Underneath a low roof of Stratocumulus clouds.
5/3/11
5/2/11
Anything Can Happen
And always does when you least expect it...
Osam bin Laden is dead.
Just as many Americans were pausing to wonder what has been going on in our country and how we were going to dig ourselves out of the economic hole we've created, something happens that changes the course of history. Ten long years after the events of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden is dead, killed by us and we are certain since we have his body. It is the symbolic end of an era when the American psyche, consciously or otherwise, doubted itself and ability to capture a criminal who was the mastermind of a tragic event. His death cannot be underestimated. Carried along with our doubt was a lot of other baggage about the American Spirit and ability to rise above and be...well, American. The impact of this event should cause us to reassure ourselves that we are capable of anything we set our minds to.
His death will do little for the economic predicament we find ourselves in but should reinforce our sense of being able to resolve it. The real estate/mortgage problem, currency crisis, unemployment and low GDP and productivity among other issues aren't going away. What this should do is restore Americans faith in themselves to rise above and in the long term eventually overcome any obstacle. Over the next few days and weeks much discussion will go on and it is certain the political class will have a field day regarding Bush and Obama and who was able to capture and kill Osama bin Laden. The people who thrive on the fear of terrorism for a living will continue to hyper warn us, in a sense they're reminiscent of anti-communists when the Cold War was over. Terrorism is still a threat and we need to remain vigilant, but what we need to learn from this is that fear mongering is not the best weapon, that believing in our own power to defeat evil is. When all the noise dies down is when the truth will come out and the result will be that everyday Americans will have renewed faith in our ability to restore ourselves to the country we should be.
The oddity of the situation is that the attacks of 9-11 were intended to destroy the financial capital of the world and America's preeminence in the global economy. In some measure it did so indirectly, although it didn't collapse our markets immediately, in the long view in many ways it did. We should have taken more notice at the time of the message that was being sent, a message not necessarily from Islamic terrorists but a note to ourselves. We ignored it after the sentimental pop and country songs and tributes ran their course and we went headlong into consuming everything in sight. We pumped up our economy to feel good and did very little reflection on what had happened and how it could. The time for blame and recriminations about who did and who didn't do what is over, now is the time to revive the American Spirit and undertake the long hard road back to economic health.
Osam bin Laden is dead.
Just as many Americans were pausing to wonder what has been going on in our country and how we were going to dig ourselves out of the economic hole we've created, something happens that changes the course of history. Ten long years after the events of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden is dead, killed by us and we are certain since we have his body. It is the symbolic end of an era when the American psyche, consciously or otherwise, doubted itself and ability to capture a criminal who was the mastermind of a tragic event. His death cannot be underestimated. Carried along with our doubt was a lot of other baggage about the American Spirit and ability to rise above and be...well, American. The impact of this event should cause us to reassure ourselves that we are capable of anything we set our minds to.
The oddity of the situation is that the attacks of 9-11 were intended to destroy the financial capital of the world and America's preeminence in the global economy. In some measure it did so indirectly, although it didn't collapse our markets immediately, in the long view in many ways it did. We should have taken more notice at the time of the message that was being sent, a message not necessarily from Islamic terrorists but a note to ourselves. We ignored it after the sentimental pop and country songs and tributes ran their course and we went headlong into consuming everything in sight. We pumped up our economy to feel good and did very little reflection on what had happened and how it could. The time for blame and recriminations about who did and who didn't do what is over, now is the time to revive the American Spirit and undertake the long hard road back to economic health.
5/1/11
4/30/11
Music Break: Lester Flatt
Foggy Mountain Breakdown...
Live TV Letterman
with Gary Scruggs (harmonica), Randy Scruggs, Vince Gill, Albert Lee (guitar), Marty Stuart (mandolin) Glen Duncan (fiddle), Jerry Douglas (dobro) Paul Shaffer (piano) and Steve Martin (banjo)
http://youtu.be/icMTVV5Lwaw
Live TV Letterman
with Gary Scruggs (harmonica), Randy Scruggs, Vince Gill, Albert Lee (guitar), Marty Stuart (mandolin) Glen Duncan (fiddle), Jerry Douglas (dobro) Paul Shaffer (piano) and Steve Martin (banjo)
http://youtu.be/icMTVV5Lwaw
4/29/11
We are headlong into a Double Dip
The Great Recession is far from over...
What is important is our attitude and determination regarding it.
A lot can be said and written about the various events and problems that the United States and the global economy have. I will leave that for a video blog I'm working on.
