Women Bleed

I was talking with Donna Warren, a friendly African-American woman who's the Green candidate for lieutenant governor, when Wade came over to introduce himself. Warren's main objective in running is to amend Three Strikes to violent felonies only, a plank with which most right-thinking people can agree. Wade says he would sign a petition to amend Three Strikes if more crimes, like arson and robberies committed at gunpoint, were included as violent offenses, which seems fair. I sicced the two on each other. It was fun.

It was a heavenly day, sitting on bales of hay topped with lounge cushions, eating vegetarian enchiladas and watching kids run amok. (Vangee's vegetarian chili—from scratch—was knocked to the ground and ruined before anyone could eat it. It was very sad.) The day began with entertainment: a young woman sang a capella a hauntingly lovely Spanish song, the only words of which I recognized were "No soy feliz." RJ led us in the Chicken Dance (though only he and my son had balls enough to actually dance, seeing as how there was no alcohol). And two young men (evidently escaped from a theater department that misses them very much) performed a saucy duet from Godspell. Two women talked about the Taco Bell boycott. There was a skit about redistributing wealth. Apparently, since the '70s, wealth has been trickling up; back then, the top 5 percent in this country and the bottom 95 percent split the wealth 50/50. Now it's 80/20. That is not so cool.