The value of columnists
Last Monday was Fourth of July for 2011. It sneaked up on me and I didn't get a column done, so dug in the files. Found one from 1993 that is short and full of hyperbole. Dave Barry and I are not meanies. We're just a couple of kindly guys who sometimes have fun at politicians' expense. Surely that is a forgivable weakness:
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Last spring I stole paragraphs Dave Barry wrote to describe his first visit to Montana. It is all right for columnists to steal stuff if they give credit. I'm not alone in thinking Barry is rated up there someplace with Erma Bombeck and Pat McManus in the humor department. Someone sent me a Barry quotation which I haven't seen before. It is apparently from an early 1993 column wherein he gives us a lesson in the physical and political sciences. I am repeating it here in case one of my readers, or someone from the Sierra Club, missed it.
"Nature is located mainly in national parks, which are vast tracts of wilderness that have been set aside by the United States government so citizens will always have someplace to go where they can be attacked by bears. And we're not talking about ordinary civilian bears, either. We're talking about federal bears, which can behave however they want to because they are protected by the same union as postal clerks."
That's it. I've slaved for 30 years, done everything short of taking cranial steroids while unsuccessfully trying to describe many National Park Department management policies, then some big city guy in Florida nails it right on the button first time around. After studying his writing methods, I've decided Barry's secret is to avoid any big words, either nouns, adjectives or verbs, and as we know from past readings, he uses the word "actual" quite a bit. I believe he does that to make it seem like what he's saying is founded on facts. Let's see if I can do that?
Planning staffs are groups of disorganized people from "out of the area" who like to tell other people where to live, build stores and burn leaves. They are paid lots of money so they can move away as soon as the people paying the bills realize none of their plans work.
County commissioners are local people who have been able to avoid or squelch information on any unpopular ideas they may have formed. This saves voters the difficulty of hiring actual people who know what they are doing to run the local government. By winning an actual election, they are immediately empowered with great wisdom on how to do everything the planning boards can't figure out, such as judging kinds of road beds, speed limits, good places to save garbage and raising taxes. Most Montana counties have more of these than are really needed.
Columnists are found in newspapers and magazines because when other people sit down to read, they like to have somebody to curse in addition to regular reporters and weather forecasters. Columnists were originally started many years ago so reader persons without actual opinions could get valuable well thought out assistance. Many county commissioners, most federal big shots, and actual business honchos believe columnists are not completely necessary in a well regulated society.
One more shot of Dave Barry wisdom. Following is his list of cabinet recommendations sent to President Clinton - "Transportation - Ted Kennedy, HUD - Leona Helmsley, Defense - Rodney King, Treasurer - Charles Keating, Education - Dan Quayle, Health - Dr. Jack Kevorkian, CIA - Ross Perot, Family values - Woody Allen, Drugs - Marion Berry, Veterans Affairs - Jane Fonda, Speaker of the House - Admirable Stockdale."
Some of these names might not be remembered by people under 55, but take Dave Barry's opinion and mine, they are well chosen. President Clinton did not pick a single one of them.
G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.