[Caution: Put Tongue in Cheek Before Reading]

Contrary to convention wisdom, what's wrong with the country today is not solved by tax cuts for the middle classes. All this speechifying that is going on these days simply distracts us, even further, from the real problems and the real solutions. This is largely due to the fact that politicians don't really know what the problems are, so of course they probably can be excused for coming up with cockamamie solutions.

And what are the problems? It's simple. There are too many cars and too many people living in single family houses. For years city planners have been trying to tell people this, and people just don't get it. City planners keep telling the world that cars and one family houses are inefficient and use up too much space. Instead of cars, people should ride around in busses, or trolleys, or trains, or on bicycles. And instead of living in one family houses, people should live in apartment buildings, which, conveniently enough, concentrate people in ways that make busses and trains economically possible. But, is anyone listening? No. So, it's time for the proverbial 2 x 4.

In order to get people out of single family houses, and out cars and into trains and things, we have to start changing things. For example, let's make single family homes illegal. They cause sprawl, and bad things. Apartment buildings, on the other hand, are efficient, and use up a lot less land per person. An ideal apartment building would be six story walk up - no elevators, of course, because stair climbing is good exercise, and 99 out of every 100 Americans really need to get more exercise. Note how seamless all this is.

Another simple way to encourage people to get more exercise would be to make being overweight a felony. And because there are so many overweight people around, there clearly aren't enough prisons to house them all, so we could have hard labor camps, where they could rebuild the whole infrastructure, at minimum cost, since a dollar an hour would be more than enough to pay these people. Everyone knows that the infrastructure needs rebuilding, even those who don't know what an infrastructure is, know this.

Then, as people get down to the proper weight, and are gradually released back into society, on probationary status, they could use their new skills to tear down those inefficient single family houses, recycling all the wood and glass and metal (recycling is good, right?) and then they could go build six story walk ups - at two dollars an hour for their time on the release-probation period.

The first floor of the six story walk ups will be, of course, Mom and Pop stores. As the quantity of these increases, we will be able to eliminate those ugly, inefficient, Malls, with all their invidious ways of tricking people into thinking they're having a good time. The important thing about Mom and Pop stores is that they are neighborhood and community related. And if there is anything that this country needs it's a little more community, and a lot less commuting, which is what we have to do now, given that so many people live in single family homes. Following this? O.K.

This brings us to urban organic farming. All that land that will be recovered from eliminating single family houses can be redistributed to residents of the New Age Community to be used for growing vegetables and compost piles, which people can pee on just before going to bed. This adds nutrients to the compost and is good for the crops. And people can get to their compost piles on bikes.

[Assignment: In twenty five words or less, describe the author's primary message, and indicate to whom it is addressed.]