Cucking Stool

Today I found out what a cucking stool was. It is not, as first thought, a profane phrase used by a simpleton who has trouble with consonants. The term Cucking Stool is known to have been in use from about 1215. It means literally "defecation chair", as its name is derived from the old verb cukken which means "to defecate" (compare with the Dutch "kakken" which means “chair in living room with hole in seat that has a pile of poop under it”).

So what is a Cucking stool you ask? They were chairs formerly used for punishment. They were both instruments of social humiliation/censure, primarily for the offence of scolding or back biting, and less often for sexual offences like having an illegitimate child or prostitution. They were technical devices which formed part of the wider method of law enforcement through social humiliation in the Dark ages.

Something else that made me giggle today, ok, maybe not giggle. Maybe a better way to put it would be something that made me feel like blood was shooting out of my ears was news from the state of Massachusetts. Tomorrow, August 1st would have been the start of the annual sales tax Holiday. Unlike Texas who does this for a weekend or two, Massachusetts usually extends this sales tax holiday for the entire month of August. The Gov. in the state of Massachusetts has decided to cancel the tax holiday, but wait there’s more. Not only has he decided to cancel the holiday, he is raising the sales tax by 25%!

The reason this made me “Cukken” is, the same Gov. promised in his election campaign to lower the property taxes to give relief to the property owners. He didn’t do that either. He also signed into law a brand new 6.25 sales tax on all alcohol products, which will of course be imposed on the full price of the alcohol, which already includes a state excise tax. Also tomorrow a new tax on Satellite Subscribers kicks in. There was also a recent fee increases at the Registry of Motor Vehicles - at the same time you’re shutting down, how many, 11 Registry offices, including the one in New Bedford, which no one ever uses, right, ?

The Governor dithering all through the budget process, going back and forth on raising the tolls, and the gas taxes, and every other thing, enabling the unspeakably corrupt Legislature to move into the vacuum of his non leadership to sock it to the people of Massachusetts with this 25 percent increase in the sales tax. The Governor also imposed higher meals taxes, but why do they have to wait to jack up the cost of a cheeseburger until Oct. 1? No idea. You’ll likely see this creeping across America until the people stand up and say that they have had enough.

I leave you with this quote, “ If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.”
--Rush Limbaugh