Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Winners and Losers, # 1

Times are going to be tougher and tougher to write about with a sense of the humorous, you know. People out of work, with a gasless car sitting in the driveway and nowhere to go anyway, aren't going to be laughing about it, you know. I know, I am writing "you know" a lot, aren't I. Oh well, maybe I have gas and that's what burps up or farts out.

Anyway, I find myself at another of life's little crossroads. Here on Blogger, where the adsenses run, I can maybe earn a little cash to keep this thing going. But over at wordpress, at http://www.financeisfun.wordpress.com/, where going commercial is verbotten, I can't. On the other hand, over here I appear to be mostly writing to myself while over there I at least have the illusion of some sort of an audience. Now Yaro Starak advises that I have to make a choice. He says to pick a blog, pick a subject that I care about, write and the readers will follow. Or something like that.

Meanwhile, the problem became more complicated yesterday when I came up with a brilliant idea for looking at what works and doesn't work in our culture. It started when I stopped at a Starbucks to get a hot green tea. I had ridden my bike down to the fairgrounds and was on the way home. Sitting outside in the afternoon sun, as I sipped my tea and read Kelley Eskridge's Dangerous Space I couldn't help but let my mind wander and my eyes, too, from time to time. It was then that I noticed the different nature of the trash can sitting out in front of our local grocery store. It was a little bigger than normal but more noticeably, on its side, in bright yellow script, it announced to the world that it was a solar powered, trash compacting, energy saving, toxic emissions saving wonder.

Wow, what a winner of an idea, I thought. And then it dawned on me that here was great way to illustrate the things that we could be doing to create jobs and from the bottom up have an effect on the direction our world is going. The Winners:






By contrasting them with the things we have been doing that are absolutely wrong for our world. The losers:




So what do you think? Stay here and build my blog or back to wordpress and give it another chance?

Sunday, June 08, 2008

So Barack what is the plan?

The day after Clinton conceded and here we all are. Kurt Streeter in the LA Times uses it as his double lead story about the Lakers/Celtics then and now. So Barack what now? Everyone is caught in this moment. Do we dare hope?

Well, maybe, but that won't stop the idiots from claiming they won because the Dems duked it out. On the other hand, the joy of winning is certainly hard to ignore.



Meanwhile, the question still needs to be asked. Barack, what now? We, after all, have been here before. Kerry, Gore. Looked great, ran out of steam. I have to admit I don't like the fact that you caved on the church thing. But I do like the fact that you are challenging McCain on the things he's said and the actions he's taken.



Still, what about this healing thing within the party? Hilary as your VP. I like it for the fact that it works to laugh in the face of the Repugnants and buffers you from those who might do you physical harm. Richardson. He would be great for the infrastructure rebuilding and for support in the international relationships we have to establish. My personal choice is Claire McCaskill but that's just because she is level-headed, forthright, and clear-spoken.



And finally, Barack, what about the issues? You know some young blonde child-woman will ask you the question about abortion, right? Immigration, can you challenge McCain on this issue by actually speaking to the real facts of the case? Immigrants are us. Whether we came by slave ship or in the back of a truck, by sampan or for the railways, through religious belief or economic need; unless we are native american, we are all immigrants. What we have brought to America in the process is what makes America great. And then there's the economy which as it stands looks like train wreck happening. Can you return the right kind of regulation to a lending industry gone wild? Can you weather the storm of failures that will come first before any of this gets turned around? You know the Repugnants, their party comes first so don't expect help there, expect blame.

For me there is one last issue that towers above them all. We are locked into a militaristic future budgeted beyond control and blanketed in fear. Do you have a solution? Can the military frame of mind be reasoned with? Can the black op nature of our government be made transparent? Can the mothers and neocons be convinced to let up on their continuing fear of the terrorist threat that drives their vote?

I find myself coming to one conclusion. If I ask Barack, what now? Am I not also asking myself the same question? So what about it, rhbee, what now?