So, uh, did you all have a nice break? What a coincidence! So did I! Obviously, that whole Pita-making process wore me out more than I realized.
In neglecting to blog for more than a month, I completely missed getting to talk about how the U.S. is now totally a socialist utopia in the manner of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler. All hail the Glorious Leader! In all seriousness, the un-hinged-ness of the opponents of the very modest healthcare reform is alarming. I'm going to go with NYT columnist Frank Rich here and say that it's not REALLY about the healthcare.
Also in national news, the ever-unbiased Heritage Foundation has found that the United States is less free on account of the whole socialist thing (H/T Gabriel Winant at Salon's War Room). Winant juxtaposed that alarming news with the report issued by left-wing propaganda machine Forbes.com that the average U.S. citizen pays more into Federal taxes than companies like GE and ExxonMobile do. Not a higher percentage, mind--a higher actual dollar amount:
"The most egregious example is General Electric ( GE - news - people ). Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.
Avoiding taxes is nothing new for General Electric. In 2008 its effective tax rate was 5.3%; in 2007 it was 15%. The marginal U.S. corporate rate is 35%."
Don't mind me. I'll just be over here paying my taxes, as required by law. Tell me again why I should shoulder a larger burden than a multi-national corporation? I'm just not getting it.
In personal news, we weathered spring break with a big assist from Nana and Papa, who hosted Connery for the first week (meaning that yes, there was more than one week involved!) of spring break. The best comment about this vacation came from a Tweet from thehighsign: "Looking forward to the end of Spring Break, also known as the Fortnight of Blithe Disregard for Parents' Jobs." Onward to the 13 Weeks of Bright, Sunshiny Disregard!
My brother and his wife had a beautiful baby boy named Kennedy, and we got to meet him when he was just four days old! Connery thought he was excellent, while Emerson thought he was competition.
Let's see. What else? We used part of our tax refund (thanks Exxon!) to rejoin the gym, and last night, I attended my first-ever Zumba class. I believe that Zumba is Spanish for "aerobics with better music and hilarious flailing about in a semi-rhythmic fashion, especially when your heritage is Northern European." It would be much better if the mirrors were on the ceiling, where you wouldn't have to look at them. It's hard to Zumba when you're concentrating most on avoiding a glimpse of your own pastiness in the ever-present wall mirrors.
If you've made it this far, you should be rewarded with some pictures of cute children. Luckily, I have a lot of those. Pictures, not children. You didn't miss that much.