From The Morbid To The Inane

Folks, I’m constantly astounded — but sadly seldom surprised — by the sheer stupidity of some people and the actions of our government. I’m sure that you can cite numerous examples of your own experiences with intellectually-challenged individuals and people in power running amok. Since I’m being paid the big bucks to offer my comments on random topics, allow me to cite a few of my own.
I recently read where there’s a proposal to construct netting under the Golden Gate Bridge in California. The purpose of this project would be to catch jumpers from falling to their doom. The cost would be around $70 million. While certainly not advocating suicide by the law of gravity, I will suggest that those so inclined would be kind enough to park at the foot of the bridge and take decisive action. Traffic snarls would be minimized.
I heard an interview with a woman who asserted that her jumper friend would still be alive today if such safety netting had been in place. My first thought was that her friend might still be amongst the living had he or she not jumped from that height. My second thought was that unless the safety device was made of sticky spider web material, what would stop this distraught person from finding an opening and continuing the plunge?
Enough of the morbid, now on to inane. I heard of two government studies, which results were released in the past two weeks. The first was that our state ranked fairly highly in the rate of violence by guns (I will not say “gun violence” because the objects themselves are neither violent nor non-violent. The second survey/study concluded that around 40 percent of households do not have a land-based phone line. No big surprise there.
The rub with those two tax-funded projects was that they were conducted by the Centers For Disease Control. Talk about misdirection of funds. Can anyone please explain to me what firearms and phones have to do with diseases? I did not take the time to look up the organization’s mission statement or any other non-pertinent causes they take up in Atlanta. I do wonder how many millions of dollars and countless man-hours were expended on the above aforementioned vital studies? Perhaps, just perhaps, real diseases and maladies could have been cured or progress made towards them if those bozos would stick to what their organization’s name implied.
James David Altman lives in West Ashley and has been a contributing columnist for several publications. He’s the son of the late former S.C. Republican House of Representative of John Graham Altman III. You can reach him at rabidreb@gmail.com.