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I N  T H E  N I G H T  K I T C H E N

We Are Tense

We are tense around here. Very tense. We are waiting to hear from my colleges. What could happen? We could be invited to go East and South. We could be invited only East or only South. We could be not invited any direction at all. Then we would settle in and start here and try again next year. We are just waiting. We are talking about what could be, what might be, what we could do when, what we should do now, blah, blah, blah. And, then we snap at each other. *snap*

And the damn war. Is it or isn't it? Will they or won't they? How many times will Bush give that stupid speech? I noticed that he changed the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" to "weapons of mass murder" and all I can do is golf-clap and offer: "Wellllll plaaaaaaayed, sir. Well played." I have friends and family in the military, the Armed Services. It hurts to think of them going over there.

I don't know if the local economy is a hot topic on your nightly news, your local NPR, but no one has anything nice to say about finances in Oregon. This morning, the governor said that the Public Employees Retirement Fund is pretty much unrecoverable. In a way, I don't really care. I'm not a public employee promised a retirement fund. However, it's the strongest indicator of how horribly bungled our government budget is. And, for some reason, a hot topic seems to be the nutritional value of school lunches. And, along with that, someone always brings up vending machines in schools as an indicator of how nutritionally devoid our precious little children are. I can only guess that with a plummeting economy this comes up because kids aren't getting as much good food at home. However, when they've cut the school year by twenty days and gave an extra week of spring break, this seems trivial.

*grrrowl*snap*

They are also proposing to up the taxes on beer and wine. They should increase the cigarette tax as well. Because, if the state needs to pull itself out of this financial septic tank it has landed in, do it on the backs of vices. I think they should up all those taxes and lower the drinking age and smoking age. Then they should put casinos in schools. They should take back that new ordinance banning underage nude dancing and encourage six-drink minimums at all bars and restaurants. Did you know that Portland has the highest number of strip clubs per capita in the nation? That's what they say. It's the strangest thing ever. No one seems to know why. They should put strip clubs in schools.

Anyway, we are tense.

9:39 AM link

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