You don’t blame God one bit for being miffed. Of all His concoctions, humans are the absolute pits — a bunch of self-indulgent, spoiled crybabies. He’s told us how to live but we insist on breaking all the rules. Generation after generation, we repeat the same tired mistakes and, worse, we have the audacity to whine and moan when things go south. He gave us a majestic universe, but nothing’s ever quite right with it. It’s too windy, too cold, too dry, too wet, yada yada. If the wailing weren’t irritating enough, can you imagine His dismay as meteorologists (the only profession where being wrong is irrelevant) and arrogant environmentalists predict the health of the Earth? No wonder He loses his cool and wants to slap us silly. No wonder He reminds us who’s in charge. He’s sick of hearing about the low water table. When He sent us relief from drought, did we thank Him? Of course not. The meteorologists weren’t satisfied with raging rivers, full lakes and flooding. They never are. The water table, they sniveled, is still below acceptable geologic levels. And that’s not all, they say. The planet’s at risk in a hundred other ways. Global warming is killing us. Gasp. Gasp. Meanwhile, all God’s children gaze hypnotically at TV weather imagery and listen dutifully to the weather celebrities who tell us what they don’t know every hour of the day and night. These people have Satellite Enhanced Imagery, Super Doppler, Double Doppler and Accu-Weather technology. With these toys, they tell us it could rain or snow or be partly cloudy or partly sunny or hail or freeze beginning tonight or maybe tomorrow or depending on the low or the high it might do something — perhaps. In that regard, I offer a scientific question: If the weather is out there somewhere, and a meteorologist is not there to predict it, does it really happen?

Maybe you’ve heard of John Galt. No? Shame on you. He was the inventor of a new source of inexhaustible energy — likely fusion — which formed the basis of a new society. This was a secret place somewhere in the desolate West, far from civilization and free from the tyranny of governments. Galt’s colony was a type of Capitalist Utopia, where ethical and self-reliant people could pursue their lives under a just system of laws. Ayn Rand was an idealist. However cockeyed and romanticized Atlas Shrugged may be, it is her anthem to Liberty, perhaps eclipsed only by her earlier work We The Living. Although Rand was an avowed atheist and therefore condemned, Tom Jefferson and she would have still hit it off. Tom and his pals risked everything in defense of Liberty. Rand despised Socialism. Tom detested King George. You guess both their souls are spinning madly in the Afterlife as they witness the mess this country’s in as it sprints away from the Declaration of Independence and gang rapes the Constitution. Here’s a thought. Wonder what would happen if, magically, a new land were discovered; and the people of that land would adopt the original American principles of our Founders and defend them at all cost? Would U.S. citizens sell their stuff, forsake Oprah and the NBA and emigrate to this new place? Shoot, there wouldn’t be enough boats and planes to handle the stampede . . .well . . . as long as it had purple mountains and fruited plains and tropics and rivers and lakes and desert and beaches and seasons and wildlife and spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

Just about everybody thinks most of television stinks. Ask them. Nobody admits liking most of TV. In fact, most people swear they don’t watch it all that much. Yeah, right. The sad truth is we adults and our impressionable kids are addicts to TV crap (there’s no other legitimate word for it). And the reason we watch crap is because the crap makers are experts at knowing what crap to dish out and then they convince advertisers to sponsor it. If you hate a lot of TV, then talk to business owners, large and small. Talk to IBM, Nike, Budweiser, Time Warner and the Burger Boys. They make it all possible. The reason most of us put up with crap is because there’s so much of it to choose from, we lose track of what is ordinary crap and what is superior. The market researchers know what all of us think and want (violence and sex); but just for fun, it would be interesting to make a list of what crap we would eliminate, given the power (other than turning the tube off). Let’s see …

Movie and music awards where people dress up to tell themselves how great they are.
Political talk shows featuring pundits who actually believe they’re smarter.
Sitcoms that high school dropouts could write if only they had the time.
Pro basketball. Is there a more overrated game with less drama? OK, bowling. Oh, pool.
Ninety percent of all movies which do nothing but make you wish you weren’t human.
Network commentary explaining political speeches you aren’t smart enough to get.
Ninety percent of all advertising, with a special prize for car dealers and male enhancement.
Beauty pageants which contradict the notion that humans are the superior species.
Audience participation talk shows which prove humans are not the superior species.
Day and nighttime soaps which help millions identify with futility.

Ten’s a good number. Well, goodness, what does that leave? Let’s see, a few great movies, cartoons, a load of sports (even wrestling and fishing), biography, nature, old variety reruns, shopping channels, religion, ten percent of advertising, C-Span (God love it), history, medicine, court tv, and a lot of other special interest channels. A lot of good stuff. But if you’re tired of the crap — the excessive violence for violence sake, “legit” pornography, inane psychobabble—blame it on the advertiser who is convinced we and millions of other zombies are getting precisely what we want. Hmmmmnnn.