Many of those who read this blog regularly are healers, magicians or psychics. All of you have seen the deterioration of our society as Common Sense has been outlawed by the actions of the stupid, power hungry and obscenely greedy people who always rise to the top in a materialist society. Some of you may have seen the old version of this obituary, now truer than ever.
For those of us who value evidence over dogma, humanity over bureaucracy, beauty over ugliness, civility over bad manners and love over hate, I post it at a time when people are mindlessly celebrating some things that disappeared long ago: freedom, civility, equality, tolerance,trust and ethics. They were watching TV and never noticed how things had changed.
So today we who are alert to things other than Big Macs,Big Bank Balances and bottom lines are mourning the passing of an old friend known by the name of 'Common Sense'. Common Sense, who will henceforth be referred to here as C.S., lived a long life but died from heart failure on the eve of the 4th of July 2007.
No one really knows how old C. S. was since his birth records were long ago lost in a jungle of bureaucratic red tape.
He selflessly devoted his life to service in schools, hospitals, homes, factories and offices, helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and foolishness.
For centuries, petty rules, silly laws and frivolous lawsuits held no power over C.S. He was credited with cultivating such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, treating others as you wish to be treated, the early bird getting the worm, what goes up must come down, and life won't always be fair.
C.S. lived by simple, financial policies (don't spend more than you earn), a concern for justice (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), a magnanimous social outlook (everyone should be treated the same under the law), and reliable, time-tested parenting strategies (the adults are in charge, not the kids).
A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression and the Modern Technological Society, C.S. survived cultural and educational trends including disco, political correctness, radical feminism, EST, McCarthyism, fad-dieting, talk show advice, second-time-around virgins, 'the voice of the innerchild,' planetary alignments, 'health food,' Y2K, , phone psychics, body-piercing, tattooing, 'Promise-Keepers,' Ebonics, 'New Math,' pre-emptive strikes, collateral damage and genocides.
But his health declined when he became infected with the "If-It-Only-Helps-One-Person-It's-Worth-It" virus. In recent decades his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal regulation, suppression of news, computer glitches and touchy-feely media gooiness. He watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers and unenlightened auditors; as celebrity criminals were exonerated by bamboozled juries; as citizens, even after realizing that they're being lied to, voted in the same scoundrels anyway; as the populace was obsessed by media trivia and the famous, and ignored more important things.
His health deteriorated even more rapidly when he heard of schools, hamstrung by ignorant 'zero tolerance' policies and wrong-headed bureaucrats, charging a 6-year-old boys with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; of a teen suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch; of faculty ignoring the bullying of one student by another, because the bully was a popular sports figure; of an eighth-grader being interviewed by the police and sent home for taking a cough drop; of a 10-year-old suspended for using a prescription asthma inhaler; of a grade school pupil who picked up a plastic knife in school and handed it to his teacher being suspended for having a weapon in class, of high school graduates who can't read and write; of a teacher fired and then sued for reprimanding an unruly student; of a three year old boy prevented from flying because his name was the same as a name on the terrorist list, of a National Guardsman whose gun and ammunition were returned to him after going through the airport checkpoint, but whose penknife was confiscated as a possible highjacking weapon.
Finally, C.S. lost his will to live completely as ordinary civility became suspect and criticized; churches became mega businesses, free speech became negotiable, politicians practiced open bribery and corruption and still got elected, private sex lives became public, innocent people languished in jail, or died because they were too poor to afford a good lawyer, the media became even dumber and less responsible, doctors couldn't treat patients properly, federal judges had to stick their noses into everything from the Boy Scouts to college sports to settle disputes, and simple truth was spun into a thousand different weird lies by trained professionals well-paid to do the spinning.
As the end neared, C.S. drifted in and out of logic but was kept informed of new developments, including strange intrusive regulations for asbestos, low-flow toilets, "smart" guns and bombs, new Prohibition laws, Creationism being taken seriously, declarations that huge glaciers melting worldwide had nothing to do with global warming, people being treated as criminals because an authority figure said they were criminals, 60% of American corporations paying no income taxes, of nearly half of the FDA’s drug evaluation budget being funded by the drug companies, and of George W. Bush being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
But finally, when told that his homeowners' association restricted exterior furniture and automobiles to only those that enhanced neighborhood property values, he breathed his last.
His final words were a quotation from the Bible: "As ye sow, so shall ye also reap," which, unfortunately, were not understood by any of the MBA's, politicians, media executives and computer technicians surrounding his deathbed.
C.S. was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughters, Responsibility, Intelligence, Patience and Altruism; and his sons, Reason, Enlightenment, Courage and Fair Play. They died of discouragement.
He is survived by six stepbrothers, Crude, Stupid, Loud, Crass, Sleazy and Greedy; and his stepsisters, Ignorance, Intolerance, Vanity, Get Mine, Sue You and Constant Whiner. They are all healthy.
Not many attended his funeral because so few have yet realized he is gone. R.I.P.
