UBC

      There is a store in Scottsboro, Alabama which I really wish to get to. It is the Unclaimed Baggage Center, the home for all those unclaimed left behind items - on luggage carousels, in baggage compartments, in seat pockets, at checkpoints, on trains and buses, in waiting areas.
These are items that people take on vacation or business trips, good stuff, and then they are gone, awaiting a new life after 90 days of not being claimed by an owner. Sad, yet exciting.
      The treasures that might be uncovered. The stories of the items left behind and why, all in one's imagination. The plain and simple overwhelming size of the store - wow! The items look backwards and forwards into the lives of Americans as trends, popularity of items, costs etc. draw pictures of the lives we lead - and sometimes leave behind!
      One day I will get there. I look forward to that day, not so much for purchases, as I really am not looking for anything, but just to see it, experience it, people watch as the shoppers throng the store. It is a treasure trove for all that.
   And then I wonder. Hey, got a great idea. What if we had a UBC for politicians and supposed leaders who also need to be left behind? They could be evaluated for usage, donated out or recycled, and if kept, then clean them out, flush their minds of the filth they supported in their lives. Give them moral backbones so they might regain the values they lost and understand the responsibilities they shirked in not speaking for the people, but rather for a personality, a deranged one at that.
     We could have a section for the haters, those who espouse violence and hate inspired attacks on all sorts of groups. The State Senator who wants to ready a Christian government where opposing males are killed off, or the National Guardsmen who support white wing extremism,  or those who simply wish to get back at whomever and whatever has ticked them off. We could recycle those who espouse violence against Jews and the State of Israel, denying its right to exist, its very existential being.
    Wow! This could get real fun. But in this age of going to extremes we also must remember to value the humanity in all, even those who have buried it deep down. But just think of that. A place where we could refresh the tired, restore statesmen to their original roles, raise the ethics of the country as a whole, provide hope for all. All while making sure that the 'reeducators' do not partycrash the program and turn it into a prison center!!!
     Ah, such a dream, such a way to bring truth and reality back into our national life. A return to public servants at their best, not best at ripping off the country, not selling their souls to the industries they pimped for before appointment to office. A place where possible candidates would have to go for a complete checkup, body and soul, mind as well, and all done by nonpartisan doctors and technicians. And of course, we would have an anonymous tax forms section, where all would be open and transparent, not hidden, the sins and graces of all being exposed, their honesty evaluated.
     Pipe dreams aside, folks, something must be done about the rising corruption and incompetence of our governments. Something must be done about the rising hatred that is becoming ever more PC - politically correct. And something must be done, perhaps sending these overgrown children to class again, to learn how to talk and behave with respect for others, for fair play in word and deed. It would be so nice if we could begin the new decade with realizations that  a UPC - an unclaimed politician center - would help, at least in theory, a new decade where nastiness and schoolyard behavior would be taboo, earning suspension and possibly expulsion, where we have a chance to grab that slim ribbon of possibility to fix the world before we crash straight into environmental apocalypse.
     No, I am not recommending camps such as the Chinese have for the Uighar or even immigration camps and detention centers that we have so wrongly set up. It is to be a last ditch effort to reeducate our people to the joys and the responsibilities, the tasks that must be done, undertaken, if we are to remain a true demcoracy.
     The best way to start is to write your reps in DC, warn them of the danger of a sham trial in the Senate, of Senators too weak in  moral fiber to vote for what they know is right, for nothing less will prove their ability to serve the people. Time to remind these 'children' that America is not up there to be divided as a chocolate bar, arguing over who has the 'bigger half". It is not a division of loot obtained via machinations. It is America. America. The land of the free, the home of the brave - brave enough to do the right things, uncomfortable as it might be. I wonder ......