I was sitting in my car, watching the state inspection and emissions testing stickers peel themselves off my windshield, when it occurred to me, "Can't we even make good glue in this country anymore?"
When it came to industry, we used to be The Big Dog. During World War II, our factories turned out more than 1,000 warplanes a month!
We built Liberty transport ships in just four days, from keel laying to launch. Four days! An entire ship!
Our cars were the envy of the world. They were sturdily built hunks of Detroit metal and were nearly indestructible.
And even if you managed to wreck one — which wasn't easy — the paint job stayed on them permanently.
Today, shortly after a car leaves the showroom, the paint starts to peel in sheets the size of Ryan Howard, until the car is 50 percent its original color and 50 percent primer gray.
So much for modern American industry.
•••
A new poll by Pew Research Center shows that 18 percent of Americans think President Barack Obama is Muslim. You know what that means? Because he belongs to the United Church of Christ, as I do, then 18 percent of Americans must think that I am a Muslim.
That's impossible. Muslims are smarter than me because they know which way to face when praying. For all I know, I might be kneeling in the direction of Reinholds. The good news with the poll is that 82 percent of Americans are relatively smart.
•••
Escaped convict John McCluskey was recaptured in Arizona. A real sweet guy, in the early 1990s he was convicted in Lancaster County of robbing three convenience stores and shooting at a witness.
He and two others escaped from a prison in Kingman, Ariz., on July 30 by — get this — walking out of their cell block through an unguarded door propped open by a rock and scaling a chain link fence that was not topped by razor wire, authorities said. They approached the perimeter wire, which also was unguarded, and cut their way out with wire cutters tossed to them by McCluskey's cousin/girlfriend, police said. The alarm, which often went off for no reason, was ignored by the guards.
Who was running the prison? Col. Klink?
•••
And if we don't have enough to worry about, now astronomers tell us the moon is shrinking.
Does the good news ever end?
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