A New Post!! Snarky Monday Musings

Well, after months of silence, I'm trying my hand again at writing in this blog. A couple of of folks out there in the ether have said they like my writing...so in a moment of channeling Sally Field ("...you like me...you really like me...!"), I'm back at the keyboard pounding away.

As we move into the fall of the year, the weather here in Southern California is just not cooperating. It remains hot (99F yesterday). I think the heat is beginning to get to me. I feel the snarky rise up within me, and I begin to wonder about stuff...

On the economy...

• I wonder how much easier the painful economic restructuring we are beginning would be if our President had made a habit out of treating us like adults and telling us the truth instead of trying to scare us into his plans...?
• I wonder if the economic crisis and restructuring will lead to the end of the nonprofit organization as we currently know it?
• I wonder if anyone in the church is asking that question?

On politics...

• I wonder if John McCain likes anybody...anybody...except John McCain?
• I wonder just how effective Barack Obama would be as a President if chewed somebody (anybody!) out once?
• I wonder what happened to Joe Biden?
• I wonder...Sarah Palin...WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!?
• I wonder what happened to all those small government, mainstreet, common sense Republicans I grew up with? It looks like all the Republicans I know value expanding government at every level (including small towns), and deride serving in the community to rescue jobs and restore dignity to neighborhoods.
• I miss Hubert Humphrey. The guy who rebelled against southern racist Democrats at the 1948 convention, and 20 years later came within a hair of becoming President...a "Happy Warrior" they called him. A man who would thunder against injustice and then work his butt off to change things. I wonder what the Democratic Party would be in America if we had more Hubert Humphreys...?

On sports...

• I wonder if once in my life we could have an I-5 World Series (Dodgers vs. Angels)? I sure would like to see Joe Torre and Mike Scioscia manage against each other for all the marbles.
• I wonder if the Chargers, Trojans, and Bruins could ever learn to win the little games?
• I wonder if OU can stay #1 in the College Football Polls?

A book worth reading this week:
Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- and How It Can Renew America, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Agree or disagree with Friedman -- he is still a must read. To ignore his books is the public policy equivalent of playing ostrich and sticking your head in the sand...