Random Thoughts of the Day

1. I want my government to be efficient.  
• Why?  Because, I spent the entire day dialing and redialing the three to four numbers of the State of New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development's Unemployment Insurance Benefits, only to be told that the lines were busy and that I should try again at a later time or go online.  And when I did go online, I couldn't log on.  And the only recourse to this issue was to call the three to four numbers to speak to an Agent.  And, and when, after many, many attempts, I finally got through, which meant a recorded voice telling me that the wait to talk to an Agent was twenty five minute instead of it telling me to call back at another time and hanging up on me, I felt ecstatic.  Ecstatic that I would be, in the near future, speaking, conversing, connecting with a real human being.  But when that twenty five minute wait became a wait that lasted more than an hour, I'm not going to lie, I was... peeved.  But, but when the recorded voice piped in saying that the wait time was now five minutes, hope was rekindled.   Then it stopped--the muzak and the many recorded advertisements of other services the fine Department of Labor provides--it stopped.  It finally felt like a person at the other end would answer my call.  A minute passed.  Then another, and another.  Then, then suddenly and unceremoniously, IT HUNG UP ON ME.  You may ask, are you sure the call wasn't dropped?  I'm sure the call wasn't dropped.  No, no, no, no, no!  The call wasn't dropped.  You can tell a difference between a call dropping and a call being hung up on.  AND I WAS HUNG UP ON!
2. I think the Republicans want to make our government less efficient.
• The sad thing is, as I watch the Republicans come to power again in our Federal government, you hear them arguing that a case like mine is a reason why private sector and not government is the answer; you hear them proclaiming that government being bloated is the truth, that cutting spending is the way, and that small government is the life promised in the American dream.  Yet how nightmarish it is that many people believe the GOP sound-bites to be the gospel truth.
3. At the moment, I believe Democrats need to fight, because there's no more room for compromises.
• There once was a family of three.  The mom and the dad had a boy who had difficulties getting good grades in school but at his martial arts training hall was a top of his peers. His dad, having evaluated his son's situation, decided to take his son out of school and use the money budgeted for education to use during his Friday night poker games instead of paying off his credit card debt.  The dad's decision was making a village idiot and a neighborhood bully out the boy and causing the family to go deeper into debt.  Really, most Friday night poker games saw the dad losing that might as well he should have just given the money away to his rich poker buddies.  The boy's mom, seeing her family crumbling before her eyes, took the money from the dad and returned the boy back to school.  After consulting with the boy's martial arts master, she decided that, instead of sending the boy to four martial arts classes a week, he'd still be at the top with just the two.  Mom had also decided to hire a tutor who'd come three times a week to help the boy improve his grade.  And even after all that, she found that there was still a little money left over to pay off the credit card debt.  But the boy complained and his dad egged him on.