Saga of the Bonuses

Portals

About the photo: This was taken in softer afternoon sunlight as I was in the Jackson Square neighborhood in San Francisco. This area is one of the oldest in San Francisco and therefore has retained its brick buildings. Although I don't know how they made them earthquake safe if they are built from bricks. Anyhow, this neighborhood contains antique stores and other businesses catering to people with an excess of money to spend. However, as I was walking around looking for something picturesque to photograph, I was stopped in my tracks by the above scene. I had to peer into the window because the interior looked so nice with its warm yellow colored walls and high ceilinged room. It could make a nice art gallery, but looked empty at the present time. I even held my breath to take this picture because there was a slight urine smell in the alleyway. I can't stand the smell of dried urine. The smell lingers for so long and because my nose is sensitive, it just knocks me out so that I have to grimace involuntarily.

About current events:

The bonus saga continues. Now the government is trying to claw back the bonuses by taxing the bonuses 90%! Since the government makes the rules, it can do anything it well pleases. The 90% rule applies to households making more than $250K, people who received bonuses after 12/31/2008 from a company that received more than $5 billion in federal aid. All's fair in love and war.

Aside: I tried a chai from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf today and it wasn't bad, I have to admit. The reason I have to grudging admit that I like it is that the company is LA-based, and I don't consider myself a huge LA fan. Generally I feed my chai fix at Peet's, a Berkeley brand. While it's not exactly San Francisco, at least it's NorCal. I would even go as far to say that the chai I had today was almost as good as the one I had at Einstein Cafe in Berlin and that's saying a lot.