"Mrs." Newhart

I remember reading a TV Guide article penned by a youngish actress talking about getting an early role. They asked me if I could ride a horse, said she. Of course, was the reply. When she got the part, the first thing she did was go out and learn to ride a horse.

Woman, who roared before it was kewl.

Rest in peace, Suzanne Pleshette. Or shake up the good ol' boys Upstairs....

The Invisible Ones

This month we’ve learned, those of us who live in Prairie Country, that we are the Invisible Ones. Oh, we suspected as much, the year the map company left off North Dakota completely. Much laughter about that in Minnesota and Montana and South Dakota.

Now it’s “official”—the imprimateur of the media declared it so. First, National Geographic, with their January article on the vast, dying emptiness of the plains. And ABC Nightly News reinforced the vast emptiness with its Persons of the Week presentation Friday evening. Yep, we’re a kind-hearted bunch out here in Prairie Country, blonde, red-cheeked, hmmmm, but let’s keep that camera on the vast open spaces and an abandoned chicken coop or two or maybe a rancher on horseback herding cattle. What other stereotypes can we come up with?

Noticably, neither National Geographic nor Nightly News covered the significant Microsoft campus in Fargo, nor the other strong forces of our economy…oil, agribusiness, high-tech. They did do what the media does too often.

Comes up with a storyline and then fits reality around it.

Been a lot of that happening this political season. The storyline on the Democrats side is the two-person horserace-in-the-ring mano-a-mana Clinton Obama…. Oh wait, you say there are more than two persons in the race? And that’s not even counting the ones who’ve already dropped out? Who got more attention for quitting than they got during their campaigns?

Meanwhile on the Republican side, media’s covering the whole big circus, down to 5% Rudy. And so far, the talk is of the big mix-it-up anybody could get the nomination. No Invisible Ones there. But there’s harbingers on the horizon. Rush Limbaugh’s talking up his man Mitt, who just happens to own the Clear Channel radio network that, surprise, surprise, carries his show. Limbaugh’s “base” are Invisible Ones, people who feel disenfranchised, and he’s preyed on them for years. Maybe they’ll finally start to wake up to the reality that he’s just a hired gunslinger and his bullets are words. A lot of fancy-dancy spinning the guns before slippin’ ’em back in the holsters, but still, just a hired gunslinger. Who doesn’t shoot straight.

There are other hired gunslingers out there, too. Pundits, pollsters, opinionizers. And they don’t shoot straight, either. Bill O’Reilly spins a good yarn like he has lately about homeless veterans, and doesn’t let the facts get in his way. Have you ever noticed how much Billo resembles the town Sheriff in The Unforgiven? Oh, he’s got a man’s dreams…that nice house with the porch to watch the sunset. Makes you long for Jack Webb or Clint Eastwood to come along and straighten things out.

Politicians aren’t immune…watching the tag team of new lobbying partners and former Senators John Breaux and Trent Lott these days, one can imagine they’re busily thinking about their porches and how big they can make ’em…wonder if they do any thinking about The Invisible Ones back in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans?

Even the “journalists” who take themselves very seriously don’t give a whole lot of thought…or ink…or minutes…or bytes…to The Invisible Ones.

David Broder chides there’s not a CEO running on the Democratic side while touting all the CEO experience on the Republican side…totally blocking out that there’s a passle of CEOs running things right now…and look how they’ve run America into the ground.

Chris Matthews finally grudgingly had to apologize to Hillary Clinton for remarks on his show—hey, Chris, you need a list? You missed a few others. Invisible Ones. Maybe Tom Brokaw’s hectoring that reporters should get the facts before jumping to conclusions as was done in reporting the New Hampshire primary will take hold. We like to think Brokaw’s prairie roots are still nurturing his spirit.

There’s an invisible candidate right now, John Edwards. The deliberate blacking out of coverage of his campaign, his leadership on issues, would be laughable for its cartoon-like blatancy…if we weren’t all in such unfunny circumstances these days. Chris, you and the rest of the media owe us an apology for robbing us of the information to make intelligent voting decisions. Your one saving grace is you were man enough to tell us you get it. We hope it tempers your commentary in ways that make you stronger. We’ll be the better for it.

