A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

Hi again folks. Before I launch on the topic at hand, I want to thank you yahoos for your responses to my last blog. Fifteen emails and IMs during the first hour it was published is phenomenal for a readership of this size. What’s even more gratifying to me is that they came from all over the States, Canada and the U.K. You said you felt the same way and several told me I said it well. That tells me I’m doing my job for you folks. I need to hear that once in awhile. Thank you.

I watched most of the Inaugural, off and on. I was online looking for work in the Seattle area and places to publish the other stuff I write. Even though I know that most of us enjoyed that national celebration, I’m also well aware that some of you, for whatever reasons, did not. So I’m not going to talk about that. Instead, I’m going to address our newly elected national executive. Yeah, I know this will never actually reach him, but play along with me, okay?

Happy Second Day of Work For Us, Mr. President. Do a good job over the next one hundred and I’ll call you Mr. Obama. If you’re still cool by Christmas, you’ll be Barack after that and if and until we find out that a mistake was intentional. We know you and your team are going to make some. You’ve said so and we know that because we’ve made some too.

We’re not looking for you to be a hero, Mr. President. In this country, a lot of them get killed and that’s not something I think needs to continue, with all due respect. Americans don’t need heroes, as you well know. We’re a nation of them.

I’m glad you made it, Barak. Since childhood, you’ve been caring about folks on BOTH sides of the color line and if ever this country needed that extended to the International Community, it’s now. I read about what you did in your dad’s part of Africa back last year and I remember thinking, ‘If ever there’s a potential president who can negotiate, this guy Obama is it.’ And I was a Hillary supporter at the time. Please don’t forget that skill’s needed at home too, Mr. President.

Barack, we know it’s not going to be easy helping us get back on our feet financially. People are skeptical of bailouts. They’re not donations, they’re loans. Remind all concerned of that too, Mr. President?

Well, like my last letter to Santa Claus, I’d best keep this brief. (Don’t even go there, guys). Sooo, in summation and stuff.

Mr. President, keep your end of the contract. We’ll keep ours. And please don’t forget who you work for.

Thanks for the ear, then, folks, and until next time.

Rusty

TRIAL OF A NATION

As I write these lines, it is four a.m. on the morning of what will probably be remembered as either the day Americans turned the corner and lived up to the passion and prayers of the Founding Fathers or chose instead to go the way of other empires which vanished for no other reason than the greed of their citizens and the self-serving enabling of the government which allegedly served them.

To me, this is about more than electing a president whose ancestors were both brought over here in chains and made that hellish voyage possible in the first place. In our rush to celebrate our racial enlightenment, I think we forget that Barack Obama is also white. He is, in a larger sense, the hybrid alluded to by the term melting pot. He is the product of the forge and the crucible; the legacy of Nate Thomas and Simon Legree; Gettysburg and the Reconstruction; the Ku Klux Clan and the Congress of Racial Equality; Dr. Martin Luther King and Governor George Wallace.

He exemplifies a new generation of Americans, born and raised to believe that all things are possible it one refuses to envision anything except success. He understands perhaps better than any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the need for cooperation and consensus. He is far more a statesman than a politician; far more a facilitator than a charismatic leader; far more a walker than a talker, despite an eloquence which springs from the heart and the mind across one tongue and a language common to every single citizen he has pledged to serve.

He represents the best that is in each of us and he is vulnerable to the raging beast that co-exists in the often convoluted and contradictory character of the nation itself. He has willingly admitted that he cannot do the job without us; that his solutions depend on the willingness of each of us to participate in the process. He is not a benevolent genius ordained by God to lead his people out of the self-imposed bondage of material greed. He is much simpler than that. He is an American who understands what it is to be one.

Regardless of whether his plans for economic salvation succeed or fail; regardless of whether his foreign policy returns this nation to a place of honor and respect among all nations; whether his fireside chats reach the Blackberries and the laptops of his constituency here and around the globe, Barack Obama himself will not pale before the promises he has made, for no single individual is mighty enough to let an entire nation down.

If we end up sinking into the mire of abysmal economics and sealing our own extinction, it will not be because Barack Obama failed. It will be because we, as individual citizens of the noblest social experiment in history, chose to do so. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

A PARTIAL WISH LIST FOR THE COMING YEAR

Hi, again, folks, this time from Soggy Seattle. Now that the snows have stopped and melted off some, our rivers are doing something they don’t usually do until Spring. Imagine that’s familiar to a lot of you folks about now.

