The Skittish Are Coming!

Good heavens, does Lord Ronald ride again?

After penning, penciling, and/or pecking millions of words, one of the questions I am most frequently asked is why I have almost never ventured into fiction.

My answer is similar to the reason I'm not working on a substitute for oxygen, it being so abundant and efficient that there is no need to seek a variation.

Fiction, it seems to me, would be necessary and useful only if real life were deficient in subject matter for wordsmithery, but such is far from the case.

Take, for example, Lord Ronald, brainchild of Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock.

In the highly entertaining and wonderfully whimsical, "Gertrude the Governess," Leacock's randy young Lord defied both English tradition, and the sober advice of his father, and recklessly "flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions."

Even as this is being written, that scenario is, in many respects, being replicated in the news of the day; thus, one (well, this one, anyway) might ask: why bother to fictionalize?

The mercurial pace at which change is being promoted and accomplished in America suggests that a real-life Lord Ronald is riding again, leading a charge and building up a national charge account which is beginning to render even some of his erstwhile followers breathless and dubious.

Let's assume (solely for the sake of argument) that all the goals of the Obama administration are good for the commonwealth; only time will tell, and only timing is the focus of this opusette.

Begging the myriad questions surrounding what has transpired over the past few months, and what is aspired by those in control during the months ahead, a single query is moving toward the head of the systemic stampede.

Just what the hell is the hurry?

Trillions of dollars' worth of IOUs, some of which may prove to be worthless, are being spewed out by a government which languishes in a no-person's land somewhere between impecuniousness and bankruptcy.

If that seems too gloomy an assessment, find me an objective tabulation of what it will cost to meet the existing demands of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, so-called "entitlements," the largesse we have lavished around the world and the global holders of our bonds, both current and as sure to multiply as bunny rabbits and body lice.

Then add to that the chickens of expanded health care, crap-in-trade and unpredictable world affairs that have not yet - but surely will - come home to roost.

Against this frightening backdrop are being played such farcical dramas as the passage of trillion-dollar-plus programs outlined in thousand-page bills which, by their own admission, none of our elected reprehensibles ever read before voting.

Furthermore, the means of paying for these proposed piñatas is a can of can-do that is being blithely kicked down the road of future planning.

This disregard of daunting payback obligations is somewhat similar to the financial finagling that recently earned for Bernie Madoff 150 years in the slammer.

Like him, our inglorious leaders MUST know that the future outgo is certain to sink the ship of the most wildly optimistic income estimates..

Gotta wonder what was more important for them to do than read the proposed legislation, and either figure out how to pay for it or trim from it the fat (plus, if necessary, the flesh and bone) necessary to make the replenishment fit the time available.

Instead, it appears that the highest priority on their agenda is to get the job done before they pack up our troubles in their old kit bags and go on vacation.

Here's a crazy suggestion for them: Hold your horses, you bureaucratic bullscatters and reduce your legislative diet to meal-sized portions that you can chew on, swallow and digest without giving yourselves, us and our descendants the worst case of indigestion since Jonah swallowed the whale. (Another bit of fanciful fiction now being trumped by real life.)

If you think that's a good idea, postpone what you were going to do next, then point your browser here.

Once there, you can enter your zip code and be pointed to your personal reprehensibles in Congress and the President.

Unless they know how you feel, they'll (understandably) feel that you approve of the status quo and the skittish stampede will continue.

Less understandable by far would be your unwillingness to unhorse these modern-day Lord Randolphs.

By the way, what have you to do that's more important?