Standards, people.

Oh, brothers and sisters, I pontificate to you this evening with a furrowed brow and a heavy heart.

These are troubling times.

Tonite, my brain is pre-occupied with standards.   Our standards, my flock.
And the fact that they've.... gotten pretty low.

Can I get an Amen?

I first started dwelling on this, on a part-time basis, a few months ago.  An area poll was taken, as to the best restaurants in my greater metropolitan (he writes, chuckling at the use of this word to describe where he lives) area.

The restaurant that came in 2nd, is within walking distance of my house.   The food there is not good (nor is it truly bad), and they've a ways to go before their in-house brewed beers taste like what you'd except. IPA is not very IPA-like, etc.

But the owner works the room well, and the service is always attentive, lest you think I'm only focused on the negative.  Not me, my people.  I always look for the positive, if I'm going to testify negatively, hallelujah!

it's all about balance, you see....


The comments to the announcement that this was the 2nd best restaurant in my GMA, are what've stuck with me.   You must, we are told, try a burger when you go.  They're awesome!

A burger.
It's the 2nd best restaurant in the area, because... they serve a hamburger.

I've had the hamburger. Due to it's proximity to my humble abode, I've done a fairly in-depth study on their hamburger.  I researched most of my college term papers less than I've researched this hamburger.
It tastes remarkably like... every other basic, kinda dry,  hamburger I've ever had.
It's not particularly large, not stuffed with something new and exciting, not seasoned nor topped with anything that makes THEIR 1/3lb of ground cow meat stand out from the crowd.

Try the burger!!!!!!!!   Not... "best beer ever", or "Daily specials show a true love of the culinary arts".

Nope.  Try the damn burger, brother and sisters.  Want fries with that?
And before you assume, there are way more than two restaurants in my GMA.    And lots of them don't even offer drive-thru service!  

Our standards.....

But wait!   On the way to services this morning, I passed a billboard.    "Busch Beer.  Because you earned it."

Earned it?!?!?!?!?!?  You earned a really crappy tasting beer, my congregants!!!!! Rejoice and be glad!!!
You EARNED that Busch beer.    Way to go!
What does one have to do, to accomplish,  to EARN a Busch beer?   the limber mind reels with sarcastic responses.      However, looking closer at the sign, apparently you earn a Busch beer by... shooting a deer or a duck.

I fish a lot, and have, since getting my first post-college job (which paid crap wages and was unsatisfying in every way), always felt like I earned better than that.
I had a great day out on the river this morning! I really earned.... a halfway decent beer that I will not want to consume via paper funnel or long plastic tube.    Can I get an amen?

Standards,  my people.    If you accomplished more than tying your owns shoes today, you've earned better than Busch beer.  Praise... whomever you feel comfortable praising!


And this brings me to the overlying concern, when it comes to standards, and the fact that we've apparently given up on them.

Don't we all deserve the highest standards in politicians?    It's easy to repeat the oft heard phrase that we get the politicians we deserve, I think some of our standards have faltered over the last 20 years.

Where I live, there was just a primary to pick the republican candidate that will run for a seat vacated by the "family values" "christian" official, who was ejected from the house once it became known that she was having fact finding meetings with another "christian" "family values" representative from the other side of the state, in a Lansing hotel room. Regularly.   He was removed from office as well.  

And they both had the gall, and the legal loopholes, to run in the primary for the very offices that they were just expelled from!  Frankly, I was relieved and a bit surprised when they did not win their respective nominations.

Are these truly the politicians we deserve?  The argument, brothers and sisters, is that they ARE, because enough people heard the buzzwords, and decided that was all they needed to know.

Standards, people...   We've let them slip, we've let them slide.   So very far down....

Burgers... You can order them from your car by talking into a clown's mouth.
Busch Beer - just... no.

And it's time we all try to give that whole "informed electorate" thing a try again.  Try to use the gigantic brains that evolution, or the god of your choice, has provided us, to see past the buzzwords.

I'm not choosing sides here.

If everyone, or at least a far greater number of people who are currently doing this,  CAN and WILL  do this, we'll all come out ahead.  Think for yourselves, my people!

It only hurts for a moment.

Or maybe we do get the politicians we deserve,  and we really HAVE earned that Busch beer.


This notion gives me the shivers, the same kind I used to get when I was a broke college kid, trying to force Busch beer down my gullet....