TURKEYS

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  34 degrees F, wind W, calm to light at ground level.  The sky is partly cloudy with high, puffy white clouds.  The barometer is high and the humidity low. It will be a  seasonally cool but pretty day.  The rest of the indoor plants will come in today.
    We had a good trip to the Minneapolis Airport yesterday, despite a few showers, and Leslie and Allison are safely back home again.  We  miss them aleady, and Buddy now has to put up with the old folks all by himself.  How boring.
 On the wildlife front, we (Buddy and I) saw a large flock of turkeys on Hwy. K west of the Rez the other day.  I counted twenty. I don’t know how many Buddy counted, but he jumped in the front seat and pointed them.
        On  the “free stuff” front, we received an offer in the mail for free cell phones and up to 250 free minutes per month. There was even an extra application to give to a friend. It was addressed to “occupant” and we almost threw it out as a scam, but out of curiosity read the fine print.  It turns out this was  one, SafeLink wireless, is one of evidently a number of companies hired to promote and manage the Federal Lifeline Program, courtesy of the US taxpayer.
        Like free speech and all the rest of our constitutional rights, we know have a virtual right to free telephone service, if one is already enrolled in any of ten federal and state welfare programs including food stamps, Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income, and, get this, the National Free School Lunch Program.  Proof of enrollment is minimal or non-existant.
        Our grown children, all teachers, have been telling us for some time now that school kids receive free cell phones.  I did not believe it.  I do now, and I am appalled and disgusted.  Millions and millions of people are now receiving free cell phones and service and the government is actively trying to enroll more. In fact, look closely at the fine print and you will see that you are, indeed, paying for directly for someone’s free cell phone; our phone and cable TV bill says we pay almost $8.00 per month.  I often find it difficult to pay my own bill.  How is it that I have to pay for someone else’s?
        What is the motivation behind this and similar seemingly whacky “free stuff” programs?  Obviously, people who get “free stuff” are likely to vote to keep it, and to hell with worrying about ever paying for it.  Of course people who receive “free stuff” are also likely to be too lazy to go to the polls and vote, so I suppose the next step will be claiming “text to vote” on a cell phone paid for by someone else as a constitutional right.
        America, land of the free stuff, and home of the moocher.  Love it or leave it (for Spain or Greece pehaps, where they might have more free stuff).
        The free cell phone program is a turkey, and there is a whole flock of them out there.