Of Coffee and Tailors

"Why are you old and bitter?" the barista asked.

"Time and many enemies will do that to any main, even a tailor," Jack said, looking up at the girl with his wizened eyes.

"Who hates a tailor?"

"We tailors were once a fine and proud brotherhood, with great influence and responsibility. And enemies. There are few of us left, now."

"I thought they had, like, machines to do that now," the girl said.

"Hey, buddy, you gonna move?"

This came from the man behind the tailor, a businessman in a slightly ill-fitting suit. One that had never known the touch of a tailor, only machines and small foreign children. For a moment, it filled the tailor with the old anger, but neither his spirit nor body could sustain it, and it sank back to the bitter coals of futile hate it sprang from.

"You, back of the line," the barista said, pointing at the businessman.

He started to protest, but baristas are inducted to the secret knowledges of coffee, few dare cross them and risk their wrath, so the businessman subsided. "Here's your latte," she said, and handed Jack a cup.

"Thank you, young lady," he said, "My name is Jack."

"Enjoy your coffee, Jack," she said.

Jack sat at a table, ignored by most of the customers, businesscritters who darted around, busy as ants with pointless tasks, idle hipsters intent on the butterfly obsessions of youth. They saw only an old man. But he was Jack, and he used to be a tailor, and nothing could take that away from him.

Political roundup for the day.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501210001 - "Liberal media" my ass.

Stupid Headline of the Day goes to Yahoo News, for Bush starts new term, seeks end to tyrrany"

The whole inauguration is a sorry spectacle, with the incredible paranoia of DC these days, police and military practically outnumbered the regular people there to see it. And Bush's speeches seemed completely unrelated to reality, but then, everything he's done has been pretty much unrelated to reality.

In other news, the Senate Democrats proved themselves mostly again unworthy of the votes they got, voting 16 to 2 to appoint Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State (She's a black woman, who also happens to be incompetent, lied to Congress and the American People, and bears partial responsibility for all the deaths and torture from the Iraq war. Somehow, I think those outweigh her skin color and gender)

And Alberto Gonzales, the man who wrote that the President has the power to ignore the law and approved memos advocating torture, is also likely to be confirmed by the Senate. What the fuck does it take to get the Democratic idiots in the Senate to STAND UP FOR SOMETHING? What, approving torture not enough? Would they oppose his nomination if he tortured a prisoner himself? What if he tortured an innocent Iraqi? What does it TAKE, people? Oh, right, I forgot. Hiring an illegal immigrant for housekeeper or babysitter. That'll show 'em.

I think I'm going to start dubbing people Douchebags of Liberty. Because it's a good turn of phrase, and there's far too many people who it fits, these days.

Also, if you're wondering about Social Security? There is no crisis. I've said it before, but here's a handy clearinghouse. Not that it'll stop the President of the United States from bald-facedly lying to us, but hey. Now you know.

Look at it this way. You've heard of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the one that produces those anguished news reports every four years about all the countries American schoolchildren lag behind in basic skills. But according to the TIMSS, if Minnesota were a country, it would have the second-best science scores and the seventh best in math. By No Child Left Behind's statutorily required benchmarks of "Adequate Yearly Progress," however, only 42 percent of Minnesota fourth-graders were proficient in math. And NCLB's test targets increase every year. So by one estimate, in 2014, some 80 percent of the schools in Minnesota's world-class education system will be rated "failures."

And also, Batshit Insane Radical Cleric James Dobson says Spongebob Squarepants is promoting the "homosexual agenda". The barbarians aren't at the gates, they're manning the walls and running the palace.