Spinning and lying

I caught a snippet of the Sean Spicer appearance on the Emmys last night on the News Hour.  I know that some twitter-ites think he is out for redemption, and angry that he has been a habitual liar, and do not wish to grant him redemption.

Seeing the 14 second clip, I thought it was pretty funny - making fun of his former self.  I believe he's probably unemployed, although initially there were rumors about him "Dancing with the Stars", which seems unlikely.

Have you met a press secretary that doesn't "spin", and how do you draw the line between spin and lying?  I believe lying is purposefully telling people untruths, to gain some upper hand, or keep them in the dark or divided from others.  Spinning is trying to be political and not piss people off.

When someone asks you (this is the lesson of my life): "Was that bread baked fresh today?", and you are told by your employer to say "Yes", well I decided at the Acton Bakery that that would be lying, and my response was "You don't pay me enough to lie."  And I kept my $6.50 per hour minimum wage job.

I suppose it is always hard to know the full dispersion of your words, your spins, your lies.  But people eventually figure these things out, even without a "lie-o-meter" app to refer to.  Some liars are highly valued as press secretaries. Underneath that, you have to ask - who do they represent, and what do they stand for?  The spin/lie/press secretary is just a conduit.  Its up to them to decide if they want to lie for a living, dance with stars, or collect unemployment ($528 in some states, only $236 in others, for a week if you lost your job through no fault of your own).

Today in Portland, homelessness around the edges

Maybe it's the state of the world.
With Britain detaching from the EU, with new terrorist attacks weekly, or more often.  With new projects piled on me, though my existing projects are still underway.  Or maybe it's being hit up for cash on every street corner.

The one area of respite, of peace in this crazy world, seemed to be Mt Tabor Park.  I've seen hummingbirds up there, I've eaten thimbleberries that I was certain were my own private supply (cause I mean, how many people even know what they are).

Today, a tent, with a person inside.  Really?  Here in Mt Tabor?  Under the massive tree near the 71st Ave stairs and the tennis court.   Looked like someone in a sleeping bag/hammock swing kind of thing, inside a tent.

It shatters my peace a bit.  Our city is out of control.  I don't think the powers that be know what to do.  Every other week is a new idea about how to combat homelessness.  Last week it was a bond measure, some hundreds of millions.  It equated to $200K per unit.  Craziness, and some develooer's plan to line his pockets while there is desperation on in the air.

Just would like a little peace, and apparently I have to look a little farther now than my Mt Tabor.

Must.update.this.blog

It has been far too long since I've written.  Today seems a good day to catch up.

It's the day after "sine die", the day when our state legislature calls it quits for the year, having accomplished the wrangling  and posturing they set out to do.  And passed some good legislation (think clean fuels, toxic free kids).  And missed so either opportunities (no transportation bill, so live with those potholes awhile longer).

Then there's Greece.  I have been seeing them as a distant relative that's hitting you up for money . Can someone be the grownup in the room and offer them some tough love?

Mainly I am massively busy at work, new government job.  Same state government.  Hope to start blogging more since every day in the city of roses is filled with insights I want to share.

Environmentalists close to the sauna

Sometimes I wish I knew Spanish.  Then again, many Spanish-speaking people are quite literate in English.  Like my sauna compatriot at the gym today.

Both of us pondering how cold its gotten today - 20 degrees colder than yesterday.  Now I love the sauna, but for me its winding down from a workout.  For him, well he seemed dressed in kneepads and a wool cat.  So maybe he did want to warm up.

He was commenting on the lack of rain in Cali - along the freeway the pear trees had been uprooted and were lying for dead.  For lack of water.  It was a sadness to him, since when he came from Mexico he worked the orchards.  Described how in lean water years the tree rings were barely perceptible.  And how rain came in 50 year cycles.

