On Whimbrels and Monkeys

Well, the news out of Puerto Rico is typically bad—at least eight murders over the weekend, cops getting thrown off the force for falsifying statistics, protests at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. 

Who needs it?

So I turned to a blog doña Taí recommended—repeatingislands.com. And discovered a bird I never knew existed—the whimbrel. Here it is.

OK, not too attractive—certainly no motmot—but boy, can it fly! Through hurricanes, in fact—two whimbrels went right through Irene last year. And apparently they use the back part of the storm as a sort of slingshot. Don’t know how that works, but that’s what the American Bird Conservancy says.

Shouldn’t they know?

The other thing is that they fly thousands of miles nonstop.

Well, that’s tremendous news—stuff we should all know about.

There is a little downside.

Several of the birds have made it through hurricanes only to be shot by hunters.

It seems that on some islands of the Caribbean, there are illegal shooting ranges. Just for fun. And there was the whimbrel and there was the guy with the gun, so…

…he shot it.

No, not as a trophy, not to protect his crop. Just for fun!

In fact, the article reports, it’s not unusual for the killers to leave the killed dead on the beach.

The point was just to kill.

This is a part of the male psyche that I don’t get. I can understand—just barely—the allure of hunting. Michael Pollan, of all people, fell prey to it, and likened it to the time-altering effects of marijuana. And it’s certainly in our collective genes.

But this isn’t hunting, it’s slaughter.

May be something more. There are people, I think, who have an indifference to beauty and to nature that verges on hate. They see something brown and white and moving and they kill it.

Why?

Just because….

Well, well—I was determined NOT to be delivering a downer this morning. What else is stirring in the Caribbean?

Monkeys in Santurce!

Well, I knew that they were running around in the mountains down south, but here? In a very much populated section of San Juan? Just look at ‘em!

 

It turns out that it’s not just iguanas that are overpowering our eco-system, it’s monkeys as well. (By the way, the iguana population in Puerto Rico is estimatedat four million—meaning we have more iguanas than people….)

And these monkeys have an interesting pedigree. They were brought here not as pets but as lab animals in the 1970’s. Originally they were let loose on small islands off the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Just one problem…

Monkeys can swim!

Well, the researchers went away, but the monkeys stayed. And now they’re invading the metro area! It’s too much! 

May watch the Republican Convention after all….

Strategy Time!

OK—time for confession. I spent hours yesterday trying to figure out what a blocker corporation was.

Even asked Mr. Fernández, who for once wasn’t quite certain.

And this guy—besides always having the answer (and always the correct one, damn him!)—has an MBA.

Right. So a reasonably intelligent guy (that’s me) and a very intelligent guy (that’s you-know-who) with an MBA can’t figure out the basis for Mitt Romney paying 15, not 35% on his millions.

Or is it 2%?

Well, just googled it again, and guess what?

Can’t get my head around it.

I did learn some interesting facts. Seems that there are two things. Tax evasion is illegal and very, very bad. There is something, however, called tax avoidance and that is legal and very, very good! (Especially for the rich…)

See?

And it appears that blocker corporations are legal. So, I thought, what about me? Can I set up a little blocker corporation? I’m living down here in the Caribbean. Easy enough to run up to Grand Cayman, file some papers, then head for the beach! Supposed to be nice up there.

I think you know the answer.

No.

You gotta have mega bucks to do this scheme. And for little pubic hairs (can’t say the word in Spanish—it’s obscene…) like me?

Sorry. Find another playground.

Well, well. What to do?

Clean the bathroom, I decided. For Carmen was coming to dinner, and it seemed like a thing to do. Can’t have a dirty bathroom if ladies are coming to dinner.

Right, did that. Then dawdled around the rest of the house. Got it half clean when Carmen, ever punctual, showed up.

So we sat, ate dinner, and talked death.

Well, she’s a lady who knows a thing or two about death. Both of her parents AND her lover died virtually in her arms. 

Parents died at home, and were, in good traditional fashion, waked at home as well. Yup, just like the famous (in Puerto Rico at least) painting by Oller. Have a look….

