The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

A Good Day For A Bad Attitude

By George Lightbourn

I admit it, I have a bad attitude. When I looked in the mirror this morning I saw a guy with a seven day beard who simply doesn’t give a s_ _ _ _.

What brought on this most unbecoming malaise? I can sum it up in one word – vacation. You see, I’m just back from a week away, a week spent with m y brother and sisters and their husbands and wives. Every year for longer than I care to recall, we’ve spent a week together in the summer overlooking the lake (never actually venturing into the water) drinking a bit too much beer, smoking cigars and discussing life.

For those six glorious days we all pay keen attention to the weather forecast, something I never do the rest of the year. As a group we elevate the weather forecast to a place of reverence because golfing is so weather dependent and besides, the evening cocktail hour is so much better when conducted outdoors.

And for six glorious days we pay almost no attention to what many people consider “news.” We just do not care.

Take for example the “news” coming out of state government. Rumor has it that a Supreme Court ruling blew another $300 million hole in the state budget. Well, knock me over with a feather. I’m guessing that our leadership in Madison will come together and agree to do nothing before the fall election. Yawn.

Then there’s that fella who heads up the Commerce Department. He must have forgotten he’s in the public sector when he decided to take his assistant on all those trips and to order off the room service menu. Now I know a lot of folks will get worked up over this. Not me. I couldn’t care less. And besides, Susan will take care of it. She’ll have him back in Appleton before the last mosquito hatch of the year.

And the “news” out of Washington isn’t any more electric. I see where Phil Gramm said out loud what a lot of economists have been writing; that the economy isn’t as bad as the talking heads would have us believe. Only when Phil says it, it comes out sounding like “nattering nabobs of negativity.” I understand that a lot of folks want to send Senator Gramm off for sensitivity training and to have him expunged from John McCain’s speed dial. Me, I am passionately indifferent about the good Senators remarks.

I also read where the control of the Wisconsin Legislature is hanging in the balance and that natural gas prices will have us heating our homes this winter by rubbing rebate checks together. Summerfest attendance is down and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might need to be rescued by the Treasury. Nadal finally beat Federer on grass and Sabathiamania will push Miller Park attendance past three million this year. All nice stories I’m sure, just nothing that seems all that important in my current frame of mind.

The one issue that has stayed with me this week was raised by my sister. She was miffed over the fact that Steve Williams – caddie to Mr. Eldrick Tiger Woods – stands to make more than $1 million this year. “Just for toting a sack of golf clubs,” she complained. She has a problem with the fact that nurses, teachers and a lot of other fine, productive people can never hope to make the money this guy will make just toting golf clubs. My brother and I gave an uninspired defense of the free market system but our hearts really weren’t in the discourse.

You see, my brother and I are mostly envious of Steve Williams. In Mr. Williams’ world every week must be like the week we just spent. Other than making sure that he is not toting more than the allowable fourteen clubs for the world’s greatest golfer, and figuring out that gravity will cause the golf ball to roll this way and that on sloping greens, he probably has few worries. Every day when Steve Williams looks in the mirror he is looking at a fellow who might as well be on vacation, a fellow who really doesn’t care about the Fannie, Freddie, Phil or Susan. What he sees is a fellow with a delightfully bad attitude.

-July 14, 2008

A Good Day For A Bad Attitude

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