Buggy Whips Bailout News Item, 100 Years Ago Today

Washington, DC Monday, December 9, 1907 –

Upon their arrival in the nation's capitol this blustery December afternoon, the presidents of the three major manufacturers of buggy whips held a joint press conference.

Bailey Farnham, president of Ace Carriage & Buggy Whip Corporation, spoke first, summing up the state of the industry; "We realize that times are changing, and perhaps we've been caught a bit off guard, but our designers and engineers are working steadily at new designs and manufacturing techniques to make sure that our products will continue to serve the needs of the public, and our loyal customers."

"Some have said that the time of the buggy whip has come and gone," commented William "Rhett" Braxton, director of Braxton Industries' Whips, Quirts and Crops Division. "We must remind them not to be fooled by fads, or short-term trends," Braxton added. "The horseless carriage is noisy, nasally repugnant, and unreliable. It may seem like these self-powered hansoms will someday rule the road, but the required fueling infrastructure alone will make wholesale uptake impractical—if not impossible—in the long run. Every family is still going to need one horse and buggy for backup transportation, and yet another animal for rescue missions when the horseless claptrap breaks down."

The shrill voice of Wink Williams, reporter for Hearst Newspapers, broke through the resultant clamor with a question;

"All three of you gentlemen traveled to Washington by virtue of locomotive energy, by rail from your respective states of Indiana, Kentucky, and Minnesota. In velvet upholstered private corporation cars, at that. Do you believe this sends the right message to the public, that not one of the three of you, arriving to make your case before congress, even needed a buggy whip to get here?"

Nervously tapping their cigars, ashes falling to the cement in the chill air outside the capitol, the three whip czars looked at each other.

Arne Jurgens, president and founder of Oshketonka Tack and Tackle Manufacturing Company LTD, tossed his cheroot underboot and stepped forward-- "Expedience," he said, then paused and stared hard at Williams, "...expedience required utmost haste," he continued drily. "Our industry is at a crossroads. Retooling and redesign will take time, and sacrifice. We've put aside our usual competitivity and come to Washington united for the sake of our companies and our workers. You can't just motorize everything. Our industry just needs a little federal assistance, three small suspension loans to keep us liquid, and we can turn the corner when better times--and wiser heads--prevail again."

A citizen in the crowd heckled..."That’s government money right down the privy," he shouted out, "All three of ya should have figgered it out years ago, you're manufacturing a product that people just won't buy."

Farnham shouldered his way free of his two fellow manufacturers and waved the buzzing crowd to silence; “A recent issue of Buggywhip Executive—the authoritative journal of our industry—predicts that the number of horseless carriages will never exceed horse-drawn carriages, based on a scientific poll,” he shouted, with an emphatic finger thrust over his head.

A grizzled and gray reporter holding a leather-bound pocket-sized notebook stepped forward and held his notebook up. When the crowd quieted he put the notebook in a jacket pocket, and stood savoring the silence for a moment before sticking a thumb in a wide lapel and speaking; “Jack Collings, editor of Buggywhip Executive magazine. That scientific poll was populated by yourselves, gentlemen—executives in the carriage trade.”

Another voice in the crowd took over... "What makes you think a shorter handle, a braided core--or a dainty pink whip--will turn around your fortunes? You've lost touch with your public, your customers. You need a complete turnaround, not a retooling."

The crowd responded with a general hollering and whooping, louder than the shouted questions of the rest of the press, as the kings of industry broke free and together strode into the capitol to raise their plea with congress.

Jack Collings strode into the space they vacated. “We’re offering advertisers a new publication, by the way, first issue January 7.” he called, waving to the crowd... “Horseless Journal.”

Here is a heck of a thing...

...that requires no further explanation...or maybe it simply defies it.

Why George W. Bush is the Best President Ever

Now that we're in the last six months of the 2nd Bush's presidency, discussions of his presidency have evolved into discussions of his legacy.

  In those discussions--whether at work, in social settings, or online--for a couple months now I've been uttering variations of "George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst emperor since Caligula."

  It usually gets at least a chuckle.  Or, the online version of a chuckle, which is the almost-always exaggerated "LOL".

  Yes, it's my cute, twisty, nouveau variation on the now hackneyed "worst president ever" label that we hear bandied about so often.  Clever, isn't it, how it combines executive overreaching, incompetence, and self-delusion into a single quippable expression?  With faint shadows of the excess and decadence that led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire?

  But recently, by sifting through the events, the causes and effects, the variety of outcomes and stimuli that our leader and his administration have acted on over the past 7.5 years, I have found myself experiencing inklings...feeling little twitches of doubt, gasping at the edge of realizations, teetering at the brink of a complete topsy-turvy....

  And I've found myself approaching a singular conclusion.  Well, I'm there now. 

  I was completely wrong.

