Why?

1. Why, Chuck, why? -- This is what I get for sticking up for U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley. I'm glad he's on the job, I say, helping find a bipartisan solution to a national problem. I still give him credit.

But then, Grassley goes out town-halling yesterday, comes face-to-face with the "Tyranny!" crowd on health reform and, instead of talking them down with some of his famous common sense, he just pours on gasoline by buying into the whole "death panel" insanity.

"We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma," he said Wednesday morning. What a profile in courage.

Grassley says Americans are right to fear the apparent pure evil of reimbursing doctors for time they spend with their patients in voluntary counseling sessions to discuss  living wills etc. It could  help families navigate through a tough time. Or is it really socialist genocide?

We'll never know, because it's out of the bill now. 

 2. Why are they taking away our forks? -- When our current stock of plastic forks, spoons etc. and paper plates runs out here at the Gazette ranch, that will be the end of our free ride at lunch time.

Bring your own eatin' wares from now on or choose finger foods.

It's all about cost-cutting. Evey little bit helps. And it it certainly could be a lot worse.

Just think of the poor employees at Canadian brewer Molson, who have seen their annual free beer allotment fall from 72 12-packs annually to 52. That's 240 beers off the wall, eh.

At Genex, the breakfast bar now features, gasp, generic cereal. And Google employees have famously lost some snack privledges and the afternoon tea trolley has been parked indefinitely.

It's rough out there, folks.

3. Why the @#%&* won't my tomatoes turn red?

 At this rate, I'm going to be handing out green tomatoes at Halloween. I'll hear them bounce off our siding, launched from the little hands of very angry children.

4. Why am I not at the Iowa State Fair with a pork chop in one hand and a bag of mini donuts in the other hand and a beer balanced on my head?

There is no good answer.