You might be done with it, the holiday part, anyway. Up here in DC they don’t go back to work until tomorrow. The position of those who intend to utilize the Twelve Days of Christmas for relaxed social norms is firm. The second day of the calendar year is also utilized to permit holiday casual libation regardless of the hour. This is the Eighth day of Christmas, according to some. That accounting comes with an appropriate number of Maids, all working at agricultural labor. We could have accommodated that down at Refuge Farm, but the balcony at the condo at Big Pink will not suffice in terms of floor space.

We are flexible. There is still feasting to be accomplished. In some traditions, today honors Saints Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus. Splash made a short announcement to that effect and is content he has full holiday justification for any behavior followed through the rest of the Day. He assured us that both figures were early Church Figures who defended the orthodox faith against the Arian heresy and for the Trinity. Splash tipped a little Baileys in his coffee and made a wide sweeping gesture toward the parking lot. “I think it was Gregory who was considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the Patristic Age. I propose a toast.”

Some of the Writer’s Circle decided to join him and stay on holiday schedule. We didn’t hear much from them the rest of the morning. Splash claimed he wanted to dig into the matter of who the new Speaker of the House was going to be. It was going to take coffee, though we suspect it was actually about what he intended to doctor the java with. But it is a holiday, as those who revere Basil and Gregory would remind you. We tried to think of someone else besides that McCarthy fellow might have broad popularity, consensus appeal, wise leadership and a sense of humor.

Yeah. Us neither.

The matter will be under some discussion through the remainder of the day and possibly into the night, since the House is supposed to convene tomorrow. So, the new year starts out with some minor excitement. We took a poll on the balcony, where the New Year is still looking optimistic. None of us are registered with either of the participants in the “two party” system, since we have always reserved the right to be members of the more casual Belmont Farms party. That is generally segment of voters who support “good government,” which is a more general means a trip to the Belmont property where they distill their good wishes.

We learned from H. Ross Perot’s run back in 1992 that good wishes are not a solid platform. Back then, Perot announced his intention to run for president against the backdrop of the Clinton Administration. We recall some of the issues. There was a ting called “HillaryCare,” which was a trial run for a wise, all-encompassing health care system. We are in favor of that. The medical part of it, anyway, though the events of the last two years have shaken our confidence. Perot did advocate a couple of things we generally support: a balanced budget, an end to the outsourcing of jobs, and the enactment of what he called “electronic direct democracy.”

That last part sounds a little like what just happened to all of us. Working backwards, outsourcing of jobs was part of a globalist scheme that had possibilities. Under that proposition, ‘things’ would be constructed overseas by lower-paid workers while “services” and movement of things would be provided here. We would prefer that was done in a system that attempted to pay the bills as they come in. Mr. Perot ran as a “third party,” several of which have been advanced to voice concerns the big two parties don’t seem to mind overmuch.

But with our new electronic and mail in democracy, that seems to be an electorate that doesn’t mind much of anything. Third party issues have not had much success, or at least not since the Whig Party went away. There was some mild enthusiasm for Mr. Perot’s Reform effort, since we think some of that might be useful. There was some brief interest in the Taxed Enough Already effort, since that seemed to be a useful metric. That movement was quickly squashed by one wing of what seems not to be two parties but One Really Big One that is determined to spend everything our parents tucked away in case of an emergency.

That requires changing the definition of what exactly an ’emergency’ might be. We are up for it, though.

We like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an example. Being old and creaky, we remember when a “petroleum emergency” was when there wasn’t any. Lines for gas were almost as long as the lines today to charge up our Tesla Electric Cars. Back then, we took decisive action. We constructed big vaults in which to keep an oil reserve in case things got shaky. That wasn’t an emergency, or not exactly, since we wound up selling the oil in those holes to China. Apparently they have an emergency, which is having too many US dollars under their mattress, and we are glad to help. At least we think we are. No one quite asked about that angle, but in our new electronic democracy we are confident we will come to a solution before they even pose the question.

That may take some hard discussion and another trip to Belmont Farms to deal with that end of a crisis situation.

We will see what they deliver to us today as a solution for tomorrow. We looked under the cushions on the sofa to see if there was any loose change that had slipped down there. We thought Since we just moved a few weeks ago, whatever might be in the back shelves of the closets isn’t ours. We will look anyway. Or at least tell the grandkids we appreciate their picking up the tab. They don’t seem to mind, and don’t even have a decent definition of what constitutes an “emergency.”

We think they will, though.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com