Who Are You?

For awhile there it was an initiative every day.
From health care reform to equal pay for women to clean energy investment to doubling exports. Yes our federal government has many domains.

Fundamentally, its domain is national security. The Rs will say, in their sing song political rhetoric, Obama is about "big government".

To which I generally think - big country - big government - FDR saved us from The Great Depression...

And yet - we have more warrantless wiretaps than ever before. Larger deficits than ever recorded. A larger debt burden, and growing.

National security. Am I safer than I was on November 19, 2009 (pre Obaama inauguration)?

Economically, we are all stuck feeling shattered. Maybe just maybe, Obama could ponder "less is more". If the federal government did less activist legislation - which only results in confrontation with opposing forces - maybe everyone could calm down a bit. Calm, less shattered. Is that a way forward?

Puzzle Pieces

I wanted to have a party, and invite my red and my blue friends (and my white ones too). Each was to bring something of an opposite color.

Now, I'm not a color artist.. nor a sandwich artist, nor any other kind of artist. If you saw my attempt at drawing rabbits, or cats, or probably trees, you might think they all look the same. Ah, but add some color and its plain - green leaves, see! Black cat, see!

So the blue friends would bring something non-blue. Get them to think outside the box. Maybe they would bring large red steaks. And my red friends would bring something non-red, like maybe a vegan casserole made with endive topping. And the white friends - well they could bring something black I suppose - blackened tilapia. Something farmed and sustainable, but chemically changed.

All assembled, it would be a chance to trade recipes, trade ideas. Only instead of food, I will have them bring political philosophies (or both, wrapped up, like fortune cookies, or baked inside like a tur-duck-hen). Only you'd have to bring a policy option that didn't belong to you, and it had to be convincing.

Then, we save the world. Or couldn't do any worse than the current political deadlock in Congress. I used to think about Canada, only now I want to be optimistic. I like red, white, blue, and I like this country! So make it happen. Maybe I should send my members of Congress one of those mystery games so they can get used to the role-playing concept. Or maybe, as the Gen X and Gen Y types grow up and take congressional seats, all their pokemon role-playing will come in handy for solving the nation's policy problems. Where is Ash, the fate of the world is at stake..