 
And of course, she prayed the rosary. Still does, though Carmen is only culturally Catholic. Which is to say that she (probably) disagrees with 80% of the dogma but gets comfort from praying the rosary.

Who am I to criticize?

She believes, for example, that a green butterfly appearing in the house portends the death of someone close to her. Well, I thought, she’s not alone. Japanese also think so. And I was forming that thought, or rather that sentence (we were speaking Spanish) when Carmen went on to say…

“…it’s such an honor, a privilege, to be present when someone you love dies….”

And then, the heavy mirror hanging over the buffet moved rhythmically back and forth three times.

And no, there was no wind.

Also, not one but I saw it.

Not surprising, really. She’s here and there, that mother of mine. She gets around. No smoke detector, so she grabbed the mirror. 

Well, I did the dishes, Raf and Carmen went off to see a play. Got up and did the morning trot. And began wondering.

How to get through the week? There’s a nest of vipers gathering in Tampa, and what to do? Turn off the iPad / television / newspaper completely, and clean the house?

Music, I decided. And then began thinking of music about music. And that led, inexorably, to Handel. 

Well, it’s a strategy. Not a bad one. So I went to YouTube, and snatched the clip below.

But for stronger souls, click on the link below, and see if you can understand Mitt’s money….

Just don’t tell me until after next week….

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/easy-street/explainer-romney-tax-documents-part-i

Well, now we know

Breaking news—the Norwegian court has declared Anders Behring Breivik sane.

Great! My question over the last year has been answered! The guy’s not nuts!

That means, apparently, that he will have to be rehabilitated. That’s the focus of theNorwegian prison system. They take rehabilitation very seriously, unlike the US.

So they’re gonna spend pots of money on this guy. 

Well, Norway is hardly a poor country, but is it, well…SANE?

Look, I believe in rehabilitation too. 

To a point.

But I also think that we have to be realistic. Can everyone be rehabilitated? Does it make sense for even a rich nation to spend millions of dollars over possibly half a century trying to reason with a fanatic?

And what Breivik did is still almost unfathomable, even today. How many lives did he shred, that Friday afternoon in June 2011?

How would I feel, if I were the father of one of the victims, paying my taxes year after year, and knowing some part of it was going not just to sustain but pamper the killer?

Exercise room, computer, and special visits by the pastor!

Wow! 

I wonder as well about vengeance. Not a pretty word, maybe not a pretty concept. We talk about justice and feel good about it. But the shadow is vengeance.

You have torn my life apart. Now you will suffer.

No. I think about a person I once hated, and the rot and rage it did…

…to me.

But I don’t think, as well, that this is justice—spending millions on the very dim chance that a fanatic can be rehabilitated.

I think that the guy should be put to work.

Look, presumably all the victims’ families are working, right? They’re all getting up every Monday morning, putting on the work clothes, putting on the smile they don’t feel.

Why should Breivik be different?

He’s clearly a guy with energy. Writing a 200 page memoir exhausted me—his screed was 1500 pages. Oh, and by the way, he apparently is going to use his free time to add MORE!

OK—remember that dictum: don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions!

(Ahh, how I miss the corporate world!)

Here’s what I’d do. First, isolate him. He’s toxic and cannot be exposed to others. Second, find the thing that he can do that will be most valuable economically to society. If it’s folding laundry, let him fold laundry. If it’s designing computer software, let him do that. Monday through Friday, nine to five.

Oh, and after dinner? He goes for two hours into a small room, is put in a chair in front of a screen, and watches—night after night, decade after decade—the videotaped stories of the victims’ families, talking about their lost children, their ruined marriages, their nightmares, their alcoholism, their loss.

Night after night, decade after decade.

That, I think, is justice.

Ooooops

OK—first a word of reassurance to the international audience of this blog, who must be anxiously waiting at their computer screens for word from the battered blogger.

Survived the storm!

What I didn’t do was, well…

…detect the storm.

It did rain hard for five minutes at about 4:30 PM yesterday. So I closed the window. And then? 