All in all, we’re handling it real well and so far, mostly without the help of the federal government. The Army Corps of Engineers has been activated to help out, and if necessary, Governor Chris will call out units of the Washington State National Guard in dryer places. As close as we all are in this region, it won’t be a big call out. Most of our daughters and sons, fathers and mothers, cousins, et al will already be where they’re needed.

Yes, there have been tragedies associated with this and our time of mourning will come. Right now, we’re still rescuing the living. We do, however, truly appreciate the concern expressed from those in other parts of the States, Canada and abroad. Compassion is not lost on us. And we do remember far longer, those who stood by us in hard times than we ever will those we attracted during good. Thank you, then, eh?

Well, so far, I’ve evaded every editorialist’s annual responsibility to predict what’s in store for us the rest of the year. As some of you know, I’ve done that in years past and did last year, as well. Alas and alack and stuff, I’ve found out I’m not as good at it as I once was. Like Grandpa Seamus used to say, "If you can’t remember the cards, time to get out of the game."

So this year, I’d like, instead, to share with you what I HOPE happens?

I’d like to see economics shift from national to regional to serve first local markets and then the rest of the nation. I realize that in order to do that, we’re going to have to scale back some but we’re already seeing the precursor to that in certain businesses like Subway adjusting their prices to their consumer base. Seems to me that’s the kind of flexibility necessary right now for any of this to work.

Each region of this nation has something unique for "export". Each region in this nation is capable of economic independence by appropriately using its available resources. Every region has universities doing research in everything from environmentally appropriate agriculture to integrated energy sources to alternative transportation.

The historical precedent for the shift is there. And every civilization, present and past, has gone through the same evolution. America moved from the predominantly agrarian to the highly industrialized and into the technological. The scientific and technology communities have not failed us. Our own greed did. But both communities are still there as resources.

I had the rare privilege, during the late Seventies, to read a ‘novel’ entitled Ecotopia. That small book and it’s prequel and sequel, talked about a regionally environmentally appropriate, stable state economy. Despite some of its Swiftian overtones and its premise that for Ecotopia to fully evolve, it needed to secede from the Union (Why am I seeing a smile of the faces of some of you who live below the Mason Dixon, north of Monterrey, California or in Quebec province now?), it works from a technological perspective.

Ecotopia, as a regionally adapted model, was and is both plausible and possible, certainly more now than when the books were written, some three-plus decades ago. An article in one of last month’s editions of the New York Times seems to support that contention, as well, by the way.

Perhaps as a sidenote, I also had the unforgettable experience of meeting the author, Ernest ‘Chick’ Callenbach. He was also at that time, the editor of the University of California’s Film Quarterly. He was a man of the arts, with an appreciation for and an understanding of appropriately applied technology. A soft-spoken, gentle man, he was also the father of two sons he did not want going to war.

So another thing I hope for this year is that there will be a renewed interest in his books as a viable resource. I’d like, as well, for some soft media attention to be focused on him for his ideas in these regards. In my mind, in times like these, he’s one of our best thinkers. And he’s not going to be around forever.

I also hope, as much for my own region, as for others, that we take another look at "land use". I’d like to see us go back to the earliest studies of the Pacific Northwest and, because I live here, the Puget Sound. We superimposed our needs on this land and at first, I think that was okay. But when we grew too large by cutting down too many trees, etc., we ultimately ended up ~ have and still do ~ spending more on disaster control (which never really works here), disaster mitigation and disaster victim relief than we would have if we’d just sited ourselves more appropriately.

There seems to be this stubborn streak in some of us that makes it okay to get washed away and then rebuild on the same flood plain without, apparently, much thought to moving to higher ground. Grandpa Seamus would have accorded them that right under the U.S. Constitution but he would not have paid one dime in taxes to support, enable or perpetuate that particular brand of foolish thinking or behavior.

Most of all, I hope we remember that we got ourselves into this and if we really want things to be better, we will work together to get ourselves out. Several blogs ago, I issued a call for ideas in these regards and I’m renewing that call again.

Rusty

P.S. I want to take this opportunity to express my personal appreciation for the response I received from this last blog about Samantha and what she’s going through. I owe particular gratitude to another Native American, fellow Northern Californian and Vietnam veteran, Mr. Tom Two Crows. Thank you, Chief. I passed the word along.