Whoa, new information to me.  But he seemed quite close to the land.  Making me wonder who is the better environmentalist - someone who had worked the land, day in and day out.  Who could see directly the impact of climate change.  Or the local lobbyists - my recent experience at an Environmental Quality Commission hearing - all the forces in opposite lined up to testify - "yes we need alternative fuels" and they create jobs, "yes we need fossil fuels" and they create jobs.

Maybe the metric shouldn't be job creation - but something more objective.  Preservation of the earth - surely that creates jobs.  For without the earth, well, jobs in space are even harder to come by.

Day 1

President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping - a historic first step.  An agreement on the world stage to combat climate change.  Maybe China and the lungs of its citizens have forced his hand.  Health costs are real (so stop saying its environment or economy).

The agreement they made, and China's promise to reduce emissions from coal plants by 2030 - a strategic direction, and probably the first foray in that direction from China.  Why does this matter?  China is a world power, the U.S. is a world power, and when they set a combined direction for reducing greenhouse gasses, it can only set the stage for other countries to follow suit.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is too late to "stop" climate change.  Like you can't stop that river of lava heading for that village in Hawaii.  When I was in Hawaii in September the road was closed, so you couldn't get close to it.  Even then, the local papers talked about previous attempts to "stop" a flow of lava - douse it, divert it, none of it worked.  Village residents were looking for hard to find dwellings in other Big Island towns.

Ah if it were that simple.  Just find a new dwelling planet.  There would be a market for PlanetBnB, so we could really continue the frontier mentality (even more than we already practice it in Oregon) and just keep moving to new planets.

For now, I am encouraged by President Xi Jinping's commitment to reducing greenhouse gasses.  Kind of a long schedule to get there.  But if our pres and China's pres can strike a chord on this common ground, even build a relationship, then there is hope for solving other problems, come what May.  Like how to accept climate refugees and find a new world order when the tropics are fried, you can swim in the Arctic in just a swimsuit, and we still want to eek out a living.

To Be Neutral, or Not To Be Neutral

I know it is seen as 'equitable' and 'fair' to be in favor of net neutrality, which would regulate internet companies to prevent any kind of two-tiered pricing.

Well tell me a market that does not have tiered pricing.  Does your cable company charge the same for 'basic cable' as for 'premium multi-lingual sports intense cable'?   Does your satellite company?  Despite the fact that the same bits are probably flowing over the same pipes, and clever software throttles what channels you can actually watch.

Even my water bill reflects tiered pricing.  A basic rate for a certain threshold of 'basic' service, then a higher rate for usage beyond that - to keep those zinnias looking colorful, and my chard from wilting and parching.  Oh and the blueberries growing over the season.

Gasoline - tiered pricing.  Food - tiered pricing (I like cheap cuts of meat, still trying to follow my historical $4 per meal per package), so when my husband asks me, as he did tonight - what kind of meat is this?  Um, meat - you know, maybe chuck steak or something?  With a clever recipe like Beef Provencale, you can get by with cheap cuts.  Would he notice if I fed him a strip steak?

So I have to think twice before I go along with every other blue Oregon bubble voter on this thing.  We have all been lucky, I am lucky at this very moment, with internet service available to me.  Not free.  Should people who consume bandwidth for streaming games and movies pay more?  Maybe I am old fashioned, but I pay for streaming internet service from XM.

If companies can't charge more for premium service, but all firms are mandated to abide by the same regulatory pricing scheme - how will this incentivize any firm to offer new services?  Their pricing strategy is already going to be fixed.  So lets take a rational policy view about this.

82nd Ave Town Hall

Hey, what if you got a group of people together ..
That all had a vested interest in seeing 82nd Ave be the Avenue of Roses it was Meant to Be ..

And what if you had money, and elected representatives, and planners and decision makers, and ponies and rainbows and ..

