The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

In this corner we have the Wildman of Tech, the Silicon Kid, the Tesla Terror: Elon the Elephant Musk. In the other corner we got the Bizness Brawler, the Texas Trampler, the Mad Maverick: Mark the Venture Gorilla Cuban. Ladies and Gentlemen, this will be a 15 round battle of the billionaires, no holds barred, no Marquis of Queensberrry bullshit rules, everything goes, may the best and richest man win!

This is, after all, America. Home of the Wealthy, Land of Unlimited Spending. The Supreme Court has made it possible for political contributions that have virtually no ceiling. If you thought the rich got richer before, hang onto your Social Security checks, the ride just got rougher … if you’re poor. Meaning, not a millionaire yourself. All men, so says the Declaration of Independence, are created equal. Not sure how equal women are. But created equal doesn’t mean squat immediately following birth. The rich run the world, boys, get used to it. So reads the law, so says the Supreme Court.

Might as well just accept that and embrace the Battle of the Billionaires. At least it’s up front and out in the open. Most of the dark money rolling into the election cycles is hidden from view. Give Mark and Elon some credit — they’re taking off the gloves and turning on the cameras. Why not? It’s Entertainment, folks! And trust me on this, a hungry America is starving for more reality TV, can’t really get enough, and hey, let’s skip the detailed proposals, why don’t we. A lot more gratifying to wallow in the escapism of Haitian immigrants eating your pets or graphic tales of rapists run amok from across the porous borders. Foreign policy briefs? We don’t need no stinking foreign policy briefs!

This election is coming down to the wire, folks. Anybody’s ballgame. If we had our heads screwed on straight, we’d skip the vote counts, drop the Electoral College in the garbage and go right to Like or Dislike. Course, you know and I do too, the rich would have no limit on the number of their Likes.

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A couple years ago we stayed with some friends for a couple days in Sedona, Arizona who had a house rented for a month. Sedona is a tony little burg nestled in the red hills beneath a vertiginous climb on its northern border where tourists come in droves in search of palm readers, gorgeous scenery, high end shopping, crystal therapies, woo-woo healers and various dream-catcher shysters. Prices are astronomical, needless to say, so much so that the folks who work minimum wage jobs to service the rich cannot possibly afford rents in the village or nearby environs since most apartments and houses are lodging for the Airbnb vacation industry.

What to do? Well, the good people of Sedona are floating the idea of offering these indentured servants use of a municipal parking lot to sleep in their cars between shifts. This, as you would probably agree, is wildly big hearted of the city fathers. Free parking! Their generosity is overwhelming. Of course, given these bitter partisan times, there are those who cry foul, who worry that their city parking lot will become a tent city that draws the homeless from Phoenix and Yuma, making their idyllic boutiquey village an attractive ghetto for more impoverished workers who couldn’t possibly make a living wage.

Welcome to the Land of the Privileged. Welcome to America. Even here on the South End the possibility of finding affordable rents for those willing to drive long distances to places of employment is daunting. Our food bank in Stanwoodopolis is crowded, the homeless are sleeping in town doorways or in the parks while, maybe you heard, the rich are getting richer. God forbid we tax the corporate wealthy or the billionaire ruling class to narrow the income inequity. After all, we might become them someday and after all our hard work to make that first billion, how unfair to take a bigger slice to use to solve problems like homelessness. No, let them eat cake, these impoverished losers. And in Sedona, let them live in their cars. Just park outside the city limits….

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