A PRAYER FOR A PROMISE MADE

One of the young people in my life recently celebrated her 40th "escape from the gallows," as Mark Twain once put it. She sees it as a milestone in her life and considering what this very special and gifted individual has survived to see the sum of those sunsets and sunrises, I’m inclined to agree.

She’s an extremely gifted writer and a sensitive and caring human being. She’s quick to accept personal responsibility and slow to apportion it. She’s got a beautiful Native American face that can be read like an epic Jean Auel novel or experienced like Aaron Copland’s Ode to the Common Man.

She’s breathtakingly beautiful, this child of God. Intelligent and endowed with a sense of humor devoid of all shred of malice, she has, as well, an intimate understanding of this planet as the goddess Gaia and the same rapport with the deity which governs beyond.

She was a medic in the Persian Gulf War and before she shipped out to Operation Desert Storm, she asked me to talk about what I did in a long ago war of my own and how I survived it. I gave her the volume of poetry I’d written against the day one of the young people in my life faced this particular contingency and asked her to read it on the plane over.

That’s never worked for Samantha and it didn’t this time, either. So I read it to her. It helped her remember life up ‘til then. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes she cried and sometimes she stared at me without really seeing me.

We had popcorn and drank canned Coca Cola. We listened to music we’d experienced together a lot before. We broke out Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, her favorite movie and mine. I tucked her into bed that night and the illumination of my computer screen as I worked on cast her dreams as Technicolor shadows about and beyond me.

Samantha shipped out without ever hearing about my war experiences. They weren’t the same. I didn’t want her burdened with mine or doing this weird comparison and contrast when she needed to focus on what SHE was doing, tending to the hurt and dying.

She came back different. They all did. After a brief reunion, I didn’t hear from her for quite awhile. She said she needed time to work things out. I knew what she meant. I had that volume of poetry I wrote and the music we enjoyed together.

She’s come a far piece but she recently lost of third friend in Iraq. The hauntedness has returned to her eyes. Now when she sleeps, the shadows’ danse is macabre and violent. She cries out in her sleep for lost brothers and awakens disoriented and with deep shadows ringing her eyes.

She’s losing interest in her art, her music and her writing. She goes for aimless walks along the Ship Canal and ends up sitting in a coffeeshop, staring into space for a long time, remembering what she cannot forget, even in sleep.

She wants the American government to stop sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s tired of saying good-bye. Her numbers are legion in this country and they are just as much victims as the veterans of any other war the citizens of this nation have chosen to fight. Samantha knows what every combat veteran knows.

War is an atrocity with no real rules of engagement. And no one who takes a life ~ under any circumstances ~ is ever truly whole or happy again.

Soon, we will witness the inauguration of a man we voted into office because he said he will get us out of both places. I hope we hold him more responsible for that promise than we have some others we have elected to lead this nation both in peace and in war.

This young person, Samantha, is very special to me and I do not want to lose her again.

A WORKINGMAN'S MESSAGE OF HOPE

Hi again, folks. As I’m writing this, it’s early New Year’s Eve 2008 and I’m listening to a song whose lyrics begin:

There are people in this country who work hard every day,
Not for fame or fortune do they strive.
But the fruits of their labor are worth more than their pay
And it’s time a few of them were recognized

Hello Detroit auto workers. Let me thank you for your time.
You work a forty hour week for a living, just to send it on down the line.

Hello Pittsburgh steel mill workers.
You work a forty hour week for a living, just to send it on down the line.
This is for the one who swings the hammer driving home the nails…
Or the one behind the counter, ringing up the sales.
For the one who fights the fires, the one who brings the mail,
For everyone who works behind the scenes.

You can see them every morning, in the factories and the fields.
In the city streets and the quiet country towns,
Working together, like the spokes inside a wheel,
They keep this country turning around.

There are, right now, quite a few of us who recently did that but now don’t pack a lunch pail, punch a timecard and hit the line. I’m one of them. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we get overwhelmed by how slim the margin between a roof and a cold night’s sky seems.

We wonder how much we’re going to have to give up or let go of in order to keep from hitting the streets with a backpack and a prayer. For some of us, the hours between two a.m. and dawn are the hardest.

It’s tough for a lot of us to ask for help. We were raised to believe that a man’s not a man unless he’s got a job and can take care of his own. We’ve done a lot of different kinds of work ~ some of it real dangerous ~ to remain true to that definition of what a man is or should be. Some of us, thank God, though, have also survived the narrow interpretation of it.

