Time to open presents

How exciting is this time of the year? Christmas is the season of gift giving. The time has come to gather round the proverbial Christmas tree and hand out the gifts. This year’s tree is a beautiful blue spruce. Oops, maybe not. I see now it’s a beetle kill tree from the Medicine Bow National Forest painted over. How nice of someone to keep us from thinking about that nasty climate change at this festive time of the year.

Well let’s get right to the presents. 

Ah look. The first one is for the Wyoming legislature. They say good things come in small packages. It’s a small bit of compassion. How wonderful. Legislators can certainly use it.

There are approximately 18,000 low-income people in this state who have been denied health insurance and access to healthcare only because they found themselves collateral damage in a partisan contest between Republicans and President Obama. With this little gift of compassion, perhaps enough legislators will be able to rise above all of that and actually take care of their constituents. I do hope the package is big enough.

Oh and here’s a gift for the taxpayers of Wyoming. It’s a gift from the Wyoming Department of Health. But the tag says, “Do not open until Medicaid is expanded.” If Medicaid is expanded, the taxpayers of Wyoming will receive a gift of ten-of-millions of dollars in health care, cost savings, and new jobs.

And who is this gift for? Oh, The Wyoming Liberty Group. It’s a beautiful new custom fly rod. Too bad most of them won’t be able to buy a resident fishing license for a while. But then with all that Texas money, they can afford the non-resident license. Good fishing. By the way, I hear some folks are actually taking your bait.

Did anybody get anything for WyWatch? These are the folks who use the Bible to foist their narrow religious views on everyone else. The problem is that their “views” come from a self-serving and erroneous reading of the Old Testament.

So this gift is perfect for my “Old-Testament-Christian” friends. It’s a Bible that includes the New Testament. That will certainly come in handy. I know they’re more comfortable using misinterpreted judgments of the Old Testament to lobby on behalf of inequality and discrimination. This gift will bring them out of their comfort zone.

Now that they have a Bible that includes the New Testament, they’ll be able to read the words of Jesus. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” for example.

Ah, here’s a package for State Senator Charlie Scott. It feels like a framed picture. Ah it is! Look. It is a photo of Charlie with his boyhood friend Methuselah. It says the photo was taken on Methuselah’s 969^th birthday, shortly before the Great Flood and a few weeks before Charlie was elected to his first term in the legislature. What a keepsake. The inscription reads, “Term limits are for sissies! Love, Methuselah.”

Here’s a package for CROW, the Conservative Republicans of Wyoming. Listen. Do you hear a ticking sound? Oh my. I see now. It’s not for CROW. It’s FROM CROW. Maybe we ought to have the bomb squad open this one.

Wait just a minute. Didn’t anyone get anything for the Governor? I thought about it but figured he’d already gotten his present on Election Day. Getting another four years to finally do something is gift enough. Wait there is one more present under the tree. It is for the Governor.

Shake it. Oh my. There are a couple of round things rolling around in the package. What could they be? Let’s read the note. Oh, it’s not what I thought. The note says, “For Governor Mead, two lumps of coal. You deserved a whole sack but EPA regulations allowed only for these two small chunks.”

I’d have bought a present for the voters of Wyoming but decided they have all they’re going to get and deserve whatever it is.

Merry Christmas everyone!