If you work for the city of Denver, you can stay home the day after Thanksgiving, but with the following catch: You won't get paid. The mayor is trying to save money in this rough economic stretch and is offering an unpaid furlough to those who want it.

If you work for the state of Colorado, on the other hand, you can stay home that same day without a cent being shaved from your paycheck. And if the Friday after Thanksgiving is not to your liking, you can take off the day before or after Christmas as an alternative, or the day before or after New Year's.

Gov. Bill Ritter issued a memo granting this "year-end administrative leave" barely three weeks ago, after it was obvious the economy was in free fall and that state tax revenues were likely to crater (as they surely will, despite the oddly optimistic estimates currently being used). But having kick-started the "governor's holiday" in his first year in office, Ritter presumably felt obliged to turn it into a tradition.

It's not as if state workers are deprived of official days off. Even without the governor's recent gift, they already get to shutter their offices for 10 state holidays - which is probably two, three or even four more than those of you in the private sector enjoy. But then come to think of it, private-sector wage slaves don't get to access their pension benefits at age 55, either.

Poor will get around to it

"Level 3 CEO Jim Crowe noted broadband penetration among the low-income nationwide is half that of other groups. 'And that's unacceptable,' he said."

- Rocky Mountain News, Nov. 15

Now, Crowe can be forgiven for talking this way. After all, he made the point while attending the second annual Colorado Broadband Summit, and that's the sort of thing you say at such gatherings. But as a matter of fact, it is not "unacceptable" that broadband penetration among low-income Americans is half that of other groups.

No, it is entirely predictable that a relatively new technology that has been available for little more than a decade would be adopted by the poor less quickly than by the wealthy and middle class. The same pattern has occurred with every technology, gadget and appliance - and yet how many worry today about the "unacceptable" penetration of TVs in the homes of America's have-nots?

It would be unacceptable, perhaps, if the broadband disparity turned out to be enduring, but why would anyone expect that to occur? Forty-five percent of Americans with household incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 reported having broadband earlier this year in a survey for the Pew Internet & American Life Project; indeed, that group's adoption of broadband soared by nearly a quarter in a single year.

Most of those households don't officially qualify as poor, admittedly, and there is evidence from the same survey that broadband penetration among the poor may have stalled. But if broadband is being embraced so rapidly by the lower-middle- class, it's hard to believe that the technology train will not chug on.

Woebegone riffraff

Imagine you are a district manager for Avis interested in political commentary. You are reading Garrison Keillor's most recent column, which is the usual paean to Barack Obama, and you suddenly realize the man has insulted you - you specifically - for no reason at all.

It happens while Keillor is mocking the European heads of state, none of whom is apparently worthy to stand in the presence of our peerless president-elect. Reaching into his bag of insults, he declares that Nicolas Sarkozy "looks like a district manager for Avis."

Whap! Right in the face. And you wonder why he would say such a thing.

Because he's a snob. Because for all of his virtues as an entertainer and a writer, and for all his apparent appreciation for Americana, Keillor repeatedly fails to conceal his disdain for ordinary human beings.

Keillor fancies himself a progressive, but in some ways he's a reactionary plucked from the 17th century, looking down his nose at the grubby upstarts who engage in commerce and yet refuse to see how ridiculous they appear to discerning creatures like himself.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.