My essays are not hard to write. Getting them “right” is not always easy. Getting them complete and submitted is often an “iffy” proposition. Daily life is filled with the distractions and de-railers of minor and major demands, luscious temptations and exciting rabbit trails.

As I type this, I am late . . . much late for my deadline. Late is one of those things which you know is happening, and as you watch it grow, you remind yourself that if you don’t do something, that it will get later and later until late doesn’t matter any longer, because it is too late.

I am late for good reasons and without an excuse for being late. . . After all, all that was necessary to avoid late was to “Just do it!”.  I must have thought those wise words a dozen times a day before and after the deadline, and did not hear.

Today, as I waded through the swamp of tech support, bookkeeping, e-mail responses, management conferences, taking out the garbage and picking up the mail and a dozen other urgent tasks, I thought about my lateness for my deadline obligations and began associating lateness in a larger sense than my own simple inability to impose discipline upon my activities.

The days come to a late end far too quickly. The mornings come too early, rush into lunch, trip into afternoon and slip silently into evening. The body aches and hungers as we multi-task to avoid the avoidable late. Then, something slips and something new becomes late.

Late becomes an independent entity, like the unexpected return of a strange and abandoned lover, once (a long time ago) discovered through the lens at the bottom of your beer. You knew it was there, not a bother and not at your elbow, but still, a potential bother. Now it is here, nagging at your sense of responsibility, intruding upon your attention and demanding a new, dominant priority in your losing battle to keep up with the churn of the shortening day.

There are three choices: Get it done, let it get later, let it get too late.

The desirable option is to get it done. But if that is the selection, something else must be neglected and that too, may evolve into late. It is a choice that requires care and discernment in the selection. I usually choose “let it get later”, knowing that I can stop everything else if necessary and “get it done” whenever I choose the right time before it’s “too late”. This time, I’m really late and I am hopng I am not too late for publication. That would be bad. It would screw up my reputation for being more or less about on time and usually not all that late. It takes a while to build a reputation and one screw-up to spoil it all. So, I am writing two essays as penance and precaution for the next deadline. I hope it’s not too late.

This topic is now going to political and social comment, (as of course you knew it would.  Have I ever written without grousing about the ignorance and innocence of our People?) I have warned of the period we have now entered, again and again. I have warned and explained over a little more than a decade. Now it is too late for warnings. The sewage is slopping into our slippers, soaking our socks and staining our $300 sandals.

We have spent our time at the party and the beach and in general, goofing. When we could have acted with intelligence and little serious effort to prevent our condition from deteriorating into our present condition, we put the work off. We were late comprehending the threats, but we still let it go, allowing the resolution of the problem to get later. Now, it is too late for normal resolutions and we are forced to consider extra-ordinary remedies. Too late for reasonable remedies! How sorry we have become to decay to the point of extraordinary remedies.

Consider what we now face, which cannot be repaired without exceedingly exquisite pain and inconvenience or worse.Our People have been dumbed into incompetence and indoctrinated into dependence by Federal and State policies which no longer need for an inquisitive and entrepreneurial population.Inquisitive people ask too many questions and entrepreneurs are not dependent upon the machinations of Advanced Financial Institutions and the Powers of Economic Planning.We have been taught that debt and indulgence are laudable and that we should shun conservative preservation of personal wealth for our future needs.

We refuse to remove the representatives from office who have made us so pitiful. We have one last option in November. Let us not be too late. Deny incumbent reelection.