Other Outlooks

I didn't get a chance to post anything late last night because I was getting some tax information together. The online help available from the IRS is awfully darn confusing--I was just looking for information to help me with a couple of simple answers (such as, how much do I owe?), and I spent far more of my evening than should have been necessary jumping from Webpage to Webpage hoping to hit the right one. I finally did, but when I had everything ready to go, I couldn't connect to the e-file sites. I know, I know, certainly waiting until the last minute did me no good in connecting to sites that had probably been overloaded with hits for hours (or days), so I don't really hold that part of the process against them. But it did force me to take an unexpected drive to the post office before midnight.

On my way downtown, needing some laughs after dealing with the whole tax experience, I tuned in to right wing talk radio (because, you'll remember [or you can go here, here, and here if you don't], Air America has no broadcast presence in Chicago after the sun goes down) and found Mark Levin. He was hilarious, exactly what I needed as I drove. Listening to this show for just a few minutes, though, reminded me of how deep the rift between left and right is in this country. Russ Feingold was ridiculed as a loser for calling for the President to be held to account. Does that mean the House impeachment managers and their followers were losers for wanting the same for Clinton? Liberals weren't listening to his show, Levin derisively claimed, because they were working their pencils down to the nubs getting all the tax deductions they could. Is this as opposed to conservatives, who presumably ignore or even waive possible deductions? Has Levin heard of Cheney's 1.9-million-dollar tax refund? This is a whole different culture, with one set of rules for friends and another for enemies. I suppose if I were immersed in it all the time it would be depressing, but kept in its place with a drop in every now and again, it is pretty funny.