Woolgathering

The world is a beautiful place to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying all the time
or maybe only starving some of the time
which isn't half so bad if it isn't you.
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lester: You don't think it's kinda weird & fascist?
Carolyn: Possibly, but you don't want to be unemployed.
Lester: Oh well, all right, let's all sell our souls
and work for Satan because it's more convenient that way
--American Beauty (1999)

"So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?
or 'What are we to drink? What are we to wear?' . . .
-- Matthew 6:31
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But what are we to eat? What are we to drink? Well, thank goodness such questions don't distract those running for high public office in the U.S.

John McCain released his tax returns Friday, but they "don't provide a full picture of his wealth because they don't include his wife's income."

Cindy McCain is the chairwoman of a huge Phoenix-based Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship, Hensley & Co., which her parents founded. She may be worth more than $100 million, according to some analysts' estimates ("McCain releases tax returns but leaves out rich wife's Data.")

The Clinton's have earned $108 million since leaving office, and Obama and wife pulled in a tidy $4.2 million in 2007, according to the L.A.Times. Our current President Bush enjoys being a part of a family with no worries about how to make the monthly electric bill, thanks in no mean part to the warm petroleum relations between the house of Bush and the house of Saud.

But Americans are visual creatures. George Bush with a large belt buckle gathering brush on his Crawford ranch; Hillary throwing back boilermakers; Obama assuring us he worships our lord Jesus Christ. All very necessary for constructing the pastiche which constitutes our hopes and dreams, the golem that will become our savior and advocate.

Obviously these households are just like yours and mine. Ranger is sure that they all can absorb the spiraling cost of living handily, while still managing to present themselves as just another Ossie and Harriet.