I’ve personally had over these holidays, some cause to reflect on the other ways that a working stiff ‘takes care of his own’. We still get asked for advice about stuff; to fix things; evaluate a resume; deal with a late night panic attack; sit in on discussions and give my opinion. Stay up late at night with a troubled friend. Help fix a leaky roof. Share resources with a few others and sometimes to be there to celebrate the small victories over apparent adversity.

Whether the line needs us at the moment, they will again eventually. This isn’t going to last, no more than any other recession has. We’ve got a lot of people working on this and it’ll get solved. And whether the line needs us at the moment, our family, friends, neighbors, community and country still do. Nothing ever changes about that because it’s the legacy of a working stiff. It’s one of those immutable constants.

I’ve also studied some on the history of this country and been through about 60 years of it now myself. We, as Americans, are not always the brightest stars in the galaxy, no matter how much we’d like to believe otherwise. We’re the authors of about half of our own misery and sometimes we’re so stone flipping foolish we embarrass even the most patient and understanding of our gods.

We also, however, have a remarkable penchant for seeing the light and correcting for course. We elevate ourselves to the 222nd floor of the Tower of Babel, get knocked off by a strong breeze, get real sheepish about it and start working on being a little more humble and in touch with the rest of the sentient life on this planet.

We’re going to do that now too. Americans are insufferably arrogant at times but we are not stupid, nor are we lacking in compassion, decency and integrity. We just occasionally need a rough jolt to snap us back to a reality that is even older than the universe.

We’ve got some work to do, folks. It’s time we best got on then, eh?

Rusty

FROM SNOWBOUND SEATTLE

My Street

Seattle, Washington

Day 1

"The Storm of 2008"

Photo by Merritt Scott Miller

Well, hello again, from snowbound Seattle. It’s been real fun here the last week or so and I imagine a lot of you in other parts of the States, in Canada, the U.K., France and California can relate to that.

It doesn’t snow here that often and this is the most ambitious I’ve seen in the 18 years I’ve been here. There were two memorable ones before that but they were single storm occasions. We’ve been slammed by three so far and snow’s expected until Saturday.

We’re built on seven hills, two lakes and a bay. To our backs are the Cascade Mountains. To the west, across Elliot Bay and our portion of the Puget Sound, there are the Olympic Mountains of the peninsula of the same name. Beyond them lies the vast and mighty North Pacific. North and south, along the I-5 corridor, which runs from the Canadian Border to the Mexican, there is the Fraser River Valley of British Columbia, a funnel for the Chinooks which barrel in from the Arctic. To the south, the mighty Columbia River and then Oregon beyond.

I was partly raised in high mountain snow country and I’ve spent several winters deep in the Cascades, once in a rough timber and plywood shack with a corrugated tin roof and a Fraser potbelly stove for heat. No electricity, running water or telephone. Two Coleman lanterns and a Coleman stove for backup. An am/fm radio for company and the nearest town, Canyonville (pop. 500) about an hour away. I had a 1984 VW Bug and I worked as a ranch hand.

I’m no stranger to this kind of weather and I admire those who can adapt to it as well as my neighbors have. Something happened the other day that made me laugh and admire them both.

Our local NBC affiliate, KING5 (link) showed a predawn clip of a Seattle Police cruiser, with chains, make two unsuccessful attempts to drive up one of our seven hills. I admired the dedication involved but then I got to thinking. (Yep, you’re way ahead of me.) Burglars watch television too. And some of them come from places way colder than this.

Nope, the crime wave never happened, which tells me that even a burglar wouldn’t go out in weather like this. I’m from a family line that produced a couple of them and that is saying something. Trust me on this, folks.

It’s hit us hard, too. In some ways, but not in all. Our emergency services were prepared for this and I’ve got nothing but the highest of praise for them, my dig at the Seattle Police Department notwithstanding.

I live across a ship canal from Seattle, in the University (of Washington) District. Our mercantile establishment has not shut down and though we may not be able to drive to a mall or to one of the prestigious department stores downtown, we can still make a good Christmas and now we have another reason for cutting back besides being either laid off, let go or worried about our jobs. We can blame it on the weather. And knowing us, we probably will.

As of this writing, Sea-Tac Airport is closed, stranding thousands of people. Considering the weather where the majority of these flights come from or connect to, that’s not such a bad thing. Those folks in that airliner in Denver were very, very, very lucky. Nothing’s flying in and out of Seattle but nothing’s crashing and burning either.

