I love finding a subject at the last minute. Once I got a review at a job that said, "Bob excels at last minute changes." As usual on most Wednesdays I was ready to write about some twist of fate I experienced years ago. Then my eye caught an odd article - odd to me anyway. Town wants to let seniors work off taxes. Say Wha??? 

    "Yes it is so Bub," as my friend from Turkey might say. The crux of the story is that property taxes are so high in some regions of the country, municipalities have come up with schemes to let seniors avoid getting taxed out of their houses by offering them to work the burden off.  Say Wha, again??? My first instantaneous thought was - "Orwell?" Yes, the idea is to let senior citizens work that debt off. What is the subtle nuance here, "Get back to work and while you are at it, work harder you old bastards or we will take your houses?!" One lady says she is all for it if she can find a job where she might sit to work - due to her walker. I am thinking, "She is a slacker no doubt. You'll take what task we give you grandma!!" The good mayor in the article is offering Seven Bucks an hour for some nonsensical jobs. He is scrounging up 25 jobs in a city of 90,000. What about the other 3,000 or so 80 year olds? I ponder, "hows'bout just waiving the excessive portion of their tax burden or some such alternative?"

    Note that all the voices in the article by cnn.com via the banal AP of the odious "media-complex" are all for their own return to work. Jump'n Beelzebub! How is it that people can so easily be conned to believe that requiring them to work at 80 years old is some kind of perk? Hopefully, the AP is just playing its "our-packaged-news-for-you-you-rabble-and-you-better-like-it-and-not-question-it," games here. In Orwell's Animal Farm, the animals convinced themselves to work harder and faster. In 1984, in the end, the main character loved Big Brother after all, even after being tortured by his minions. In the spirit of Orwell, perhaps after we squeeze just a few more hours of labor out of 80 year olds in walkers, we could sell their old organs on the Chinese body organ market for the rest of the tax cash owed. 

    Lord Jesus, mother of God! Am I the only one who sees the abject insanity of a scheme of pulling long retired people back into some inverted type Huber Law labor scheme to keep them from becoming debtors to the "many states?" Good God, I hope neither Wisconsin's Republicans nor Democrats get wind of this scheme. Otherwise, I need to psych myself up to work 'til I am one hundred. "I will work harder and faster." "I love Big Brother." 

                       Stupid pop culture, media-complex, distraction-from-reality story

    I am thinking, each day I should jot down the stupidest news story that is foist upon us by the big-media-complex as a distraction from the reality that has become America. So here we go - welcome to today's "Stupid Pop Culture, Media-complex, Distraction-from-reality Story." 

    Hey everybody, 2007 has seen the worst U.S. casualties in the entire Iraq war.  ...Ah, what the hell, never mind all that war worriation! It just leads to war fatigue.  The real story is in the septic tank. Iowa Man Spends Christmas Eve in Septic Tank. Apparently the plumbing weren't work'n so good and gramps went out to unplug the septic hole.  Oops, "The 77-year-old Des Moines man got stuck in his septic tank."  I'm wagering that gandma pushed him but, I am so cynical.  Hey, by-the-by, if grandpa is so ambitious at 77, perhaps he is a candidate to work off his tax burden by cleaning septics.  Stay tuned!

                                         Wisconsin military service person of the week

    This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Michael Scott, 28, of Sun Prairie. Michael died Friday May 27, 2005 or injuries he sustained one day earlier when his helicopter was shot down by small-arms attack in Buhriz, Iraq, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. His copter was an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior class helicopter. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Scott was a 1995 graduate of Sun Prairie High School. He enlisted in the Army just after high school. Chief Warrant Officer Scott arrived in Iraq in November 2004 with D Troop, 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. The unit's U.S. home is Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This was Scott's first assignment to a combat zone. The Journal Sentinel went on to say that just before deployment to Iraq, Joshua and his wife, Sherri, had just had their third child, a boy named Kross. The couple met at Sun Prairie High School and were married in 1999. In addition to his son Kross, Joshua Scott is survived by his mother, Cathy Scott; a grandmother, Doris Scott; a sister, Beverly; a 2-year-old daughter, Trynity; and, a 16-year-old son, Kenneth. Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Michael Scott is the 37th Wisconsin service member killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.

   3,897 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

   468 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

   28,711 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

   1,840 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

   82 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

   6 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

   124 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

   14 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.