Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Saturday, February 23, 2008 )

This spring, the Bush administration will be giving automatic tax refunds of anywhere from $300 for individuals to $1,200 for couples. How will Americans be spending the money?

–*Running down and saving New Orleans

–*Betting on No. 5, Lil’ Phar Lap

–*Taking it back and asking President Bush for gold or specie instead, since $300 is starting to look an awful lot like $175

–*Mailing it directly to Social Security, Medicaid and school lunch programs and other places it should have gone in the first place

–*Recirculating it back into the economy … and by that I mean back to the richest 1% of Americans, which is where recirculated money likes to go

–*Nailing it to the mizzenmast and promising it to whomever catches the dreaded white whale Moby Dick

–*Buying the plasma TV that I always knew Uncle George was going to get me as long as I kept voting Republican

–*Using it to open my own school, train my own police department, and build my own bridges and roads, because that’s what freedom from government tyranny is all about

–*Catching up on the last three months of overpriced cable

–*Buying a memorial plate embossed with a picture of Ronald Reagan, for it was he who first discovered that poor people would stab themselves in the back and sell their country to the Saudis as long as you rubbed their bellies and gave them a little extra scratch.