And we know we’ll never see that kind of stand-up manhood from the likes of the Faux News crowd, the ultimate example of making their own storyline…and making up their own facts.

Because there’s another Invisible One out there. The voter. And more and more the voter will show up, and be heard. We saw it in Iowa. We saw it in New Hampshire. Will we see it again today in Nevada and South Carolina? And further down the campaign trail? I think so.

Prairie Postcard: Quarterbacks or cheerleaders?

Well, the economy's finally caught the attention even of the petulant fur-robe wearer-in-chief. Listening to him tell us about his due consideration of the sit-che-ation this morning surrounded by his handlers, all I can think is: can it be 2009 soon enough! [You want boxing metaphors, Tweety? I give you the punchdrunk prez.]

For the last seven years we've had a bunch of sidelines standing cheerleaders pushing the laissez-unfair style of capitalism that has put this country into recession. That would be parasite and pirates.

It matters who we elect next fall. It matters who survives the primary season and emerges the Democratic nominee. I for one have had enough of the cheerleader in chief...frankly, you'd have to consume a keg o'beer singlehandedly to believe a word that spills from this guy's sullen lips.

I'm ready for the progressive change. I'm ready for a quarterback...capable of winning...and leading. I'm ready for Edwards. How 'bout you?

Today's the day...put your progressive change in the right place. Small change, large change...we must be part of the change.

Prairie Postcard: The "R" Word

This morning Don Imus asked: are we in recession?
Jim Cramer replied: Yes, of course we are.

There you go. We all know it. Pretending won't make it go away. Now, we can deal with it. And, as Cramer added, it will be hard.

Weird thing about life. It gets hard sometimes. The first step to solving a problem, to dealing with an addiction, is admitting you have it.

They went on to discuss the subprime market, Imus asking for a simple explanation, and Cramer supplied it. Pretty much all comes down to "skin in the game"--and haven't we heard that before. Those naughty homeowners who had no skin in the game--got those 100% loans with no money down and no ability to repay in many cases.

Except, wait, somebody else had no skin in the game either. And that's the first lender, because First Lender turns right around and sells the loan bundled with a whole bunch of others and finally they end up on the desks of places like Citicorp and... well, how long do you think it will be before these guys go whining to the government for a bailout because they're so vital to the economy....

Seems to me a little kitchen table economics--call it the "Get Real Principle"-- needs to be exercised every step of the way. Starting with common sense regulations for the lending industry so the parasites and pirates don't screw things up for everybody from the homeowner to the global economy.

PS's PS: Speaking of Get Real Principles--principles, how's that for a concept!--it doesn't get more real than 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus and his microcredit program. You can learn more about that on Saturday afternoon when Firedoglake hosts a Book Salon conversation with Mr. Yunus about Creating a World without Poverty. Whether you lurk or participate, I promise you will be enriched. Don't miss it!

Bridge over Troubled Waters

We’re looking for a bridge these days—oh, not a bridge to the 21^st Century. That’s been pretty abysmal for most folks so far. And not a tongue kiss or handhold to the family Saud…[you’ll have no trouble finding those pictures on the web, not dragging them into the garden this day.]

Every time we go to the gas pump, we’re at the mercy of that “bridge” between 9/11 terrorists and the black gold that funds them.

We’re looking for another bridge…a bridge buffeted by the fogs of fate, yet still able to stand strong, sure. And we surely need him. Because we have been buffeted, too, these past seven years, caught between Iraq and a hard place that is the American economy.

Our bridges are in sorry shape…real bridges collapsing in rivers, others so ruinous they are shut down.

Campaigns that will need to bridge their differences once the primary season is past are now being sorely tested as well.

This week we have an opportunity for some bridge building… Will we build it strong? It’s up to each one of us. We are the bridge-builders … and we will be the bridge users. So, it’s up to us…Will we use the strong steel of our forefathers to build? Or lay back and say let someone else do it?

