March 4, 2011

Cool winter-spring. I threw ageing sesame crackers out onto the lawn for the crows, who dip them in the birdbath to soften them before they eat.

Budget debates in the States and in the Federal Government have reached a pitch that amounts to idiocy. Everyone is striking poses; no one embraces the two words that would solve the problem with the least and the most evenly distributed misfortune: raise taxes. Or, if we want to stretch to five words: raise taxes on the rich. Legislative jackals grin their jackal grins and vow to axe the NEA, with its thousandth part of a percent, to whittle away Unemployment and Headstart while with the other hand hoarding their own selfish riches for that second beach house, for that roomier corporate jet. Recognize those services which should be offered, and then figure out how to pay for them. There must be something desperately wrong with this line of reasoning; it seems so clear, and yet nobody mentions it.

Off to the airport in–what?– twenty minutes. One is never ready.