Coda ...

I've been having some good heart-to-hearts with Robert, my friend and blogging colleague, about many things as of late. We tend to use the other as an idea-foil when the writing-block Monster turns up unexpectedly. This morning as I cracked the knuckles for the last posting of 2008, my mind is remembering those conversations and banters. What better way to end the year than to pay homage to those good chats, the ideas they hatched, the postings themes that were left in the shelf and those mental itches left unscratched...

* The election of Barrack Obama changed politics forever; and for the most part -in my opinion-, for the good. The "experience" factor is forever gone as a strength and virtue for any politician. From hereon, we will judge them by their managerial ability to forge a strong team of advisers and cabinet members. Say what you will of Messier Obama, but he rarely lost his cool, he stayed on message, he went toe to toe with both the Clinton and Republican machines and came out without a sweat bead on his forehead. In the process, he forever changed fund-raising mathematics, got the country excited about a candidate for the first time in 28 years, got the world to salivate and an incoming President, completely filled his Cabinet a full month before he took office, -something I don't think has ever happened to my knowledge-, and finally, and in spite of a full-plate of serious and grave national dangers awaiting him, looks and projects himself as presidential, thoughtful and eager to tackle the Dragons. I never thought I would say this, but I am proud to have Barrack Obama as my President. I will be vigilant and watchful that his words and deeds conform to law and Constitution, ... but for now, and can do nothing but admire the man. Amazing...

* After 9-11-2001, a commission was set-up to inquire on the lead-up to that catastrophe and (hopefully) set recommendations to avoid such an event in the future. Its finding were published in a 600-page tome that is still holding up my Chevy's axle. One can make the argument, that the housing market collapse, the affiliated meltdowns of Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac et al ... the domino effect of the AIG, Bear Stearns failures etc... , at least merit the same type of commission to identify how this all happened, who was at the wheel when it happened, and the triggers needed to avoid similar disasters. Has anybody heard anybody calling for this? Not me. Which tells me both parties have had their hands in the largess of money coming in from these industry groups. Nobody, not the parties, not the Governors, not the Senate, not Pelosi, not Bush... and probably not Obama, ... nobody wants any flashlight of transparency shining in on any of this.

Memo to my President-Elect. If by 3:00pm on January 20th, you sit in the Oval Office and call for a neutral commission to investigate this economic meltdown, and allow the Justice Department to set up a Special Prosecutor to hire thousands of investigators and to the full extent of the law castigate those responsible for putting us in this pickle...., If you do that, and shake the rats off of the good Ship America, then you will have gone a long way in making me salivate to vote for you in 2012. C'mon, do the right thing! No matter where it leads...even if it sinks half the members of both parties,... let justice be done. Sure the mushroom cloud will be ugly, and your presidency may loose the luster it sorely needs to govern. Bu that one act alone will tell Joe Citizen that you are truly a transformational figure that will govern above and outside your own core ideology. This election after after all,... is about me Mr. President, ...not about you.

* The continued fall of the bastions of traditional media outlets such as newspapers, while fun to watch, is not something I wish continues. Sure at times I disagree with many an editorial piece, and yes the majority of them are of left-liberal persuasion and rarely give the other side "fair and balanced" access. Still, ... we need them. Look fellas, as much as I love to Blog, read other Blogs and peruse the web for my information and news, the truth is, the majority of Americana still sits in a Diner or their lunch-room and gets 99% of their news from the same crappy paper and ink that our Forefathers did. While there are some noteworthy Bloggers out there putting out some incredible and well-written pieces, most Bloggers, and I include myself in this category, do not have the training, education, will and responsibility to do the who-what-where-when-why of responsible journalism. We don't call 3 different sources to back up our writings. All most of us have is a laptop and a modem... that's it! We are opinion-makers for the most part. If the day ever comes that the majority of America or the world gets their public information and news source from the Blogosphere than I assure you we will be in the mother of all elephant dung-piles. Support your local paper and spend a buck a week to keep them alive and printing. It is the fourth power, it is the way we keep our Government accountable. A free, responsible and professional press corps is as vital to our way of living as the oxygen we need to sustain our lives. Think about that the next time you revel in the NY Times having to mortgage their building to survive.

