Uberhaus

How could I have failed to note here that our over-coiffed, flip-flopping wingnut of a republican governator, Willard "the Mitthead" Romney has announced that he will decline to run for a second term and will spend the next several years pondering the possibility of running (ie. campaiging furiously) for president.

He's been busy gadding about the country badmouthing Massachusetts at each possible turn. "I feel," he once sniffed to gales of beefy, Republican laughter, "like a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention." And he has been doling out reciprocal admiration to his fellow Republicans for their own attempts at political stand-up comedy. Viz., this bit of political whimsy served up at a recent Federalist Society soiree --

"Today, when most of the country thinks of who controls Massachusetts, I think the modern-day KKK comes to mind, the Kennedy-Kerry Klan," Walpin, who sits on the society's board of visitors, said to hearty laughter. "One person who has been victorious against that tide in Massachusetts is Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney."

Romney, along with members of the audience, laughed at the joke and later thanked Walpin for the "very generous introduction."

That is until the furious backpedaling set in:

...later in the day, as Democrats got wind of Walpin's remark and began circulating it, Romney distanced himself from the joke and said it was wrong.

He's not the only member of our current executive branch that has difficulty keeping the elitist "let them eat week old remaindered Wonder Bread" arrogance under wraps. It has been rumored that his sidekick, Lieutenant Governator Kerry (not to be confused with John Kerry of kkk fame) Healey, is being groomed to run for the office he will vacate. Vacate, I might add, after a single term when he'd assured his supporters he'd be around for two. I suppose that's a better track record than the last two Republican Governators, both of whom grew bored with Governating and quit mid term, one to write mystery novels, the other to attempt to incite a war with Canada.

Groomed for office I say ? It's hard to imagine that Ms. Healey could be any more groomed: she is willowy, impeccably dressed, blond and nearly as well-coiffed as the Mitthead. Standing side by side they evoke nothing less than Barbie and Ken.
As I read in this morning's Globe that the Healeys have just successfully fought a $7000 increase in property taxes on their Vermont vacation property, I had ample chance to reflect on Ms. Healey's past policy statements on the topic of property taxation. Senior citizens, she declared, who, because of skyrocketing assessments, find that their property taxes have become prohibitively high, should not be offered tax abatements.

That would simply perpetuate the terrible situation of overhousing -- doddering crones and codgers greedily wanting to live out their golden years in the houses where they've lived for decades. Hogging, as it were, three and four bedroom empty nests that could otherwise go to young, affluent suburban couples with their clever, well-groomed children.

These overhoused oldsters should do the only decent thing and move out, she declared. Freeing up plum housing for people like, well, herself.

And why have property assessments spiralled out of control ? Why, for example, is the house we bought in 1997 "worth" twice as much now as it was then ?



(Believe me, it's not because of any massive home improvement projects we've undertaken. Viz. the several lawns that have failed, and the six hemlock trees that died a grisly death along the backyard fence.)

Could it be because of people who view a house as a speculative commodity, and not a dwelling ? People who buy up modest lots, demolish the modest houses on them, and erect bloated, tacky, overpriced McMansions in their place ? People like, oh, Ms. Healy ?

And what, you might ask, is Ms. Healey's own housing situation ? I'm SO glad you asked. Again, the Boston Globe: : "When their enormous $2 million vacation home is finished in West Windsor, Vt., Kerry Healey and her husband, Sean M. Healey, will own five houses, worth about $9 million total, in three states: the new house and an existing nine-room home on 134 acres in Vermont; a 12-room house, assessed at $1.1 million, at the Palm Island resort in Cape Haze on the West Coast of Florida; and a pair of adjacent ocean-front homes on Curtis Point in Beverly, part of the North Shore's ''gold coast.'"

One might accuse Ms. Healey of being many things.

But one of those things is not underhoused.