Put on Your Easter Bonnet

Back in the Eighties, when this reporter was little more than a degenerate profligate (or was that a progenerate defligate...maybe it was the Seventies...who can say, what with all the verbal and temporal anomalies impinging upon reality these days), I would gambol about my home and workplace this time of year singing, “Put on your Easter bonnet, with all that weird bleep on it, let’s get sauced and bleep up an Easter parade!”

As you might discern, I was a poet and seer even then. And my regard for religious holy days has not wavered one iota.

The cool thing about Easter in the Thuney household back in the day was that, after we returned home from church (hard to believe, isn’t it?), my two older brothers and I would gleefully tear into the task of hunting down our Easter baskets based upon our ability to decipher a trail of written clues scattered about the house. Looking back, that frenetic searching and decoding brought even more joy than actually finding the basket of goodies. Let’s track down some clues and see what this year’s Easter basket holds...

Rotten eggs. The “housing boom:” pretty colors on the outside, but inside is a stinking maelstrom of debt and despair. I can recall when hardworking folk got to keep most of what they made, which was plenty enough to own a nice home with a nice yard and a full Frigidaire. All on one income. Now, both parents have to work full-time just to be able to make payments on a crackerbox condo humped up against more crackerbox condos. No yard, and a gleaming refrigerator crammed with bionic milk, juiced-up meat, tasteless pesticide-ridden vegetables and freezer full of junk. Why? Because profit-hungry developers dictate what’s built where these days. The “what” is ultramodern suburban ghettos populated by the working poor (take a gander at all those “Estates” developments oozing out of what used to be pristine woods and prime wetlands along Bakerview Road right here in little ol’ Bellingham). The “where” is, well, wherever the hell they want to build those prefab palaces. Because construction is good for the economy, right? After all, we can keep building till the cows come home, right? Except there won’t be any more cows coming home because the developers are ripping out all the family farms, too. Want to see a cow? In 10 years or so, that’ll require a trip to one of the massive corporate bovine gulags in Texas. Or South America.

Hollow chocolate bunnies. Our “robust economy:” Bite off the head of this throbbing, investment-driven economy we’re so blessed with, and what do you find? A whole lot of nothing. America doesn’t make anything anymore. The corporations that run this country have outsourced all the family-wage, good-benefit manufacturing jobs to their international subsidiaries who pay foreign laborers squat and don’t benefit anybody. You want free trade? You got, courtesy the Bush Cartel. The NeoCon Fascisti find it much easier to manipulate countries whose people have no power. That’s third world countries, where global corporations can make heaps of money paying less than subsistence wages; and that’s us right here in Whatcom County who work to build corporate headquarters, mansions, and jets...and have little or nothing to show for it. As the stock market continues to rise, ask yourself: when was the last time your wages rose like that? Or your health-care benefits? Do you even have health care? Better hope you don’t get sick on all those rotten eggs and hollow bunnies (is that really chocolate...smells kinda funky).

Jelly beans! Magical diversity: Despite our staggering, reeking wreck of an economy, there are aspects of the Fourth Corner lifestyle that continue to flourish. Lots of local spiritual, social and political groups exploring fresh ideas, new approaches and alternative lifestyles. Speaking of which, there’s an effort afoot (would that be a wabbit’s foot?) to bring together the disparate elements of our local gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community with a view toward pooling its resources, gaining some socio-political clout, and, well in the spirit of Easter, having some good old-fashioned bonnet-wearing fun. A certain local curmudgeon has taken it upon himself to host a GLBT gathering under the auspices of Lambda Legal (http://www.lambdalegal.org.) That would be me...probably the only card-carrying member of Lambda Legal who also has a subscription to Playboy. It’s tough being a practicing hetero these days, I tellya. Confusing, too. Nonetheless, if you, dear reader, or anyone you know might be interested in helping out with such a unifying effort, please let me know (see contact info below).

Meanwhile, don’t be afraid to don your bonnet, follow the clues, speak your mind, take back this county from the developers and this country from the corporate cartels and have a hopping good time doing so. §

To contact Matthew, to add spice to this casserole, or to order his new book, “Original Recipes” (it’s a “best-of” collection of columns from 1985 to 1995, not, thank heavens, a cookbook!), please write to P.O. Box 28983, Bellingham, WA 98228; or email mdthuney@email.msn.com. You can find “Original Recipes” at Village Books in Bellingham or Pioneer Books in Ferndale.