* Finally, I marvel at one of the side-benefits of the blogosphere. About 2 years ago, I bumped into Conservative Commentary, a Blog run by a guy named Robert. I found him to be articulate, a great writer, heavy in his postings, funny as only an ex-Marine can be and as American-loving a person I've ever met. In time we began a mutual admiration society; him commenting on my postings, me commenting on his; and before you knew we were jumping the casual Blogging fence of camaraderie and delving into personal parts of our lives.

Fast forward to the end of 2008. Robert and I have shared emails, great chats, banter-ish conversations and comments on our Facebook pages, and are co-sponsors of his newest Baby-Blog, www.conservativeconvictions.blogspot.com, a place we hope turns out the virtual Town square Bazaar for all things conservative and all things that make America beautiful, interesting, noble, flawed and worth saving. Robert has not only become my co-worker, but we've become confidants on thoughts, life and other matters of life, ... I am proud to call the man my friend. I have never seen his face in person, nor felt the warmth of what I am sure is a firm handshake. Yet through the vessel of both our Blogs, through this very laptop, and across thousands of miles of fly-over country, I am closer in friendship to him, than many of the people I call my friends right here in Silicon Valley, California. Amazing the things than can happen in this medium, ...is it not?

Robert, here is to you my friend. Our Blogs have seen chaos and bliss, rain and sun, periods of activity and (in my case) endless absence. I have family, blood brothers, friends, musician buddies and many a kindred spirit that live in my heart. I welcome you as one of the few, the proud..... , the ones daring to sit in the House of the Pain Man and come out unscathed (Ha!). Happy New Year to you and yours, and may 2009 bring us closer to our shared goal of making mother USA a better place to be ...

..... OK, now that the man-love segment of the show is over, go back to your your things.... move along ... nothing to see here...... As to the rest of you?... I love you all, cherish the agreements and disagreements. 09' may not get better, but just give me a more interesting country and time and I can surely live with that...

Coda ...

The Ghost Of All Things Past ....

.... the beauty of drinking yourself silly on Christmas eve (An unnamed fruit-punch concoction) is that one wakes up particularly ornery, impatient at most things and just wondering why it is that you do the things you do in the first place. So please allow me to indulge in my annual year-end venting. It is in no particular priority or logic.... just T-P being , well.... a roll of paper...

As I get older, I find myself amused in that I am attracted to things that as I child I would have never looked twice. Gardening? Poetry? ... Bird watching? Book classics? Those I call my friends here in California (... and Alabama?) say I am maturing and appreciating the simplicities of life. Knowing my cousins in New Jersey and Puerto Rico, they will rip me a new one and think I am for certain turning metro-sexual, or worse. My mind tells me its something more apparent. I have been watching a ton of documentaries on American History and Biographies. That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two figures I have grown fonder by the minute, were lovers of nature and read everything they got their hands on has certainly been influential. As an example, I recently looked up who the hell Cincinnatus was, based simply on a reference from one of Jefferson's letters.

Why is it that age takes away physical strength, yet gives us better clarity to understand the poignancy and relevance of history? Its easy to put it all on the maturing of the mind, but could it be that age awakens a level of beauty in the eye of the beholder that can only be uncovered by unidentified colors of pain, our unplanned catastrophic reference points and the drip-drying of tear ducts?...

In thinking of history and appreciation of the proverbial days of yore; the writings of Americans from the past has me physically spell-bound. Last night, while nursing said drunkenness in bed, I watched the Ken Burns' documentary of Lewis and Clark's westward expedition under President Thomas Jefferson. The letters from Meriwether Lewis to Jefferson, while simple, elegant, non-contrived, and devoid of angst, are as powerful and emotive as a punch to the solar plexus. The letters from Lincoln to his Generals during the Civil War?,... nothing I've read in my life has made me as embarrassed of my own ability. Has there ever been a love story with a natural grace as told by the letters between Abigail and John Adams? How is it that these times had such great writers? How did these people, without a public education system of note acquire such expression-dexterity? Such eloquence of syntax and penmanship? It would be so easy for me to drop in an example of how Washington (the General) would have texted his concerns to John Hancock were he to have had a Blackberry, .... but I won't.......Ok, this is too temping not to, so I will.... "Yo JH, pls snd $ for guns. We R chillin' in V-Forge. Benedict A. keepn us warm with jokes LMAO. Say Hi 2 Gen. Howe if U C him. Peace out" .... It just doesn't quite have the same regal gait and aplomb, does it...

