Psychic codpieces

Many scientific advances were accidental discoveries that were not the original goal of research. Teflon, X-rays, microwaves and insulin are among them. 

Like Columbus, who is lauded for landing in America though he was looking for India, we never know exactly where scientific exploration will take us. In a serendipitous case of hard luck, Viagra had been used by Pfizer in clinical trials for a new heart medication.

Methadone, which gives recovering heroin addicts a fighting chance to be restored to substantial normalcy, was developed in Nazi Germany and given to wounded soldiers in battle a different kind of fighting chance. Thalidomide, introduced as a tranquilizer and later prescribed to women who had suffered multiple miscarriages , causing horrific birth defects (the drug was never approved for use in the U.S.), was later found to be effective against multiple myeloma.

So that we can expect the unexpected, let's find new applications for some of the latter-day gadgetry whose wonders and limitations we have taken for granted.

A cardiograph APP that tracks your heart rate on your smartphone can produce a reading in real time so that your physician can interpret it remotely while on the golf course. As arrhythmias can be detected in this way, could it be possible to similarly pick up on the unarticulated thought process of politicians and other leaders?  

Could their machinations and lies be unscrambled in some terminal and become an open record for society's benefit? Could their motivations and calculations be formatted as electrical impulses and used by good-government watchdogs in testimony against them?  

Or have they evolved tricks to thwart our view of what is behind their psychic codpieces?   

Like seedy businesses that keep two sets of books to dupe the taxman, politicians are often driven strategically by objectives and priorities that differ from what they offer for public consumption. They are immune to polygraphs and truth serum while dispensing snake oil to their electorate. 

The involuntary confessions of mayors, governors, CEOs and other "movers and shakers" would be spectacularly entertaining.

Imagine if we could audit Governor Hochul's mind as she reverses and re-reverses herself as though plucking petals from a daisy, intonating her off and on love of punitive surcharges against commuters and commerce, as she weighs "congestion pricing" on a scale calibrated by a confidential audience of donors, cronies, clubhouse chairs and special interests.

Imagine if we could crash quid-pro-quo heaven, where judicial appointments are hatched and candidates of parties are secretly picked, based on a corrupted standard of merit.

Why, for instance, are New York State Appellate Division judges appointed by the governor, without citizen oversight? What are the tantalizations of county political party organizations that nominate county court and surrogate court judges?

When candidates for crucial judicial posts have been cross endorsed, even before the public every hears of them, by the Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, Working Family and Egg Cream Party, and their "election" is therefore a fait accompli, doesn't that make a mockery of the beloved franchise of participatory government?

How suspect is that?

If our city, state and federal governments had to fork over a dollar for every instance that we caught them ripping us off under false pretenses, there'd be enough to fix the infrastructure of the universe. 

Jules Verne, Batman and Star Trek have shown that science fiction is amenable to transitioning to real-life narrative. Perhaps a variant of GPS could be invented that instead of pinpointing location could measure the true positions of politicians, thereby revealing hypocrisies. The GPS could be in the form of intramuscular tubing that would be compulsorily inserted into the veins of politicians until 10 years after they leave office. 

If we could, unbeknownst to them, read the minds of some of the folks who control our lives while touting our individual freedoms. what are some topical questions we might ask:

What is the reason, not the pretext, for Mayor Adams' order that property owners purchase and exclusively use NYC's own garbage cans with the city's trademarked logo, though manufactured out-of-state by a company awarded a no-bid contract? They cost $50, and most homeowners, factoring in the certainty of theft, will have to buy several receptacles. 

Because my editor won't let my column exceed 10 million words, and since I'm an all-or-nothing guy, I won't start summarizing the policy-decisions, projects and procurements, nominally for the common good but at public expense, by all levels of government and in private executive suite at the behest of clandestine and shadow players.

And just when we thought we'd seen it all, we can look forward to suffering, after Inauguration Day, the breech birth of the "Department of Government Efficiency.” It is "breech" because it will come out the wrong way. The heads of agencies should be the first to exit their protective womb of their bureaucracies, not the workers. 

Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk promised "hardship" and "shockwaves." Why does this new outfit need two chiefs? Wouldn't a single one be more efficient and true to their mission?

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the IRA, the FBI, the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Department of Education were all on Ramaswamy's kill list during his own campaign for the presidency. 

He also vowed to throw 75 percent of federal employees out of work.

If President-elect Trump does not rein in Ramaswamy, it will be mathematically impossible to protect Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, which Trump has sworn would never be sacrificed or even touched.

The job hit men have given us their word of honor that the "Department of Government Efficiency" will self-destruct no later than July 2026. And in the interim, they are offering, as an occupational perk, to assist volunteers who wish to be numb to the ensuing despair of losing their livelihoods and investments, a way out: execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Inhaling a high concentration of this gas is state of the art in capital punishment performances.

And so efficient!