Ok well we did have most of these things (xc the ponies and rainbows), as well as new people who were drawn to the event on November 6.  Some actual ideas I heard from actual citizens, points of light, points of
pavement:
* 82nd Ave is an 'orphan highway' - owned by the state, but most of it within the city.  As a result, lack of investment from any government -- which is why it looks the way it does - take a comparison trip down 122nd Ave sometime (city owned) - nicely paved, bike lanes, wheelchair accessible, bus shelters.
* How about a bike tax (a few people expressed this idea) - let them help pay for the roadways they use (um, they probably don't use 82nd Ave, but what if you instituted a bike tax with the promise of bike lanes?)  Maybe an 82nd Ave tax - on each each vehicle sold, each McRib sold, each serving of Walla Walla onion rings at Burgerville?
* Public private partnerships, median plantings like over on Glisan (ok that was me, I thought I was signing in, as did other people, but then they rattled off our names as if we signed up to testify; so I did).  Others also were interested in incentivizing businesses to invest.
* Social dynamics - a professor talking about all the voices that were not in the room, the true melting pot of ethnicities that is Southeast Portland.  The public square - where can we build this?  One of the bike riders asked about 'pocket parks' and even has some potential ones mapped out (thank you Terry Dublinski!)
* One pothole.  The investors of 'Cartlandia' (a real place) decried the mismatch between city planning rules (the food cart area) and the state highway that is 82nd Ave (follows street rules).  As a result of this lack of coherence in the jurisdictional universe, there is a 'gap' (as she called it, a pothole big enough to eat a bit of your car should you attempt to traverse it).  help please!
* An actual government lobbyist spoke about the transportation bill that is likely to be presented to the legislator.  Showing us that these things really are decided before they are decided.

What is exciting is not the official positions, official money - what is truly exciting about this was hearing from citizens who care about the shape of their community.  I hope we have more of these town halls, and I invite you to invite 10 of your neighbors next time.  I promise nothing bad will happen to you if you don't, but isn't this how change happens!

82nd Avenue of Roses

Not that I have ever seen any roses along this road, either living, or memorialized in plastic, but I guess it is a vision thing.

Vision for 82nd Ave - walkable, accessible, family friendly.  Purple alhambra flowers growing along a median strip, like in Silicon Valley.  Telephone poles that currently hover near the roadway within millimeters, are gone - power lines are underground, and no one needs actual phone lines since everyone wants a cell tower.

Maybe a book store, you know, an independent bookstore, one that doesn't sell anything but books (maybe an espresso machine), no toys no games no calendars (except by local artists).

Even in front of used car lots, and there are many, there are benches with planter boxes (alhambra, or maybe flowering dogwood - maybe donated by local nurseries).  Encouraging people to sit and watch the buses go by I guess, or maybe wait for connections to trek to that book shop.

I am waiting for this vision.  If you are too:  next stop 82nd Ave Town Hall - November 6, 2014: 6:30pm, Portland Community College, SE Campus (@ SE 82nd and Division).  Be there, aloha.

Day 2 - Adapting to Climate Change

Internet of Things.  The Cloud.  Having sensors do the work that humans used to, transmitting information, big data, to the cloud, can this enforce the Clean Water Act?

I am excited to (finally) be working for an environmental agency.  At this juncture in time, it is really like the 1980s (lets write all our software in house and debug it ourselves) and the 21st century (sensors, cloud, new technology), we have a chance to be like those African nations that have more cell phones than land line phones.

Oregon, as it turns out, has more stringent rules for gathering water quality compliance data than the federal EPA requires.  However, possibly because we require so much data gathering, we have a hard time keeping up.

That is where the internet of things comes in (IOT, as it is affectionately known).  Drop sentient and waterproof sensors in the "waters of the state", and collect "all" possible data about them.  The data is transmitted to the computers in the cloud-sky, and available for us to see if the waters are getting better, or have noxious things in them that someone must pay
to clean up.  Maybe it could even detect the forensic fingerprint of who dumped the noxious stuff.

