We Are Called to Garden

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So did you join all the hoo-hah about Obama's first 100 days? A lotta hype and an equal lotta hyper-partisanship and then on to the next insta-media topic. I guess that's still the "swine" flu. Or maybe it'll be the car industry today. Or whatever is Michele Bachmann's latest lie masquerading as comic relief.... Hoot-Smalley? Really? Stuart would be so proud.

Amid all the chaff, there's some organic gardening going on. Seeds that were planted during the Obama presidential campaign have begun sprouting all over, although we have yet to realistically judge whether we've actually got a crop worth harvesting.

We've seen on the macro national level that change can be achieved. And from state to state we've seen that as well. But there's much hoeing and weed pulling and tilling of the political landscape still to be done.

Oh, yes, some of that change is the sheer large arc that slowly swings back and forth, conservative to progressive, wet season to dry. [We could use some of that dry hereabouts!]

But more of it is change we can control ourselves.

Case in point, here in North Dakota there's a big flap about Measure 3, which citizens voted for last fall and now small cadre of Republican legislators are trying to functionally gut. Measure 3 says a citizen panel would control the funds from the tobacco settlement instead of the legislature, that funding would be spent on tobacco education and stop-smoking programs instead of diverted by a small group of politicians.

Are they tied to the tobacco lobby? Are they drunk on the power of longstanding Republican control of the State Legislature? Are they convinced they are smarter, holier, more righteous than the voters and the citizens of North Dakota?

Does it really matter?

What's increasingly clear is they do not listen to their constituency, they listen to themselves and special interests. They do not learn from history [the recent national downfall of the Republicans] because they think they are immune.

They smugly cling to the taproot of incumbency, digging deep into the soil of crony, martoony-fed smoke-filled roomies.

For that there is only one cure, and that is to either vote them personally out of office... Or to vote enough of their like-minded legislators out of office so that they are no longer in the majority.

Weeding out takes work. It's not an event, one day in a voting booth. It's a week-in, week-out chore requiring the tools of democracy: the sunshine of transparency and dedicated workers determined to bring in a good harvest.

Recently President Obama said "We are called to govern." For me, I prefer to think "We are called to garden."

This country will produce its better harvest when the weeds are hoed out, voted out. And we keep tilling the soil—week-in, week-out—through wet season or dry, ever mindful of whether the seeds we've planted are bearing good fruit.

President Obama gets stellar grades for his first 100 days. How about the rest of us?

~ Sandy Huseby, blogging as Prairie Sunshine

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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Welcome to Prairie Country

No passports required, but you’re welcome to leave a calling card in comments.

Lots of changes are going on these days in the blogworld. The beauteous ladies of Firedoglake are takin’ it up a notch. Skyscrapers and wide boulevards and streetlights for the sidewalks. They’ve already inspired some of the regular denizens to venture forth themselves. Egregious midwifed this scribe from the print world to the voice of blogging. Snarkassandra dove right into her own blog with the assuredness of a longtime pro. TRex has a brand new treehouse. FDL’s built bridges to Blue America and Emptywheel’s regular digs.

Out there beyond the blogworld, the seasons are changing as well. Imus is back on the radio-teevee-satellite world. [DirectTV 379, just sayin’]. Cafferty’s back in CNN’s Situation Room [what? He doesn’t have his own time slot yet?]…from vacation, or the booktour, or the best of both.

Politics are heating up. After complaining about John Edwards holding Hillary’s feet to the fire, Hillary’s now saying “it’s beginning to look a lot like”….not Christmas….

We’re missin’ Jon and Stephen and the rest of the late night guys…and hoping for strong positive results for our colleagues fighting the good fight for all writers via the WGA strike.

Think of Prairie Country as an oasis, a garden space, a rest stop amid all the hurly burly of the toobz. We’ll move at a slower pace here. Like the splashing water fountain you hear behind the walls, and maybe only have captured a small slice of view through a creaky old wooden gate. But this portal’s ready for you to slip through anytime.

The season changes are vivid here in Prairie Country. We’ve learned life can change in an instant in a delivery room [joy of all joys] or a doctor’s office. We’ve learned about survival. We’ve learned about traveling across the globe and sampling the best of Marrakesh and Rome and Granada and Mazatlan and…now we’re learning the best of life’s inner journeys.

Here in this oasis/cloister/way station we’ll take a more languid look at the world, but no less thoughtful than we are challenged by those who have already blazed trails before us.

Sit a spell. We plan to offer food for thought Tuesdays and Saturdays and when the mood strikes. The paths in this garden meander a bit amid the evergreens and understory greenery, perennials will thrive here, and occasional more planned annuals of theme and conversation. There may be hidden treasures amid comments to come, ideas that send our garden growing in new directions. I won’t promise it’ll always be sunny. Like life, gardens have their thorns and thunderstorms, too.

How can there be a cloistered garden amid the vast expanses of the Prairie? Well, I think it’s the shelters, the sanctuaries that feed our body and spirit to sustain us as we venture out under broad skies and down unfamiliar byways.

So seek out the hammock under the stand of red pines. Or down that path there’s a reflecting pool, long and broody shaded as evening in the Alhambra. But water lilies have found their way there and send up smiling white lotus faces. There are inglenooks and benches, and if you look closely, you’ll find the quiet inner spaces of your own heart, in sanctuary here for a brief time or a long stay. Do come back again and again.

We’ll offer up a little food for thought as you come through the gate and the topics will likely be eclectic as we all are; there are no harsh blacks and whites, good’n’bads to be found here. Rather, the misty drift of colors and spirit, hopefully softened a bit around the edges.

Prairie Country is a state of mind—but it’s also a state of heart. And the sure steady heartbeat is what carries us all along and informs us and colors our lives.

Welcome to Prairie Country—leave your thoughts, take along your dreams and inspirations and motivations to nurture the garden within your own heart. See you back again soon.