In a related topic, and as I have been spending time at my newest Blogging collaborative effort, (www.conservativeconvictions.blogspot.com) I've been scratching my dome about many things. The founding Fathers and Mothers were for the most part Statesmen yes; but they were not foreign to dropping the F-bomb here and there and using the saltiest of words to make their case. Good language and conduct was considered of good manners and social-form; not something to be done due to the pressures of a politically correct atmosphere, as is the case in today's discourse. So I ask myself, why should I have to be a "kinder and gentler" T-P? Why?.... I know, I have spewed many times on not letting the messenger derail the message. I am an ardent believer that -for the most part-, when one delivers a message on a bed of flowers it is going to get more of a look-see that if it were on a bed of thorns...... still, why Do we have to be so nice? Why DO we have to be the bigger persons of ideology when the other side is message-vile and holds no quarter in putting our philosophy down? Is there not a virtue to let your unbridled passion of expression give your message the gravitas it needs? ... (Screw Rodney King, I say..., we DON'T have to get along....)

And speaking of "Gravitas" (as I have a fast-forward philosophical turret moment)... , in 2000, the media had an orgasmic time with the word. G.W. Bush was said to have no "gravitas" so he needed Cheney to buttress his lack of foreign policy yada-yada. Hmmm. Fast forward to 2008. PEBO (Pres Elect Barry O.), had zero foreign policy, executive or economic "gravitas", ... nothing. Heck, he had to get Biden just to get a few pounds of it. Yet,... did anybody hear the Media utter the "G" word once? I'm not saying anything new of course, and truthfully I don't put too much weight on experience anyway,.... but it just makes me laugh at how much of an attention span we have. The media thinks we are suckers,... and for the most part, I heartily agree with their assumptions.

Ok, back to my time capsule musings. Thomas Jefferson really screwed up, in my opinion. He should have never bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon no matter how good the bargain. Think of it, then the United States had the Atlantic as the eastern wall, the Gulf as the southern wall, the Mississippi in the west, and the British Territory to the north. Nice little nation without worrying about the Spanish/Mexican territory or the Oregon/North West passage. How much more manageable could we be right now? ... Did we really think expansion (The Southwest? The Oregon territory? Guam? Alaska? Hawaii? ...) was that important? I may have to do one of those "What if.." postings just to make myself feel better. We are too big, too varied, too multi-cultured and too .... whatever it is. Xenophobic? call it whatever comes in handy, but we are a 50-state Jabba-the-Hut nation whose eaten way too many cultural donuts and we can barely get out of our beds and do the dirty work we need to survive.

All this rummaging through history has my hangover feeling worse.... not better. But I do have one idea that has as good a chance to get national traction as Barrack Obama getting a breast-lift. It wont fix my headache, but it will amuse me to no end to share it. It goes like this:

Let's split the country 50/50. Why not do an experiment that calls for 25 states (for the next 25 years) to be ruled by me, by Fiat, without a democracy, a Republic, a Contitution or even the nuisance of voters to get in my way. Make me Benevolent Dictatus for 25 years, then decapitate my head at the end of my "term" for all to see no matter the final outcome. The other 25 states can continue on this 2-party system of Government that is as obsolete as the treadmill looking at me from the corner right now. You guys do it your way, I will have my little 25 States do it my way. I will bet you my country and my subjects would be the envy of the planet. And just to make it fair? I will let the traditionalists get to pick their 25 States first .... JUST as long as mine are contiguous, .... Just sayin'...

..... Finally, as of today's count, I have a Blog of my own, a Blog or two to which I contribute, 8 different email addresses to stay in touch with friends and family, a home phone, cell phone and smart phone, texting capabilities, a Facebook and MySpace social networking page, a web page for my band, two computer programs to make sure I stay "organized" and in control of my life, and God knows how many other ways to communicate with everybody in the Planet. Still, I wish I lived in a world that had but the pen.... the simple quill to write and express...., nothing more. Because in spite of the many windows of communication available to me today, I am far more isolated -and probably much lonelier-, than Meriwether Lewis and William Clark ever were..... even in their darkest of days humping over the Rockies, and paddling upstream,... always upstream ....

..... Uh oh... , my Blackberry is humming.... gotta' go and see what important matters await me. Be well America, feel free to make yourself a sandwich of both hope and despair, and down it with a swig of thoughtful introspection.

..... Only 991 more years until the new Millennium ....