  In fact, George W. Bush is the best president we've ever had in the United States of America.

  But the man is so brilliant, so self-effacing, so humble, so unagrandizing that nobody in our time will actually ever know that, far from being the "worst president ever" or the "worst emperor since Caligula," GW is actually saving the planet, saving the United States, saving North America--indeed saving humankind itself from a horrible fate.

  How?  You ask HOW CAN THIS BE?  How can George "Heckuvajob, Brownie!" Bush, how can G.W. "Mission Accomplished!" Bush, how on earth can "Dubya" be so good, so clever, as to LOOK LIKE the worst sort of mixture of cronyism, incompetence, inarticulence... spend-like-a-democrat tax-like-a-Reaganist, walk-and-talk-like Larry the CableGuy (with less humor and less intelligence)...how can he seem like such a clear-cut incompetent, yet be the Best President Ever?

  Let's begin the overview by asking a question...

  What do the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Katrina fiasco, the financial crises, rising inflation, Enron, and the falling dollar have in common?

  Answer:  They're tightly linked to energy industries, mostly petroleum and natural gas. 

  I know, it's no secret that Bush and Cheney, and many of the rest of the cronies, are tied in with oil or energy. 

  But what I'm saying is that what looks like bungling may actually be intentional.  Notice how our country's blood and treasure and anguish in Iraq were supposed to get us some oil in return, to at least partially defray those huge economic costs--but it didn't happen?  How we all have less money, or to put it another way, how money in general has less value than it did 8 years ago?  How the fall of Enron (an energy trader) resulted in strictures on business that further erode our pocketbooks and discourage new development of traditional energy resources like oil and petroleum? How a couple of hurricanes--and a bungled response--in the refining belt accellerated the major disruption of the oil crisis which has resulted in the cost of crude oil rising from $23 to $140 per barrel during the past 7 years?

  People have observed these connections before. 

  But I've finally figured out why.  Why it all fits.

  Bush has a double-secret stealth plan, and every different plank of that secret plan was designed, and implemented, throughout important material facets of our society, to increase the cost of energy, especially fossil fuels.

  Why does this make Bush the best president in history?

  Because he recognizes that humankind will need massive reserves of energy within the next two to three generations, when the earth's population doubles to 14 billion, then doubles again--

  We'll need the the gas, the oil--the energy--not for the silly purposes of ferrying those 14-billion people around in big burping steel vehicles, commuting 5 or 10 or 50 miles to work, or to orthodontic visits and soccer games, or more crucial needs such as plowing and cultivating Idaho and Nebraska in their entireties to feed the teeming billions, or to desalinate the oceans to slake their thirsts...

  There is an even more dire, more crucial need than that...

  The double-secret stealth plan is this: 

  Drive the price of oil, and energy in general, up, way up, because we're using it all up way too fast, and for frivolity and folly.  If gasoline costs $5, $7, $11! a gallon, we're going to find another way to get to work, or change the way we live, and we're going to use a lot less, and leave more energy in the ground.

  Yes, I know, I can see you out there nodding your heads, you think I'm going to say "Bush is doing this because he and his friends will reap from this windfall."  But remember, I am arguing that he's The Best Ever, not a greedy profiteer.

  Only two, maybe three generations from now, there will be a generation that must rise to a momentous challenge.  With 15, 18, 20 billion humans on this watery, ever-warming rock, this specific future generation will have to rise, literally, from within the binds of gravity, and select, and terraform, and colonize another world. 

  If there's no escaping this planet, there's no escaping the stark conclusion that there's no escape, period. 

  In January 2004, George W. Bush let leak a little glimmer of his double-secret stealth plan when he stated We're goin' to Mars...and beyond.  He was ridiculed, accused of fantasizing during times of crisis, pipe-dreaming when we need to focus on the all-too-real problems of our own world.  But it was a visionary's vision.  As Columbus raised his eyes to the horizon, Bush raised his to the stars.

  But how are we going to get there--or even to the moon or Mars--if we've fried up all of Earth's energy reserves solo-commuting to work in Hummers, drag racing those jet-fuel dragsters, Jet-skiing the Choptank inlet, and flying to St. Louis for that 30-minute meeting that would've been a slam-dunk in teleconference mode?

  So why, you might say, why didn't he just come out and make changing our whole way of life a central thrust of his presidency?  Why the secrecy?

  That's the brilliance of the whole thing.  It wouldn't have worked. 

  We didn't elect Al Gore, we elected George W. Bush .  We didn't learn our lesson after the oil crises in the mid and late seventies, did we?  We didn't want to face the truth eight years ago, and we don't want to start now.

