Happy thanksgiving

Well, happy thanksgiving, the USAs holiday of abundance.

I had a lovely holiday at my friends, Christina and Tim's house, lots of food, and I made them play my newish game Dixit. I normally don't have enough friends around a table to play it, but it's tons of fun.
My roommate, and dude living on my couch, ate back at my place. And they had a good time.

I had trouble getting out of the house, but it all worked out in the end.

Today I braved the torrential rain of Seattle, and I mean torrential, to carry a sign and chant a bit for Walmart workers.

I'm a little tired of hearing that everyone that scrabbles what living they can from minimum wage jobs can't complain because its their fault they are lazy and uneducated. And people who are unemployed should just take any job even if its Walmart rather than be parasites on the government teat. But what about Walmart? Which according to CNN has received over one billion in some sort of assistance.

I know, I know, competitiveness, and market flexibility are important characteristics of a vibrant market economy... Blah blah blah...

I think we need to rediscover some empathy, and think about how much we want to pay the wealthy entrepreneurial class, if the price is human dignity.

I'm also struck by the buzz words floating in our cultural conscience, lazy, parasitical, stupid, freeloaders, similar to when we branded African Americans with the labels stupid, and lazy, after the civil war, as a reason to not help them succeed by being willing to pay them the same as whites. Or employ them at all. In retaliation for wanting to be free.

I remember when I was 19 and 20, working for Denny's, living in a motel room, and not qualifying for any benefits, because even though I was scheduled for 40 hours a week, I only actually worked 37.5 hours a week, which is not full time. What if I had gotten pregnant by my not catholic enough to not have sex, but too catholic to believe in abortion boyfriend. Thank god for planned parenthood, my only regular healthcare from age 16 to 25. And thank god for all the public health clinics, since I got strep throat every six months for over ten years, you know strep throat left untreated can kill you. I don't think they have those public health clinics anymore.

Anyway, enough about that, I've depressed myself.

Here's a question, who is more pessimistic about the world, conservatives or liberals?