Saturday, July 23, 2011

We Are Running Out Of Ink ... As Usual, I Have A Remedy

The USofA’s Strategic Ink Reserve is being depleted at an alarming rate. The ink shortage is simply being caused by our News Media writing about what our Congress is doing and not doing (mostly not doing). This crisis is rapidly getting to the critical stage.

The crux of the problem is that our intrepid News Media continues to try to get everything recorded word for word. Because of this obsession of theirs, they find themselves writing the same words over and over because our Congress continues to use the same words over and over.

The only way that we can continue to print out 2,000 to 3,000 page legislative bills is to stop printing oft-repeated words. These huge legislative bills and the accompanying  interminable speeches on the floor of our House of Representative and our Senate are sucking our Strategic Ink Reserves dry.

To be perfectly honest, if the president had not decided to tap the Strategic Ink Reserves when he did, our Congress and our News Media would have had to shut down last January. That would have been awful ... Or would it have been?

As is usually the case, I am about proposing remedies. Here is what we ought to do...

  • Our federal government ought to put up a web site with all the repetitious words/phrases and give each one of them a number.
  • As we get our fix each day of the news of the day (which sounds a lot like the news of yesterday), we would see numbers in place of the off-repeated words/phrases.
  • We could then refer to the Governmental Off-Repeated Word/Phrase Listing and see what the word or phrase that was left out really was.
  • It will take some getting used to it but this is serious stuff and we owe it to each other to all pitch in to Save Our Ink.

You want examples? Here are a few...

  • #1 could be Boots on the Ground.
  • #2 could be Reaching Across the Aisle.
  • #3 could be Transparency.

Others sure to make the list would be...

  • Partisan
  • Bipartisan
  • Non-Partisan
  • Lady Gaga (not really a political term but members of Congress are constantly asking themselves, each other and the folks back home, “What would Lady Gaga do?”)
  • Alien
  • Illegal Alien
  • Undocumented Alien
  • Undocumented Citizen
  • Politically Correct
  • Politically Incorrect
  • Politically Motivated
  • Anonymous
  • Level Playing Field
  • Folks
  • Folks Back Home
  • Folks Out There
  • Happy Camper (not really used that much anymore but, since we have never known what this phrase means, I put it on the list in the hopes of never seeing these two words used together ever again)
  • Budget
  • Budget Deficit
  • Deficit
  • Deficit Reduction
  • Revenue Enhancement (replacement for Tax Increase)
  • Loss of Revenue (replacement for Tax Reduction)
  • My Good Friend (used in the Senate as a substitute for “That Idiot On The Other Side of the Aisle”)
  • Comprehensive
  • Recession
  • Great Recession
  • Pace of Economic Recovery
  • Dire Economic Circumstances Out There
  • Kitchen Table (as in “Folks back home on Main Street sitting around the kitchen table at night balancing their budgets”)
  • Government Shutdown
  • Borrowing Money (now changed to Importing Money)

In addition to putting a real drain on our Strategic Ink Reserves, these 2,000 to 3,000 page bills are really causing a shortage of words themselves in the halls of Congress.

The Congressional Word Vendors are working overtime to constantly refill the Congressional Computers with words.

The word tankers are parked all around Capitol Hill and the guys with the refill hoses are darting everywhere, sticking those big nozzles into computers and pumping more words in.

The hoses lying across the hallways and in the stairwells have cause many a congressman to trip and fall as they were rushing to Happy Hour.

The tripping and falling has not really upset our dedicated members of congress because they have an excellent health care plan but we all know how determined they about getting to Happy Hour on time.

Speaking of Congressional Happy Hour, have you ever wondered why olives are so expensive?

Would I kid u?