Our buses still run, though not always on schedule. But it’s better than a couple of storms past when they ran on the freeway during a blizzard and then had to pull off finally and give passengers a choice between walking to a place where they could be picked up or waiting in a cold bus.

Nobody’s going to lose their job for not showing up to work or being late. We’re host to more than several international corporate operations here, a dozen reputable colleges and universities, some of the finest medical research and hospital care facilities in the world. Those who work at these places know how important it is to be there. Those who employ them know how important it is not to lose them. Adjustments are made.

It’s likely that before this is all over, this will also be our state’s Katrina, when it’s taken into consideration the massive flooding we experienced behind torrential rains in October and November. But I doubt it will be publicized as such and I would be very surprised if Governor Christine appeals to the federal government for help.

Despite all the industrialization Boeing and the Second World War, and Weyerhaeuser and Microsoft have brought to Seattle, we still haven’t been a city long enough to acquire the sophistication of New York, the Dixie charm of Atlanta, the totally rowdy and go for it attitude of Dallas-Ft. Worth, the dedication to the heartland of Chicago, the gritty glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and the "what box do you want me to think beyond now?" attitude of San Francisco.

We are, however, a small megalopolis which has more to teach about "community" than it has to learn. I suspect most of you can profoundly relate to that.

Take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

TWO GENTLEMEN FROM ILLINOIS: Springfield v. The Space Needle

Space Needle from Capitol Hill

Seattle, Washington

Photo by MS(R)M

Well, first, I want to thank those of you who responded to my invitation for a forum on hard times. I’m waiting now to see how much of that input is getting out there through the popular media and I’m very encouraged by what I see in these regards.

I’m also pleased with what President-Elect Obama has done so far. He’s keeping it simple and non-partisan. He’s choosing the best people for the job. I’m also enjoying his relationship with the media. He’s got a sense of humor and doesn’t mind making jokes at his own expense. It reminds me of what Grandpa Seamus used to say about paying attention to the wolf who shows its throat. I hasten to add that I see nothing predatory about Barack Obama. I admire his strength and a self-confidence. I also appreciate that he doesn’t talk up or down to me.

He seems, as well, to understand ~ perhaps better than any of us ~ that a several score percentage point victory in this election does not mean he has the mandate of the entire nation. I sense he knows full well that there are people waiting for him to falter, stumble and fall on his butt. I don’t believe that keeps him up late at night, though. He’s got too much to do to worry about failing. He’s also got a dynamite significant other and a real nice family. He’s probably been vetted more thoroughly than any president-elect since the McCarthy era and I appreciate not having to worry about surprises up the road. The man’s honest.

Apparently that’s not true of the Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and as bad as I feel about that, having friends back there, I don’t imagine I’m nearly as outraged, embarrassed, ashamed and generally extremely PO’d as they are. What got me was the sheer arrogance of the man. Chicago may yet be the Land of Daly but the capital of Illinois is Springfield, the Land of Lincoln. The fact that he joins a short list of crooked state chief executives probably doesn’t make the average Illinoian feel real good either. It’s been suggested that those who live in the Land of Lincoln have become cynical and ‘grease’ whatever palm which requires it. I, for one, don’t buy it. Not for a country heartbeat.

It’s also ironic, considering where I live. We’ve got several Port of Seattle employees up on fraud charges now and several executives have resigned. It didn’t go on very long and when it was discovered, it was acted on swiftly. One of our elected officials said today on the news, with reference to the Illinois governor scandal, "We don’t let that kind of thing happen in Seattle."

Well, no, but we’ve had Rodney King Verdict marches, the WTO riots, anti-war protests and marches, gay pride demonstrations and parades, et al ad human rights. For all our reputation as being Birkenstocks-and-wool-socks-in-winter-laid back, we’re just as reactive as anywhere else in the country.

We’re a community of busybodies and we pay attention, collectively, to everything that goes on. That’s also why it takes us longer to get things done. EVERYBODY not only has an opinion, it seems like everybody’s got a mouth to go with it. Nice part about that is, though, once we decide, it’s pretty much then just a matter of getting it done.

We’re also extremely patriotic. It generally rains on the Fourth of July but that has never compromised the fireworks. Primordial humans may have invented fire. Seattleites some while back learned the value of waterproof matches.
Until next time, then eh? And thanks for the ear.

Rusty