It's Sunday morning. Gray. With filtered light from a bright, high overcast. It's the morning paper minus its ten pounds of ads and a mug of hot coffee. Christmas looms. Kaeli and Alecia will sing today in the premiere of the Pacific Youth Choir. They sound like angels in practice. Yesterday I actually went downtown and into Pioneer Place on a mission- went to Real Mother Goose as well. The former was packed with wall to wall people. But parking was available on the streets nearby so I have to believe that the shopping season isn't as 'bright' as the other perspective might suggest. I hate the materialism of the holiday season anyway. I'm not a good consumer. I treasure objects that have beauty or meaning or utility....but I like to keep things and use them up too. I am not fond of getting new 'stuff'. I've still got my old cell phone, my email address is over six years old, I've got clothes in my closet that I've had for twenty years and still wear. Well, anyway....I am in search of the scent of fir and juniper, the carefully placed rich colors of holiday lights in the darkness, the sound of voices really making music. Laughter. Candles lighting the table. Baking. Anyway.... that's the kind of stuff on my Christmas list.
The morning paper had another article that made me disgruntled. Oh no, it wasn't about Saddam. What a slug! So much evil from a man who's no hero, just a calculating coward wielding fear. He's pitiful. And terrifying because he isn't more. No, this morning's paper had a followup on the Los Angeles Times investigation of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and his 'get rich quick' program which essentially involves giving BIG business contracts (as Chair of Appropriations) to businesses in his state that he invested in or his family members are investors in or employees of! Apparently that's not a conflict of interest in the Senate. And he's only one of several senators- Breaux, Lott, Hatch, Reid of Nevada- there's precedent. And I think, shamefully, the Senate Ethics Committee Chair declined to comment. This pointing to the rules and saying 'I'm not doing anything wrong' is terribly offensive. What would any one of us ordinary people say if we saw someone we knew take a public position of power and suddenly start using it to feather their own nest! We'd say it's a betrayal of the public's trust. It's cronyism. It smacks of the Golden Age in the 1870s when rich politicians and businessmen manipulated the economy of our country to make themselves wealthy. I am offended. I think of the hundreds of thousands of jobless people this Christmas who are struggling for the bare necessities. And I think the 'rich' who are using the system to get rich are the worst sort of parasites.
Guess that's all the rant I have time for. I need to go out and put some money in the bell ringer's kettle or the food bank donation jar. It helps me to keep from feeling quite so negative.
The morning paper had another article that made me disgruntled. Oh no, it wasn't about Saddam. What a slug! So much evil from a man who's no hero, just a calculating coward wielding fear. He's pitiful. And terrifying because he isn't more. No, this morning's paper had a followup on the Los Angeles Times investigation of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and his 'get rich quick' program which essentially involves giving BIG business contracts (as Chair of Appropriations) to businesses in his state that he invested in or his family members are investors in or employees of! Apparently that's not a conflict of interest in the Senate. And he's only one of several senators- Breaux, Lott, Hatch, Reid of Nevada- there's precedent. And I think, shamefully, the Senate Ethics Committee Chair declined to comment. This pointing to the rules and saying 'I'm not doing anything wrong' is terribly offensive. What would any one of us ordinary people say if we saw someone we knew take a public position of power and suddenly start using it to feather their own nest! We'd say it's a betrayal of the public's trust. It's cronyism. It smacks of the Golden Age in the 1870s when rich politicians and businessmen manipulated the economy of our country to make themselves wealthy. I am offended. I think of the hundreds of thousands of jobless people this Christmas who are struggling for the bare necessities. And I think the 'rich' who are using the system to get rich are the worst sort of parasites.
Guess that's all the rant I have time for. I need to go out and put some money in the bell ringer's kettle or the food bank donation jar. It helps me to keep from feeling quite so negative.
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