Wednesday February 10th 2010

Another day,another slow crawl of no progress in washington.The talk of Bi-partisanship echoes through the halls of congress falling on deaf ears from both parties.Republicans are riding a wave of public discontent with Washington and the general direction the democratic agenda is headed.The tea party movement has them convinced,to their detrament in my opinion,that they will be the benefactors of this wave of distrust in the public arena.In my opinion this public distrust will be bad for both parties and i think many incumbants are going to need to be freshening up their resumes for a job hunt.Our Nation deserves proper representation and we need a totally new set of faces and voices in Washington.When the group of voters that matters the most now,independants,deciede that they can make a real and decisive change together the leaders of both parties need to be worried.
With the crude class prejudices rear their ugly head and the "upper crust" of our society were most of the politicians find their roots believe they can disregard the way middle and lower classes see their country heading in the wrong direction,all the money and power in the world won't delay the peoples wishes.Even if the Healthcare bill is not dead yet,refocusing on a jobs agenda for the near term for benefits in novembers election will strike the fatal blow to it.This will hurt the democrats for sure,but i don't believe after eight years of Bush people are ready to hand the country back to the republicans either.Using class warfare against each other seems to me to be a symptom of a fundemental corruption of the whole democratic process and the way Washington currently operates.We will see as the election nears how they will be handling this,and i will continue to comment along the way.Because political hubris only comes along every four years,we will see how far incumbants will run to the fringes to win re election.
I am still struggling with a change in my medicine for my back problems.It is very difficult to readajust to new doses or even new medicines due to the lag time in metabolising most drugs.Usually only a week but sometimes can take several weeks or even a month.This particular instance seems to be the latter unfortunatly for me,but i will eventually find the right combination i suppose.In the meantime i will try to keep my moods in check and enjoy the family.Today the pics are of my son Jer at his first concert featuring a favorite guitarist of ours whom i mentioned in my post yesterday.Until next time,thank you for reading. Spacewalker

Sunday February 7th 2010

Here we are at the end of another weekend and i have much i could write about and alot of things that have developed over the last few days.First let me say while i do have some medical complaints,i am going to try to refrain from going on about that as it is really nothing new.The more things change the more they stay the same i guess.Anyways i would like to write a little about current events in the news and the political arena.As a quick suggestion to readers i would like to recommend a book,its title is"The Photographer:into war torn Afghanistan with doctors without borders"and it is a fascinating read.It recalls a trip in the 1980s amid the soviet occupation and has a really cool format.It goes from cartoon like boxes with bubble text to real Photos of the things in the storyline.Check it out if you get the chance.
The partisan toxic environment in Washington continues with the Senate unable to get anything done,and the house not fairing much better.My personal opinion is that this will continue up until November elections and the country will suffer for it.In the year the democrats had a supermajority nothing got done,so to expect anything more since Sen.Brown(d.mass)was sworn in is silly.The republicans will continue to block the Presidents agenda at every turn.Sen.Shelby put a blanket hold on over 70 of the Presidents nominee's over some pork for his home state.The sad state of affairs is our dysfunctional senate is going to translate into a terrible election for the democrats in november.The "tea party" had a meeting or convention of some sort this weekend and seem to be scaring some politicians into some very tight positions on certain issues.
The failure if the first stimulus is evident and a double dip reccession is very possible at this point.Even though the officials like Geitner and Bernanke tell us all is well and only getting better i must say i am not as confident yet.The jobs that were lost are not coming back and this new"green"economy has to go through a whole innovation and expansion period that is going to take many years to grow big enough to employ millions of unemployed or underemployed people.And then we need to remember that there are NO new regulations in place to curtail the same dangerous behavior that almost brought about the second great depression.It gets very complicated but they are still going gangbusters lookin for short term gain at the risk of long term stability.These companies deemed "TOO BIG TO FAIL"are still running ruffshod over the taxpayer with the full cooperation of the federal government.Credit default swaps,and other complicated financial intruments are being used even after they nearly imploded AIG and took the whole financial system down.I truly believe these things are still going to come back to bite us,and this time nothing will stop the cascade of institutions failing.I am no expert and i only can comment on what i believe,so as i continue i remain a humble citizen stating his opinion.As the days continue to tick by and people realize how bad it really is with the so called"BAD PAPER"gumming up the credit markets they will pull back purchases farther and hurt retail sales.All of the different things that affect the markets can't be readily described,especially by me,but i do believe this is far from over and we as a nation have alot of tough days ahead of us.
Watching the dysfuntion of washington from a distance can be amusing at times,but truthfully we are at a critical point in our democracy.Will this experiment started a little over two hundred twenty years ago be a success?Our system is held up as the greatest in the world,but can we be proud of our elected officials when they behave like spoiled children?Finger pointing,name calling,it looks like the playground at reccess or something.The way these guys and gals sling mud at each other can be really embarrassing when viewed on a world stage.I sometimes see footage of gatherings where both parties can get along,but usually just for a photo op or some other meaningless reason.As deficits hit an all time high,we can count on washington to continue spending us into oblivion.
As we move ahead into another spring of pre-pre-campaign advertisements saturating the airwaves it will become hard to tell who is really behind this new flurry we wil see.It will be very profitable for the networks and newspapers as the unions and corperations fight for limited commercial time and advertising slots.The commercials we are already used to for medicines will blurr into plugs for or against canidates for office.Prescription drugs and medical devices will be used as ways to show if candidates support their use.This will be very confusing and will force people to look at too many segmented ideas to be able to really tell someones ability to hold elected office.Imagine targeting deeply held values of voters to further a profit seeking companies agendas.They will have our senses overwhelmed with visual and audio of the horrible results of not wanting the same thing for your family as they want for their shareholders.We will see what this new unlimited flow of money will do,but i firmly believe this will begin a fundemental shift in our ability as citizens to be represented as equals with companies that use lobbyists to spend billions on their clients behalf.As much time should be spent meeting with average citizens in their electorate as is spent with lobbyists lining their campain coffers.
Tomorrow begins another week of school for my boys and i better get some rest to try to be ready for it.The picture today is of my son Jer and i this summer with his first walleye,a very proud and happy moment i thought i might share.Until next time,thank you for reading. spacewalker