WEBSTER COUNTY, Ky. (3/20/13) - I am constantly amazed by what I hear. Now there are people who are upset because on the History Channel miniseries “The Bible”, the actor playing Satan looks like Barack Obama. Really, is that what the world has come to?

There are so many things wrong in the world today, but people get so hung up on the ones that aren’t important, or don’t even exist at all. Does anyone seriously think that the producers of the show toured the world looking for an actor who resembled Obama just so they could have him play the devil? Seems rather unlikely.

But this article is not intended to be political. Well, at least not towards any particular party or group. It's about how ridiculous the world, and especially this country, has become.

Every decision that’s made has to be discussed in ten different ways and run passed four study groups just to make sure that no one is offended or gets their feelings hurt. If no one is offended by the idea, then we have to have a study to see how the decision will impact water drainage, soil erosion and an endangered ant species in South America. If there are no negative environmental effects, then we have to get permission from the federal government, state and the county before we can proceed. Once we get permission, then we have to buy a work permit.

Once the project is finished, someone will be mad because they didn’t have the opportunity to give their input and someone else will be upset because you used federal grant money that could have been better spent to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead. (Actual project at UC Santa Cruz. Federal government gave them $615,000 in 2010!)

Clay Elementary needs a new sidewalk. Thirty years ago at our schools, if you needed a new sidewalk the parents went to the PTA, who decided to have a fund raiser. They then presented the money to the board who built a sidewalk. Now rules and regulation have made it impossible. The PTA has been replaced by the PTO, whatever that is. (I guess the A made the other letters feel bad, so they had to pick a letter closer to the center!) There is no money to be raised because the parents are already paying for the kids’ sports team to travel to games. The school can’t rebuild the sidewalk because it’s actually on public property instead of school property and KDE regulations forbids the school from doing anything that could possibly do anything to benefit anyone in town. I guess if the school builds a new sidewalk, then there will be two sidewalks going down the hill, one that’s dangerous and falling apart, and another nice new one, because the school won’t be able to remove the old one if it's not on their property. That will look great!

I really feel bad for the school board and the school district administrators because they’re stuck with the regulations and funding they have. I’m not placing even one iota of blame on them in this. It’s just how things work now.

Even if they had the $700,000 the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the University of New Hampshire in 2010 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows, they still wouldn’t be able to rectify this situation.

This makes about as much sense as the $325,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to construct a robotic squirrel named “RoboSquirrel”. Why do they need this you may ask? Well to determine what happens when a snake is confronted by a robot squirrel of course! Duh! Seriously, that’s the reason.

Of course I wouldn’t mind having a RoboSquirrel. That sounds fun. I’d take it to the park. Take it for walks. See what happens when it gets attacked by a cat....oh, never mind.

Let’s talk more about the money. The Department of Health and Human Services planned to spend $500 million in 2012 on a program that will, among other things, seek to solve the problem of 5-year-old children that “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom. I think I know a solution for that, but it’s not politically correct. But it's been working for thousands of years!

China lends us more money than any other foreign nation, but that didn’t stop our government from spending 17.8 million dollars on social and environmental programs for China.

These crazy spending sprees come from all sides. Republicans, Democrats and Independents. The proverbial crazies seem to be running the proverbial asylum. But really, who are the crazy ones? The one who make these decisions or the ones who elected them?

It's time the we wake up America!

Matt Hughes
J-E News Editor

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