response to my columns. The readers have not rendered this one exempt, either. I will share some of them in next week’s column. In the meantime, I’m going to start looking at some local stuff as a change of pace. Other things equal, the local stuff scares me more than the terrorists and natural disasters combined.

I live in Delaware, the second smallest state in the nation. Delaware consists of 2,489 square miles, of which 1,955 square miles comprise its landmass. Strip away that area of landmass restricted from development and Delaware fits, albeit snuggly, inside the Bronx in New York City. I can travel the length of the state, northern tip to southern tip in about two hours, even in moderate traffic. Going east to west at its widest point takes less than thirty minutes. We’re like Israel only without the Palestinian attacks.

We have three layers of government: state, county, and local. I am amazed at this and often wonder why it is so. We can hold our bureaucratic own, too. Our bureaucrat to citizen ratio is among the lowest in the nation. The State General Assembly consists of 21 senators and 41 representatives. Why does a state with a landmass of 1,955 square miles need 62 members in the State Assembly? That’s a cool 32.5 square miles per member. Throwing in the three county governments and a host of city governments, we have elected officials coming out of the woodwork, everyone of which is unselfishly looking out for my welfare. If this isn’t stoicism at its best, I don’t know what is. Boy, do I feel safe and snuggly!

On top of this, the majority of the Assembly’s members have been there a long time. I swear that I recognize many of them from the portraits of Christ’s last supper. Some districts elected their representatives and senators via the sympathy vote. In other words, their elected spouses died in office and the surviving spouse unselfishly picked up the standard and carried on. In one case, not only did the elected spouse die in office, but he also had the uncanny luck to do so before the FBI could indict him.

We have to remember other things as well. These people have exempted themselves from the Freedom of Information Act. They can change the State Constitution without any input from us annoying constituents. Nor, let’s not forget, do they allow for referendum votes. Plus, there is no recall process in the event that we’d like to throw one of the bums out of office. Essentially, once elected, they’re there until they die. No wonder I’ve not seen Dennis Williams in over 7-years. Gee, he hasn’t died, has he?

I’ll bet that all of you thought that the Neanderthals died off. Some of them did, but not all of them. The surviving ones are members of the Delaware General Assembly. Not ALL members of the Assembly are Neanderthals. In later columns, I’ll tell you who is and isn’t. While we can find an ample percentage of them in the State Assembly, local governments supply a sizeable percentage of them, also.

Elected officials, however, are not the sole component of Neanderthals. We must not forget about our public school administrators, school boards, and our post-secondary public institutional administrators. They, too, supply a big component of Neanderthals.

We have three post secondary educational institutions, or maybe it’s only two. Delaware State University and Delaware Technical & Community College are definitely state institutions. The University of Delaware changes back and forth, depending on whether the State is giving money or taking money. They claim state agency status in cases of the former and land-grant status in cases of the latter. If we view post secondary educational institutions from a sexual standpoint, we’d likely refer to the University of Delaware as the bisexual element. They can’t seem to make up their minds.

Public School Administrators, in my view and generally speaking, are a vicious and pretentious lot because the stakes are so darn low. This is particularly true relative to post-secondary administrators. Their language is passive voice, always using too many words to express a few ideas. I suppose they do this in order to project more intellect than actually exists. Of the three institutions, Delaware Tech has the most exceptions to this dilemma. I am not going to tell you who these exceptions are because we each have our opinions. However, in many cases, electrolysis is the only logical explanation for the lot them having foreheads.

Overall, Delaware is a great place to live. It’s just that we could do with about 70% less government, public administrators, and assorted other established bureaucrats and wannabee bureaucrats. A more open form of government is definitely in order, but it’ll never happen until we demand it. In the weeks to come, I would like to discuss some of these matters on the record. It’s going to be fun. I hope you’ll stay tuned.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: TheTrueFacts@comcast.net