Two things...

First, I thought it worthy of mention that I was rear-ended on Wednesday afternoon, not 100 yards from where I wrecked my bike a few weeks ago. There's no visible damage - Sherman's a tough Chevy - but I haven't had time to get it looked at yet. I was stopped at the Shepherd red light going east on Rice, as was the car behind me, and the car behind it, as well. The left turn lane gets its arrow before the lane going straight, where I was. For some unknown reason, the woman two cars behind me decides to hit the gas when the turn lane started going. Unfortunately, all the cars in the lane she was in were still completely stationary, at least until she slammed into the car behind me, knocking it into me. What fun! Now I'm just waiting for a third vehicle-related incident before I start to breathe easier on the road. Maybe, though, the blown tire, ruined wheel, and dented quarter-panel from the tow last summer when a friend borrowed Sherman to haul hardwood flooring was the first. (Of course, that could also count as three incidents by itself, and it was a while ago.)

Second, and less immediately pertinent, but interesting none-the-less, is the widening income gap in the country. As explained by the NY Times article about newly released 2005 tax data, the top 300,000 earners in the country had the combined income of nearly 150,000,000 of the bottom earners. The real ratio is closer to 440:1 between the two groups, but it's still almost double what it was in 1980. Another stunning comparison is that the top one percent of incomes in 2005 enjoyed the largest share of the total increase in US earnings since 1928! Egads. For me, the fun part is that I could possibly go from one extreme to the other over the next few years, (hell, I could quadruple my current income and still not make the top ten percent, so it's not likely) but I still think the imbalance is far too large, and even a bit foreboding. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it will spur some much-needed change here in way taxes are assessed and maybe even used. A man can dream, can't he?