The buzz is already building out there on the web, launched by the folks at DailyKos, but a swarm of others of us join in the call cutting through the fog. Won’t you join in? Support the Edwards campaign on Friday, January 18. And today as well can’t hurt….

Someone else is dying for us in Iraq. Or coming back shattered in mind or body. For the foolishness of a President whose Napoleonic ego drives him to fearmonger and false promises.

Someone else is watching their neighborhoods boarded up and ruined…by the waters driven by the winds of selfishness and greed. In New Orleans. In Michigan.. In cities where “subprime” destroys lives so rich men may dance. Dance, Karl. Dance, David. Dance, dance, dance.

Someone else is dying on the sidewalk in front of the Bishop’s house in Fargo Sunday night while the city races to finish up a new shelter…homeless, needy, in despair? Chronic addiction, transient lifestyle, they say. It’s someone else.

Until it’s not.

Time, past time, to take a stand. Build a bridge on solid ground to span the troubled waters and unite again this nation divided. It’s an epic battle…and we are the nuts and bolts that will build the bridge…if we have the will.

UPDATE: You'll find commentary updated on the 1/18 campaign for Edwards at DailyKos ... or just stop by the Edwards site direct and help build this bridge. Now would be good.

Defragging your Life

When is the last time you defragged? Not your computer, yourself. We move along at warp speed, taking care of tasks, taking care of family and friends…when’s the last time we remembered to take care of ourselves?

I’m defragging this weekend. Out here in the tall timber, where the internet hookup is dinosaur dial-up, so slow that I’m not even sure these words much less a picture will upload unless I drive 20 miles into town in search of wifi.

And there you have it—the excuse looming—even in defragging the sneaky weasel of “I’m so busy….”

The little bits and bytes and documents and corrupted files and glitches and everything else that goes into making each day every once in a while need to be dragged back into order and clarity and function.

Doing that takes an effort. It takes shutting down all the programs and plans and schedules and saying, wait. Time-out. With a purpose.

Defragging can be as easy and uncomplicated sometimes as simply closing your eyes, tuning out the background noise and just breathing deep. Or it can be as complicated as packing up and heading out to the Amazon for a few weeks. Or climbing Mt. Everest…once upon a time. Now even that’s gotten complicated and fragged with the flotsam of the climbers and the bodies of the ones who didn’t make it.

Saluting Sir Edmund Hillary this snowy tall timber morning. May his heavens be filled with mountains and the vigor to climb them.

The architect author Sarah Susanka in her Not So Big House books gives voice to defragging as a model for architecture and home concepting. Reading her, I learned of making an “away place” within your home.

Whether you call it defragging or going to your away place or journaling or climbing Mount Everest…or just closing your eyes and being in your sanctuary of the mind…you’ll be the better for it. Your life will be the better for making those times of easing back and letting all the flotsam and clutter clear away, restoring a stronger foundation for whatever may lie ahead.

Go ahead, start your defragging now…first, close your eyes….

Tiny Bubbles

Now that the primary campaign season appears to be settling in for the long haul, some say [okay, it was Bob Schieffer this morning on Imus so it's reaching beyond the blogosphere] that perhaps it'll go all the way to both conventions.

At last, a cure for all the economic woes that are quietly getting a foothold... worried about the subprime mess? Fear not. We're in recession...we're going into recession...Goldman Sachs says. Merrill Lynch notes... Worry no more. The burst of the bubble in housing, in the financial markets, in the tech sector, in the auto industry?

Not to worry, a new bubble's building.

Disputed battles for nominees guarantee lotsa teevee advertising, and jobs, jobs, jobs, for pundits and pollsters and consultants and all the other hangers-on to the body politic. And think of all the employment for the blue collar makeup artists now that HDTV's in play. Yep, the longer the campaign season extends, the better for everyone, right?

Schieffer does note how much more exciting it would be to have both parties forced to decide their nominees at their conventions instead of running the conventions as infomercials. True that.

The perpetual campaign, America is back!

Photo credit: freefoto.com