pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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WE ARE ONLY COMING THROUGH IN WAVES

287.

There�s a gap we�re not minding here, a critical black hole where the cause-and-effect rationale of people who complain about standing in long lines to renew their driver�s license or bitch about (or, in Mike Peterson�s case, make fun of) police officers who work on a triage basis and sometimes pile up evidence for a year before they can process it seems to have been sucked out of our atmosphere.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we Americans insist on immediate gratification. As a Frenchman said to Pottergrrrl�s soon-to-be-ex-husband, �Americans don�t really commit to their houses, do they?� No sir. We don�t. We want some shiny new thing that�s a reasonable facsimile of whatever HGTV is touting as this year�s dream home and we want it to stand for a few years before we move on to our next McMansion.

I guess you could say that we are living in a time when the poor drown and suffocate needlessly while the rich stand idly by eating Abramoff-infused cake that some of them probably barf up later in an effort to remain thin.

And let�s don�t forget that the I.R.S. has reportedly targeted citizens who make less than thirteen thousand dollars annually and has canceled or withheld their refunds (which constitute, on average, about one fourth of their annual income) because those people are suspicious and could be dishonest.

Meanwhile, five million more of us slipped into poverty in the last four years while our would-be dictator might as well have stuck his pencil dick out the oval office window and pissed on us. Meanwhile, conservative bobbleheads insist that our economy is great just great even though most middle- and lower-class citizens have experienced substantial cost-of-living increases in the last five years plus a 40 percent rise in health-care costs while not seeing hide nor hare of a raise. It might be great for your pals but it�s not so great for most of us, Georgie Boy.

So yeah. I am pathetically behind on my reading (or blog posting) because work is very demanding right now, but in a mostly good way. I did read a recent Molly Ivins article though (�Stupidity, Survived,� AlterNet, 12.31.2005) that pointed out that the federal minimum wage has held steady at $5.15/hour since 1997 even though the Economic Policy Institute reports that inflation has eroded away minimum wage�s buying power to its second-lowest level since 1955. The AFL-CIO reports that, if the wage had kept pace with inflation, it would be $7.60/hour now (and please note that a family of three can earn $7.74/hour and still live below the poverty level).

The gap between (vanishing) middle-class workers and minimum-wage workers and super-rich robber barons who hoard pensions (think of them as the largest laundry detergent size in the supermarket, y�all) is the largest ever recorded. The conservative argument for leaving so many people seething in poverty is that increasing the minimum wage hurts small businesses and causes layoffs, but Molly points out that these are demonstrably false arguments and there�s ample evidence to prove it.

Meanwhile, the Democrats (who apparently are going to support Judge I-bragged-about-my-work-trying-to-overturn-a-woman�s-right-to-an-abortion Alito) are holding strategic sessions to assess how to best pepper their speeches with more religious and moral phrases and they�re suddenly popping up all over instead of primarily on the red side. But bless their lobbyist-fed hearts, at least the Kennedy set is finally recognizing and saying publicly that �the poverty thing� is a moral issue.

Molly points out that Democrats actually learned a lesson from the Republicans who pushed to get anti-marriage propositions onto state ballots and now Democrats are pushing to get minimum-wage-increase propositions on key state ballots which, as Molly says as only Molly can,

will scare the happy pappy out of the Republicans, who will then vote to increase the minimum wage the first chance they get in Congress, thus assuring an increase either way.

Hallelujah. There�s hope for the weary.

And I can�t help but notice that I forgot to include one key event in my recap of 2005: Bill Frist diagnosed the vegetable Terri Schiavo after watching her on video and declared that she �certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli� even though her autopsy revealed that she was blind. It is, as Paul Simon says, an age of miracles though, isn�t it?

I haven�t met anyone who wasn�t glad to see 2005 behind them, even if 2005 did finally produce a Cindy Sheehan who rose up out of the nameless ranks to call our president the dishonest, lying hooeyhead that he is.

Meanwhile�and this means nothing to you�Friday the 13th approacheth. and, you know, that's the day the Ginger and I got together and the day we got married (which should have been a clue, I reckon).

Tomorrow would have been our eleven-year-anniversary and damn if I didn�t stumble across a love note that she left in my computer in the course of trying to find a missing file today.

So yeah. I did spend the past year trying to put our break-up behind me but at least I met a wonderful potter who is a great distraction and who reminds me that life can be beautiful and sexy and creative despite soul-wrenching betrayals.

Still, as Molly Ivins says, �With those few, shining exceptions, we can bid adieu to 2005 without great regret. Or, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry said to a reporter earlier this year, "Adios, mo-fo."

And lookie it�s nearly Friday already and I haven�t posted an entry in so dang long even though I�ve started several and it�s close to 70 degrees outside even though it�s January and I want to go walk in the sun even though I have loads of work to do so, yeah, adios, mo-fos. Catch you on the flip-flop.

SANG INSHOWER: Wasting away again in Margaritaville

10:32 p.m. - 2006-01-12

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