We had to be forced.  Taken firmly by the shoulders, and turned to face the music.  It had to be a Double-Secret Stealth Energy Plan, and Dubya had to look like a stumbling, mumbling, backwoods yet fortunate-son buffoon, or it never would have worked. That sacrifice, and the accomplishment (energy demand is reportedly already decreasing) of the objective, is why George W. Bush must, eventually, in some distant time, be recognized as the Bestest President Ever.

  Perhaps that generation, that special near-future generation that must engineer an escape, a great migration almost unfathomable in its challenge and scope, will look back, and understand.

 

Town Andrews is a registered Republican, and wishes GW didn't have to destroy the party to save the world.  But perhaps that's the price of progress.

Rethinking PA Slots, and Beyond

Slots in Pennsylvania.

Bad Idea, I thought.

But I'm beginning to change my mind, and here's why:

This "minor" gambling initiative--after all, they're just little ol' slot machines, single-gambler vice-o-matics, oversized gumball dispensers for adult rather than child pleasure--this minor gambling initiative can serve as an icebreaker for so many other great diversions that aren't yet legal in Pennsylvania, but could be, and probably should be.

So far, most of the half-dozen or so Slots Parlors that have succeeded in starting up are out in the hinterlands somewhere. But just think, once the Philadelphia riverfront clears its hurdles and gets their wagering parlors opened; and when Gettysburg's pro-gambling faction shouts down the historical societies and other high-nosed objectors and christens Battlefield Slots with its first ten-million-nickel winner; then the rest of us will ease up, will relax, and Pennsylvania can proceed to become a role model as the state of progress--an island of open-minded exhilaration and 21st-century pleasures with cagily clever historic tie-ins, surrounded by those old-hat, old-fashioned states trying to catch up with our trendiness.

Of course, all along we've all realized that the little ol' slot machines were just an icebreaker themselves—and once they're in place and sucking up revenue, it's only a matter of time before the state administration pushes for the inevitable next evolution--expansion to true and classic gaming; poker, blackjack, keno, sports betting, high-stakes bingo... all the real good stuff.

But why stop there? There's lots more!! Sad, poor, state-assisted, depressed, and other ne’er-do-well characters have money to spend, and not nearly enough outlets for unrealistic dreams of unlikely riches—and new alternatives of commercial pleasure.

I'm talking about substances. Mind-altering recreation. A new dimension in tourist attraction that could raise Pennsylvania to new highs and take our citizenry and tourism beyond—oh so far beyond our great heritage and history.

Consider the tax dollars Mannheim Marijuana Mansion would raise for elderly Pennsylvanians… imagine the funding Historic Harrisburg Heroin Hall would produce for urban blight, firefighting, energy alternatives, and animal husbandry.

Remember the date-rape drug? I hear that this medicine, which also has legitimate medical usage, is much maligned, with hangover-free recreational potential. Our state tourism bureau could promote (out of state, of course) bus trips to Delaware Water Gap Date Rape Drug Den Weekends! Club Med could develop a resort on Lake Wallenpaupack, and Med wouldn’t mean Mediterranean, buster!

Then, once we’ve lowered Pennsylvania’s needlessly, artificially high moral threshold with slot machines and High-Stakes Hold’em, and segued it down a little more with savvy marketing of recreational euphoria outlets…what’s the natural progression after gambling and drugs? Sex, of course.

When I thought about this, I really got excited. Not because it’s sex—well, not just because it’s sex. See, my previous thinking was that Pennsylvania could do quite well remaining a family state, an island of simple pleasures and historic attractions, as it is now, surrounded by other states with their glitzy resorts and gambling palaces. But now I realized that the new permissive Pennsylvania can combine historical interest with modern entertainment aesthetics, and outdraw all our neighboring states combined. How? We can repurpose Pennsylvania’s healthy ration of in-state exotic dancers, internet candygirls, and streetcorner specialists as legitimate, licensed, unionized strumpets, wenches and pleasurers, in state-of-the-art, clean, aboveboard establishments such as Valley Forge's Sexual Historical Reenactment Center, where the customers play the parts in dramatizations of Casanova, Cleopatra, the Mayflower madam. Think Where’s the Cigar with Bill and Monica. Or Crossdressing with J. Edgar and Susie.

And then, although Limerick Township officials have nimbied a slots parlor there, after the ice is broken perhaps The Limerick Center for Live Interpretation of Classic Lurid Limericks will catch their fancy.

At first, seeing some of the snags impeding smooth progress toward Pennsylvania's becoming a gaming state, I felt a smug satisfaction. Community resistance, political missteps, crony issues--the arising problems and slow progress all seemed appropriate in the wake of a gambling initiative that the administration and legislature engineered minus a statewide vote or consensus.

I’m not concerned about all that anymore. I’m relaxing, going with the flow, getting used to the idea of Brave, New Pennsylvania.

And, one final bright side: in this new, progressive, permissive Pennsylvania, perhaps they'll finally--finally!--do away with that regressive ‘ol LCB.