The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

CLICK TO HEAR AUDIO — voting for god

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I saw a segment on CNN the other night for a poll that showed American’s approval of … God.  He got a spare 52% job approval score.  Probably up a few points since the flood during Noah’s time.  The President got a bit less.  They didn’t give ratings for the Devil, or Hitler, but let’s assume they would be lower, hopefully substantially lower.

Somehow it’s troubling that the Lord God Almighty gets rated at all, much less gets tepid scores in the most religious industrialized nation on earth.  He is, after all, the All Knowing, the Creator, the Whole Enchilada.  And we puny humans give him barely a thumbs up.

Some talking heads came on later to analyze the data. Tsunamis and starvations probably didn’t help the Lord’s ratings, they said.  Bad recession either.  If He can create the cosmos, why not some jobs?  Raise up those poll numbers, if nothing else.

Maybe God doesn’t worry about his approval ratings.  Hard to believe, I know.  Most of us seem busy fixing up our Facebook accounts so we’ll look interesting and exciting and sexy to all those network ‘friends’ we barely know but follow their every movie or book or grocery store escapade.  Mostly I think we must be supremely bored or insecure to care what people we barely know do or think about us.  Maybe we ought to get on with our lives and skip the vote for prom king or queen, move right on to adulthood, build a life worth living without giving a hoot in hell what the Facebook friends are buying or reading or recommending.

Course, here I am giving out probably unwanted advice.  Just what you want to hear, right?  Next I’ll be telling you what I read and my favorite recipes and where I went this morning.  Like you should care?

Oh, and God, if you’re listening with that omniscience of yours, could you maybe put the brakes on this 3-D movie craze?  I’m not saying it’ll ratchet up your approval ratings, but, hey, it couldn’t hurt.  You might even consider Facebook.  Think of it as a cheap computer church.  Just don’t take it personal when we don’t ‘friend’ you.  Kinda busy here….

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CLICK TO HEAR —porous borders

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Down at the South End we got some pretty porous borders.  Immigration’s starting to put a burden on our social services network and I got to tell you, it’s tearing a hole in our delicate social fabric too.  We got right-wing conservatives yelling to build a Seawall around the whole island 20 feet high and guarded by killer dolphins.  And we got left wing hippie yahoos screaming bloody murder to give the whole crowd amnesty.

It’s a tough issue for us in the land that says bring us your tired, your teeming masses.  I don’t think they meant just Ellis Island when they put up the Statue of Liberty.  Probably Camano too.  But this latest influx, well, we’re all alarmed.  We’re concerned.  Most of us are up in arms.

Every week they roll across the borders, bringing strange customs and odd dialects.  We tried, at first, to welcome em in, boil em down in the melting pot, make em one of us South Enders.     But they kept to their own.  Set up communities within our community.  Made it clear they wanted to be left alone, not assimilated.  A lot of em locked the gates — it’s America, after all, you can be unfriendly if you want.  But then came the Gated Communities, the guard stations, the checkpoints.

And pretty soon all our jobs were going to servicing THEM.  We became gardeners and housekeepers, handymen and servile artists.  We got all the low paying service jobs for these rich newcomers, these dot.com millionaires, these Boeing exec retirees.  Our pride and our way of life dried right up.

I’m not saying we ought to stop this immigration completely, but I think we’re reaching a dangerous tipping point.  Maybe some quotas would help  — you know, no more than one millionaire a square mile.  Keep the property values in reach of our kids and make it possible to live out our lives here without becoming indentured servants.  Write your congressman.  Put a stop to unchecked immigration.

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CLICK TO HEAR —mouse abuse

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     I know you folks have probably heard the news:  Stanwood wants to bring a 4 year college to the area.  Univ. of Stanwoodopolis.  Higher degrees in Lefse Rolling, Lutefisk Engineering, and Storage Unit Management.

     Now, I know what you’re thinking.  The town’ll be over-run by eggheads.  Professors taking over the barstools at the Stanwood Hotel, ruining our rural backwash hick ambiance.  Expecting political discussions, not fishing stories.  Wanting napkins with their hand-crafted malt beverages and hors douerve plates, not peanuts.  The Snow Goose bookstore will sell 5 pound tomes with 5 dollar words nobody but the PhD’s will understand.  FOR 50 DOLLARS!  With titles like the Socio-Economic Dialectic of the 3^rd generation Scandihoovian in the Stillaguamish River Drainage.

     The whole town’ll go to hell in a hurry.  Just when the fast food franchises were giving us a glimmer of hope of joining mainstream society.  All those student shops will take over now.  More art galleries.  Boutique soap stores.  Boutique clothing stores.  Boutique furniture stores.  Head shops.  Movie houses, Art movie houses.  Fancy pants restaurants.  Ethiopian Epicure.  Persian Pizza.  La De Da Linguini.

     Gonna look like Berkeley in the 60’s.  Long hair.  Free love.  Dope smoking, anti-war, bohemian anti-establishment types.  Weird clothes.  Weird music.  Weird period.  Weird as a Way of Life.

     Which….. if you stop and think about it, is a perfect description of the South End.  Which … if you been following our logic here, is exactly why the new campus should be located down by us —  the University of the South End, Tyee Branch.  Save em from hiring new professors.  The woods are thick with em.  The Band alone could be a quarter of the art faculty.  Think about it.  It’s the obvious location — and it’ll preserve the Stanwoodopolis we all love……

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CLICK TO HEAR — UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH END

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Oh, I know you all think the next location of the new college campus extension is pretty much a done deal.  Stanwoodopolis University, advanced degrees in lefse rolling, lutefisk production and storage unit management  —- sure, it looks like a lock.

     But before you start building those ivory towers out on the edge of the sewage lagoon, hold on one South End minute, cause we haven’t thrown in our towel yet.  And don’t start yammerin how we don’t have the infrastructure to support all that brain matter.  We got two – count em, 2 – mom and pop grocery complexes.  Plenty of beer and pizzas for future PhD’s.  And Daddle Distilleries can gear up for heavy production in a moment’s notice to supply fraternity and sorority alike PLUS the faculty needs.

     Sure, dismiss us if you like but dismiss us at your peril.  You’re thinking, why on god’s green earth would anybody stick a major university down in a nettle hellhole like the South End.  The only education they got is the School of Hard Knocks and they’re so hard headed now, no degrees are getting handed out.

     But you forget … we got the Elger Bay Institoot of Esthetic Enlargement, a liberal arts school that rivals Evergreen State for creative degrees.  We got graduates down here so creative they don’t need to work anymore to earn a living once they enter the art colonies of the South End.  Oh, I’m not saying they got rich.  I’m not saying they’re famous.  But how many Ivy Leaguers can claim 90% of their graduates instantly retired??? 

    That’s right  … we been preparing students since 1977 for the rigors of early retirement — WITHOUT working for Microsoft.  So don’t count us out.  We got our P.R. machine cranking 24/7, full color promotional brochures, all the megatonnage our art department is capable of when fully sober…

     University of the South End:  25 miles from I-5, but only 4 years from Retirement.  Catchy, ain’t it, Stanwood?  Good luck to ya,  you’ll need it.

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CLICK TO HEAR—university of the south end

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