as american as a glass of lemonade

What could be more American than sitting on the front porch with a bottle of sparkling water and a good read?

Actually, that should be two porches.  Yesterday morning, it was the porch of my mother's house in her suburban subdivision.  In the afternoon, it was a picnic on the rural porch of my brother's place.

In short, it was a lazy day of enjoying time with my family.  My journalist side, calls it a slow news day.  I call it a great way to spend time.  And, after everything else that has been happening, it was a welcome break.

Well, a welcome break for everyone but my brother.  Just as we were finishing our dinner, he received an urgent call from one of the guys on our Baja 1000 adventure in December.  Darrel needed to saddle up and drive a fire truck three hours away to deal with one of Central Oregon's summer plagues -- a forest fire.

But, before I say it was entirely a slow news day, I would like to share an article from the 28 June edition of The Economist.  Several bloggers have discussed the havoc that has been caused amongst the American expatriate community in Mexico by the Obama Administration's enactment of FATCA -- an attempt to somehow capture taxes from Americans living overseas.

Because the topic tends to take on a rather partisan tone, I thought some of you might be interested in reading what the editors of  The Economist, a moderately supportive group of the Obama administration, has to say about FATCA.  The title rather tips it hand: "Taxing America's Diaspora -- FATCA's Flaws: America's new law on tax compliance is heavy-handed, inequitable and hypocritical."

Heavy-handed.  Inequitable.  Hypocritical.  Wow!  Sounds like a trifecta to me.

But I have other things to enjoy than to worry about America's wrong-headed tax policies.  You know, the kind where emails and this post could be easily deleted.  And no one would know the better.