Day 2 of my blog on climate change adaptation.  Instead of lamenting the state of our rivers, lakes, ocean, waterfalls, forest ponds, car wash puddles, we get real-time data streams and can take enforcement action.  Maybe the ocean has dead zones and we can encourage those fish to move along to someplace nicer.  Or at least we could post temperature signs, like those smart highway signs, that notify the fish the water is 2degrees warmer than last week - they can decide 'Stay?  Migrate?  See what the other fish are doing?'

Reflections on Adapting to Global Climate Change - Day 1

My new topic, Day 1
Some observations..  A large and old birch tree, at my church had to be taken down (damaged in a storm I believe).  The City now requires my Church to plant a new tree in its place.  Not just any tree, but one of 4 specifically approved trees.

Apparently the Church is considered a Commercial Property.  How about that.  What does this have to do with climate change?  Birch trees are no longer favored, and are falling down and dying off.  I have seen a former 'birch meadow' deteriorate due to beetles that love to nestle in the bark and then worm their way inside and eat away at the tree.  I believe this weakness to beetles is a global warming thing, and the birch trees cannot migrate.

Another observation..  Nomadic sheep herders in the Altay region of China - they migrate with their big-tailed sheep, as they have for 1000 years, down to lower altitudes for the winter.  The sheep are skinny due to drought conditions, so they can't fetch as much money.  Yet migrate they must. (courtesy NY Times today)

Another observation.. Fish migrating from the equator areas north and south towards the poles.  Maybe good news for those areas (what new predators or food will they find?), but bad news for those whose lives have depended on fishing and cannot migrate with their wooden boats and families along with the fish.

The world is entering new territory.  People are entering new territories.  Fish are entering new territories.  Those forging ahead are driven by survival.  And how will we-who-are-not-migrating treat our newcomers - ?

Waning summer moon

I have been thinking about the word 'waning' lately.  Maybe its something I read in 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens, that I am trying to work my way through.

Or maybe its something I heard on BBC.  But I feel that summer is waning right before my eyes, and I have got to maximize what days are left.  The fountain, in the Capitol Park in Salem.  Kids playing in the other fountain joyfully.  Or I suppose walking the long stretch of concrete with sun reflected off of concrete buildings, no doubt increasing the sun's impact on my skin.

Summer is the time to read fiction, hence Bleak House.  It is written in a style of language from mid 1800s, and the bleakness so far reminds me of Lemony Snicket (that I only read a little of).

I am so out of the habit of blogging, but I am going to start today.  What else is waning?  I always think my organization is waning, or that my days there are waning, but as I told one of the many many people who have been ushered out, I am still there, kind of like a cockroach after a nuclear winter.

But I have another large government organization to research, they want to interview me.  I promise my next blog will be more pithy and not boring as this one w-a-n-e-s a-w-a-y.

Save My Mount Tabor

Tonight, a public outreach meeting, a chance for the City Water Bureau to hear from representatives of the Mt Tabor Neighborhood Association, and interested neighbors.

Why the City Council decided, without asking anyone, that they could go forth, tear out 14 old growth trees, dig a huge 10' wide trench, and a bypass pipe that would no longer supply the reservoirs with our drinking water (or any water).  Well, thank you to City Commissioner Amanda Fritz for making this meeting possible.

Now, as she points out, there will be bureaucracy to follow - a historic landmarks review commission, the Bureau of Development Services.  A formal process, and if it is referred to the City Council, 4 of 5 members have to say 'no' to this large and destructive process for it to not go forward.

An outcome of citizen involvement is that the City has now put forward alternatives to the 'base' approach, some of which cost money, but do not involve tearing out 14 old growth trees.  There is apparently a "tree mitigation" process, where 1" diameter of removed tree has to be replaced by 1" of planted tree.  Well, I'm sorry, but 496 1" trees do not make up for a 400 year old Douglas fir.

I am less convinced about needing to drink water from the reservoir, but I do want to save the trees, the historic structures, and the park as public property.  See www.mttaborpdx.org for more on all this.  By July they will probably make a decision.

