Me, me, me, me ...

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
Hands keep reaching for our property
La de da de de, la de da de da

Spending thrift was once the rage, uh huh
History has turned the page, uh huh
Spend and spend's the current thing, uh huh
Elected elite our newborn kings, uh huh

And the beat goes on ...

Apologies to Sony and Cher for that hatchet job.

$22,880 for LEED certification of a new Chattanooga fire hall. In the real world, the world of working for our money and profits and losses, when a customer specifies that a piece of equipment meet certain requirements, that manufacturer must certify adherence to specifications. An Underwriters' Laboratories certification is the manufacturer's responsibility. Equipment meeting the requirements of FCC, CE, EU, ANSI, ASME, IEEE, or any other alphabet soup organization's standards is likewise the responsibility of the manufacturer or the seller of the goods. But our government pays extra, just like they'll pay three or four times what Joe Schmuckatelli can go to Wally World to pay for a computer ... and they have computer geeks running around all over the place who ought to know better.

Our elected elite will spend 100 grand for a painted hunk of steel that someone calls "art." They'll pay 50 grand for a basket of rocks, on lease, and a pile of scrap wood with a couple of railroad ties. They'll spend 100s of thousands of hard earned taxpayer buckaroos for construction work that must then be rebuilt. And who pays for the redeaux? Um, it isn't the group who messed it up in the first place, or the government functionaries who were supposed to inspect the work during construction. And does anyone even lose a job because of gross negligence? No. It's only those taxpayer dollars that were wasted. There are plenty more where those came from.

Isn't it interesting that Chattanooga spends a bunch of money on "art" just over a week after some consultant dude from Portland, OR comes here and says Chattanoogans need to spend more. Who paid that guy to come here? He certainly wasn't a volunteer.

Consultant - a person hired from out of town, and far away, for big bucks, to come in and use our watch to tell us what time it is.

Then comes news that the Chattanooga Bond Board has approved, if my abacus is correct, expenditure of $645,511 taxpayer dollars for equipment going into a training center to be used specifically for VW. And VW specifies what equipment will be purchased? And little of it is what's available here in the local area from our homies?

When Mayor Littlefield is annexing people's homes just to pay for current spending ...

All of this during a time when people are losing jobs, homes, and it isn't looking much better in the next couple of years? This, when today Regions Bank announced on the Chattanoogan.com they're closing 121 branches? This when it was just announced, again on the Chattanoogan.com, that Metro Dalton's unemployment rate has decreased, decreased mind you, to 12.4%? And the feds are now telling us that 49 of the 50 States are experiencing higher unemployment, even after their so-called "stimulus package" was supposed to guarantee no more than an 8% jobless rate? And now that the federal boys and girls are being told that we've already experienced the biggest bang from that "stimulus" spending?

Santana once sang "you've got to change your evil ways." But they, our elected elite, think we'll forget about their evil spending ways by the time elections roll around again.

I've got news for them.

Back in the 60s the Everly Brothers wrote and sang a hit a song that's recently become popular again, but perhaps needs just a little tweak:

Some sunny day-hay baby
When everything seems okay, baby
You'll wake up and find that you're alone
Cause you'll be gone
Gone, gone, gone ... really gone
Gone, ga-gone ... 'cause you done us wrong

Personally, I believe Alison Krauss' version of the original is better. Surely her being a lot easier on the eyes wouldn't have something to do with that perception.

A teenager in the 60s ... convertibles, bikini clad beach bunnies, Newport Beach, body surfing neked at Scotchman's Cove, in the middle of winter, Saddleback Mountain, tarantulas migrating in Trabuco Canyon ... maybe it's a good thing The Girls are telling me it's time to go for their daily ride, before memories like the time I woke up laying in the middle of a patch of poison ivy begin to surface.

Royce E. Burrage, Jr.
Royce@Officially Chapped.org