Spring cleaning time
Bensblurb #532 March 25, 2010
Spring cleaning now? Oh my
I guess it’s high time for a spring cleaning. Especially from the looks of my desk, which is almost as messy as the electronic desktop on my old pc monitor.
But I can’t simply click the mouse and hide the physical one. Thus, I’ve been trying to throw out some collected stuff, like tear-sheets from newspapers and magazines I never got around to fitting into a column or letter.
You’re surely aware that bright ideas have sprung from those sources on these pages, plus some less compelling prose which I won’t again burden you with.
Even so, just enjoying the goodies is rather difficult nowadays. I feel a bit like Noel Coward who was quoted in a recent Forbes issue: “To take a gloomy view of life is not part of my philosophy; to laugh at the idiocies of my fellow creatures is. However, at this particular moment I cannot find so much to laugh at as I would like.”
Me neither, especially when I look at my nasty and ignorant government's takeover of health care. And the soaring budget deficits (described by columnist David Broder as “a saga of national ruin”) yield more disgust.
Closer to home, I dryly laughed ha-ha the other day when I read that Forbes.com had ranked my own Stafford County 12th among the nation’s richest counties, ahead of Prince William (#14) and just behind Arlington (#9), all in Virginia. How could that be? Well, the main measure was median household income, which we are said to average over $89,000 annually here.
But “rich?” I don’t know about you, but my home’s assessed valuation this spring is down nearly 50 percent from what it had been back in 2007. Clearly, income doesn’t equal wealth. True, we look pretty upscale if you drive through Seven Lakes or Augustine. Nobody mentions, however, the flip sides, like places along Truslow Road or out yonder in White Oak.
And if you saw the stunning pandemonium at Sen. Warner’s PR affair the other day--his federal agency job fair at Stafford’s UMW campus that was flooded with over 7,000 area job seekers--you certainly wouldn’t have described our vicinity as rich. Perhaps. “desperate?” Perhaps.
But don’t worry. Washington has our best interests always in mind. Sure. You did get a first-class letter from Census the other day saying you’d soon get a Census query and please fill in and return. Handy heads-up?
No, costly. According to one estimate, those 120 million “hello” greetings cost $4,200,000 in paper and envelopes--plus first-class postage. Insane.
But wait. I promised to clear out some desktop litter. Here’s an example. Years ago I read some funny sentences in English essays by high school students. Here are a few:
*Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
*They lived in a suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
*Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
*The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
Smile, darn ya.
--Ben Blankenship
Spring cleaning now? Oh my
I guess it’s high time for a spring cleaning. Especially from the looks of my desk, which is almost as messy as the electronic desktop on my old pc monitor.
But I can’t simply click the mouse and hide the physical one. Thus, I’ve been trying to throw out some collected stuff, like tear-sheets from newspapers and magazines I never got around to fitting into a column or letter.
You’re surely aware that bright ideas have sprung from those sources on these pages, plus some less compelling prose which I won’t again burden you with.
Even so, just enjoying the goodies is rather difficult nowadays. I feel a bit like Noel Coward who was quoted in a recent Forbes issue: “To take a gloomy view of life is not part of my philosophy; to laugh at the idiocies of my fellow creatures is. However, at this particular moment I cannot find so much to laugh at as I would like.”
Me neither, especially when I look at my nasty and ignorant government's takeover of health care. And the soaring budget deficits (described by columnist David Broder as “a saga of national ruin”) yield more disgust.
Closer to home, I dryly laughed ha-ha the other day when I read that Forbes.com had ranked my own Stafford County 12th among the nation’s richest counties, ahead of Prince William (#14) and just behind Arlington (#9), all in Virginia. How could that be? Well, the main measure was median household income, which we are said to average over $89,000 annually here.
But “rich?” I don’t know about you, but my home’s assessed valuation this spring is down nearly 50 percent from what it had been back in 2007. Clearly, income doesn’t equal wealth. True, we look pretty upscale if you drive through Seven Lakes or Augustine. Nobody mentions, however, the flip sides, like places along Truslow Road or out yonder in White Oak.
And if you saw the stunning pandemonium at Sen. Warner’s PR affair the other day--his federal agency job fair at Stafford’s UMW campus that was flooded with over 7,000 area job seekers--you certainly wouldn’t have described our vicinity as rich. Perhaps. “desperate?” Perhaps.
But don’t worry. Washington has our best interests always in mind. Sure. You did get a first-class letter from Census the other day saying you’d soon get a Census query and please fill in and return. Handy heads-up?
No, costly. According to one estimate, those 120 million “hello” greetings cost $4,200,000 in paper and envelopes--plus first-class postage. Insane.
But wait. I promised to clear out some desktop litter. Here’s an example. Years ago I read some funny sentences in English essays by high school students. Here are a few:
*Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
*They lived in a suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
*Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
*The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
Smile, darn ya.
--Ben Blankenship
posted by Ben Blankenship at
7:50 AM