A Day on the East Side

Yes, walking east of I-205, not very pretty.  But walking from here to the Post Office is one way to see every house, every building, every flowering tree, every storefront..

pic 1 - the Clock Shop.  This one in the window shows the earth, all its continents, and attempts to show the present time for each spot on the planet.

 

pic 2 - Plasma center parking lot is crowded today.  I can only guess that people need cash, and here is a place they are guaranteed to get it - selling their blood. 

 

 

 

pic 3 - several 'dancer' studios like this one.  Some gentlemen were leaving as I snapped this picture - they didn't seem to care, its not like I'm going to tell their wives or anything.

 

pic 4 - finally something beautiful.  Several antique stores crammed with consumer items. This one, on the opposite side of the street, always catches my eye when I drive by.  Walking, I can see the beauty of colored glass from days of old.  The pink sugar bowl reminds me of the green one I had from my grandma.

 Also, little houses which have retained their gravel driveways.  Houses turned into business storefronts, but were "updated" in the 70s with stonework-of-the-time (nothing uglier than that).  A few empty storefronts - like the Asian import/export shop on Stark Street - so new opportunities will occupy them.

Snow day!

Has it really been 7 months since my last post?!  That is alarming, I almost (almost) feel I should go to confession.  Father Ben would like that.

Today is Day 2 of the Snow Day Treks to different coffee shops in the neighborhood.  Yesterday was Songbird, and today, PastryGirl.  Pretty amazing that I can visit a different shop 2 days in a row and haven't even mentioned Bipartisan Cafe.

#pastrygirl on SE Stark in Montavilla

PastryGirl, I have discovered, makes a mean French Press.  3 minutes then the other patrons will advise you to slowly push the plunger down, so it makes a perfect brew (it does!).  Paired with a chocolate caramel creme pastry, whoa.  I can do this - even without my espresso I am ready for the afternoon!

someone has been sledding!

They have old issues of Martha Stewart there, and I could almost want to be domestic.  There are names for the different types of lamps (who knew?) and all about organizing those drawers (not interesting when you've been living out of laundry baskets for 5 months).  In fact I don't even see the need for a dresser at all.  Just those cute baskets I got at Ikea.  If Ikea has it, then I need it.

Anyhow the magazine of Martha was from Sept 2007 - I had to wonder - before or after prison?  She looked so confident.  Then I hope she still does.  Some amazing recipes in there, I almost want to ditch my Fred Meyer habits and visit a New Seasons.  Well there is not one within walking distance, yet, but I'm sure that will change.

An Expectation of Privacy, an Expectation of Freedom

When I stand at a bus stop, warming under a heat lamp, I don't have an expectation of privacy.  It is, after all, a public place.  Or sit at the park, I am there.  But my little communications, well..

I know, I've heard it - any email you send - be willing to have it on a billboard along I-5.  Or maybe thats just work emails, which can be subject to sniping re-broadcast. I get this, and should have no expectation of privacy at work.  I am using, after all, my employer's computer, bandwidth, heat, light.

Which is why I love my smart phone.  I don't need IT spying on me sending a message to my daughter.  Or to anyone else for that matter.  Or what internet sites I would search on my break - its all my private information.  Or is it?

Now The Government has it.  Who I talked to on my cell phone, which Facebook sites I am on, who follows me on twitter (thank you!), who I've sent email to.  Should I have an expectation of privacy?  Does my ATT carrier care about my 1st amendment rights?  Do I still have those?

I have been thinking about freedom recently.  Freedom to be respected as a human, as any human deserves.  Now what about this DNA thing - the Supreme Court decided that its "just like fingerprints".  Maybe next they will want a sample of my spleen, in case someone out there requires a spleen that is more worthy of me, they can commandeer me (from the sample they took when I was 5 miles over the speed limit) and determine someone else is more worthy than me?

When I think about freedom, or about my worthiness, I am reminded we are all made in His image.  All worthy of respect.  All deserving of freedom.  I am going to talk to who I want, tweet what I want, and live my life Today, and Every Day.

