Stimulate This!

Well all Seniors and Disabled on Social Security benefits can now rest easy, their HUGE $250 stimulus check is all but a signature away.....The Bill was voted thru both houses of Congress, without a single Repug even looking up from the desk. Some $789 Billion in new spending and tax cuts was approved late yesterday, and unless you were comatose or highly sedated on your last Valium script, you already know all about the details of which I won't bother with here. The Greenies are happy, what with the dark ages of Bushism seemingly behind them, the Public Transit people seem pleased, so why do I have this nagging doubt, this pervasive sense of doom? That it's all going to be taken away like a favored holiday toy, never to see the light again? Could happen, I mean, were talking huge money here. No reason why this thing couldn't hit the crapper in some last minute conference committee, appropriations committee? Something like that. After eight years of having ALL my toys taken away, I'm not overly optimistic until I have the check in my hand. Conditioned pessimism if you will.


Someone asked me this morning why I only blog every couple of days, why don't I write a daily column? Good question, but an even better answer. I need at least a couple of days for the research required for each column I write. If I had lackeys. it'd be much easier, as when I worked for another magazine and had an e-mail in-box full of material waiting for me every bloody morning. I gotta find every bit myself and fact check it. It may seem effortless and the gratuitous use of profanity enforces that perception, but its anything but. I read for a minimum of five hours EVERY day, including weekends. Its a LOT of ground to cover, and a lot of facts to cross check, with no help from anyone, and a household to care for besides. What I wouldn' t give for a lackey or two. Anyone interested, I pay nothing, the hours suck and I have an evil mind and temper. But I make cookies.


Today is St Valentine's Day, and once again I have no partner with which to share it. Me and half the civilized world apparently. Doesn't bother me much anymore, but it does other people. I read massive amounts of very sad posts on everywhere from Salon.com to the NYTimes.com, and while I did ingest a bit more chocolate as a result, it didn't get me down anymore than reading about say "the War in Iraq"[tm], or the vastly more criminal "War on Drugs" [tm] do on any given day of the week. In fact my big bright spot was reading in the NYTimes about how the State of Calif. was going to have to discharge 55,000 low level no-violent incarcerated folks from their prison system. Due to a State Supreme Court ruling there, they are being forced to. Too bad they had to be MADE to do it, but it's a good start for someone like me, a member of the Prison Reform Project and The Drug Policy Foundation for like, EVER. A great start for the rest of the country to follow suit. Made my day not sad at all. I certainly hope that you and (if ya gots one) your other had/have a lovely day and night.