No May flowers in jobs report

One wonders what goes through the president’s mind as he awakens each morning. Probably something like, “Aw, shit.”

The May jobs numbers suck, thanks in part to the Elefinks’ relentless croaking of anything resembling actual job-creation measures.

Here in Bibleburg, the unemployment rate nudged up to 9.2 percent in April, considerably worse than the statewide average of 7.9 percent, which is only marginally better than the 8.2 percent rate nationwide. The figures indicate that more than 28,000 of my friends and neighbors were looking for work, while an unknown number have simply given up the hunt.

And the folks who are supposed to be empowered to have a go at doing something about this? They’re too busy running for office, running from their records, or simply running their mouths.

As Charles P. Pierce notes: “We have 300,000 long-term unemployed who, all evidence indicates, their government largely has abandoned, and about whom their country’s corporate landlords could care even less. Perhaps this isn’t the best time in history for the president to be boasting regularly about how much federal spending he’s cut.”

Charles, a wiser and funnier man than I, warns that the prez “cannot win re-election on the merits if he’s mixing pale middle-class nostrums with deficit-hawk snake oil.” Troo dat, Brother Pierce. If enough Donks and indies get depressed, say “Fuck it” and stay home on Election Day, leaving Teh Crazy to jerk levers from San Fran to Savannah, we will be enjoying the tender mercies of President Romney come 2013.

Chirp … chirp … chirp. …

Highway 24
Pikes Peak as seen from Highway 24 near the Banning-Lewis Ranch.

Wow — the sound of all those virtual crickets digitally chirping is deafening.

The days have seemed about 90 minutes long lately. Bicycle Retailer and Industry News deadlines have been coming and going like cabs at McCarran International Airport. Likewise bicycle reviews for Adventure Cyclist. I just wrapped up the Cyfac Vintage; next in line is a Moots MXYBB, with a Van Nicholas Amazon Rohloff waiting in the wings.

Too, I’m been chiming in during Charles Pelkey’s live updates from the Giro, for all the good it does him. And Herself and I celebrated our 22nd anniversary on the 12th.

So, yeah. Busy busy busy, especially considering that I remain seriously underemployed — and, as a geezer who earned his chops in a dying profession, am likely to stay that way. Well, that just means more time to ride, no?

So I go out and flog myself around the countryside for a couple of hours, followed by a bite of lunch, and by the time the day’s Amgen Tour of California stage rolls around I could give a shit. I mean, I like Peter Sagan and all, but four stage wins? For reals? And today brings the time trial in Bakersfield. Pass the toothpicks, someone, I need to prop my eyelids open.

Of course, with my eyelids propped open, I can’t not look at stupid shit like this, from Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Fuckwit). Jesus H. Christ on a flatcar. Most states in the Union put their crazy people in mental institutions. Colorado sends them to the U.S. House of Representatives.


Jesus wept?

April showers
Good day for a bike with fenders. Either that or kit with a brown stripe up the back.

There was water on the deck when I arose this morning. Was Jesus weeping over the news that Rick Sphinctorum had suspended his campaign for the GOP pestilential nomination? Nope. Just a bit of rain, overdue and very welcome.

Then again, the moisture could be heavenly tears of hysterical laughter after Rep. Allen West (R-Tinfoil Beanie) declared he had “heard” that as many as 80 House Democrats are members of the Communist Party.

Ho, ho. As a retired commie — Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), Class of 1977 — I get the giggles every time some right-wing cartoon character tries to crank up a good, old-fashioned Red Scare. The CP (M-L) was kissing China’s ass long before American capitalists began puckering up, and we didn’t even get any cheap plastic trinkets for our trouble. When it went away nobody noticed, not even the Chinese.

As for the Communist Party USA, with only a few thousand members and a longstanding renunciation of violent revolution today’s Party poses as much of a threat to the Republic as a New Black Panther Party chapter in Luckenbach, Texas.

Light snow, big wind

April showers
Oh noes, it's the Blizzard of 2012!

April showers, May flowers, yeah, right, got it. But my idea of “April showers” does not involve a gram of snow scattered across the Lesser Bibleburg Metropolitan Area by 35-mph winds. All a guy gets out of that is cold.

Could be worse, though. Apparently not satisfied with making chumps out of Rick “Governor Goodhair” Perry and Ron Paul on the national stage, God laid a dozen tornadoes on the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where they caused several million dollars worth of improvements.

Elsewhere, a three-judge panel of the 5th Judicial District is in “full wingnut mode,” according to Mother Jones; Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan chats up David Duke’s old gang, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (as I did back in the Seventies, when I spoke with The Head Hood Hisself); and the RomneyBot v2.012 wins the GOP primary in my birth state of Maryland.

But lest you think the contest over, know this: Rick Sphinctorum says it’s only “halftime.” Jesus wept.

S-brrrrrr-ing!

Spring flower
It's a tough row to hoe, being a flower in March.

The first day of spring and whadda we get? Thirty-friggin’-four with wind from the north at 26 mph, gusting to 41.

As usual, this is my fault. Last week, when we were enjoying an unseasonable stretch of 60- and 70-something temps, I connected hoses to faucets, watered the lawn and — worst of all — put a new battery in the Vespa. Imagine my embarrassment.

Best of all, the wind is peppering us with tree pollen, and allergies have me by the snotlocker with a downhill pull. Snork. Gluck. Hawk. Ptui. Repeat as necessary.

This means that instead of riding my bike in shorts and short sleeves, as I did all last week, I will be slouching here at the computer, searching for things that piss me off to elevate the old heart rate.

Like this item about House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Ayn Rand), who claims his “budget” will strengthen the safety net for the poor, disabled and elderly. Uh huh. The “net” to which he refers concerns the fishnet stockings Granny will have to wear while pole-dancing to pay for her blood-pressure meds.

Or this one about employers demanding that prospective employees give them their Facebook user names and passwords so they can go snooping around to see if you enjoy calling their favorite Randite nutsack a zombie-eyed granny-starver. Yo, Mister Human Resources, I got your job right fuckin’ here.

And finally this one, about a self-appointed vigilante who guns down a 17-year-old kid armed with a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea … and isn’t charged with shit, not even littering. Now and then I think about selling the family arsenal. And then I think again, because guys like this are roaming around, packing. Jesus wept.