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Aanold Swarzten…. Schwartez….Swanzen…(ah hell, he can’t even
pronounce the name of the state correctly) recently announced he’s
running for Governor on Leno. Naturally, we were appalled at seeing
this. Even though both supposedly ride, neither of them brought up a
single issue relating to motorcycling!
Even
so, we have to admit that, if we could (and we can’t, ‘cause
we’re aliens –we can apparently only get drivers licences),
we’d vote for the Gropenfuhrer to become the Governator. Yeah, we’re for Aanie, in spite of the fact that he drives
the mother of all SUVs and that he has an odd predilection for bikes
from an out of production motorcycle marque. But at least he’s
been known to ride unlike the incumbent, this silent Gray fellow.
Sure,
from the evidence so far, Aanold --like Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford
and some say George Dubya as well-- seems to, shall we say, possess
the advantages of uncluttered thought. But hell, if America can
survive Ronnie and Gerry (and will probably survive Dubya), then the
Golden State surely will survive its new golden boy.
True,
it’s a bit disturbing, given the complicated choices and seemingly
intractable problems Californians face, that Aanie (not unlike
politicians everywhere) panders to the false belief that the
decisions to fix everything are simple and painless. The real
problem that Californians have is their refusal to face any
unpleasant realities. Aanie’s just another pol feeding this
refusal. In this regard
of course, Californians are not any different from other Americans
or, indeed people in many other countries. (Hey, wishful thinking
has been a core Canadian value for decades now, affectively
substituting for any substantive positions in both Canada’s
domestic and foreign policy.)
Mr
S seems particularly bothered that many people have left California,
suggesting that if only the state can attract millions more people
to replace those who have fled the horrors of Californication,
everything will get back to being hunky-dory (or at least hunky).
Sorry Aanie, guess we’re a bit thick.
Can you explain again, how millions more people are going to
improve the quality of life in the state rather than make it
increasingly worse as has been the case now for the last few
decades?
Frankly,
being from British Columbia, we’re most disturbed by Aanold’s
inability to pronounce “California” properly.
You see, not long ago we had a Premier (the Canadian
equivalent of Governor) named William Van Der Zalm who couldn’t
pronounce the name of our province. The closest he could come was
“Burtis’ Clumbia”.
Now,
I know that seems like a trivial thing but look, this guy turned out
to be a complete nutbar who, no lie, during his Premiership ended up
living in a castle in the middle of a place officially called
Fantasy Gardens! We’re not kidding.
And he was such a disaster as Premier that he was finally
turfed out by his own party. (The electorate destroyed his party in
the subsequent election anyway, replacing them with a whole new crop
of equally incompetent bozos and crooks. But that’s another
story….) Our point here really is only that it should be mandatory
that anybody who wants to be Governor has to be able to say
“California” correctly.
In
any case, it may be that no one can make California’s gridlocked
society work any better than its increasingly sclerotic freeway
system. The former has much the same problem as the latter; too many
people demanding too much from a system that is increasingly unable
to cope. And at the same time becoming too costly to even maintain,
never mind expand. (The state used to spend about 30% of its
revenues on infrastructure; it is now spending 1%!)
So
if the state continues to head down the tubes anyway, what the hell,
might as well have a Governor who at least promises to be amusing to
watch as he flounders in the bladerunnerish morass of it all, right?
We’re with the LA Times: when all the laughing stops,
Californians will have to live with the result that they’ve
obviously lost their sense of humor. And in this crazy ‘ol world,
in the end isn’t that all you’ve really got? We say mark your
ballot for total recall then vote for Aanold Whatsisneggar.
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