Proper Etiquette When Attending A Potluck Dinner:
For the past five years or more, I’ve used TurboTax to file my tax returns, as well as those of my family. Typically, it would take about two minutes for the disc to download, then maybe another five minutes or so to get the updates.
BRING A DISH TO PUT ON THE TABLE
These past few days have been most frustrating.
For the past five years or more, I’ve used TurboTax to file my tax returns, as well as those of my family. Typically, it would take about two minutes for the disc to download, then maybe another five minutes or so to get the updates.
Yesterday, installation of the 2009 version took more than four hours, turning my entire day into utter disarray.
After two hours of repeated downloading efforts that resulted in excruciatingly long waits vacillating between “install” and “uninstall” modes, I was left no choice but to call the TurboTax customer service number.
The respondent was a most amiable young lady named Jenne, located somewhere in the Philippines (yes, I was struck by the irony of having someone in the South Pacific assist with my income tax software). She said that this inability to properly install the 2009 version was generating more than a few calls from flabbergasted and aggravated users.
Far more pleasant than most U.S.-based customer service people with whom I’ve dealt, Jenne stayed on the line with me in excess of two hours before we corrected the download problems by circumventing myriad programs in my computer.
Several lengthy pauses in the process awaiting computer processing of one function before going on to the other allowed Jenne and me to engage in friendly conversation.
Jenne told me that it would be 90 degrees when her shift ended at 9:00 in the morning. I doubt that she fully comprehended my response that it was only 30 degrees in America’s midsection, where we had been surrounded by snow and ice for six weeks.
There, I’ve managed to combine two extremely frustrating situations into one thought stream.
This came less than 24 hours after I had gone around and around (literally) with a multi-layered student loan agency (agencies?).
At least four entities were involved in the loan process, none of which wanted to discuss repayment procedures. Each telephone operative referred me to another number, until it came full circle and I was told to contact the first number I had called. Talk about frustrating!
Yet, in the overall scheme of things my personal frustration cannot even hold a candle to that which President Obama must feel in trying to deal with Republicans.
Sitting through most (roughly six hours or so) of Thursday’s Health Care Summit, it was remarkable to watch Mr. Obama react with aplomb to the utter arrogance and disrespect shown by the party of corporate ass licking.
The President invited members of Congress to a potluck dinner, but Republicans in attendance showed up without one dish to contribute to the meal.
John Boehner set the tone by strutting in with a look on his puss as though he was sucking on sour lemons; that pissy expression never left him for the entire day.
Even the casual observer would note that whenever Boehner is in the presence of the President, the supercilious House Minority Leader looks as though he can’t leave the room fast enough and find somewhere to vomit.
Both Boehner and his lap dog, Eric Cantor, sat down behind stacks of documents two feet high. This was a puerile effort to ratchet up fear of a lengthy bill among those non-thinkers who buy their bullshit in wholesale quantities; never mind that health care is a subject of highest order complexity.
Immediately following the President’s announcement of the summit two weeks earlier, Republicans began riding the talking point wave, initiated by Tanning-Bed Boehner, calling it nothing more than “political theatre.” It’s rather hilarious that the only attendees who brought stage props were those very same Republicans…
Sadly, the mainstream media pretty much universally disregarded this exhibition of glaringly hypocritical hubris.
It’s absolutely unconscionable that the ersatz news reporting organizations completely missed the subtleties not only of that, but virtually everything else that transpired.
Despite inclusion of numerous Republican-based ideas within the bill, members of the Grand Obstructionist Party repeated, ad nauseum, the talking point to scrap the bill and start over from square one.
Uninterested in anything remotely resembling compromise, Republicans proved to all America that the GOP simply wants everything their way – i.e., minority rule.
Without reiterating the sheer volume of contentiousness that is the Republican Party, here are a few key exchanges that were mostly ignored by the phony corporate news services:
Continuing their tradition of evading responsibility as “Party leaders,” Republican top dogs Mitch McConnell and Boehner, devoid of a scintilla of a substantive proposal between them, relied upon Lamar Alexander for opening remarks.
After presenting a less than accurate summation of the bill at hand, including a wholly erroneous depiction of Senate Democrats using reconciliation for passage, Alexander was laid to the mat by several roundhouses from (former boxer) Harry Reid, who said he was welcome to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
About the only thing McConnell had to offer was a complaint that, despite the President’s Republican-Democrat-Republican-Democrat-etc. format, the Democrats had used more than twice as much time.
Mr. Obama silenced Ol’ Mitch, pretty much for the rest of the day, by reminding him who was President, that nobody had been designated official timekeeper, and, even if one existed, it was his bailiwick, thus any time he used was not to be measured with that of Senators and Representatives.
In her wrap-up, Nancy Pelosi admonished those of her GOP colleagues who had filled their comments with falsehoods, and went so far as to denounce the health insurance industry for its “shameful” behavior.
The mainstream news slackers have repeatedly taken Mr. Obama to task for waiting a year to hold this summit. What they failed to express, or comprehend, was the sheer brilliance of his methodology, the deftness of his touch in dealing with complex issues and opposition to reason.
The President allowed the debate to be dragged out by Republicans who shill for their corporate backers. Then, after giving them enough rope, he let GOPers entangle themselves inextricably in a collective noose through a public display of their unwillingness to work with Democrats, or for the American people.
Mr. Obama’s final comment to Republicans — that, by showing a complete unwillingness to reach across the aisle and work together harmoniously, Democrats had been left no choice but to forge ahead without them — was a sterling example of the kind of leadership his supporters have seen in the man from the outset.
For all those pundits and commentators who say Barack Obama is weak, the fact is nobody rises to the office of President of the United States without exceptional strength of will – and such strength has to be multiplied in exponential factors if the person is African-American.
Almost comically, the very next day, as if to cement proof that Republicans possess absolutely no handle on reality, or that which might even remotely appear as showing any interest in the good of their constituents, Rep. Steve King (R-IA, 5) got up in front of Congress and the World to extol the virtues of lobbyists, stating that somebody needs to stand up for the lobby.
I could never find words more apropos than King’s to better illustrate the depth to which moral turpitude permeates the contemporary Republican Party, and how remote its members are from the citizens of the United States of America whom they allegedly serve.
Shalom.
(Jerry Tenuto is an erstwhile Philosopher and sometime Educator. A veteran with seven years of service in the U.S. Army, he holds a BS and MA in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Depending upon your taste in political stew, you can either blame or thank Jerry for his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast. Visit his blog Blue State View at illinoiscentral.blogspot.com)
