"Fire is motion / Work is repetition / This is my document / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all defenses."

- Cap'N Jazz, "Oh Messy Life," Analphabetapolothology

Saturday, April 14, 2007

civic duties


today, i spent the morning devoting time to a variety of (neglected) civic duties.

first, there was a peace rally in uptown Oxford today, which i missed b/c of the cold n wet weather, so that was a bust.

then, i realized i had forgotten to file my taxes. which is ironic, considering that i've spent every Saturday morning for the past 2.5 months helping other people with their's. so, after rummaging thru stacks n stacks of various papers and forms tucked away in the drawers of my desk, i finally salvaged the 1040EZ instructions i'd gotten from my library at home many months ago (ha – i must've thot i'd get an early start on this...)

only to discover i'd failed to get the actual form.

i was close to giving up at this point, but thinking i should probly do at least one civically responsible thing today, i pushed on and am now typing out my tax forms on Adobe (the whole situation was considerably improved by listening to French poetry podcasts. "Le pont Mirabeau, qui coule la Seine...")

anyway, the point of writing all this: i found it quite an absurd juxtaposition of civic duties: protesting (to exercise freedom of speech, to be critical of the government, thus to be a responsible citizine) & taxes (to pay give some hard-earned $ back to the state so they can spend it on the war i'm protesting and not put it into educational reform or healthcare or ...)

it's also raining cold wind this morning, with no sign of sunny warmth in the near future. is this really April?

confused.
-stephan!e

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

~ 'protesting (to exercise freedom of speech, to be critical of the government, thus to be a responsible citizine) & taxes (to pay give some hard-earned $ back to the state so they can spend it on the war i'm protesting and not put it into educational reform or healthcare or ...)'

Et moi, ATM = work me arse off of mein torso year after year so data can move freely away

from grubby corporate l337z and their fucking warez that piss me off in ways not suitable to

discribe on this family blog just so that I end up using the Internet to freaking shop for

freaking details on freaking product info.

Case in point:

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1209)-SanDisk_VMate_Video_Memory_Card_Recorder.aspx

Valid explanation: it is metaphysically impossible to "TV-OUT" from an old Wintel PC to a

VCR - short of buying RIDICULOUSLY extravagant solutions or ones too rare for country hicks

like me to track down. GRRR-AHHH-WHOOLAAHHH-BBRRRLLO-O-EEE-AHH!!! (with raise monster arms -

did I ever mention that I am one-quarter Transylvanian?)

Sigh. Maybe I would be better off surrendering to cynicism. Sorry for the negative comment.