A Long Way From Done

I started the current quilt project just about a year ago right after Christmas. It was originally a BOM but I bought it online as a complete pattern set. While I started right away, there were multiple detours along the way that included several smaller quilts and several long trips. So even though the top is supposedly only a 12 month project, I am far from done though the tunnel is becoming illuminated.

This is just the center section. I have one border done but three more to do and they are all at least six week projects. Then of course the whole quilt will need to be layered and quilted but this still looks like progress to me.

 I changed some of the blocks to ones I liked better and I changed the order in which the blocks and rows are arranged as well. That's what quilting is after all--each person's individual take on what is supposed to be creative anyway.

Now as long as nobody else has a baby for whom my husband thinks I must make a quilt I should be able to work without further interruptions except of course for looking for a new home, moving out, moving in, and moving on.

Very Funny

My state's senior senator was named Utahn of the Year by our local, non-church owned, newspaper. I describe it as non-church owned because the current owners of the Salt Lake Tribune are seriously Mormon businessmen, the Huntsman family. So even if it isn't a church vehicle, as the other local paper is, there is no doubt that since the Huntsman family took over, the editorial stance and the letters to the editor changed dramatically.

In any case, Orrin Hatch was named Utahn of the Year in a very odd encomium cum disparaging pair of pieces. Hatch was praised for his cheerleading for the new tax reform but castigated for not only his other votes but castigated in such a way that accused him of venality and sycophancy, a curious double smack after a French kiss that flummoxed many people.

This is why I and my husband are leaving Utah. There is a moral vacuum here. I ran into a fellow whom I had taught how to swim, he had been bishop of his local ward and he and his wife both voted for Trump. When my husband and I told him that we were planning to leave Utah, he asked why and I told him that with Trump as president I could no longer put up with the obeisance to authority, and the patriarchal structure, especially after most of my 26 years here I have been scorned as everything from a "liberal" to a socialist but especially targeted as a non-believer.  I cannot even count all the times I was told that I would be better off moving by those "so nice" people. Well, all those good Christian people, including the man I had taught to swim, don't like Trump but they would vote for him again.

I don't pretend to be Christian but I certainly understand Christianity and faith. Besides my own upbringing, I studied early Christianity in college. So I don't even begin to understand how these people, who profess to be good Christians, can support Trump and his brigade. Utah is a peculiar place and these are peculiar people. We have lived here for nearly 27 years and enough is enough.

Merry Christmas

Woke up to snowplows so we have a white Christmas this year. Good thing I don't have to go anywhere today given that the baking and other cooking begins now that I have had my coffee.

Merry Christmas everyone.

You Can Always Say You Heard It Here First

Congress says it has the votes to pass tax reform. Luckily none of those votes will come from Democrats because disaster will ensue. There are obvious financial problems with the current bill that are baked into the plan. When the bill comes due, no one can point at Democrats for the problem, but no one can look to Democrats for the solution if their hands are tied.

In the meantime, Trump's judicial nominees are having a tough week. Two have withdrawn their names from consideration, and one (Matthew Spencer Peterson) has a video circulating that should go viral as long as his name is still being considered. The fact that he is on the election review board already should point out the insanity and inanity of Trump's picks and his decisions.

As for quilts, I did finish one of the baby quilts and gave it to the happy grandfather who then gave it to his son and his young wife. They said they were thrilled and have it where their daughter can look at it (I did warn them that quilts are not suited to infants). The second one, the one for my husband's niece,  is layered and I started quilting but then essays began arriving and my son asked if I could make a yukata for a friend of his for Christmas. Why I said yes to that request is beyond me but it is only one day of work. 

What's The Hurry?

Congress announced today that the House and the Senate had reached key compromises on the tax reform bill. Don't expect the average citizen to benefit from the compromises though. One lowers the highest personal tax rate to 37% but all that means is that rich people will pay a little less if they ever really paid anything at all. That's what tax lawyers and tax accountants are for after all. The compromises also included abolition of the Alternate Minimum Tax for corporations, a tax that was instituted in a vain attempt to get at least some money from corporations who also use tax accountants and tax lawyers. Keep in mind that any time  high rollers and corporations avoid paying tax the slack has to be picked up by the middle class or by reducing or eliminating benefits that ordinary folks receive, like the Medicaid that your aging parents rely on for nursing home care.

So I am happy that Doug Jones won in Alabama but there isn't really very good news about the state of the country today. They hope to vote before the end of the year so they can start harming you and yours as soon as 1/1/18. Happy new year.

You Don't Have To Believe Me

While the talking still goes on in DC, many people are investigating the various proposals for tax reform. Even Republican tax analysts think it is a disaster. Here is a link to a long article from Wharton that describes in excruciating detail just what you can expect if anything even remotely resembling what is proposed is signed into law. And don't forget, Paul Ryan has made it very clear that the tax "reform" is only step one of his plan to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The brains in DC have already killed CHIP; next they are coming after you but they insist it's for your own good. Sort of Nitzschean in that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-rising-deficits-huge-loopholes-and-paltry-family-gains-plague-tax-reform/

Foregone Conclusion

While the tax reform measures are still taking shape, there are some parts of them that are not only clear but predictable. Unless you legally designate yourself as a pass-through corporation, you probably won't see much benefit after the first two years. There will be a disparate impact on the 95% even down to the next few generations. But that is clearly part of the overall plan since Paul Ryan announced yesterday that major entitlement reform is coming in 2018. When he uses the word "entitlement" it is a slur, disparaging those who receive any benefits. So despite repeated promises not to change Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security that is precisely what Ryan intends.

Part of the overall plan is to increase the deficit to the point where real damage occurs to the economy so that entitlement reform starts to look like an act of grace rather than an act of vandalism. Then it won't matter one whit whether a Republican or a Democrat is president, whether Congress is largely Republican or Democrat, because there won't be any options or wiggle room. See--it's all you older folks and disabled folks and sick people who are such a drag on the economy.

Does Soylent Green come to mind?