The Inevitable

After 68 years of marriage,
90 year-old man kills 89 year-old
wife in domestic dispute.

As the health care bill is finally passed and the overwhelming news topic is now the threats, violence, and blame, all of which will no doubt be covered more or less exclusively for days (to keep our little minds away from serious problems like bankruptcy, war, accountability, and so on), my idle mind once again has turned to thoughts of little importance but intense curiosity. I have been thinking about the inevitable. Not the inevitable in general, but the inevitability of certain developments in the future. For example, I believe it is inevitable that soon “Don’t ask, don’t tell” will be a policy of the past. As I believe in this inevitability I wonder why they bother with the half measure they are now touting, a measure that will temporarily help some and unfairly not help others. Gates said the reason for this approach is not because DADT is not going to be repealed, but rather, how it is to be accomplished. This seems to me a feeble excuse as it could just be done, just as Truman integrated the army. In other words, just do it!

Another inevitability, I believe, is Gay marriage. There is no doubt in my mind that eventually Gay marriage will be the law of the land. As more and more states are already allowing such marriages it will become more and more apparent that having Gay marriage only as a States’ right will become dysfunctional and increasing problematic. By then it will be impossible to rescind such rights and the fact that it was regarded as such a social problem will recede into dim memory.

Legal marijuana is another problem that will eventually pass and be recognized everywhere. It is inevitable. The absurdity of keeping pot illegal and jailing hundreds of thousands for the (non) crime of using it, thus needlessly filling up our jails and prisons will soon be more widely recognized, along with the fact that governments are missing out on a lot of tax monies, will bring us to our senses eventually. This will start this year in California and will undoubtedly spread elsewhere. Laws in various states have already begun to change.

I think it is also true that we will inevitably lose the “war” in Afghanistan (just as we lost the “war” in Iraq). We might eventually get out with some false claim of “winning” but it will be just that, a false claim. First of all, there is nothing we can “win” there to begin with. The only way we can avoid losing is to continue what we are doing now, continuing the “war” for no purpose other than that it exists (and keeps the military/industrial/political complex going). Sooner or later we will have to acknowledge we can no longer afford such expensive busy work and it will end.

Closer to home I think it inevitable that the Snake River dams will eventually have to be breached. It will become apparent, even to those who don’t think like I do at the moment, that maintaining and operating the dams and potentially losing the salmon runs is a fool’s errand (it probably always was). Not having the dams will be more economically sound than having them and there are other ways of moving potatoes and wheat to the coast (if, that is, we still have a viable economy at all in the future).

There are no doubt other things that will prove to be inevitable that I can’t think of at the moment. And you may not agree these things are inevitable as I do. I think they are inevitable because they are “right.” They all “make sense,” and to not do them will prove to be foolishly maintaining rules and laws that are no longer either necessary or useful. Only the future will tell if I am right about this, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet on it. If these developments are inevitable why not just do it now? Of course it’s because not everyone agrees with me. I guess that’s inevitable.

On a different topic entirely, I am beginning to wonder about erectile problems. We are currently being absolutely overwhelmed with ads for Viagra, Cialis, and other products designed to help men with erectile dysfunctions. I recently heard on one ad somewhere or other that “millions of men have now used “x” (one of these “aids”). It occurs to me that if that many American males are having problems with their erections, there must be some more serious problem involved, like maybe bad water, poor diets, oedipal guilt, mother fixations, maybe even talk radio or global warming. That is, it doesn’t seem “normal” to me that so many American men apparently suffer from this problem. Of course they could just want more and more sex and the limpness they experience is simply from exhaustion and overindulgence.

One final stupid question: will automobile insurance eventually be free? I ask this because I know little or nothing about economics and I hear repeatedly that the marketplace will determine prices. As there are now almost as many ads for car insurance as there are for erectile dysfunction, and as each of these companies claims to have substantially lower prices than the others, if this keeps on, will the “product” be reduced in price sufficiently by the competition to be given away (perhaps as a bonus for buying life insurance or flood insurance or something else entirely)? I realize this is a stupid question, but if I can buy furniture with no money down and no payments or interest for “x” amount of time, why can’t I get anything I want in much the same way? It’s the American way.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
Thomas Gray