They're at it again...

Oh, God bless the politicians...I think I honestly mean that. I mean, yeah, I despise them as a whole, even though there's the occasional one or two that actually do something I find admirable from time to time (although, lately, I can't think of a good example...)

I had to laugh when I stumbled across this little tidbit...

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) -- Wary of losing an opportunity to regain control of Congress this fall, some Democrats are hoping a return to the "middle class values agenda" will help focus the party's fall message and capitalize on a tough political environment for Republicans.

"America needs to work for everyone, not just the privileged and the powerful," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday at the Democratic Leadership Council's 10th annual "National Conversation" in Denver. "Democrats can be the change agents our country needs."

So, Democratic Party leaders think they're going to get back in touch with the middle class? Does Hillary Clinton even KNOW anyone from the middle class? Does anyone elected to Washington?

I see the same issue, on a much smaller scale, at work...the Freeds, who own and run the park, have had so much money for so long that they've forgotten what the world is like for the rest of us. An example is when one of them encouraged our former production manager to 'take a weekend off and go to New York'...like it was something anyone could do. That weekend in NYC would cost the PM's monthly income, if she took her husband and went to see all the shows and eat out as encouraged in the discussion.

So, we have a bunch of privileged individuals, mostly white men, who probably don't even recall (if they ever knew) what it's like to work for a living...many of them probably don't even remember what it's like to have an annual income under $100k. So they blithely talk about putting a tax on SUVs, despite the fact that some of us NEED to commute in absolutely indecent weather and having 4WD is a tool of the trade (as is having covered cargo space!) Or they blandly sit by while gasoline prices climb somewhere past the stratosphere...I pay, just to drive back and forth to work (a commute of just slightly more than five miles, one way) nearly 20 percent of what I pay for rent each month...when I started at Lagoon, making MUCH less than I am now, I could drive down to work from Logan and earn enough in two hours to more than make up for the gas it took for the drive. Now, if I want to drive to Logan, I've got to seriously factor in whether or not I can spare the money for gas. Makes it really difficult to keep up with friends and family.

Don't get me wrong. I applaud the Democrats, I think they finally are taking some decisive steps in a direction that will get them some good results. But I sure as hell don't feel like ANYONE in Washington DC has even the slightest notion of what my life is like, and I doubt most of them have the ability to picture it if I got a chance to describe it to them.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm jaded and cynical. But I keep seeing too many things happen to really believe that. Regardless of whether you believe it's scripture or not, the Bible has a lot of wisdom in it...including "By their fruits ye shall know them." And I'm seeing an awful lot of rotten apples dropping off the political tree in this country.

In a similar vein...I had a thought today that both amused and scared me. I've been thinking, off and on, about the whole War in Iraq thing, why it happened, etc...(c'mon, who among us HASN'T had their own private, and sometimes not-so-private, musings on that one?) And there suddenly dawned on me a premise for the whole thing that made an eerie kind of sense.

G.W. Bush is trying to one-up his old man. It's really that simple. Bush the Elder attacked Iraq, chased Saddam out of Kuwait...and then withdrew. So Daddy's Little Boy set out to try and take down the guy Dad wussed out on when he was President, to prove he's a better man than Pop.

Think about it...yeah, it's a crackpot idea...but it fits. (No, I don't ACTUALLY believe that...wholeheartedly, anyway...but what a GREAT premise for writing a novel about this whole circus...at least, I hope it's a novel, and not an expose...)

Or, maybe, the heat's finally getting to me.

And, no, for those wondering...my horse STILL hasn't had her baby yet. Stubborn beast...Marla's husband is joking about hooking up jumper cables to her nostrils to try and induce labor...at least, I hope he's still joking. I don't think she'd take that very well...not the most agreeable creature in the world when she's NOT pregnant...and at this juncture, she's VERY pissy about the world in general. And who can blame her? She looks like she swallowed one of Marla's ponies...when you see her from the back, it looks like there's an extra half a horse on either side through her middle. And in this weather, having another body's heat compounding your own discomfort just can't be enjoyable.

So I hope she does something soon, before Ross goes out and does something that's gonna get him hurt (just kidding, Ross...I know you're smarter than that!)