Leon Boogerkhan, fiesty local correspondent

I read a letter to the editor in today's paper. The local paper, called the Valley Post Haste, has a letters to the editor section that mostly deals with issues like horse droppings in the Wal*Mart parking lot, plumber cleavage displayed by the local police, and how much prayer in school is enough to keep Satan from making the boys show their underwear.

So the letter today about the American economy being in trouble, over the signature of one Leon Boogerkhan (surely it's a nom de plume! C'mon, Lion King of boogers?) really stood out from it's compatriots.

Leon said that American wages are depressed. While prices are rising for you-name-it, wages are not, except when the minimum wage is hiked. And since taxes keep rising, along with all our costs, the standard of living is dropping for an ever increasing proportion of the population. He was especially indignant about the economic stimulus package. He commented that it's unfunded, meaning that all the government did was print more money, making each new dollar, along with the existing dollars, worth less. (Worth less is too damn close to worthless!)

In 1965 I had a summer job with the State of Nevada. If I'd have stayed on full-time, after my one year probationary period, with the hike in pay I figured I could have rented a house and gotten married. I even got engaged! It would never have worked, so it's a very, very good thing that I went on my Mission.

In 1970, during my senior year in collich (that's how it's spelled in Utah) I was making $90 a week as a broiler cook at a Mr. Steak. I was married and had a kid (Hi, Kris, Happy Birthday!) and our rent for a house out on Utah lake was $75 a month. My old but dependable '62 Buick Skylark convertible was paid for, as was my wife's '65 Ford station wagon. (If you can imagine it, SUVs didn't exist, except from some place in Bavaria.)

What happened between then and now is a blur. But it does seem that America, that beacon of hope on the mountain top, became America, the target in the cross-hairs on the mountain top. And who can blame those targeting us? Aren't they following a script written by Life Itsownself starting back with whatever Kingdom you want to nominate as the first 'known-world' power?

Whomever has something has at least one whomever-else who wants it. Sometimes the wherewithal exists so that the whomever-elses can duplicate the feat of the world power. But eventually there is conflict and somebody loses. No kingdom is forever and nobody shares and shares alike.

Leon Boogerkhan said that America, is finally showing signs of losing the battle. He said he didn't know if it's because our enemies have gotten too strong for us to resist them or because of a cultural malaise that has lowered America's ability to resist them. In either case, if it continues, we're going to be just another chapter in world history, like the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, British, etc. (Man, it's a long, long list!)

Ol' Boogerkhan ended by saying he couldn't see America's future, but he can see certain trends that he didn't approve of. One trend he deplored was the notion that you can be 'kind' to people and thus appease them. He said there were plenty of others but didn't name any. The one I disapprove of the most is nanny-stateism. Or would that be State Nanny-ism?

But how can one resist agreeing with the observation that unless America changes, things will continue inexorably down hill. And I don't think the current election cycle will change anything that needs to be changed.