Saturday mornings are meant for corned beef hash, bacon, raisin toast, eggs over medium and COFFEE!

It's a fine thing my son to sail under the Black Flag and know in your heart you're free!

. . . . .Yes, dear readers I do listen to you and read what you write. Today's musical selection - With My Own Two Hands by Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals on Diamonds on the Inside. Request submitted by Ms. LuLu, a constant reader and contributor and a good friend.

. . . . .Today's statement around how the mandate for change that we, as a body politic, handed over on Election Day can be conceived was produced and contributed by my good friend and brother Tom, who often offers profound insights into the "root" of things, the meta behind the concrete, the meat behind the hash browns of everyday, this one is no exception and well worth the read, it's at the end of the post where the essays always are.

. . . . . . Bumper sticker of the week: "The Dude abides . . . ."

. . . . Today is Saturday, so it's kind of "Blog lite", until you get to the change essay. I've put a hard week in, go over to the left column, down to Archives, and catch up on the week's news and opinions.

. . . . .Sooooo, Barack Obama really seems to have it going on. Today marks the first of his Web addresses, which can be found and listened to here at Change.gov. The topics he covers today? Change, folks, and how we, not he by himself, have to get to work on climate change, health care, education, and taking care of one another during the economic crisis. Sound familiar? He plans to do these as weekly YouTube addresses, a form of fireside chat, which I will always provide links to. I find it fascinating. He obviously plans to continue the same media outreach that made the campaign so successful, now through his administration. It does two things; reach a generation and a culture that is becoming increasingly web-based and bypasses the media. I'm good with that, personally, I've had it with political pundits on either side, what the hell do I need someone to tell me what someone else just said? Hunh? Whuzzat about? Personally, if I need anyone's take on it, I prefer Louis Black, Bill Maher or Jon Stewart.

. . . . . .In terms of place names, have you ever heard of any name as great as Irish Bayou? It's part of why I love the New Orleans area.

. . . . .Speaking of fireside chats, Michael Hirsh over at Newsweek in this week's edition, puts up a good little piece on the similarities between Obama and FDR. Both faced an economic crisis of gigantic proportions brought on by the previous Republican administration. He points out the "first 100 days" measure of a Presidency was rooted in the Herculean efforts that Roosevelt had to put in during that period to not just save the country's economy, but capitalism itself. The startling historical irony, of course, is that Roosevelt had to initiate basically socialist programs and principles in order to save the concept of capitalism, which gave his Republican foes plenty of fodder and led to them referring to him as "that Man in the White House" and of course, led to the 2 term limit. Hirsh's piece further explores how our own excesses have led to this catastrophe and how, once the Soviet Empire collapsed under Reagan, fueled by the telecommunications and network boom around the globe, capital raced from country to country, fueling deficit spending and creating artificial credit bubble after bubble. The analogy isn't lost here, think of what happens in a bathtub once all the bubbles have grown cold and run out of hot air for fuel, it all begins to collapse.

. . . . .One of the best opening riffs to any CD (all-time) has to be the opening bars of Custard Pie by Led Zeppelin off of Physical Graffiti. The same I believe to be their best, superior to ZOSO, matter of fact the opening three tracks are still incredible. I miss John Bonham, and I'm pissed at him for drinking himself to death. He had an innate understanding of the primal power behind drumming rock and roll for the greatest heavy blues-rock outfit of all time. Check out In My Time of Dying, where he and Page literally trade melody and rhythm throughout the track, with Bonzo occasionally taking the melody part, whilst Mr. Page takes the backbeat over with a slide guitar. It was that track that gave the clue to their new label Swan Song, and it's image of the falling angel. But then, of course, I listened to the second LP and it's opening track, In the Light, and immediately questioned whether or not the angel was ascending. Talk about duality!

. . . . .One of my fundamental problems with bailout packages and spending stimulus plans is this; the government doesn't just go the money store and get new money to inject into the economy. It has to take it from somewhere else that, due to the incredible deficit spending of the last 8 years and a $6 billion dollar a month war in Iraq, means it's probably not there either, so an I.O.U. has to be written. Brian Reidl in the Wall Street Journal has a good analysis of that here.