What I will write is that the vast majority of our government and elected leaders has done us great disservice and has not been acting in the best interests of the American people. We, the people, have allowed this to go on too long and it is up to us to change it. We need to figure a way to get rid of the entrenched political and bureaucratic class along with their friends in the financial world without too much clash amongst ourselves. It is inevitable that there will be discord among us as conditions deteriorate and we disagree about solutions. That is part and parcel of a Democratic Republic such as ours. We will loudly and acrimoniously disagree but we need to avoid violence, we have had one Civil War in this country and the current conditions do not require another. Rather, it requires a revolution of a different sort, one that can be carried out in the vein that the Founding Fathers clearly laid out for us.
One thing is certain in my mind. I have studied enough US history to know we have been here before in our long history, at times in worse conditions, also that in the past people have thought we would never return back to a much better place. I also know that the American people themselves will dig us out of this and not our government or any other forces but by our sheer will and skills. It is The American Way and that is still alive and well among us, even if it seems dormant for the moment. We will endure, survive and overcome but there is no short term fix for this. It is a journey that requires a minimum of 5-10 years of hard work and we can do it, even as spoiled as we've become after 30 years of prosperous times.
Now, more than ever, is the time to revive the American Spirit, remain positive and realistically optimistic and determined to overcome and defeat the obstacles before us. This country has done it before and can do it again. There will be times we will feel down, disheartened and discouraged and it is important during those times we continue putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. It is interesting to me that two opposing forces, unionists and the far left along with tea party sympathizers and the far right, are the ones stirring up debate and flexing their muscles. They are the ones that will eventually move all of us to remove the roadblocks causing the idiocy emanating primarily from the northeastern corridor stretching from Boston to Washington, DC. The government will once again be directed by the citizens of the country and not the other way around.
What is important is our attitude and determination regarding it.
A lot can be said and written about the various events and problems that the United States and the global economy have. I will leave that for a video blog I'm working on.
What I will write is that the vast majority of our government and elected leaders has done us great disservice and has not been acting in the best interests of the American people. We, the people, have allowed this to go on too long and it is up to us to change it. We need to figure a way to get rid of the entrenched political and bureaucratic class along with their friends in the financial world without too much clash amongst ourselves. It is inevitable that there will be discord among us as conditions deteriorate and we disagree about solutions. That is part and parcel of a Democratic Republic such as ours. We will loudly and acrimoniously disagree but we need to avoid violence, we have had one Civil War in this country and the current conditions do not require another. Rather, it requires a revolution of a different sort, one that can be carried out in the vein that the Founding Fathers clearly laid out for us.
One thing is certain in my mind. I have studied enough US history to know we have been here before in our long history, at times in worse conditions, also that in the past people have thought we would never return back to a much better place. I also know that the American people themselves will dig us out of this and not our government or any other forces but by our sheer will and skills. It is The American Way and that is still alive and well among us, even if it seems dormant for the moment. We will endure, survive and overcome but there is no short term fix for this. It is a journey that requires a minimum of 5-10 years of hard work and we can do it, even as spoiled as we've become after 30 years of prosperous times.Now, more than ever, is the time to revive the American Spirit, remain positive and realistically optimistic and determined to overcome and defeat the obstacles before us. This country has done it before and can do it again. There will be times we will feel down, disheartened and discouraged and it is important during those times we continue putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. It is interesting to me that two opposing forces, unionists and the far left along with tea party sympathizers and the far right, are the ones stirring up debate and flexing their muscles. They are the ones that will eventually move all of us to remove the roadblocks causing the idiocy emanating primarily from the northeastern corridor stretching from Boston to Washington, DC. The government will once again be directed by the citizens of the country and not the other way around.
4/27/11
4/26/11
If You're Looking for a Road Map
In the New Economy you won't find one...
Use your inner compass; be your cartographer.
There has never been a better period in my lifetime for an individual to be able to have a chance to cut a swath for their own path. There was a moment in time in my young life, the late sixties and early seventies, when opportunity to become my own person, create my own road, direct my life in any direction any way I wanted to. Most of that had to do with my youth and part of it was the times. Fortunately I was free to make decisions that were appropriate for me but some previous options available to me vaporized a decade later due to the juncture of history we were in. The eighties were a period that recalled an earlier era, since the turbulence of the two previous decades had unsettled so much without satisfactory resolution, that most people wanted a return to "stability." Stability meant going back to values that were not bad and were likely necessary at that interval. Technology had not reached a point where it could change or improve our lives or the world.
