Red White & Blue

Red

White

Blue
I am often torn about what to use this blog space for. We live in the beautiful, cloudy paradise of the Olympic Peninsula. We watch eagles soar; rabbits hop around our 2 1/2 acres; our greenhouse overflows with edibles. We have a lush garden, a rainwater collector, and dreams of more self-sufficiency. We photograph the hummingbirds at our feeders, and hang a new thistle-seed feeder for the American Goldfinches that have adopted our backyard as their own. But, this beauty always seems a stark contrast to the world outside. I often want to rant about that world. Its bloody, torturous reality floods us from every other blog and news report we read.

Kathy over at Freshman 44 often constructs the most inventive list of ten things, and I have been so inspired to scream my ten requests to my country:

1. Turn off the reality shows and gaze at the staggering reality around you.
2. Demand an end to torture in our name.
3. Demand an explanation of the Downing Street Memo.
4. Demand that automobiles be made with higher fuel efficiency, and stop complaining about the price of oil. We are fighting a war so you can drive your SUVs to Walmart.
5. Protect your environment, even if it means accepting a "lower" standard of living.
6. Ask questions about the national deficit, and why we have tax cuts during a war, and what the deficit means for the economic future of our country.
7. Pray in your churches and stop preying on the constitution.
8. Demand a single-payer national health care system.
9. Let our gay brothers and lesbian sisters get married.
10.Impeach the president and imprison the rest of the criminals (the Nixon legacy lives on) in his administration.

Often I am reminded of the line from the NY Times Magazine article by Ron Susskind where some sinister Bush insider says that they are busy creating reality, while we are left to contend with it. I say, let's create a reality that has these psychopathic sycophants behind bars where they belong.

Okay, rant over.