The Curmudgeon

Well, that extended silence was decidedly not intentional. I'll give you the cliffnotes version, and those who care to inquire further may do so.

-I have been working lots. Long hours, long days, long weeks. This turns out to be fortuitous because
-I am getting divorced. It's sad, yeah, it's sad all the way around. This fact has also meant that I have had to move, which brings me to the next point
-Moving sucks. It sucks time, energy, it just plain sucks.
-New digs have been found, however, and the Curmudgeon has landed a beachhead- with a porch. More on that soon enough.

So, here it is. Your Curmudgeon will not be going away quietly. In fact, I'd bet it will be as loud as ever.

While most of the left blogosphere kept busy yesterday mocking Law Day, or as Bunnypants would have it, Loyalty Day, your Curmudgeon kept the day as May Day, which is what yesterday was. An organized potluck for the people working on the latest project- a communal meal for the workers- was a big hit. The most salient point of the event was that when people each bring a bit to share, the bounty enjoyed by all exceeded the total of the individual appetites.

Huh- fancy that. When people pitch in a bit, everybody benefits, and in fact that common effort results in surplus.

But while these little life lessons went on yesterday, KARE-11's resident smug prick Rick Kupchella presented a 'special segment' screed on how some folks- transportation construction workers- are getting paid just too damn much money, in his opinion. Yup- on May Day, an anti-union screed, stirring the pot of divisive envy. For this act of arrogant stupidity, Kupchella gets his first Ignoranus of the Moment title.

Entirely lost in the windswept barren waste between his ears is the idea that these workers might not be getting unearned benefit, but that the average worker has been getting undeserved punishment with lowered earnings while the ownership class reaps ever-growing wealth from the equation. It isn't that the prevailing wage needs to excised, it needs to be expanded.