I'm trying to get two pictures up here:  this one and a close up of the pond with rain drops.  I hoped that the downpour would show up, but alas, it did not.  Nevertheless you can see where I go these days for peace and quiet.  Last night, walking the dogs in the dark, I could hear crickets (cool weather coming) and the wind in the trees. I looked around and breathed in the peacefulness – sometimes you just have to stop focusing on the negative and start looking at the positive.

I've been stuck in the negative, and I've exacerbated it by watching politics full time.  Politics are out of my hands – My vote is, well my vote and that's about all I have these days.  I'm saddened by the notes I'm getting from folks around the world who are watching with unbelieving eyes what is currently going on here (and are sympathetic with my take on it).  Is America stupid enough to elect more of the same?  They didn't say that, I did.  Well, here's what the Washington Post says this morning (Marc Fisher, a columnist):  "Most people I spoke to readily conceded that Palin lacks experience with or knowledge of many important national and foreign issues.  But, as Allison mcGarvey, a teacher [a teacher!  how bad does that scare those of you who have kids in public schools?] who lives in Stafford County, said, Plain is "a courageous woman, and what she doesn't know, she can learn quickly.  let's face it, no president knows all the issues.  anyway, I don't see how a condidate can pick one stand and just stick to it.  The world situation changes every day.  It's their moral and ethical background that's important."

Wow.  She's this woman's ideal of moral and ethical.  Wasn't it bad enough that Bush bragged about being a "c" student at Yale?  Now we're gushing over someone who holds one standard for herself (please this is a family matter – that's the pregnancy)  and another for everyone else:  your pregnancy or that of your child is a matter for the law to decide.  When did hypocrisy become moral and ethcial – did I miss something?

Fischer continues:  "This is where culture wars, identity politics and self-suffocating academic theories of deconstructionism have led us:  authority is suspect.  Experience is corrupting. Ignorance is strength?

"Next will be 'war is peace.' Or have we already heard that one?"

Okay – I wasn't going to go there, but there it is. 

So I'm beading because that takes my mind off all things political (since I'm not working in clay because I have a grand backlog of work that takes up a lot of space to store – necklaces, earrings and bracelets take up hardly any room at all) and I need to use up what I have before I can buy anything new (my own rule).  Eventually I will have to photograph these separately, even though I'm not sure that I have anywhere to post them except my website (although I did get a letter from Niche that, since I participated in the Philadelphia Buyer's Market this year I get a free page on their new, exciting (their word) website…can't hurt).

I also got in my postcards with my WholesaleCrafts.com info on them and am mailing them to targeted shops.  If all of this doesn't work, well, there's always working at Mcdonalds.  Thanks Bush, for this lovely economy…um, let's see now, Clinton left us with a surplus in the budget and Bush leaves us with what?  A half-trillion dollar deficit?  A housing crisis brought on by deregulation (you know Republicans love the "free market" which is a nice concept but doesn't exist – I've had enough economics to know that.  And oh, by the way, economics is an Art, not a science – as an artist with almost a minor in Economics – don't ask, I didn't plan it that way – that puts me in a good place to be able to judge these things).

thought for the day: (this comes from Daughter who thinks I need to "lighten up, Ma.")

the other day I went downtown to run a few errands.  I went into the local coffee shops for a snack.  I was only there for about 5 minutes, and when I cam out, there was this cop writing out a parking ticket.  I said to him, "Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break?"  He ignored me and continued writing the ticket.  His insensitivity annoyed me, so I called him a "Pig."  He glared at me and then wrote out another ticket for having worn tires.  So I proceeded to call him a "doughnut eating idiot."  He finished the 2nd ticket and put it on the windshield with the first.  Then he wrote a third ticket when I called him a moron in blue.  This went on for about 20 minutes.  The more I talked back to him the more tickets he wrote.  Personally, I didn't really care.  I came downtown on the bus, and the car that he was putting the tickets on had one of those bumper stickers that said, "McCain in '08".  I try to have a little fun each day now that I'm retired.  The doctor tells me that it's important for my health.