Editorial

Brainstorms 7-26-2012

Saturday afternoon, right in the middle of all that heat, we somehow ended up practicing baseball with our eight (almost nine he reminds us often) grandson. We were not only pitching to him, but shagging balls also - all without a mitt. Folks it was awful hot to be pitching baseballs but we are far too old to be chasing the hit balls from a kid swinging an aluminum baseball bat in any temperature! Combine the two and we are a walking miracle on this Monday afternoon to even be alive! Oh, his ambition for life is to be a karate champ, major league baseball player and something else - some sort of scientist (we think). So far he has not expressed any desire to get into politics - thankfully!

Alabama voters will be going to the polls soon for a special called election because the Governor and Alabama Legislature kicked the ball down the road. To balance the state budget they need more money or drastic cuts in the just passed budget for the next fiscal year. The governor and majority of lawmakers made campaign promises not to raise taxes - and they have already increased many “fees” just to get this far. If they start making drastic cuts in the budgets of virtually every department, the wrath of the devil will come down on them and come down hard. Thus us average citizens are being asked to again dig into the oil tax reserve trust fund to balance a state budget. Of course this major raid of the trust fund cuts down on the amount of money in that fund. That in turn reduces the interest income available in coming years to help fund the state General Fund every year. No really good answers.

Municipal elections are also on the agenda, but on different dates from the statewide stuff above. Some incumbents chose not to seek re-election and others are going back into office unopposed. It is easy to imagine their relief at having no opponent but before they get overly cocky about that, remind each of them of a comment from many years ago about “having a job no one else wants”. Variations of that include comments about the embarrassment of possibly being beaten by someone doing that sorry a job, etc. Whichever comment fits the individual candidate, hopefully their skin is thick enough not to be overly offended at hearing it expressed by their “friends”. After all, we should be very grateful that people will still take these seemingly thankless positions in spite of the almost impossible task of pleasing everyone.

We would be remiss not to acknowledge the horrible shooting(s) in that Colorado movie theater last weekend. Not one of those people sitting there in anticipation of enjoying this new Batman movie had any inkling of the disaster that was just ahead. There are going to be volumes of opinions about “what went wrong” with the brain of the shooter and more calls for gun control. The brain of the shooter is a puzzle to us but then our insight is so far back in the woods that we don’t even understand the intricate workings within our own noggin. Personally we don’t understand why anyone needs one of those automatic rifles. However to ban them under gun control laws would only up the price on the black market. In the relatively open society that we cherish, absolute gun control is just impossible. So many of those who commit these heinous crimes are classified as “loners”. But to classify all loners as potential criminals would be even worse. Some of the best folks we know could easily be classified as a “loner” simply because they don’t just follow the crowd.