Well, Raf came home, we ate, it was warmish, we went to bed. Expecting to get up when the bashing began.

Slept through the night!

Storm apparently weakened and dropped south. Instead of 58 miles south of Ponce, it’s a couple hundred miles.

“Totally exaggerated,” claims a critic of the governor, speaking of the 96 million dollars per day lost in productivity by closing down the island these last two days.

Gentle Readers, welcome to the Caribbean, where even a storm can be politicized!

Let’s be fair. No one can predict these things. The waters of the Caribbean are hot—a perfect source of fuel for a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center was predicting intensification. It’s not the wind, it’s the water that kills. Forty-five percent of Puerto Ricans live in flood zones.

And it’s not over yet. The tail of a storm can do bad damage, and this is a wet storm.

But it’s cool and overcast today. The banana kwit is chirping across the street. Elvin, the guy from La Perla, is continuing his work next door. And I?

Comparing and contrasting—as they made me do those many years ago in high school.

The sober Norse have constructed a special psychiatric cell for the mas murderer, just in the event he gets declared insane tomorrow. Yup, cost a cool million bucks, but that’s not unusual. The cost of keeping highly weird guys away from society in Norway is routinely over a million dollars a year.

Has to be done, because they have rights!

Yeah?

It’s a little hard for me to get my head around this. I don’t think he should be put on the wrack and tortured—though I’m also not the father of any one of the victims. Might think differently if I were.

But a million bucks? When my cousin’s husband had to wait over a month in agonizing pain for a very much-needed surgery? 

Still, you have to respect the Norwegians, that good sober earnestness. Doing the right thing. Playing fair, even with a guy who very much did not. Refusing to give in to any base instinct.

Well, well, it’s all rather different in Spain! There, the nation is going crazy making jokes on a poor 80 year old lady who gave her time and talent to the church!

How can they!

Shame on them! It may be true that the results were less felicitous than hoped. Celia Giménez has asked pardon, but also points out that she wasn’t able to finish the work. And no, it’s not a masterpiece. The artist dashed it off in two hours a century ago. Here’s how it looked….

Well, and here’s the restoration!

And now, of course, the entire world is laughing at this poor dear! This lovely lady who went into the church and got right down to work! The press is dubbing the work—originally called Ecce Homo, behold the man—as Ecce Mono, behold the monkey.

That’s just not right!

All right, drop the ironic tone. Admit it, come clean. 

I couldn’t stop laughing. The storm brings many things—salchichas, beer, anxiety. No, I didn’t go as crazy as before. But the general hysteria works its way into you. And when it’s released?

I get punchy.  

Well, Jack wouldn’t think Ecce mono was funny at all. He’d have some sympathy for that good Spanish lady that all the world is laughing at. He’d run to her defense!

He was a better man than I.

I can’t stop laughing….

Stormy Weather

Well, well, we’re in full storm silliness.

A tropical storm, expected to become a category 1 hurricane, is going to pass 58 miles to the south of Ponce, the second largest city on the island, at 2 AM tomorrow. 

First question. Where did this number—58 miles—come from? How does anyone know? How can anyone predict?

Second question. What to do? Well, in the past I went crazy. Or rather, I joined the craziness. Even as I write, there is a run on gas stations. People are lining up—or rather their cars are. Fights are erupting. The social networks are going crazy. The Aguadilla Shell station has run out of gas!

Walmart, of course, will have activated its emergency plan. The buyers will be frantically calling suppliers, who are supposed to have sufficient supplies of crucial items.

Salchichas!

That’s little chicken sausages to you. Yup, they’re utterly necessary in an emergency. People consume ‘em like crazy. And yes, people fight for them in the stores.

It’s not pretty. Two little old ladies whom you’ve seen and chatted with over the past year? Those sweet dears who call you m’ijo and wear little pins of pope Benedict?

They’re attacking each other with their canes!

No, I’m not exaggerating.

Well, those chicken sausages are important. But guess what really gets the crowd boiling?

Ice!

After Hurricane Georges, there were numerous reports of armed robbery. No, not for money. For ice….

