20
Aug

Where is that Hee Haw doctor with his rubber chicken when we need him

Published on August 20th, 2012

August 15, 2012
Lamorinda Weekly

Some years ago there was a weekly television program featuring country music and down-home humor . . . “Hee Haw.” Each week there was a short sketch in which a “patient” would wiggle his finger or bend his elbow or lift his arm above his head and tell the “doctor,” “It hurts when I do this,” to which the “doctor” always responded by hitting the “patient” with a rubber chicken and saying, “Then, don’t do that!”

I was reminded of that routine the other day when I listened to a longer-than-usual National Public Radio report about a growing water shortage in the second-most-populous state in the nation, Texas. One of the interviewees said solving that problem would require “thinking outside the box” because, as another interviewee explained, the Texas population is expected to double by 20-something-or-other. Meanwhile, in the most-populous state in the nation, California, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, our legislature took on several billion dollars of additional debt to begin a “high-speed” railway project and our governor wants to pump billions of gallons of Northern California water to Southern California, because our population is expected to double by 20-something-or-other.

Where is that “Hee Haw” “doctor” with his rubber chicken when we need him . . . to pummel politicians and say, “Then, don’t do that” . . . don’t keep doubling America’s population. Apparently, “thinking outside the box” does not include thinking about stabilizing our population. Too bad . . . especially for our descendants.

So, all together now, let’s join our governor in singing:

“Under the Delta and through the tubes, to Grandmother’s pool it flows. The fish know the way, they’ll die in the Bay, unless it really sno–ows!”

Edward C. Hartman, Moraga, CA
Author, The Population Fix
CAPS Advidory Board

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