Sleepless in who knows where

1 comment September 26th, 2008

It’s 4:28 a.m. The train has stopped at some godforsaken Podunk of a place. Some people got off. I don’t know what state we are in. I can’t sleep, so I fire up the PC. I’ve talked to quite a few people already, kept up with the news on the computer and TV, and frankly I’m getting rather alarmed.

I know I’m on a train, but I’m thinking of buses. As in, Are the wheels really coming off the bus? Our country seems to be in one of those times when the leaders are small men, and now, small women, with few ideas, few qualities that inspire. The Wasilla City Council  could do a better job than this Congress and president. Maybe we should draft them.

We may indeed need to bail out failing investment banks with all their once fancy, now tarnished “instruments.” I’m not sure of that. What I do know is that a lot of people I’m talking to on this trip are livid at the thought of being ordered to send their tax dollars to Washington to pay for the very people who sold the U.S. down the river. This crisis is not abstract: Folks are losing their savings. There is nothing in any of the proposed measures on Capitol Hill that has any relief for people with foreclosed mortgages, which were based on home prices that were wildly overpriced.

Many of those I interviewed were also appalled that people routinely bought houses they in no way could pay for, suckered in by the lure of “free money” offered by irresponsible lenders. There’s more than enough blame to go around for the mortgage meltdown.

And for all John McCain made a show of “suspending” his campaign to go back to Washington to solve the crisis, people in the White House meeting Thursday said he didn’t say much. He did do several TV interviews, though. This, then, qualifies as a “suspended” campaign. I think the suspension has more to do with campaign strategy. McCain needed a new surprise.

The train has started up again. As we gain speed, the train lurches from right to left, up and down. I’m bouncing around like crazy in the middle of a country whose government can’t understand that we must have a First World infrastructure if we are going to remain a First World nation. Small men. Small women.

I’ve put Brad Paisley on the iPod. I feel better. “Time Well Wasted.” The title seems appropriate.

SCOTT MORGAN | RRSTAR.COM
Rockford Register Star columnist Chuck Sweeny rides the City of New Orleans Amtrak train Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, between Chicago and New Orleans, La.