. . . . .I want to go back to the Obama administration and it's savvy handling of the media. Think about it. Thursday's news cycle was all about Sarah Palin's gaffes at the podium at the Republican Governor's conference. Come Friday morning, out of a team that handled and continues to handle press leaks very tightly comes a rumor, comes word, that Hillary Clinton was flying to Chicago to be offered the job of Secretary of State. It dominates the news cycle on Friday, going into the weekend and guess whose name isn't in the news going into it. This bunch ain't stupid folks!


. . . . . I'm still a sucker after all these years. Space Shuttle Endeavor did a night launch on Thursday night to go do an "Extreme Home Makeover" up at the International Space Station. I remember being at Boy Scout camp at Camp Rota-Kiwan, and being put in the mess hall one hot summer night and watching in awe as Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon. We will get back there some day, and beyond, I believe it.

. . . . Speaking of which, the Hubble Space Telescope is back up and running and taking some darn good pictures. Check the following out, it's a picture of dark matter surrounding a galaxy cluster. Helps me to remember that there is still some mystery "out there" and is a good lead into the essay on change below.
. . . . .Tom submitted this one in response to the request I made the other day around wanting your concepts, your ideas around what "change" was. We mandated change when we went through the election process, but now we need to know what "change" is. The contributions have been fascinating, deep and thoughtful, as is this one:

"A primary focus when change is mentioned typically observes outer
conditions, rather than inner process. 'They should', statements fill
the tomes of the world as well as our casual conversations.
Considerable evidence exists to suggest the degree of separation between
They and I is a figment of our imagination. Responsibility for this
acknowledgment rests entirely with each individual. Having said that,
can change happen one individual at a time with only loose agreement of
the goals? Is the fulfillment of a dream accomplished with symbolic
gestures? What is the source of energy that fills our perception of
change? Can agreement being consummated on simple points of common
ground be effective in reflecting change?
It is the psychosis of an intellectual response to a spiritual
discernment that finds answers through additional questions. The
intellect presumes understanding when the best it can claim is
analytical conjecture. Our common ground condition is perception from
singular expression that has its umbilical irretrievably rooted in all
of creation, fueled by the essence of all that is, with no choice but to
contribute to the total expression of the human experience.
Now being the event horizon, each focused or even idle thought being the
impetus of change, we have collectively expressed as the attitude of a
rude child referred to as mankind, dreaming that we can, fake it until
we make it, symbolically embracing change rhetorically.
I pose that I am joining with each of you reading this, knowing that
change is afoot because we will make a change in our thinking. The
government is the intellect, we are the only hope of real change through
our true nature as interconnected spiritual beings resisting the
temptation to express anything other than Change...............
It is this blank space that we are urged to start, in communicating with
each other we can express change, however without a focal point chaos is
the result.
Suggestions for filling in the blank:
Change - belief in separateness
Change - belief that the earth is our litter box.
Change - belief that time has to pass to correct attitudes
Change - belief that there is any special privilege we humans hold over
the earth

Since we are all truly indivisible I know change is at hand, and that is
our mandate. Let's not waste it on an elected official, but encourage
him to be a cheerleader and statesman for each of us to do our work."

Thanks so much Tom, I've gotten other submissions from all of you that run the gamut, from philosphical to nuts and bolts everyday and you all put some damn hard work into them, and each of them is worthwhile, you keep sending them, either as comments, to the blog e-mail or to my personal e-mail and I'll continue to put them up. Plan on doing that through the rest of the year, and I believe first quarter of next year, I'll ask to start collecting your thoughts around sustainability, as in agriculture, food and water and we can act as individuals and a body politic, a citizenry of the Republic to affect "change" in that area.

. . . .On a final note, back on Thursday, (you can go over to the left and jump to it yourself) when I made the initial request for this definition of change, one of the "lurkers" as I refer to them jumped in on the comments section to tell me precisely what he thought. I get them all the time, and it's typical anonymous hate from the extreme right-wing. I try not to let it get to me, and I normally just let it go. One of you readers jumped in anonymously and responded very appropriately, intelligently and firmly. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, it makes this all just a little less lonely and lets me know that there's folks out there that have my back. I think I know which one of you it was, and I love you for it.

Peace out, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Tomorrow, we'll examine some of the lies that the extreme Right is already spreading about Obama's election in order to minimize and disenfranchise him, the impact of his election and the work that lies ahead of us Remember that the world is still awash in full-on bull-goose loonies and it's our job now to do the work, we didn't elect him to do all of it himself. Y'all are cool.

The Desolation Angel