Food Stamp Nation

Thank you for cspan.  Today's stats for the food stamp program (known as SNAP - Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program):

In 2013:  $70 billion annually spent on food stamps, serving 47 million people
In 2008:  $35 billion annually spent on food stamps, serving 22 million people

How can this be considered any kind of recovery, when twice as many people are dependent on the government for their very life sustenance, food for them and their families ?

Part of the Farm Bill, food stamps is (in Yoda speak).  Why is that?  Well, you have agriculture subsidies, agriculture policies, and the part of USDA that deals with food stamps too, the Food & Nutrition Service.  So this way the Farm Bill has something for everyone - handouts for farmers in farm states, and food stamp transfer payments for inner city ghetto dwellers.  The red and blue beasts of the U.S. Congress all get to go home to the pride and tell their constituents they have brought home the slaughtered buffalo (ok borrowing from the nature show that was just on public television.  My husband found that scene disturbing, but I was racking my brain trying to find an analogy to my workplace - it will come to me).

In a symbolic gesture that no doubt has been tried with every Farm Bill, Senator Inhofe proposed legislation that would turn SNAP into a state block grant program.  Well yes, I've heard that before.  Back in the early 1980s when I worked for the FNS as a QC reviewer, yep the topic came up back then - enter into the Reagan era.

Another part of the Farm Bill is the commodity food program.  My short stint at another non-lucrative profession working at the Century High School kitchen saw this up close.  Large (free!) batches of commodity chicken nuggets, cheese, and other commodities.  So the U.S. government pays for these excesses, which in turn are distributed to schools.

OK back to food stamps.  I am more than disheartened that the food stamp rate is so high.  The answer is not "family wage jobs" or "higher minimum wage" or "lets feed the kids breakfast every day too".  The answer is not more dependency on the government.

The answer might be victory gardens that each kid, each family, can cultivate.  Each community.  Each food stamp card should be given with a garden tool and a packet of seeds.

I have always thought it would be better to hand out sacks of rice and beans than food stamp cards.  But I suppose anything can be turned into a trading currency - hey, I'll sell you these 3 bags of rice for that bag of cocaine.  But that is a subject for another day.

Maximize Shareholder Value

That is what we learned in business school.  That is the mantra of corporations.  That is the mantra of capitalism.

I guess our Governor has gone off to learn about other ways of structuring society - the Happiness Index and all.  And my Unitarian friends are investigating socialism.  ok.

My country, the global world order, and every country striving out there to better the fortunes of its citizens, every nascent democracy, they are all striving for capitalism.  Yes, it can ravage and dehumanize people.  Yes, when taken to excess (have we seen this?!) it exploits people, it exploits those at the top too, who must chant the mantra "maximize shareholder value", as if nothing else matters.

Sure, if corporations are not held liable for destroying the health of its workers.  If they are not held liable for their "externalities", whether its injecting toxic chemicals into the groundwater to frack for some more shale gas, or just plain scraping off boat paint and letting it drift into the Columbia River (sorry, state secret here).

Yes, we need regulation.  Oregon needs legislation.  Bangladesh needs legislation.  Egypt needs legislation.

But when all is said and done, capitalism survives.  So lets not blame Apple for "working hard and playing by the rules", hey, where have I heard that one ?  They did as capitalism does, and maximized shareholder value, storing $100M of profits in Ireland.  Because its legal.  Because it maximizes shareholder value.  Because the IRS permits this.  If we citizens don't like this - then write to your elected representative and encourage change.

ok, back to my ipod.

Revenue Forecast, Tea Leaves

I am used to economists being pessimistic.  Or not agreeing.  That I expect.  What I don't expect is optimistic economists at the end of the fiscal year.  Here are some more tea leaves that leave me thinking..

* When asked by a Legislative oversight committee whether the recent increase in capital gain tax revenues was propotionately spread from rich to poor (what do you think??), the economist responded with "it is an issue of fairness".

