Mt. Rainier, from the U of WashingtonHi again, Folks. Well, as I’m putting this together, it’s still President’s Day. I understand Abraham Lincoln’s been voted the best national chief executive we’ve ever had and George Washington, the second. I notice that George is on the one-dollar bill and Lincoln’s a little higher up but not by much. Grover Cleveland and William McKinley are waaay up there.
I’m sorry but that seems to me just a little out there, even for Americans. It’s like we’ve got this weird inverted pyramid going for us. I’m thinking, albeit real generously right now, that it just goes to show that in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, you don’t have to be first or even historically important to have value in this country. At least not on our money, eh?
However, I digress…(front page news, right?)
One of you sent The Northstar Journal a letter he wrote to his elected officials, with permission to publish. He’s from Michigan, where his governor is making some history of her own. Her name’s Jennifer Granholm and it looks like she’s proving that both cleaning up and producing industrial products that address the root causes can pay off for her constituency. I caught her on the news the other night in a story about the solar panels being produced in Michigan and being used to provide energy to a variety of structures and enterprises in the States and abroad. The author of this letter has books on a wide variety of topics, is an avid golfer, has a radio show and is a cancer survivor.
Dear Senator,
Regarding this economic crisis I would recommend you and congress explore putting a 9 month stay on home foreclosures with a mandatory provision for face to face renegotiation; 10% reduction in payroll taxes; suspend issuing new personal credit cards and a freeze on renewal of existing credit cards for a period sufficient to facilitate a balancing of personal credit system.
These actions are cost effective and quick to implement. Should you have any questions let me know.
Kindest regards,
Michael Cortson
Attorney at law (retired)
Writesit@aol.com
I need to share with you folks a real nice email I got from Senator Patti Murray (D) Washington.
Subj:
Response from Senator Murray
Date:
2/12/2009 1:34:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:
Senator@murray.senate.gov
To:
mailto:minstrel312@aol.comminstrel312@aol.com
Dear Mr. Miller:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Northstar Journal blog. I appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter.
The views of Washingtonians are very important to my work. I will keep your thoughts in mind, and I encourage you to stay in touch. Please do not hesitate to call on me whenever I may be of assistance.
Again, thank you for contacting me. I hope that you will continue to let me know about this and other matters of interest to you.
I hope all is well in Seattle.
I also had a real nice phone chat with Maria Cantwell’s press secretary and they’re reading us as well. Maria’s our other U.S. Senator and coincidentally also a Democrat. Both of these people have served Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, America and, by the resonance of what they do on these levels, the international community as well.. Neither was born into money, power or politics. The term "bootstrapping" comes to mind. They have, I suspect, a lot in common with us and with Barack.
At the risk of offending those of you from other political persuasions, they didn’t have much in common with their immediate predecessor. We don’t do the dynasty riff very well out here. The Pacific Northwest is, among other things, a land of volcanoes, earthquakes, deep lakes, swiftly moving streams, mountains which reach up to touch the face of the Creator, the North Pacific in all her moods, schizophrenic weather and all-year around Birkenstocks.
My best friend of 30 years, Dennis W. "Denny" Steussy, a farm boy from Minnesota and a mover and shaker in the arts community in greater Seattle, is also sending the NSJ along to our legislators in Olympia. Denny and I have been saddle bums for some while now, like Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. He’s a good man, this one, and he knows stuff.
What it basically means for the readers of this blog is that what you share with The Northstar Journal is shared with people positions to act on it. I don’t want to get into a "we are the world riff, but one of the reasons I started this blog was to also provide a reader forum or perhaps, more simply expressed, an opportunity to share ideas, experiences, feelings and resources with one another.
As this blog goes to press, President Obama’s in Denver, signing that $787-billion economic stimulus package into law. Only three Republican Senators voted for it but at a recent annual meeting of American governors, 22 Conservative state chief executives endorsed it. Congress still seems a little slow in waking up and smelling the coffee.
Maybe we should fund a round-trip to Seattle on a warm sunny day; Seattle, aka Land of Starbucks and Seattle’s Best. We wake up to the aroma of coffee. We go to sleep and dream by it. We buy stock in small Brazilian plantations which produce it. If it wasn’t also on the expensive side, we would very likely bathe in it. There’s even been some talk about making it the State Beverage.
I also noted a new study out of Duke University which says that angry men don’t live as long as their mellower counterparts. I got to thinking about all the angry people I’ve encountered and most of them have also been bigoted, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, jingoistic or in some other way, extremely humanity impaired.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was glad to learn that obnoxious people don’t live as long as the rest of us. I just also wish they wouldn’t keep procreating and polluting the global gene pool. Do me a favor? The next rude person you run into? Promote celibacy. And solitude. Total solitude.
Until next week, then, take care, try to relax and keep communicating with one another. We’re going to get through these hard times and this time, yep, we’re going to learn from them.
Rusty
2 comments:
Great letters. I recently wrote to my Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, and was disappointed to see this usually reasonable man toe the party line and vote against the bill.
I've written more letters to my legislators (for a variety of reasons) in the past 5 years than in my entire adult life prior to that. If people come out of this with new realizations, I hope that one of them will be that we all have a voice, and that apathy is not acceptable.
Best,
Beth
I hope like so many others that the stimulus will really be just that. We shall see. By the way, I thought all Starbucks coffee came from Costa Rica. I learned that it did on a recent trip there. Maybe that is not the only place that supplies Starbucks?
Peggy
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