The governor, stung badly by the defeat of his referenda, is milking the situation. As I write, the sun is shining brightly, a gentle wind is blowing, the banana kwit (called the reinita, or little queen) is flirting with the cat. It hops on the branches of the dead bougainvillea just out of reach of Loquito, and skips away when he lunges.

In short, all is normal.

The government, however, has completely shut down.

Ah, one thinks, how can they tell?

(A nod to Dorothy Parker on Coolidge!)

We are urged to take all possible precautions to safeguard life and property. The refugios are being set up.

Well, the little old ladies are fighting over those salchichas, but the guys?

They’re going for the beer!   

And me?

Well, I took my morning trot as always, and decided no. I’m not doing this storm. Rather, I’ve done it. I’ve weathered more in the last two years than I had for decades of my life previously.

And in March of this year, I weathered the hardest storm—harder than Franny, harder than Walmart. 

I took on myself.

Touch and go, there. For a week, I battled all the fear, all the insecurity, and the accumulated self-defeat and doubt. Was I any good? Could I write? Was I worth it?

“Bach when I need clarity, Beethoven when I need courage,” wrote Susan, or some such words. So each morning I walked to the beach listening to the Goldberg Variations. And then, after a week of turmoil, I walked by the walls of the old city to the mouth of the harbor, and confronted the open sea. 

And heard the music you’ll hear below.

And said, finally, goodbye to Franny.

Who’s gone, and who isn’t.

I was crying, I was shaking, I was wracked with gratitude for a woman who had given me life. And I was amazed that she had placed her own life in my hands, and entrusted me with her death.

She had all the nobility of all her dogs and cats for whom she had done them same.

“You can go now,” I said. “I’m OK now.”

And I was.

I came home, turned on the computer, wrote a post. Cleaned the house, did some wash, played some Sudoku.

Six o’clock, slam of the gate, steps on the hall. Raf!

“How was your day,” he asked.

“Great!”

And it was…. 

Despair, Impatience and Sin

 Susan strikes again, with words as keenly chiseled as a reredos:

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Religion is the greatest obstacle to living a godly life. Like all human institutions, religions are corrupted to suit human purposes, which are overwhelmingly about power and money, and subject to the fears and superstitions of the ignorant. So what's a person who loves God, his/her fellow creatures and the planet to do? Julian of Norwich recognizes only two sins: impatience and despair. Those are the two tough ones. I'm impatient for human beings to get our act together, and I despair that we ever will. One small ray of hope: things like war and the death penalty are at least controversial now, and we don't pack up the family and a picnic to view public hangings as a form of entertainment.

-->

Well, yes. Despair and impatience come all to easily to me as well. And yesterday, as I wondered about “legitimate” rape, it was all the more difficult to keep from sin.

OK—let’s try to be fair.  I’m sure—I’m at least trying to be sure—that Akin meant something other than there is “legitimate” rape. He probably meant what used to be called forcible rape. A maiden is sleeping virtuously in her bedroom at night, her flannel nightgown covering all her nasty bits. An intruder jimmies the window, steals into her bedroom, and puts the gun to her temple. Her pupils constrict in terror.

That sort of stuff.

This is in contrast to the “other” kind of rape. A woman goes to a bar by herself. She’s wearing her best clothes, looking good. She meets a guy, he buys her a drink, they talk. She flirts. At some point, in the car going to his apartment, or in the apartment itself, it turns nasty. She says no, he overpowers her.

What happened?

Rape.

But to all too many people, there’s still that voice—“she lured him on”—in the back of their heads.

However, the representative seems to have gone further. Apparently, he really believes that in cases of “forcible” rape the woman’s body will reject the spermatozoa, and she will not get pregnant.

I tried, Susan, I really tried to give this argument the benefit of the doubt. It’s said that more male children are born in times of war than peace. Is it true? Well, I looked it up and, yes, it appears so. I also remembered a story I read in my Walmart days of women being more receptive to a stranger’s sperm than to her regular partner’s. Therefore accounting for more pregnancies as a result of a casual fling than in a monogamous relationship.

Too tired to look that up….

