It's a new year - time to 'commentate' on the issues

Originally published Jan. 2, 2011
It's a new year, and the world is crumbling all around us, so I reckon it's time I stop sitting here trying to be funny about soap-on-a-rope and tackle the Serious Stuff.
I resolve during 2011 to offer keen, hard-hitting analysis and opinions in this space instead of rambling bunny stories. It's high time I got down to Serious Stuff and started commentating like a grownup.

I wonder if "commentating" is a word.

I guess I might as well hit the biggest thing first. The economy is wretched, and I'll tell you why. Nobody has much money. It's no one's fault, really. There's just not enough money.

We should make some more money, or better yet, to conserve, just cut all our money in half long ways and pass a law that says half a dollar is still worth a dollar.

That would also serve as a boost to the scissors industry.

I wish some American companies still made scissors here. I'd invest in one if I had any money. 

Better yet, we can just pretend we passed that law about cutting up the money so that everybody except us does it. Then we'll say we were just kidding. We'll be the only ones with any money left at all, so we'll be comparatively rich.

This serious commentating isn't so hard.

I guess I should bash somebody now like all the best columnists do, but I hate hurting people's feelings.

I could bash city officials, but I think we've already taken swipes at just about everybody except Human Resources Director Kathy Milliken.

Kathy Milliken directs Lebanon's "human resources." Doesn't that sound like slavery to you? Are humans to be used as a resource, like coal or tree sap?

(OK, now I feel guilty. I hope Ms. Milliken doesn't read this. Hopefully she'll just figure I'm a nutcase and ignore it.)

I should bash state and national officials. It's, like, so totally beneath them to fight back. And I'm not likely to bump into them in front of the peanut butter at Aldi's and have to explain myself.

I am not sure I approve of the general direction of the administration of Gov. Jay Nixon. If he continues upon the present course, one may only wonder where Missouri will find itself by the end of his term.

(I'm thinking if I keep it pretty vague, it's harder to be wrong.)

Likewise, it concerns me that President Barack Obama continues with an agenda that he has set in motion without incorporating the suggestions of many who might offer alternatives. Expectations are bound to exceed results unless he meets with success greater than that which is expected by those who have little faith in his ideas.

I'm on a roll, now. I bashed three people and offered critical and incisive analyses of policies and all that.

Time to take a break. All this Serious Stuff is hurting my head. Maybe you get used to it.

***

I got up on Christmas morning and found that Joyce had arisen early to finish putting together my present.

The glue was still damp, but the rope was firmly affixed to the soap, which was hand-carved to kind of resemble a bunny. Its name, Zest, was printed on its belly.

(My wife is much funnier than I am.)

I guess my hints about a new jigsaw these past couple months have been too subtle.

I wrote a really funny column over the Christmas weekend about how easy my job as a reporter was going to be now that our police chief has declared it's legal to use the police department's letterhead when making information requests.

Unfortunately, some wise guy on the Ozark Digital Media Forum made the same joke, so if I publish the column I wrote before the forum guy ever had his brainstorm, people will claim I am a copycat.

Thanks a bunch, forum guy. I'm not the copycat.

You are.

Ken York's column appears in The Daily Record, Lebanon, Mo. It is reprinted here with permission.