Golly, Goodbye To All That

Was 2018 – And Welcome To Whatever

To the Editor:

2018 – Farewell. Actually, farewell is an optimistic term, but there is a better expression: good riddance.  Complaints about the past 12 months …

Unregulated patent medicine ads supposedly improving mental function; as well, pills that do miraculous cures and improvements (making “it” larger, disposing of wrinkles, growing hair). Since 1906, the government supposedly regulates such food and drug fraud. The agency is now narcotized by lobbyists and cash gifts.

Cars advertised on TV speeding recklessly or traveling across rocky wastes nobody with any sense would travel. Owning four-wheel-drive vehicles supposedly makes drivers immune to recklessness. Ice storms in the South and border states result in accidents caused by speed in bad road conditions. Cause? Never covered.

Money in campaigns – the U.S. did not invent “money talks,” but was the first to make it a legal doctrine. Cash is supposedly a form of “free speech” guaranteed by the ill-quoted U.S. Constitution. If paper could weep, that document would flow with resentment about its ill-use.

As for talking money, it’s amusing to put Lincoln, Jackson, Hamilton, and, if one temporarily has him, Franklin propped on the nightstand for evening conferences. Lincoln is the best of the lot with both wit and brevity, and lots of people carry five bucks. Washington is also a good candidate – but not very humorous. It’s also very difficult to find a crisp and clean dollar bill to prop against a bedside lamp.

Following the news, but where is it? The most important piece of recent legislation was the tax give-away. The largest corporations don’t pay federal taxes. Paradoxically, they now pay even less? How do you subtract from O? Has there been a single series of “news” about the tax frauds? No. Instead, there can’t be enough time and space devoted to national leaders during their uncivil toilet-training accidents. Any news about the stench from the national debt?

Flying national corpses about the country before (at last) burials – We haven’t yet elected Nero as president, but the final send-offs are grotesque. How about Evita Peron as a model? No. This is a republic supposedly devoted to understatement!

So: Where’s the first presidential cremation, no coffin, and a ceremony lasting a single hour without vocalists singing off-key?

ROBERT MOYNIHAN

Cooperstown