Now excuse me, but the homeless guy at the bus shelter probably doesn't have a 401K, or a nice tidy stock portfolio.  Is this the latest entitlement that I didn't yet hear about?  Cell phones aren't enough, but we need to give away stock so everyone is part of the modern financial system - its only fair right?

Anyhow, I have never heard an economist use the word "fairness", I guess I thought they were about measuring objective reality and forecasting, not trying to pass public policy social judgement.

* The group, which is a forecasting arm of state government, praised the Legislative revenue office for their assistance.  Nice to be helpful and all.  And I guess when it comes to something big like a state economic forecast, you need to collect all views, and they certainly have the data.  But wait.  A Democratically controlled legislature, a Democratic governor, well it all leads to a certain spin on the "forecast" of the future doesn't it.

The presenter even mentioned that one of his advisors thought there was a 0% chance of a recession in 2014.  Really?  Since when are economists so rock solid sure about things?

Like in that movie "Zero Dark Thirty", where she says she is 100% sure that Bin Laden is in that house in central Abbotobad, Pakistan.  Then she recants, saying "oh, ok, 95%, I know certainty makes you guys crazy".

Someone spiked these economists cause they were too optimistic to be praticers of the dismal science.

Real Life African Wildlife Tales

Elephants today.  But fewer, and where are the poachers?  And who is cracking down on them?  And who is enforcing these laws?  And who is educating the children to care for these creatures?

To some African countries, tourism is the #1 economic story.  Tonight a contingent of African visitors came to our local World Affairs Council to meet and greet with Portland citizens.  We heard about campaigns to educate kids, some of who had never seen the wildlife of their nation (this was in Tanzania).  We heard about the relatively low level civil servant park ranger who had a tough time competing with organized para-military poachers who intimidated them, ran roughshod over them, and poached elephants, rhinos (this was in Zimbabwe).  We heard about efforts to protect national parks, and incentives for communities to protect their areas which were in some cases conservation areas (this was in Zamibia).

We heard about how the press, while reporting on poaching incidents, was not doing a public service but actually helping glorify the poaching and the wild sums the poachers gained with their illegal acts (this was in Botswana).  CITES enforcement might be a global protocol, but sometimes within individual nations it is hard to gain traction.

Is this a topic on the African Union's agenda?  Not today.  Hope, one local resident asked ?  Yes - the visitor delegation, sponsored by the U.S. State Department (as a seed initiative from Ms. Hillary Clinton, formerly Secretary of State) was able to meet one another on their 3-week trip to the U.S.  Many of their organizations were sponsored largely by Non-Governmental Organizations, many of these from the U.S.

Our little Zimbabwe Artists Project, a co-sponsor (rah!).  The gentleman from Botswana ended his wildlife tale saying, when your grandkids ask what is an elephant..  and you had a chance to stop the poaching, what will you tell them ?

My Monied Friends

Well, not my monied friends, but if I was President, I bet I would.  Obama does.  W did.

It is not about political stripes, there are entrenched monied interests on both sides of the aisle.  There are entrenched social welfare groups, just as there are entrenched pharmaceutical and military interests.

How I might wish that there were pure policy decisions based on merit, or serving the most people, or achieving worldwide aims like reducing rural poverty, or even clean drinking water for everyone.  In this country, parts of which are still seeking these opportunities.

But what happens to someone who climbed to the top of the political food chain, and is leader of the Free World?

I have thought lately that this designation is just so much history.  In what ways is the U.S. the leader of anything in the world?  Perhaps from the inside you are too used to things and cannot see your own country objectively.  I wonder how my Canadian daughter thinks about her birthright?  I wonder if I will have culture shock after going to Peru for 2 weeks this fall.

Maybe the answer is a populist President.  Someone self-taught, home-schooled even. Not any ivy league connections. No monied friends to hand out all that federal cash to.