March 29, 2014

Me too, Bob

I have long ago come to terms with the fact that Bob Dylan wrote the soundtrack for my life. Usually, this is not the young idealistic Bob but rather the obscure, ironic and apocalyptic Bob.

The Dylan song that captures this moment in time is "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," a surrealistic romp from his early electric phase. The line in question is one that I've experienced over and over again in West Virginia, where once you think you've fought and won something you sometimes have to do it all over again.

That's the case with the effort to raise the state's minimum wage. A bill to do so cleared the legislature on March 8, the last night of the session. Things looked pretty good until an corporate attorney from a major law firm began aggressively pushing to get Gov. Tomblin to repeal it.

The line is "An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
you have to pay to get out of
going through all these things twice.
Anyhow, we will now the results in the next few days. Appropriately enough, the bill's fate will be sealed on April 1.

Here's my rant about that  and here's some news coverage.

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