Friday Fish Wrap: December 24. 2010

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”      —John Maynard Keynes

The ages have been filled with episodes of mass hysteria arising from irrational fears of the unknown or poorly understood. From the Black Death to the altogether predictable passage of Halley’s Comet to a radio broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’, people have gone nuts in flocks, sometimes turning on the ‘others’ or even themselves. From drowning ‘witches’ ( old warty women in Salem or supposed McCarthy era ‘Commies) to religious flagellants.

In modern times, it seems to predictably happen during elections and ‘the holiday season’.

This last election cycle proved just how out of touch with reality people can become, with widespread belief in bogus claims of ‘death panels’ to ‘trickle down prosperity’ via estate tax giveaways to the uber-wealthy. On the heels of this, it seems we’re looking at a banner holiday shopping season for the record books. Huh?  During one of the greatest national economic collapses since The Great Depression? What’s that about?

The answer to Keynes’ question, for Americans this season of hysteria, seems to be a redux of the George W. Bush alternative to letting the terrorists win - don’t let Wall Street win, go shopping!

As a culture, we don’t seem to be very good at quiet reflection when confronted with bad news. You should note that I hedged my bet - there are always individuals, held up as examples in the popular media, who have gracefully stepped back emotionally, intellectually and financially to regroup. They are held up as examples, while that same mass media issues incessant clarion calls - with enough newspaper advertising inserts and catalogs to gobble up entire forests like so much holiday turkey - to get out there and snag up those bargains before they’re gone!

Could we be any more conflicted? Has releasing the pent up shopping hounds made you any happier as a result?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against shopping. I do my share -during the rest of the year. But it’s with a more sober spirit of late, and we have definitely spent less on frou-frou ‘want’ items. What’s made me happier has been getting rid the little worn, under used around the house rather than bringing more in.

I’ve literally taken carloads out of the closets, house and garage to Goodwill this fall. When the art teacher at a local high school returns for the coming semester, I’ve already arranged to let go of a lot of my art supplies and equipment. That’s going to really pain a lot of people who are familiar with the extent and level of my work.

The facts have changed, and I’ve had to change my mind about hanging on to a past reality that no longer fits as well as it used to. It’ll probably hurt a bit when they come to pick it up, but I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that it will be used and appreciated rather than collecting dust. I’ve also seen changes like this as opportunities to clear the decks for the new. That’s the main reason that I don’t usually resist change.

It’s too bad I can’t do the same with every nutty thing the ‘right’ and the TeaNuts have uttered over the last couple years. Their own unique brand of mass hysteria circulates on and on via the mainstream media and internet. FactCheck.org even has a year end page devoted to GOP/TeaParty viral emails that just won’t die in addition to a list of distortions to come - based on the same discredited mis-information.

Keynes would just love this bunch. They are incapable of changing their minds. Perhaps because there’s simply too much money to be made by going on like nothing has changed. Their supporters out in the back forty of Fox Land, will pay the price for it, along with too many of the rest of us, when the truth bites us in the collective ass.

Meanwhile, I’ve also made a major change by allowing - gasp! - others to participate in the making of the Christmas dinner. Being the control freak that I are, I’ve always made a HUGE project out of such dinners.

Right down to flow charts with times. Seriously. I didn’t allow so much as another finger to be lifted in my kitchen. What I never realized is that rather than making everybody happy by delivering a Martha Stewart perfect tableau of table and menu, I was making them feel shut out and inadaquate. You wouldn’t think it woulda, shoulda taken so many years to ‘get it’.

This year, I’m doing the table, and contributing a couple appetizers and the herb encrusted New York Strip Roast. Brumbergers’ are delivering veggies and Yorkshire Pudding … and dessert. Russ is bringing a salad and a potato gratin. My Mom is bringing her usual anticipated bad attitude. Sigh.

I’m looking foward to it. Well, not the Mom part, of course. We finally took the car out of the $75 per month garage at the retirement place … ostensibly to get it smogged and registered. But it’s going to be sold and the proceeds used in a more sensible way - like her rent. She isn’t willing to be reasonable about this - insisting that she doesn’t really need to register the car, or even buy insurance on it, and can leave it sit in that garage. A testament to something or other with a dead battery. She can’t get the garage door open, the walker into or out of the car herself, not to mention drive anywhere.

The facts of her life have changed, but she isn’t capable of changing her mind to match. That’s something I’m going to have to do for her and suffer the consequences. She threatened to report the car as stolen. I can tell the Washoe County Sheriff where it is. In my upper driveway.

I’ll just have to figure out how to get her to sign the title.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

-maven