Random acts of writing: Dispelling myths
By Craig Carter
Saturday, August 15, 2009 9:40 PM PDT
I’d like to use my allotted space today to dispel some persistent myths.
First, Bigfoot doesn’t exist. I know this because my father was a hunter that knew almost every square mile of the Pacific Northwest backcountry, and he drank a lot, and he never saw Bigfoot. Not even in a drunken stupor. That’s how you know. If a hunter saw Bigfoot, there would be a stuffed Bigfoot head on someone’s wall, and a very rich hunter.
Second: The Boogie Man doesn’t exist. I had my doubts there for a while when Dick Cheney was our vice president, because let’s face it, the guy behaves in a basic Boogie Man-ish manner. But no, the boogie man doesn’t exist.
Third: There was no real conspiracy to kill JFK. I know this because when it comes to things like presidential assassinations, there’s no way that kind of secret can be kept for more than 45 years. Had there been some sort of massive conspiracy, you can bet your boots some lackey somewhere would have spilled the beans by now.
Fourth: Barack Obama does not want to leave old people to die on ice floes. Nor is there a provision in the health care reform proposals that would call for Medicare and Medicaid to force the elderly to choose how they want to die. In usual conservative misrepresent-the-fact fashion, people in talk radio and such took a provision that would reimburse a doctor for having the dreaded “should we pull the plug on our loved one” conversation with their patients, and blew it completely out of proportion. (Like they’ve never been known to do such a thing.) Fifth: President Obama was not born in Kenya. If he was born in Kenya, all I can say is kudos to his family, that managed to not only get his birth duly certified by the state of Hawaii, but also managed to get his birth announced in two Honolulu newspapers in the interest of some 47 years later, he’d be elected president.
Sixth: President Obama did not spend the country $10 trillion into debt. As you may recall, it was a Republican president with the aid of a Republican Congress, that spent and spent and spent almost all of that $10 trillion, and now they’re trying to portray themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility. Yeah, right!
Finally: The biggest myth of all, the GOP is not the party of fiscal responsibility. If you doubt this, may I refer you to January 2001 until January 2009? It’s not enough to just say you’re fiscally responsible; you have to be that for the voters to actually believe you.
Craig Carter, an Ontario resident, can be contacted at Craig Carter, Argus Observer Newsroom; 1160 S.W. Fourth St., Ontario, OR 97914
