"the unicorn platform"

I've always blamed Ronald Reagan (and to a slightly lesser degree Margaret Thatcher) for the rightward slide of our world; under their leadership, taxes became the bad word of the century instead of a necessary evil of a fair and just society, and the huge rise in income inequality began. Recently, arguing with a wealthy friend, I heard it all again: I'd gladly pay taxes, he said, if I knew my money was being well spent instead of squandered. That's been the tax avoiding excuse of the rich for decades.

Well, here's the renowned Thomas Piketty in Le Monde, no less, making it all clear. It's not a long article, but it explains what Bernie Sanders really means - the first ray of light in the benighted American system since Reagan slashed taxes and the minimum wage, inviting the rich to get criminally richer and shoving the whole planet far to the right. Son of a bitch.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/thomas-piketty-bernie-sanders-us-election-2016?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H&utm_term=157136&subid=11377998&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Though as Paul Krugman stated recently in the NYT:
Even the incremental changes Hillary Clinton is proposing are very unlikely to get through Congress; the radical changes Bernie Sanders is proposing wouldn’t happen even if Democrats retook the House. O’Brien says that the Democratic primary is “like arguing what’s more real: a magical unicorn or a regular unicorn. In either case, you’re still running on a unicorn platform.” 

Sigh.

Thanks to Kerry Clare whose blog of Pickle Me This is on the left, I discovered Laura Vanderkam, a time management guru. She suggests keeping track of your hours to see what actually fills the 168 hours in your week. So I downloaded the "168 Hour time management spreadsheet" from her website and will try to fill it in this week, in 15 minute increments. Unfortunately my time management scribbles for yesterday, when I began, are nearly illegible. But I think it will show me how much time I spend sitting here trolling through FB or reading the NYT or ... or blogging. I used to write personal essays that I sold to the newspapers or the CBC; now I blog for hours, for free. I wonder if it's the best use of my time. YES I DO WONDER THAT. And Laura Vanderkam I'm sure will have something to say about that too. 7 p.m.-7.30: blogging.

We are in deepest winter now, but even after yesterday's pretty snowfall which quickly turned to slush, nothing like Ottawa - more than 51 centimetres of snow, a record. 51 centimetres! I wonder about the poor Syrian refugees who were sent to Ottawa. They must think they're on the moon.