Y’all must think you’re pretty slick. Seriously, pulling something out of Reagan’s playbook: paying faux homage to King (in Reagan’s case in the form of a national holiday) while doing everything you can “behind the scenes” to promote the disparagement harassment and discrimination against African-Americans. Oh, do I have some words for you! But first let me say this to all you minority inmates in debtors prison (which like real prison is made up of a disproportionate number of us) first we’ve got to look up from staring at our own problems long enough to notice things like this and second  we may not have gotten jobs or meaningful contacts out of our fancy degrees but at least we pissed off uneducated white trash like Beck and Palin. Sure they are millionaires and we owe six figures but their jealousy and envy can at least get you through the day.

Ok now for Beck and Palin. Look, Reagan got away with what he did because 1) he was President 2) he was a charismatic actor and 3) that was 30 years ago before the Daily Show.  Glen Beck is so stupid he thought Al Sharpton marched with Dr. King…I mean can he even count to 47? Sarah Palin is on record mocking the very IDEA of being a community organizer… What do you think Dr. King WAS?! The unofficial Prince of Negroes? And these aren’t things those idiots did or said ten years ago, this is all since 2008.

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The last epiphany I had was when I decided to create this blog, and it was nothing, I mean NOTHING compared to the earth-shaking revelation I experienced in a movie theater just a few short minutes ago.  As a man of few means, I normally catch movies right at the tail end when they are about to leave the theater (when hopefully tickets are reduced) and hence I saw the movie “Kickass.” And I was blown away.

First, all I can say is thank you.  I haven’t felt like that in a movie theater since before I can remember. 

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We’re all in solitary confinement here in debtor’s prison.  Shame is the wall that separates us from our fellow similarly afflicted brethren.  Our reward for suffering in silence is to hear our own stories reiterated to us like we didn’t live through it. 

We get the news on a Tuesday afternoon with meetings on our calendars put their by people who knew we were out the door.  We hold our heads as high as possible while security escorts us out.  We go back to our apartments.  After a sleepless night we rise and dress as if we are going to work, lest our roommates suspect.

Eventually we muster the courage to tell our friends and family.  Cliches fall on deaf ears.  Our roommates shrug, continue their gambling and drinking and remind us in no uncertain terms that rent is due on the first employed or otherwise.  Our confidence is not kept.  Everyone knows.  We move out in the middle of the night.  A roommate offers an insulting price for a priceless possession, reminding us of a disputed $50 debt.  We fade away.  Time passes.

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This is a reflection on the events that transpired on a sunny day in April on the campus of Virginia Tech

Candles at night on the Quad. A bonfire would indicate a sports victory. A sunny day perhaps a graduation. Perhaps it is Christmas-but students go home at Christmas time and the remnants of dusk are long gone by 7 pm near the Winter Solstice. No. This is unmistakably mourning.

What is mourning? In the secular sense it is the process of returning to normal. We are programed for this. How else can we survive a month where the dubious anniversaries of Oklahoma City and Columbine collide with the fresh tragedy of the West Virginia coal mines? Let’s not forget the tragedy in our own lines known but to us and a few others and let’s not forget the tragedy of our invisible neighbors who we pass on the other side of the road. In a secular sense to move on, not as if didn’t happen, but as if such things DO happen, is the goal. And if that is the goal not only have we succeeded but we have triumphed.

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Well it looks like my run-of-the-mill post didn’t make the announcements. Whatever. Maybe Alpha Man is right when he says Benito caters to the more “entertaining” writers.  What will he ever do without Triforce? Anyway, Another by-product of tax season is that if you keep your ear to the ground you can find out what the heavy hitters are making. After all who doesn’t xerox their W2 at work? Turns out I am the third highest paid paralegal… and that makes me particularly expendable.

Here’s why. I make what I make because a certain partner, Eric, watches out for me knowing the office doesn’t run without me and in his niave mind I am still one phone call away from being back in law school where he no doubt thinks I belong. But partners have been jumping ship and the days when a partner brought his associates, much less his paralegals with him have long since past. Read on, it gets worse.

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Once again I apologize for hogging the microphone so to speak but things happen when they happen and I had to write about this. So I was having dinner with a friend of Simons Girlfriend I met while we were dating (it ended amicably). Like the social misfit I am I remarked that I didn’t care for his roommate and that was the reason I never reached out sooner. Turns out the roommate, let’s call him Murat, had a recent death in the family. I felt like an ass. Further, it turns out that the relative was his mother and that Murat, a corporate lawyer, was her primary caretaker during her prolonged illness. Then I really felt like an ass.

Now there was nothing I could say so I said nothing.  The conversation didn’t end there however.

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Our Father in whose likeness we seek glory

Watch over us in our hour of inspiration

Grant us an opportunity to bare witness

For I am Thomas – I believe because I have seen

I have seen us in the house of our enemies

Great was our need of points

Great was our want for time

Yet you annointed our heads with oil

And placed our enemies at our feet

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I Am Animated.  I do not change but for the conscious stroke of the Master’s Pen.

I am the Government. I am the same when I incur debt and when I pay it. Time simply increases those who know my name. I can die but I do not accept death as natural. I have no concept of life expectancy.

I am digitized. My essence is preserved in signals that reach beyond the moon. I go on past the Earthly Armaggeddon foretold by the Mayans, Romans and Greeks. I owe nothing to the stars. They do not have my AES password.

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