Sunday, June 10, 2012

Central Square has fallen to the Invasion

Today, I discovered something called "Tavern on the Square". Central Square has always been special : Where the Men are Men, and the Women are Moreso. Dive bars, failing deparment stores, lots of Indian restaurants and hippies. What's not to love?Anyhow, this place seemed at first to be a little fancy. Looked like Eastern Standard. Turned out to be a little lower brow, sort of a chain. Much like when the Glandore, which poured a fine breakfast, was replaced by Irish Eyes, which was exactly the same but inauthentic. Like when Vergies became something else, before beoming Madisons. Not like when it turned into Highland Kitchen and finally got what none of the other versions had - customers. Of course, none of this has anything to do with anything. If you live around here you knew it already. If not, why in the world would you care? I ate at Picante.There is something very basic at stake this year, and nobody seems able to express it clearly. Do we go back to trying to build a rich nation for everyone, or an aristocracy, where most of us are forced to tip our hats and the swells toss us a coin after they crush our children?Neither choice is perfect. Both promise major conflict before 2014. Only one of them involves turning machine guns on mobs of starving citizens. It isn't really a difficult choice. Just don't expect flowers. Not real ones anyhow. To flesh this out : Linda Katehi is still in charge, still using the legal system as a club despite not following the law. And the official policy of the Republican Party is : Take from those who have nothing. Today it's "skin in the game", tomorrow, Welcome to the Organ Bank.Over the top? It's not like people are being murdered by police. At least not everywhere, yet. Unless you live in Denver. Cops there live for this stuff.

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