Or rather, I realized that it wasn’t the point. My belief? The senator doesn’t want anyone to have an abortion. Period. As a result of rape, as a result of poverty, as a result of a life- threatening condition—zip. NO ABORTIONS!

OK—but why twist science to justify it?

Oh, and by the way, the representative is on the House Committee of Science, Spaceand Technology.

Does this inspire confidence?

And then I began to wonder about how men have justified rape in the past. One of the myths common in my childhood was that no woman could be penetrated against her will. The idea was that the vaginal opening was a sphincter, which would automatically snap closed if needed. So any penetration meant implicit consent.

And then I remembered the book that changed it all—Against Our Will. Yup, Susan Brownmiller. Anybody remember her?

What she said was quite simple. Rape is an act of aggression. No is no. There’s no difference between the maiden sleeping in her bed and the girl out for a good time in a bar.

She went further. Here—as always!—is WikiPedia:

Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women, and that men use, and all men benefit from the use of, rape as a means of perpetuating male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear.

Wow! When I read that in 1975 it set my head spinning. Me, a gay guy benefiting from rape?

“Of course you’re racist—you’re living—we’re all living—in a racist society,” said a black lover of mine, when I asked him if he thought I was racist. And Brownmiller, I suspect, would argue much the same. At the age of 55, a perfect Kinsey 7—I’m a pretty safe guy for a woman to be around. But the fear of rape changes every woman’s life, and mine as well.

Right—so they were strong words to hear. I read Against Our Will several times and eventually understood it and agreed with it. And after the initial shock, I no longer reacted defensively to the notion that all men benefit from the use of rape.

And now, I yearn for the earnest directness of the late sixties, seventies. Brownmiller came slugging out with her book, knocked us out of the water, changed the dialogue, maybe changed our beliefs. 

And now we have this little weasel trying to pull us back into the rap again.

So no, Susan and Julian of Norwich, I shall not sin. I’ll just say what should be said of all bad thinking and dishonest motivation.

Ne fas!

When less is more

I wrote yesterday that there are, in fact, things in Puerto Rico that we do very well. Friendships, for example.

And also…

…elections.

OK, one or two caveats. First, politics is the national sport of Puerto Rico. Why? Well, about a third of the population works for the government. According to the governor, the current size of the government is 120,000 people. Walmart, Puerto Rico’s largest employer, has 14,000 employees. So who wins an election means rice and beans—or calling in on your friends at 6PM every day.

Second caveat. Convicts vote.


Yup, here’s a photo!

OK, that’s screwy to me. But there’s one thing I’m sure of. The referendum we had yesterday? The one to limit bail for certain crimes and reduce the size of our legislature?

Both lost soundly. And nobody doubts it. That fact alone is amazing.

“Of course the Republicans stole the recall election of Scott Walker,” said my friend Gary.

And he may be right. I googled the issue. And discovered that the makers of the newest, high-tech voting machines? The three largest are owned by rabid Republicans. Worse, the technology is so high tech that it’s virtually impossible to understand the whole process without spending days doing so.

But with just a few exceptions, elections in Puerto Rico are immaculate.

Why?

We do low tech.

Here’s the process. Every voter must have a voting card, issued by the State Elections Commission. Election day is a holiday—a paid day off. The governor puts the dry law into effect. Your only activity for the day is to vote.

You go to the polls, and present your card. There are representatives of the three largest political parties on the island. The person holding your card verifies that your name is on the rolls. He or she announces your name, and the page number. You sign next to your name. You’re given a paper ballot and a pen. You go into a flimsy cardboard affair resembling an empty refrigerator box and mark your vote. Exit, and cast your vote in a cardboard urn.

Before doing all this, somebody has examined your hands for ultraviolet ink. Because after voting, you put your right index finger into the ink.

After the polls close, all three members of the different parties are put into a locked room. They each examine the ballots, determine the vote, sign off on the results.

It’s possible, I suppose, to cheat. But it’s pretty hard to imagine how. And nobody, today, has questioned the results. The governor, who very much sponsored the referendum, admitted defeat. The press hasn’t breathed a word of doubt. And on an island where conspiracy theory and cynicism abound, everybody agrees. It was a clean as it could be.

