White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

Things That You Won’t Like in 2015

by 2 Comments

The new year demands predictions. As those demands must be satisfied, here are mine:

1. President Barack Obama will be blamed for everything, from pet obesity to sunspots.

2. Jim DeMint, president of The Heritage Foundation, will continue to solicit me for money and will write me ingratiating letters as one conservative to supposedly another. Things are terrible because of Obama, he will say. But if I send him five bucks, the day can be saved for America.

3. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) will ask me for money, five bucks, to save America from the likes of DeMint.

4. Amtrak – whose high-speed train between Washington, D.C. and Boston, Acela Express, is so expensive only rich business people can afford to ride it — will seek a larger federal subsidy. At present, it stands at $1.3 billion. Ordinary people, who Congress had in mind as riders, can’t afford the Acela's astronomical and predatory fares. So it has become a service for business executives and corporate lawyers — you can tell from the overheard cell phone conversations. A billable hour is a terrible thing to waste.

5. The airlines will find new ways to discomfort you; watch out for toilets that big and tall people can't sit on, seats that recline a 16th of an inch, and bad food that you'll buy only if you're off your medicine. Don't change your ticket, bring a suitcase or seek a seat with legroom. There are fees for that kind of convenience and comfort. Don't ask for logic in routing: How about Providence to Washington, D.C. with two stops and travel time of 10 hours and 20 minutes? An air travel Web site tried to tempt me with that “super-saver” fare. I reckon you could hitchhike it in about the same time.

6. If you thought it was difficult to reach any large company in 2014, it will be much worse in 2015. There are consultants out and about America, teaching corporations how to avoid their customers. Gone are the days when you could expect customer service of some sort, albeit from Rajiv in Bangladesh. Amazon, always a pioneer, has produced the consumer go-have-sex-with-yourself masterpiece. If you have a question about your Kindle, you have to give them your credit card if you want it answered. It's the no-pay-no-help line.

7. Talking of the perils of being a customer, Bank of America refused to give me the phone number of the local branch where I have an account. When I finally got through to the manager, she said they didn't give out the number because “the phone would be ringing off the hook.” I didn’t know people called the bank just to chat. No thought that those callers might be customers. Just remember new the mantra of big business: “The customer is always wrong, a nuisance, and fitted for nothing better than hanging an hour on the phone with a simple inquiry.”

8. Next year the save-a-buck Congress will decimate the Post Office. Sad because it's the one place that still works, and where you can get a question answered promptly. That will not do. The Social Security Administration is efficient and polite, too. So Congress has its hatchet out.

9. Now that the Republicans have control of government, they'll be out to prove that government doesn’t work. I’m sure they will pull it off. The Democrats will be complaining – having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the midterms.

How can you lose an election when the economy is turning around? Ask Sen. Franken when you send him your five bucks. Bet he won’t tell you. So I will. You turn your back on your president. That makes you look really bad, and looking really bad is a bad election strategy.
 

Happy New Year! — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

 

For a Man of My Age, I’m OK

by 2 Comments

I know the exact day and time I grew old. It didn't happen slowly, I didn't ever so gently slide into the age of slippers and healthful toddies.
 
My arrival was sudden; brutal, you might say. One second I was going about my business, just like anyone else; the next I was an old man going about my business, just like any old man.
 
It happened on July 25, 2006 at the Amtrak station on the complex of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. The young woman selling tickets looked at me and said, “You get the senior discount, right?” I looked over my shoulder to see whom she might be addressing, but I was alone in the ticket counter. In a small voice, I confessed that I was entitled to Amtrak's pity.
 
I had almost forgotten that encounter when my health insurer wrote to tell me that it wasn't their policy to insure people my age and it was time to accept Medicare's fatal embrace – fatal because no one leaves Medicare without the aid of a box and mourners.
 
A helpful woman at the Social Security Administration recommended that I start drawing immediately because, as she said so sweetly, “You never know what's going to happen.” Any thoughts of getting a bit more down the road evaporated. Persian poet Omar Khayyam's stricture “take the cash and wave the rest” was clearly written for me.
 
I had just gotten to feel that time was not of the essence when my doctors piled on a veritable regiment of fatalistic hand-wringers and the heartless phrase “a man of your age.”
 
It started with the orthopedic surgeon: “Your knees are not too bad for a man of your age.”
 
The cardiologist said, “I recommend a light exercise regimen and some medication for a man of your age.”
 
The internist said, “Do you want us to screen your prostate for cancer? For a man of your age, we don't usually do anything even if it is positive.”
 
To cheer me, he added: “If you get cancer there, it progresses very slowly and you'll probably be gone before it's a problem. That's my advice to a man of your age.”
 
The final medical insulter is my dentist. During a recent appointment, I wanted to discuss implants. But clearly, he's a man of fiscal rectitude. “We shouldn't really undertake too much on a man of your age,” he said.
 
I think, in his heart of hearts, he's leaning toward dentures. How in God's name does a dentist know how long someone is going to live? Maybe he's had several patients keel over on getting their bill — that sort of thing can be detrimental to a man of my age.
 
Social events are not where you can look for the milk of human kindness. A hostess introduced me this way, “He has known everyone who is anyone over the past — How long is it? — 60 years.”
 
For that kind of thing, I start shaking my quite firm hand and douse her white tablecloth in red wine. What can you expect from a man of my age?
 
People expect older men to be in the bathroom every five minutes, and I don't like to let them down. Trouble is the mirror. There's a man with white hair – what hair there is — starring out of it whom I don't know.
 
Like Henry V addressing Falstaff, I tell the apparition, “I know thee not, old man.” Actually I don't look too bad, for a man of my age. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate