state of the blog

the boy at erewhon

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so i've mentioned i'm on this health kick, right?

after quickly tiring of the sticker shock that is and will forever be the hallmark of the whole foods shopping experience, this week i decided to move further east, thinking an independent market's gotta be cheaper.

yeah well, think again--the old erewhon's no more.  today i'm in their slick, new nuts-and-seeds aisle swooning over $20/lb. raw macademias and wondering why the fuck i ever thought i'd save money in this place, when i suddenly become aware of a sweet, clear voice harmonizing with the golden oldie being piped in overhead.

i turn to my left to find about ten feet down the aisle the cutest lil' ol' boy you ever saw--short and dirty-blond, erewhon apron wrapped around his tight, compact bod, quietly and obliviously singing along to the muzak as he restocks his shelves.

i catch his eye with a smile and say [because i still always know what to say] "so 40 years later, touch me's still cool?"

he falls all over himself assuring me that yeah, it is; turns out he and his band are currently rehearsing love me two times for their next gig--am i a doors fan?  "from way back in the day," i assure him back, tell him one of my favorite jim morrison anecdotes and the payoff's immediate--from the body language and the look in his eye, i know i've got him.

we spend the next half-hour traversing every aisle in the store, this kid and i, shooting the shit as he personally and painstakingly seeks out every item on my list, and i casually toss it all into my cart without even looking at the prices.

as the easy intimacy between us builds, he knows exactly where this is going, and so do i--i.e., absolutely nowhere, but that's not the point.

how much did it all cost?  that's not the point, either.

the point is, the hermit needed a reminder that flirting's like riding a bicycle--you never forget.

why i'm not a republican

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there's lots of yammering these days about whether or not the bush tax cuts should be extended.  i really don't give a shit either way, but if arguing over what amounts to a rounding error when we're on the hook for upwards of $80 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next 20 years makes people feel better, then what the hell, i'm in.

the democrats maintain that the rich are rich enough and should give some back, and the republicans scream in horror that raising taxes on the $250k-and-up crowd will kill business investment, and thus jobs.

for some perspective on this issue, here are a couple charts* (because you know i'm all about the charts).  first, let's look at a couple income trendlines from 1979 to 2001:

if you just look at the lines, there's no real surprise--since about the time reagan took office, the rich have been getting steadily richer, and the middle-class and poor have been getting poorer--there's a shock, right?

it's when you look at the percentage numbers going up the y-axis that your eyes start to bug out.  to make it clearer, take a look at this chart:

 

that's right, folks--today, in the united states of america,  the top 1% possess a third of the wealth of our nation, while the bottom half--150 million people--possess a mere 2.5%.  it's a slow swindle that's taken a hundred or so years to pull off, but it's damn near complete.

thing that kills me about republicans is, they know this.  they know, and they still--even the poor ones--happily and with great moral conviction vote year after year to continue to tilt the playing field in favor of the robber barons who are sucking what's left of the lifeblood outta this country's veins.

back when i was young and semi-idealistic, i once asked a very smart (and very rich) man if he didn't think it unfair that the rich were so rich and the poor so poor.  i'll never forget his answer--he laughed and said, "mike, if you took all the money from the rich, gathered it in a big pile and distributed it equally to everybody in the world, within five years it'd all be right back where it started from."

sad thing is, he was probably right--aside from the advantage of having the politicians in their pockets, the wealthy will always be far smarter and savvier when it comes to money, and more self-disciplined and able to delay gratification than the unschooled, impulsive poor.  but in their overreaching hubris, that elite 1% have apparently forgotten that they're far outnumbered--and the way things are going, that may end up being all that matters.

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*h/t clusterstock