The nineties became a transitional era when technology, especially communications, the internet, medical and other sciences became highly developed and rapidly advanced as well as methods of doing business began to change. It was a time of duality of good and bad to be followed by a decade when much of what had occurred was assimilated, digested and culminated in an economic disruption that was inevitable. We were moving unaware from the Old Economy to a New Economy which inescapably impacted the social and geopolitical elements of daily living. Consumerism and the accompanying debt load that came with it, the old conservative structure cracked and the hankering for a new form of politics that we have discovered does not lie in the opposing progressive liberalism. In the US we voted for a President who had the image of change but not the substance of it. Far from it, what looked like what we were hoping for did not actually hold the values we desired. It was a valuable lesson for not only the United States but for the world.
For those of us forced out of our former careers and way of life, we need to go beyond what we used to be and get on with what we are becoming and going to be.
Now, more than ever is the time to have that second chance, another shot at a "do over" at life. Where there is adversity, difficult times and a seeming downfall from former success there is opportunity. We are never likely to see such a significant change in the economy, political world and society as there is now as long as we are not blind to it. Especially for those of us in our mid-forties and fifties, we are old enough to know a lot more than we did and not too old to recover and recoup what we may have lost. More importantly we have the chance to recreate our lives more like the image we envisioned when we were younger, before life took us in directions that we didn't think about and opportunities we didn't have. The former trails are still there, well worn and found just as easily as a long driven US Highway long ago replaced by an Interstate, themselves showing the wear and tear of age and also not travelling at the high speed of broadband internet. The time is now for us to rethink what we want to be for the remainder of our lives, choosing wisely and creatively the New Economy road we want to build to reinvent ourselves and lead us in new and more satisfying directions, since the existing highways and byways belong to Old Economy of yesteryear.
Use your inner compass; be your cartographer.
There has never been a better period in my lifetime for an individual to be able to have a chance to cut a swath for their own path. There was a moment in time in my young life, the late sixties and early seventies, when opportunity to become my own person, create my own road, direct my life in any direction any way I wanted to. Most of that had to do with my youth and part of it was the times. Fortunately I was free to make decisions that were appropriate for me but some previous options available to me vaporized a decade later due to the juncture of history we were in. The eighties were a period that recalled an earlier era, since the turbulence of the two previous decades had unsettled so much without satisfactory resolution, that most people wanted a return to "stability." Stability meant going back to values that were not bad and were likely necessary at that interval. Technology had not reached a point where it could change or improve our lives or the world.
The nineties became a transitional era when technology, especially communications, the internet, medical and other sciences became highly developed and rapidly advanced as well as methods of doing business began to change. It was a time of duality of good and bad to be followed by a decade when much of what had occurred was assimilated, digested and culminated in an economic disruption that was inevitable. We were moving unaware from the Old Economy to a New Economy which inescapably impacted the social and geopolitical elements of daily living. Consumerism and the accompanying debt load that came with it, the old conservative structure cracked and the hankering for a new form of politics that we have discovered does not lie in the opposing progressive liberalism. In the US we voted for a President who had the image of change but not the substance of it. Far from it, what looked like what we were hoping for did not actually hold the values we desired. It was a valuable lesson for not only the United States but for the world.
For those of us forced out of our former careers and way of life, we need to go beyond what we used to be and get on with what we are becoming and going to be.
Now, more than ever is the time to have that second chance, another shot at a "do over" at life. Where there is adversity, difficult times and a seeming downfall from former success there is opportunity. We are never likely to see such a significant change in the economy, political world and society as there is now as long as we are not blind to it. Especially for those of us in our mid-forties and fifties, we are old enough to know a lot more than we did and not too old to recover and recoup what we may have lost. More importantly we have the chance to recreate our lives more like the image we envisioned when we were younger, before life took us in directions that we didn't think about and opportunities we didn't have. The former trails are still there, well worn and found just as easily as a long driven US Highway long ago replaced by an Interstate, themselves showing the wear and tear of age and also not travelling at the high speed of broadband internet. The time is now for us to rethink what we want to be for the remainder of our lives, choosing wisely and creatively the New Economy road we want to build to reinvent ourselves and lead us in new and more satisfying directions, since the existing highways and byways belong to Old Economy of yesteryear.
4/25/11
Ron Paul on "The View"
Liberty Defined...
Whoppi Goldberg and Joy Behar couldn't get him to bite their bait.
http://youtu.be/z3MiKO6K1Zw
Whoppi Goldberg and Joy Behar couldn't get him to bite their bait.
http://youtu.be/z3MiKO6K1Zw
4/24/11
4/23/11
Music Break: Dwight Yoakam
It Won't Hurt/Today I Started Loving...
Live TV 2007 MSNBC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mSfwHkDH5A&feature=feedrec_grec_index
Live TV 2007 MSNBC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mSfwHkDH5A&feature=feedrec_grec_index
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