Tis the Season

Because I'm posting does not mean that I've ready anything in the last month. Kerri has pushed me into this! I'm swamped in homework! The end of the semester is fast approaching, and the workload is not decreasing.

To all those blackfriday goers, shop wise! Visit Tightwad Tod at Consumer report for a little advice. It is the season of pell-mell consumerism, so go gett'm girls. I'm sure you can help stimulate the economy. Our current President sure hasn't figured anything out.

Warning
You are about to read a political tirade that I blame solely on my parents. Read at your own peril. You might see a smidgen of liberalism in yourself.

p.s. Kerri strictly forbid me to write about politics on this blog, I am anyway. I am prepared to face the heat.

You would think that Oklahoma would have corrupted me by now. Mr. Bush (a Freudian slip) got 65% of the vote, the highest percentage of all the states. The daily Supulpa reported the day of the election "McCain takes Supulpa County!", no mention of who actually won the election, anywhere on the front page. Don't think it was an isolated case either. Tulsa didn't even desegregate until 1974, and a non-criminal blackman didn't make the cover of The Oklahoman until the mid 80s.

So let me put this in perspective. I blame my parents on my overt liberalism (I'm actually a centrist, but for the sake of flaming rhetoric I continue to write). My formative years were full of eating nuts, raisins and berries (Jerry can probably relate to this). As a child I remember walking across a small wooden plank crossing an abyss to visit a geodome, which I was going to be raised in one day (were my parents hippies? I suspect they were yippie hippies. Too conservative to wear velvet ponchos, but liberal enough to think that marigolds might be a solution to nematodes instead of DDT. ). My parents camped in earth-muffin Oregon (a source habitat of liberalism and other nutty species) and considered buying a home in the area. My early years with mother were based on respect of the earth. I was taught to have a respect for the environment, care about the land, and not shooting songbirds. As I recall, Silent Spring was on my list of must reads, as punishment for failing in school. My mothers solution to grass was to pluck it out by each and every root nodule, and tomato worms were to be harvested as chicken food--no herbicides or pesticides allowed. Now obviously you can be a republican and eat nuts and berries, I'm not suggesting otherwise.

So then the political years came, the 90s. My CWP class of 1986-1987 was completely about the Iran contra scandal. A scandal about a republican president circumventing and breaking the law of the people to wage a private war. I remember defending R. Reagen to Mr. Hunter, my math teacher, after Reagen was first elected. "How can you talk bad about a president that a majority of the people elected. That is unpatriotic." Oh, would I change my tune over the next few years. Then the election of 1990. A philosophy of clean air, clean water, and protection of our natural resources. A governing philosophy for the middle class. Prosperity went up, the average home income increased over $7,000 annually by the end of the Clinton administration. How could I not buy into something that I felt I had benefited from?

So I move to Oklahoma. The only state in this election cycle to throw out the democrats in the state house. For the first time in Oklahoma history, the state house will be run by a republican majority (I actually find that unreal, but it is true.) So why hasn't the Rush Limbaugh or Bill O' Reilly philosophy of life rubbed off on me? Besides that he is a complete knucklehead?

This last administration is the first to not protect and add federal land to national ownership since Teddy Roosevelt, (a republican with a little bit of vision). The current administration actually have had the opportunity to add sensitive ocean habitat to national ownership, but have failed. Who needs coral reefs anyway? The clean air act of the 90s was thrown out. The car industry was encouraged to build Hummers!? "Drill baby Drill!" The financial markets were deregulated in the spirit of R. Reagen, in hopes of a trickle down. The average family income over the past 8 years has decreased over $2,000.

Now I grew up in a place with clean air and clean water, and a place that respects the land. I was fortunate to have national forest lands, wilderness and national recreation lands close by. I now live in a place that still dumps directly into its lakes and streams. I would wager that I cannot show you a creek or lake that doesn't have a private, still active landfill on it. The teeth of the EPA have been pulled out by this administration. The EPA's emails are refused by the White House, so that they are not responsible for their contents (I am not making that up!).

So.....Kerri did not want me to talk about politics...... I'm not. I'm blaming all of my hair brained ideas on my parents. Over the past election cycle I have nobly resisted tirades....

"Let's go for a Grand Erosion Tour." If that isn't environmental philosophy at its finest. Just think what a good picture the Landscape Arch at Arches National Park would be with a jackpump in the foreground.

War! Then we go to war. The American President makes the decision to spend 10 billion a month on war, instead of over 10 billion a month on ways to get out of the middle east?! I can hear it now. Run for your houses everyone. If we decide to pull out of Iraq they will come and get us. They are coming, they are coming!!!! Imagine, if we would have spent all that money on a failing auto industry, on new fuel for new cars???? Doesn't anyone remember the 70s? The last time we bailed out the auto industry it was the Chrysler corporation. Why? Get this....It was over a failed business model that bet on gas prices staying low. It bet that American's wanted gas guzzlers, but when the chips were down? Guess what. I'll tell you what. At the beginning of this administration gas prices were at $1.60 a gallon. At the height of prices, I paid over $4 a gallon. I don't need to tell you'all that though do I? So my tank of gas went from $18 to fill to over $40. That was most of my weeks lunch money. I think I would have preferred paying 10 billion a month for alternative fuel, instead of nothing to show for it but dead and maimed soldiers and civilians.

So....My Christmas list?

Much of my Christmas list is coming when this War mongering administration leaves office! I will end it there. I will not talk more about the war. I will not talk about the results of the war. I know this is a family blog.

I will not talk about the republicans who insist on having a president that prays?!? Really now? Do you hire a mechanic because he prays? Do you put your money in a bank because the banker is in touch with God? I hope not! I hope you hire a mechanic because he knows what a collaborator is, how it works, and how to fix it.

.....so I did talk about religion in politics a little.....get over it.......

Tirade over
jlw

I really intended to talk about my Christmas list....Later