This Morning's Run - Reflections

Sweet Melissa

As always, Melissa and I ran the lake at Berkeley Park this morning. And, the reflection off the surface of the lake at sunrise was, once again, golden fire shrouded slightly today by wisps of vapor hanging low over parts of the lake -- the lake being warmer than the air. Or, indeed, perhaps the little clouds, the white puffs inches above the surface of the lake were simply what I had hoped for; simply an acknowledgment that the ultimate wisdom of nature abhors the ruinous path Dumbya has taken.

Melissa, by the way, had her eleventh birthday on September 9th.

When we returned from our run, my cousin from Portland -- who is one of the most prolific and vitriolic of Dumbya's critics -- had sent this piece about another George in our history; and this little missive from Dumbya's hometown newspaper. My cousin, Butch -- I kid you not, that's his nickname -- entitled the second piece, "Even the Village Doesn't Want It's Idiot Back."

Did you know that:
1) The average family has lost ground during Bush's presidency. Since 2000, median family income (adjusted for inflation) has dropped by 3.4%;
2) GW Bush has the worst performance on job creation of the postwar presidents with roughly a million net jobs lost since his inauguration. He will join Herbert Hoover as the only presidents to experience such a net decline in jobs;
3) Since 2000, the ranks of the poor have increased by 4.3 million persons. The number of individuals who are uninsured reached a record high of 45 million. Bush's 2003 budget deficit of $445 billion is the highest in history;
4) Bush's tax cuts are responsible for more than half of the 2004 deficit;
5) Columbia University historian, Alan Brinkely, writes: "Since 1932, we have not had a president who has been more closely allied with business and more sympathetic to large and powerful corporations;"
6) During the past three years, Bush's tax cuts have provided as much of his total reduction in income taxes to the top 1 percent of the population, whose average yearly earnings are $1.2million, as to the bottom 80 percent. The middle class now has a larger share of the tax burden and faces a materially heightened threat to its long-term economic burden.

And, AND, I am told that amongst women, amongst mothers in our wonderful republic, Dumbya had gained a majority of their respect and confidence, because Dumbya is protecting those women's children from the terrorists; from the certain threat of the Islamic fanatics lacing those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with ricin or arsenic or, indeed, WMDs. Oh, how sad. How terribly sad.

I included the following in a short story years ago, when Ryan White -- that young hero, that exemplary example of courage in the face of overwhelming hate -- faced-off good American mommies who marched, who chanted, who ignorantly believed the demon was Ryan, sweet Ryan and not the bogeyman who had infested sweet Ryan with his particular collection of rancid charms. These good, decent American mommies didn't want HIV-infected children attending the same schools that their precious wards attended:

"And, so ... the good American mothers whose corpulent girths are well-earned from good lives lived caring for their men and their broods (Do you see the children now? Right now? Sucking their thumbs and clinging to the bottom hems of red or white or blue down-filled parkas which their mommies wear over Middle American broad shoulders and big breasts?); the good mothers with curlers in their hair and carrying homemade placards ("Johnny, where's the green magic marker for Christ's sake!") which are thrust in front and above their pincurled heads housing brains which got them out of high school and into the sack; oh, the good mothers shout, "NO AIDS ... NO AIDS ...," as they follow one another in a little circle (their broods a-wagging behind them) upon the sidewalks of Anytown, U.S.A. Ah, yes, and I wonder -- a twinkle in my eye -- after counting the kids clutching the moms, which one of you ten precious pups will become the scourge your mommy now fears, 'cause if I'm not mistaken, buckaroos, your mommies ain't half as afraid of AIDS as they are of queers."

Oh, the more we change, the more we stay the same.