Tilting at Nothing

Today's Saying

Praises for our past triumphs are as feathers to a dead bird. ~Paul Eldridge

From one side of the medieval stadium comes the night in shining armor . He strides to the middle of the arena and begins to flail away. He strikes, he parries, he thrusts. There is nothing there but the crowd on his side goes wild. He is obviously winning.
Now from the other side of the arena comes another knight in shining armor. He spits at the first night then ignores him. Now he strikes, parries, thrusts against the nothing on his side. His crowd goes wild . He is obviously winning.
This is the way I see the health care debate since the public hearings.
Senator after senator made it clear there was no health care bill that had even come out of committee.
There were proposals but no bill.
That means my friends on the right are attacking what isn’t there.
Yes, a bill could emerge with their worst fears in it. Yes , it is possible all those dire things could happen.
Yes the economy could be badly hurt.
Yes health care might end up rationed.
Yes every nightmare could come true.
But there is no bill.
They attack dreams, nightmares, possibilities.
All in this insane world in which we live could happen.
Or maybe they won’t.
But there is no bill. How can one decide if it is bad or good if it isn’t there?
Now my friends on the left aren’t any better.
They have rushed to defend the bill that hasn’t be written yet.
It won’t cause problems for people on social security.
It won’t ration medical care.
You can still see your own Doctor.
They pour out assurance .
They defend the very clear nothing that hasn’t come out of committee.
Of course it isn’t their intention to produce a bill with those bad consequences.
But what you intend and what a bill does are often two different things.
The Patriot Act wasn’t intended to make it hard for an old man like me to vote or open a bank account. But it did.
Legislation often ends up doing things it wasn’t supposed to do. Sometimes, history teaches, even things we were assured it wouldn’t do.
Without a bill how can one defend it?
But the true believers on both sides applaud every action their side takes. They proclaim it on blogs. They point out how such and such a person really let those SOBs on the …… have it.
But if you aren’t a true believer of one side or the other all those people stabbing nothing is really kind of funny.
If you don’t laugh you’ll cry.

(Click on the Pigeon Falls Graphic for previous chapters.)

Mrs. Trumble stopped in to Nancy's for a cup of tea and a saffron bun. She shared with Nancy the problem with tuning a piano half of the parts of which are there but aren't there. Nancy suggested they get a Ghost Whisperer like they have on television to help them. Mrs. Trumble pointed out that it was just a TV show and not real life. In real life there probably are no such things as Ghost Whisperers.
At that Nancy began laughing. We livge in a town that dragons fly over, that has a whale in the lake, where a ghost plays a piano, where bodyless heads roll around and spit and you don't think there can be Ghost Whisperers in real life.
The conversations was interupted by a cup of coffee rising from the table and then smashing to the floor.
" Woops!" Nancy said" And where a poltergeist inhabits a local coffee shop, and a sensitive poltergeist at that."
" So how do we find such a person?" Mrs. Trumble asked.
" I'm willing to bet that the governments men in black have a list. You know Eino's friend sent them when our piano playing ghost first showed up." Nancy quickly stated.