Spring is here, my friends. Sprung, if you will. Teehehee ... Being the Pacific Northwest, April showers make way for May showers and flowers which then become June showers - and so on and so on. Sometimes, on days like today, golden rays peer out of the clouds, and we get to break out of our shells and the dreary winter inebriation survival mode so many without light boxes or tanning salon punchcards fall into. On days like this, Fourth Avenue and Washington in downtown Olympia is a goldmine of style and lying around. Anyone who's lived in downtown knows this like they know three jobs, 30 bartenders, and no money - but plenty of names and plenty of good times.

We have it all down here: the freaks, the geeks, international pop superstars, Academy Award nominees, the lingering essence of Patrick Swayze, poets, dreamers, bohemians, fauxhemians, Rastafarians, Tru$tafarian$ - all within a four block radius. We have lawyers, massage therapists, psychologists, non-profit prophets, and social service lifers on both sides of the check who all chain-smoke constantly. We have coffee shops and Thai food every eight feet. We have Cat Man, Dude Man, and Flute Man, who is beaming with excitement, recently getting a job landscaping in my neighborhood. We have Sing smiling on the corner at Vita sitting with hipster kids in tight pants. There are patchwork anarchists, Big Sam, and some guy who just walks around and talks to himself all day.

All of us - together - basking in the rapturous delight of an unseasonably warm March day here in the illustrious city of Olympia.

But this is not that story. This is the drudging tale of Thunderdome, Arena of Apathy, and how it came to be.

Chapter One: The Republocrat Plutarchy School of Hard Knocks, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying About Anything But My Credit Score and Watch More TV

Here we are, two weeks into the special session that was gonna be, like, tops seven to 10 days. Our faithful public servants, when not slinging dope or patronizing constituents, constituents who easily forget they're paying for all of it when an episode of Lost or BJ and the Bear comes on, have done seemingly nothing except sit around waiting for an answer to fall out of the sky like an atom bomb of honey showering everything in golden deliciousness, and solving our state's economic woes.

There hasn't been much action up on the hill this week because everything is going into the back chambers for some off the books wheeling and dealing known as "Transparent and Open Government" (see Olympia Newswire, kudos, Trevor Griffey)

All of this from a majority Democratic party in both houses that - in a taxpayer funded special session, aka OVERTIME - just voted to have the bottom rung start taking furloughs (aka UNPAID LEAVE). Why? Because they can't even agree in one party, THE SAME POLITICAL PARTY, on what taxes to raise - because they REFUSE TO TAX THE INCOMES OF THE RICH. They bend over backward to give out tax incentives for businesses that move to other states (Boeing) or ship jobs overseas (Microsoft) but it's still not good enough.

Dear Democrats from the top down,

You have done almost everything wrong. You haven't been fooling anyone, and it's been really bad. BAD. Like, "WHOA," crowd goes stunned silent bad: Joe Theisman, I-don't-know-what-was-worse-his-leg-snapping-or-his-broadcast-career, bad.

It has been painful to watch.

For eight years we've had it shoveled down our throats by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney taking turns playing ventriloquist with Dubya-Doody. Nationwide, this was your golden moment for a retaliatory swift-kick to the nuts for all the people who were fed up with the bullshit and just wanted some change. Here in Washington, Democrats just had to ride the coattails of Obama-mania for the win, with the sizable chunk of election-steering moderation that is King County making a few adjustments to its guiding power.

The sweet, sweet taste of Referendum 71 was like icing on the cake for people who care about things like TOTAL EQUALITY FOR ALL AMERICANS, truly a visionary notion of our founders - who ironically found a monetary value for people in slavery. (I'm glad we've been able to move ahead into the future with a better value for tolerance, you know, except those two bigots at the Tea Party Rally against Healthcare, and a whole host of backroom bigots in all branches of the political realm.)

But all session long, we have been faced with the same problem: Avoidance of an issue. The size of said issue only increased once, and even then, a shift from 2.6 to 2.8 billion still means we need almost $3 billion dollars.

Now, fearless Democrats, you did take a few bold leadership roles to task. We'll give you that. You got the marijuana issue off the table ASAP. First thing out the door. Zip zam boom - back to the voters.

And remember when you repealed that Tim Eyman, voter-approved initiative requiring a two-thirds vote for any new taxes? That was a highpoint for, right?

Too bad it was kind of a huge drawn out ordeal that made you look like idiots in front of a lot of people - which was totally embarrassing. Even worse, you have managed to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH IT. And that's just the start of your PR nightmare.

In politics like ours, where the Election Process is King, you now have every major news outlet from FOX to NPR reporting from the future - a future where there are 11 Democrats left in office. Welcome to 2011. Where fear reigns supreme, where there are no jobs, no resources for the jobless - but fat cats in The High Castle still light Cuban cigars with freshly minted C-Notes, just like a Warrant video.

In the world of sound-bite journalism and zero-attention-span having, statistical worshipping academic masturbators, truth is at the bottom of the septic tank of hope.

Add to that the pressure of job loss, bills, credit scores, car payments, house payments, divorce settlements, court costs, bond levies, and high school text books that still say "East Germany", and what do we have?

We have 14 days of watching you not work and not be productive. We have two weeks' worth of watching you cross your arms and say, "I'm not budging, and I'm sure as hell not raising taxes, even though we need to do something."

How long will it go on? How long can it go on?

Anyone one who believes this tax system is egalitarian across the boards is a fucking idiot, plain and simple.

They are a proud people who benefit off of weaseling out of paying taxes through shifty lawyer tricks, campaign donations and tax loopholes. People like, oh, say, media pirates (sorry, not yet Swarners) or maybe more like bank executives who retain huge bonuses, profiting off of re-possessing the homes of people who lost their jobs in construction directly because of shady investment practices by banks - you know, banks that loaned out money to other banks who then gave it people they knew couldn't pay it back - in essence getting a free house screwing some poor schmoe with a job that's kind of imaginary to begin with - then turning around, on the other end, and charging him fees to touch his own money - all brought to you by the people who shit-canned the gold standard.

While we're on the subject: Fuck the banks. They're slyly moving away from cash to Space Credits on your Mexamericanada Plasma-Card anyway. Meanwhile, the hapless prolie is slaving away in the factory on a piss poor salary while the boss pays a lawyer, to call a lawyer, who knows another lawyer who's now an elected official to vote against an Upper Crust tax hike to help support systems that the said bottom-feeder has to rely on because his piss poor salary doesn't buy him anything but grief from bill collectors.

All because he's chosen to "live the American dream," which now is just the look in a man's eye that says, "I am in a prison of my own making, and I'm too tired to do anything about it."

How do I know? Because I'm down here, too - but that's next week's chapter. We'll see if these loveable knuckleheads can actually do anything economically productive outside of their own investment portfolios.

Tune in next week for Chapter Two: "Who Runs Barter Town? Master Blaster Runs Barter Town!"

Until then, fellow shit-eating Serfs! ...