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Every Spring, with a simple flip of his tail, Merle the Wonder Mule is able to predict, with unerring probability, and odiferous objectivity, what is likely to happen, when the hundred-headed hydra known as Congress, coordinates enough to loosen its collective sphincter, and pass something of constitutional import. This year, of course, a constipated form of health care seems to be rearing its ugly head.
Only at the Bay Haven Inn in Newport, Oregon, film site of the movie Sometimes a Great Notion, where the common man stands up to the corporate monster, could one step up for a cold brew and experience Merle's almost messianic, mind-altering, leathery behind, barometer of bad news, back room dealings, and beyond the pale political sell outs. Every serious student of corporate stink should consider stopping by.
Get close and experience the decomposing whiff that our do-nothing congress has created; a stench of stalemate so noxious, stupefying, and degrading that it could give a Teabagger pause, and make a Neocon almost tell the truth. Even the bandaged fisherman with the bad thumb, who needs medical attention, seems frozen in his tracks.
Surely, the thought of thousands of insurance-deprived Americans who die yearly would loosen the purse strings from the proverbial pot of gold that every senator enjoys with his Cadillac health care plan, courtesy of US government. Surely, Merle's mercurial medium abilities could mount a medical offensive, rather than just smell offensive. Buying insurance today is like buying protection from the mafia, and then you die anyway, speaking of broken thumbs.
This year, however, the steaming equestrian deposit seems to reek doubly of unrequited impossibilities and half-digested digressions that would make a dung beetle blink: that is, no matter how much taxpayers give to corporate masters, and kowtow to insurance inquisitors, the result will be mandatory enrollment in company stores, and a state of indentured servitude, that will continue to enrich the wealthy, and impoverish the already-vanishing middle class. Dirt-poor, the new cool. Be the first on your block, to put your house in hock.
"What the hay!--I'm a mule," Merle seems to say. "I can only predict. I am no ground hog. Rodent Losers are wrong half the time! But I can tell you this--Something is rotten in Washington. You can take that to the bank!"
And maybe we should. For a plodding prognosticator, Merle's odiferous sixth sense smells spot on, maybe not like the fermenting mash of hops and barley, but a revelatory rumination, indeed; the ruin of our nation, of our republic.
Gone is yesterday's fragrant whiff of progressive possibility. Ah, the memories!