So why can’t it be done in the States?

Canada does it—here’s WikiPedia:

All votes are made on the same standard heavy paper ballot which is inserted in a cardboard box, furnished by Elections Canada. The ballot and the box are devised to ensure that no one except the elector knows the individual choice that was made. Counting the ballots is done by hand in full view of the representatives of each candidate. There are no mechanical, electrical or electronic systems involved in this process.

It can’t be, can it, that some people don’t want a clean election?

Puerto Rico lo hace mejor

It’s one of those times when—very happily—advertising stumbles across reality.

Puerto Rico does it better.

It’s so easy to become the ugly American, the gringo who complains about the traffic, the government, the crime, the corruption. But yesterday, I saw my very good friend Karen, and spent a wonderful time with her, her husband, and her “little sister.”

Part of the Mormon youth group!

Yes, Karen is a Mormon. And yes, once a year I routinely walked into her office, told her I was married, presented her my wedding certificate, and then requested officially that she enroll Raf in the health plan. 

“So what do you want me to do?” she would ask.

“Oh, send me the same letter as last year,” I’d say. “Unless, of course, I’ve worn down Bentonville and they’ll put Raf in the plan…”

I had written a letter to the Senior Vice President for Human Resources in Bentonville, and waited a year for a response. I wrote a second time—by certified mail.

That got a response!

So it was a sort of game between us. For two or three years, I put Raf down for coverage, and Karen sent me an updated letter.

The relationship between the gay community and Mormon Church has on occasion—you do sense irony, don’t you?—been strained. Did it make any difference in our case?

Absolutely not.

“No llores, Marc, no llores…” she kept saying to me, and patting my arm. It was the day I came to sign the severance agreement, and turn in my discount card.

Wasn’t my best day.

No llores—don’t cry. And honestly, if I had been able to, I would have stopped. Karen was as affected as I.

And what hadn’t she done for me? Unfailingly, she rescued me from getting stranded when the bus broke down or didn’t come. She defended me on the—I hope rare—occasions when I needed it. She made sure that I never had a problem getting the—paid!—time off to take care of Franny. Sure—it’s required by law, but kindness isn’t.

And she was the one person in the office I called on the day Franny died.

“Karen,” I explained, “I know it’s traditional in the office to mention Jesucristo or the todopoderoso in the little email that HR sends out when an associate’s parent dies. But you know, my mother didn’t believe. So, could you…”

No problem.

I think it’s one thing that Puerto Rico does superlatively well—human relationships. The quality of friendship here is like nothing else. Yes, it may be that the government doesn’t work. The potholes in the road could swallow an elephant. God or the devil knows where all the money goes.

“We don’t throw away people like the white man does,” wrote a Native American about people of the double spirit, the term for gay among the Indians. And the same could be true about friendship in Puerto Rico.

What—let religion come before friendship?

No way!

When a Man Becomes a Swan

Well, even I can’t keep it up forever.

There’s a limit to how much storming around I can do, how much moral outrage I can generate, how much rant I can produce.

Time to move on.

Which is not to say that I get it. Romney was governor of Massachusetts for four years from 2003 to 2007. Top federal tax rate is 35%. The guy must have been in the top bracket, right? I mean, being Gov has gotta pay better than Burger King, right?

Mental hygiene, Marc….

I admit it, the tail of the hurricane is still producing a few gusty winds. I considered starting a little business. T shirts!

Here’s the first:

OK, try this:

And for the truly tasteless:

Well, well. I considered starting a little competition for readers of this blog. Who, in the next week, can create the funniest, most mordant t-shirt? But we gotta move on. Can’t be spitting nails all our lives. So take a look at this:

Mitt Romney, Go Right To Your Room!

It was a day when unwittingly I channeled Franny.

It was a story she told me once, after she had said she was being especially nice to Molly, her dog.

Why?

Well, she had scolded Molly unknowingly the day before.

Explanation?

