B*** S***!

[Warph]

Here's something we can do with less of in 2012:

B*** S***!

It's all over television, in magazines and in newspapers and even in our serious papers, such as The New York Times.  It is spouted by politicians and pitched by product spokesmen.

Modern life is manufacturing an unprecedented amount of it.  BS "is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about," writes Harry Frankfurt, philosopher emeritus at Princeton University, who authored "On Bull (expletive)."

Thanks to cable television there are numerous opportunities for people to yap about all kinds of things they know nothing about.  Nowadays, our news folks are almost as bad.  It used to be that the press existed to catch folks in the act of BS-ing.  But our press has been shoveling out a fair share of its own.  Didn't the run-up to the last presidential election show that some of our "objective journalists" were in the tank for Obama all along?

Republicans have produced a lot of BS, too.  During the Bush years, they used words such as "fiscal responsibility" and "limited government," while they wasted more dough in the last year of the Bush reign and expanded government faster than you can say "we're broke."

Then again, maybe it's not the BS that bothers us so much... maybe it is that BS is being so practiced so poorly.  The truth is BS has a long, proud history in America.  During our early years, the "tall tale" was an accepted form of BS.  Exaggeration lent more credence and color to stories, and yarn-spinning became a celebrated part of American culture.  From our beginning we've had our share of snake-oil salesmen and flimflam artists.  These scoundrels weren't judged on the rightness or wrongness of their scams so much as the skill with which they practiced their craft.

The sorry truth is that sometimes we want to be lied to in America.  Whereas the truth can be painful, costly and time-consuming, we're suckers for a skillfully told yarn that puts us at ease and helps us sleep better at night.  In America we want our tax cuts and increased spending.  We want our politicians to limit spending and build a new bridge in our backyard.  We want "free" health care and fatter Social Security checks, and we want somebody else to pay for them.

But our politicians and the press are doing a horrible job these days spinning their mistruths. I think it is because they are lazy.  I remember the "good old days" when "news" shows, such as "Dateline," went to elaborate lengths to pull one over on us.  They rigged up a truck with explosives, then blew it up on-screen.  Some time ago, cigarette companies said smoking wasn't bad for us and we believed them.  Lyndon Baines Johnson said he was going to end poverty, and we believed that, too.

Remember Bill Clinton's presidency?  He could twist and contort any mistruth into the prettiest and most convincing words.  We knew he wasn't telling the truth but we didn't care.  We loved the way he didn't tell it. 

As for President Obuma, he can't possibly believe some of that BS he is saying... that his health plan will reduce costs or that he has a strategy to reign in runaway spending... or does he?  Hell, I don't know who or what to believe anymore, and I sense millions of others feel just as I do when it comes to the BS that politicans throw at us..

If our press and political leaders have any hope of restoring their credibility, one thing is for certain.

They better come up with a better line of BS.

[Warph]

Boy, the wife is getting on my nerves.  She keeps giving me sympathy cards for being unemployed."

"Ah, yes, you speak of a new line of greeting cards from Hallmark.  What do the cards say?"

"'Don't think of it as losing your job,' reads one.  'Think of it as a time-out between stupid bosses.'"

"An interesting way to console someone who is out of work."

"And awfully patronizing, if you asked me.  It makes the person giving the card feel good and the unemployed slob receiving it feel worse.  Here's the last one the wife got me: 'Losing your job does not define you.  What you do about it does.'"

"Sounds a little preachy.  Still, you have to hand it to the Hallmark people.  With unemployment stuck at more than 9 percent, why not make dough exploiting a new market niche?"

"Well, if they're willing to exploit something as crappy as losing your job, why not exploit other lousy occasions?"

"This is going to be good.  Go on."

"How about cards for the millions of Americans who have gone bankrupt?  Something like: 'I hate to bother you now, considering the mess you're in, but could you repay me my 20 bucks before the feds close in?'"

"Not bad."

"How about cards for the millions of small-business people who are going under because they can no longer get loans, thanks to our government's overly stringent financial reform?  'You took your shot at the American dream and for that you are commended.  But you forgot to factor in government red tape and the total lack of lenders!'"

"I suppose a person who just lost his or her life's dream might find that oddly amusing.   What else do you have?"

"How about a card for that loser kid of yours who just flunked out of college: 'You flunked out again, my hapless son, but it is no big deal.  Our whole country is flunking now, you better learn to steal.'"

"Tough times call for tough love."

"Here's another for a fellow whose girlfriend ditches him: 'It stinks to be the last to know, but Sheila left you a day ago.  She's with me now, for obvious reasons.  Your business failed and you have no money, but my political connections got me a six-figure federal-government job, you private-sector loser!'"

"You surely put a lot of thought into greeting cards for lousy occasions.  Any others?"

"Here's a card idea for people who didn't vote for Obama to give to people who did:  'You voted for hope and change two and a half years ago.  Now I have little hope or change and owe everybody dough.'"

"Boy, you are crabby today."

"Of course I'm crabby.  I'm crabby that the economy is so bad and that our political leaders are only making it worse... all of this wasteful spending, all of this insane borrowing, all of these new regulations and mandates that are making it harder for private employers to grow and hire."

"Fair enough.  The health care mandate alone is worrying a lot of employers."

"But what makes me really crabby is that people are getting so used to unemployment being high, they suddenly think it's appropriate to give the unemployed sympathy cards... that's a subtle acceptance of America's decline, if you ask me."

"Surely you have a card for that?"

"I sure do: 'We're Americans, not quitters, you see, and every American should be angry.  We're the land of the free, the home of the brave.  To hell with quitters and those who cave!'"