It’s a flat-tax life.
Yesterday was one of those days reading Facebook made me feel stupider. A number of Friends of the NN.C Empire noted that George Steinbrenner managed to die during the Year of No Estate Tax, saving his heirs millions. And one of their friends — because I hope I don’t have friends this dumb — wondered if we might see a rash of rich-old-people suicides, as the year draws to a close.
And then, with a soft click and faint buzz, a compact fluorescent bulb went on over my head. Elevator pitch!
After enjoying a holy and prayerful Christmas with his family, a rich man considers suicide on New Year’s Eve, to avoid the fearsome Death Tax. He stands on a bridge built with stimulus money, ready to take the leap, when he’s approached by the angel ghost of Ronald Reagan, who convinces him to wait. The two visit a world where the man’s grandchildren nod on heroin binges with Kennedy offspring, having been relieved of the burden of earning a living. The man wonders what happened to his old hero when the ghost tells him this isn’t the result of confiscatory death taxes but the relaxation of social norms in place for generations. They go back in time and kill the inventor of birth control, several labor leaders, and all the filthy hippies they can find, for God. They return to the present, and there is no President Obama, just a thousand-year GOP reich, er, democratically elected government, which is lean and funded by a 3 percent flat tax on income.
“How can I get out of paying this 3 percent?” the man asks, as Reagan prepares to depart. The Gipper ghost winks and says, “That’s for the sequel” and disappears to the sound of ringing bells across the land.
So, it needs a little work. But I think it has promise for one of those right-wing movie-making projects. Mel Gibson can play the lead. I’m pretty sure he’ll be available.
Actually, I didn’t have much time for Facebook yesterday. It was crazy busy, interrupted by a trip downtown to check an election filing that wasn’t downtown, I learned, but in Lansing, and on the web to boot. OK. But a trip downtown is never wasted, especially when you can visit the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. And find a street parking spot. I drove home along Jefferson, just for the hell of it — freeways are fine for getting where you need to go in a hurry, but the scenery’s better at street level. The town’s not looking any better than it did the last time I took the long way home, but it’s not looking worse. In this economy, that counts as redevelopment. Hang in there, crazytown.
So, the I Write Like meme was sweepin’ the internets yesterday, and I paused long enough to plug a few paragraphs in the analyzer, to see which famous writer I write like:
Oh, I do not. Let’s try again:
William Gibson
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
Hmm. One more time:
David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
I’m thinking this is randomizing crap. But entertaining.
Why it sucks to look for work in the digital age.
Finally, a funny from Sara Benincasa. She sounds just like her.
And away we go.
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