While taking care of final income tax matters, we stumble upon a tea party; the bad good news is that we have a tax refund coming this year

Poor Margie! She had been working so hard on our taxes, but today it paid off when we learned that we have a refund coming. This sounds like good news and it is, but the reason is bad. Being self-employed, I pay my taxes quarterly and I paid enough after the first quarter of last year to cover the entire year.

That's because I earned very little money after that. All because I stood upon a rolling chair to take a picture.

But this, the year of the great recession, is also going to be the year that I get going again.

As we went out to settle these tax matters and to dine at Taco Bell, I found myself in a perplexing situation. I needed to turn right out of the Fred Meyer parking lot onto the Palmer-Wasilla Highway toward the Parks Highway, but this kid was sitting there on his bike, waiting for a break so that he could cross the road.

Several times, a break came and I could have gone, but it must not have looked a break from his perspective, because he just sat there. Still, I could not go, I could not assume that he was going to just sit there, because his is a precious life and I could not make such an assumption about it.

So I sat and waited and waited and waited.

Then finally he went. I turned right, immediately thereafter.

Up ahead, someone who I do not even know insulted me. Or maybe the insult was directed not at me, but the driver of the red car, perhaps the white. Or maybe the driver of the black truck described himself. Perhaps he takes pride in being recognized as such.

Before we left the house, we had seen news clips of people holding "tea parties" across the country. I didn't even think about the possibility of a tea party being held in our little town, but, of course! This is Wasilla. People here love tea, and would not pass up a chance to stage a tea party.

As for the website posted on the sign, I checked it out and you can, too, right here. It also contains a link to Glenn Beck's website, who the website creator holds in high esteem. 

One day, I hope to photograph and interview Glenn Beck, as part of a project that would also have me interview and photograph Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, for both share a common bond that in an odd sort of way links each to me.

I'll probably never find the time or the money to do it, though.

Plus, I have other priorities that rank above this part of the project.

Once, in Dupree, South Dakota, I bought a piggy bank. It was ceramic, red, made in Mexico and it looked Mexican. I thought that if I put just one quarter a day in it, in just a couple of decades, I would have saved so much money that I could retreat from all jobs and fully dedicate myself to my work. So I put the first quarter into it.

That night, some kids stole it. The next day, I found the shattered remains of the bank spread across the sidewalk. The quarter was gone. I did not feel bad about the quarter, but I felt bad about the piggy bank.

I have never managed to save anything, since. And though I dabble at it here and there, I remain financially unable to dedicate myself fully to my work.

I think I am going to be a pauper in my old age.

If I can have a hut, enough food to eat, and be able to sit there and write, intelligently, I won't care. I would do that right now, but too many people depend on me to keep a roof over their head.

I have said it before: I have observed enough of this life to come to one conclusion about God-granted rights. God grants us but one right - the right to struggle to survive for as long as we are able. Not to survive, but to struggle to survive. 

Beyond that, God gives us no rights at all. How many people die on their first day of life? All these exercised their one God-given right, but it didn't work out for them. We envision rights, we create political systems and codify the rights that we desire in Constitution and in law and then we fight with each other about what these rights mean; we defend the rights that we seek even as we try to take away those that the other guy seeks but that we find offensive, be our reason noble or petty, informed or based on emotion.

Should these people in this picture and those who feel as they do find full success in their quest, I wonder what kind of rights I would be left with?

The light turned red for me, right here, beside this lively boy.

Very recently, many Americans rose up to take their country back and succeeded. Now others, most of whom thought they were taking the country back when they elected George W., want to take it away, again.

I drive on from the tea party and see joggers on a bike trail. I admire joggers, not necessarily for their politics but for their jogging discipline. I don't jog, but I do ride a bike. 

And so passed this day as seen from my Ford Escape, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Comments

[bd]

Saw your link from dpreview.

The Tea Party protesters may have been ill informed, but they are not ill intentioned. They are supposed to just be protesting the complicated tax system that rewards the wealthy with tax incentives for certain behaviors at the expense of the average Joe. Why should ordinary taxpayers who can't afford to buy a house subsidize wealthy people who buy million dollar homes and write off their mortgage interest?

And while many people did rise up to "take back their country", Barack Obama seems to be giving it back to the bankers. The government seems to be serving Wall Street these days, regardless of what Obama's speeches say.

[MissSunshine]

This mess we find ourselves in has been many years in the making. Too many people who knew this house of cards was being built, turned their heads and pretended they didn't see.

Obama inherited this mess, he has not been president for even 100 days. I'm sure he will make some mistakes, we all do, but he is willing to look at the truth, he is willing to listen for answers, he is willing to take the blame if things go wrong. This is a good start.