My Parasitic Twin Wants to be President – Chapter Three – The Issues

Another month, another chapter. If you need to catch up, here are links to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Despite adjusting my medications, I put more words down on paper to create a Chapter 3, this time about campaign issues. Gee, that sounds dry. It was difficult to write about serious issues in a light-hearted way. I’m not sure I succeeded. Regardless, here are some excerpts from a raw, unedited third chapter about issues facing us today.

(some introductory words)

Can you believe it that Ray wanted my opinion on the issues? He said that he viewed me as a simple Iowa everyman. I think that’s a compliment, but I’m not 100% sure. I certainly have my opinions, and I told Ray that I’d be happy to share them with him. He also asked Maude Chappenheim to provide some input as his everywoman. She doesn’t know why Ray wants to know her opinions, but she gladly offered her help. Us twins got to stick together.

(some hilarious words)

Healthcare

Me and Ray have been on Medicaid since we were declared to be disabled.  It’s one of the few parts about being disabled that’s sorta nice. If we have a medical problem like when Ray’s frequent ingrown knuckle hairs get all infected up, we go to a doctor and get it taken care of. Boom! Problem solved.  Not everyone is so lucky.

In fact, when we was kids, Ma had private health insurance from her job to pay for our medical issues. She was always paying some deductible or for things that weren’t covered. Like when Ray would get mad at me, he’d swallow something. Without a stomach, whatever he swallowed found its way somewhere inside of me where it shouldn’t have gone. Food usually dissolved, but I hated when Ray would swallow a rock. The doc would have to cut me open after the rock settled in my hand, or foot, or wherever. If kids might read this here campaign diary, there’s no way I can tell you where a pebble settled one time. Ma was always grousing about those doctor visits. I can say I was none too pleased with them either.

Anyway, Ray thinks Americans should have a choice to take some government healthcare or keep their own private health insurance with co-pays and deductibles. I think Obama tried to do something like that with his Obamacare, and then the Republicans tried to improve it, made it the Affordable Care Act, but it was too messed-up of a plan to save. That’s the best I can figure out from watching Fox News.

So, that’s Ray’s position on healthcare — everyone should have it.  And if you don’t have any, and you have one of them pre-existing condition like a parasitic twin growing out of your chest, you should still be able to get health insurance. And Ray, too!

(yadda, yadda, yadda)

Climate Change

I don’t know why people fight so much over this one. The climate changes with every season. Any darn fool can see that. So those folks that say climate change is not happening are just nuts. Ray and me agree on that, although Ray rolls his eyes when I present my argument.  Now as for whether climate change is a problem or not, that’s where we get to disagreeing.

Ray thinks the ice up around the North Pole and Greenland is melting. I’ve never been there, but in my thinking, the ice is probably gone from Greenland by now or they would have called it Iceland. Ray claims there already is an Iceland, but who would name a country that? That would probably be bad for attracting tourists, unless all the tourists are ice skaters.

Anyway, Ray claims the melting ice will flood the coasts of the United States and islands like Hawaii. Why should we care? We live in Iowa! But Ray reminded me that when he’s President, we’ll be living on the coast in Washington, DC. I had never thought about having to move when Ray gets elected. I best start putting my affairs in order here in Okawana. I don’t have many, but I will want someone looking after my red wiggler worm bucket while I’m gone for a few years. I would hate to come back to Okawana and not have any red wigglers for fishing.

Ray wants to use solar and wind power more. That’s fine — on sunny and windy days. Ray seems to think we can store the power. How do you store sunshine and wind? Will we need a giant silo to house a very bright tornado? Just don’t make much sense to me, but I’ll trust my brother on this one.

Ray even thinks we can use wave power in the ocean to generate electricity. I understand that idea better since there are almost always waves in the ocean. But won’t the electricity kill all the fish? I guess that’s another problem for the scientists to figure out. Ray’s point is that if we use more sun, wind, and wave power, we don’t need to burn as much gas, oil, and coal which is somehow making all the ice melt up north. But here’s where Ray loses me. If I have a glass of something with ice in it, after the ice melts the glass don’t overflow. Go ahead and try it sometime. Don’t be afraid. You don’t have to be a scientist to run the experiment. I do it every time Alice at the diner brings me a glass of soda pop.

So, the official position on climate change from Ray is “support for renewable energy sources and reduced dependence on fossil fuels.” I just hope that don’t blow up in his face when people’s TVs won’t work on a still night with a calm ocean.

Economy

Maude and I were no help at all to Ray on this issue. Every time we go to the diner, I always let Ray figure out the tip. High finance is not for me. Maude still lives with her brother Joe who pays all their bills, so she wasn’t much help. Trump says the stock market is doing good these days with him in charge. Well, why the hell should I care? I’m more interested in doing well at the supermarket than in the stock market. They got one of them Fareway grocery stores in Emmetsburg. I’m not sure if that qualifies as a supermarket, but they do sell both butter and margarine.

Maude and me weren’t much help, but Ray had his own ideas. His official position on the economy is that it should be a free global market.  I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to make any money if everything in the market is free, but Ray’s the expert, not me.

So Ray wants to do away with all these tariffs Trump has slapped on Chinese products and even Chinese food. I’ve noticed that some of my clothes are more expensive these days, but we don’t have a Chinese restaurant round these parts so I can’t check Chinese food prices. Heck, even if we did, I don’t like sushi.

Well, Ray thinks that’s a good start for his positions. He knows he’ll get asked about other things like how he feels about bussing. Ray thinks pretty quick on his feet for not having any. He’ll come up with some answer. And if he’s stumped, he can always hem and haw around like Trump does, saying “we’ll see” and “I’m looking into that.” That should buy him some time.

Ray should be ready to officially throw his hat in the race in August. I assumed we’re heading for the announcement at the diner, but Ray tells me he has some other plans, too. Well, I guess we’ll see, and I’ll be looking into that.