“Well, I got up as I always do and set about the morning chores. Fed the cats, put wood in the stove, made the bed. Put Molly out to eat and do her business. Turned on the radio, and started to make breakfast. Well, the news was just dreadful that day. And that damn Bush was trying to justify his invasion of Iraq! When I think of the sympathy and good will of the entire world after September 11 and then he has to go and squander it all and invade a foreign country under the flimsiest of excuses! And the more he spoke, the madder I got. And then he got stuck in one his sentences and couldn’t get out of it! Damn it! Well, I was pretty steamed up, and went stomping around the house….”

“So what’s that got to do with the dog?”

“Well, I went to let the dog in, and she wasn’t in sight. Then I saw her, crouching under the porch. So I stormed over there and demanded ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!’ And she just whimpered. So I looked around. No trash anywhere, so she hadn’t gotten into that. No smell, so she hadn’t rolled in anything. Just stood there with her tail between her legs, looking at me with those brown eyes….”

“Right…and?”

“Well, I realized then.  I…um…had been talking to George Bush….”

Those who knew her will understand. She could get up a head of steam.

And so can I. Rather, so did I.

Why?

Mitt Romney said yesterday that he had never paid less than 13% in taxes.

WHAT!

Here’s what I said:

YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE AND YOU HAVE JUST LOST THE ELECTION AND I AM DAMNED MAD AND DAMNED GLAD. I MADE 35, 000$ DOLLARS LAST YEAR AND I PAID 14 PERCENT ON IT! AND YOU HAVE THE FUCKING GALL TO TELL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT YOU PAY THAT MISERLY 13 PERCENT ON YOUR FUCKING QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS! 

And then…

YOU KNOW, MY FATHER WAS A REPUBLICAN, BUT HE WASN’T ANYTHING LIKE THE KIND OF SLEAZEBAG YOU ARE! HE BELIEVED IN SMALL GOVERNMENT AND FISCAL PRUDENCE AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND PAY-AS-YOU-GO AND DON’T SPEND MONEY YOU DON’T HAVE. RIGHT! SO DO I! 

Cat looks up, interested…

AND THAT’S THE WAY I RAN MY LIFE WHEN I HAD A LIFE AND HAD A JOB AND GOT UP EVERY FUCKING MORNING AT 5 AM AND WENT TO WORK. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, MITT! MY FATHER WOULD BE ASHAMED OF A PARTY OF RICH JERKS WHO ARE FILLED WITH HATE FOR ANYBODY LIKE THE HUNDREDS OF IMMIGRANT KIDS WHO ARE FILLING CHURCHES IN LOWER MANHATTAN TO APPLY FOR LEGAL STATUS AND MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR THEMSELVES. WHO DEREGULATED THE BANKING INDUSTRY SO THEY COULD MAKE MONEY FOR THEMSELVES AND THEN THREW US INTO A DEPRESSION, WHICH PARTLY COST ME MY JOB! WHO CAN’T STAND A BLACK GUY IN THE WHITE HOUSE! SHAME ON YOU!

Storm into the kitchen, cat follows!

I could go on but…look, you get my drift.

I’m better today. I took my rain walk, and sure enough, sought refuge under one of the balconies when the predicted downpour arrived. I listened to Haydn. And then I channeled Jack.

Where’s the press? 

With about three keystrokes, I figured out the federal tax rate in 2011 for a guy making 35,000 bucks a year.

15%.

What part of this don’t people get? Don’t people know how much they pay in taxes?

“I’m not paying anything this year,” my students would say in relief on April 15.

Wrong—you’ve been paying through the nose all year. You just aren’t gonna get slugged extra.

So what am I gonna do? 

Or what are we gonna do?

Here’s my plan. Dig out your tax forms for the year 2011. Redact them—you don’t want those jerks playing around with you social security number. And when Mitt comes to town? Go to the rally wearing a big placard, with your annual salary and your tax rate written on it. 

And wave your tax returns at him. Let him take a look at what real people are paying.

Oh, and Mitt?

Go to your room. Don’t come out until you’re ready to say you’re sorry!