Giddy Friday

I'm giddily happy tonight. My car has been in the garage, untouched, since a week ago, and I've walked to work every day this week -- five days, an hour each day, a half hour each way, in brilliant tangy autumn weather, my beloved black backpack secure against my body.

And it's possible that the country is not quite so mindlessly infatuated with Sarah Palin this week as last, and maybe I feel fizzy because of the huge financial crash we've seen happen this week -- it's like the way you feel after getting high on LSD and thinking you're never going to come down and then you wake up the next morning and everything is ultra-clear and daily life in all its ordinary beauty is a relief.

Here's Barbara Mikulski: " Democrats wear lipstick too, and we need somebody who gets it! We don't need George Bush in lipstick!" That image is making me giggle, but maybe that's because my system is flush with fresh-air endorphins and the two glasses of rose from the bottle I found in the refrigerator door (Verget du Sud, 2006) It's so funny because Barbara Mikulski doesn't really look like she wears lipstick, but God bless her! The Wall Street Journal (yes, the Wall Street Journal!) lambastes John McCain for his hot-headed call to fire Christopher Cox from the SEC. So I relax and play with my tiny zen garden (see photo above...for the record, the bottle is empty now.)

The world's complications are amusing and fascinating tonight. I'm in a much better mood. Even while listening to idiot Bay Buchanan bluster about Palin and McCain on CNN. Tonight she just seems silly and irrelevant.

And by the way, how about Joe Biden saying it's patriotic for people making $250,000 or more to pay more taxes? I say, three cheers. I don't think that was a gaffe. It makes sense that the rich should pay more. This of course means that prosperous Americans would develop some late-in-the-game altruism, which doesn't seem to accompany standard capitalism. We don't know from sacrifice. How 'bout a little dose of sacrifice, damn it? I like what Joe Biden said.

I'm not saying I'm happy about the bailout. Welfare for the bigtime capitalists, at a massive scale, probably means that any hope for universal health care, decent public education and -- yeah, even -- the arts won't be in the picture for the rest of my lifetime. We've just rewarded the slobbering, snarling dog for stealing food from the baby.

Nonetheless, it's a beautiful autumn night and that rose has me mellow and optimistic. I'm going to sign off and enjoy it.