I want this car, and I want it now!

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Thursday November 13, 2008 · 8:17 AM PST

2008/11/13 · 08:17

Imagine that the auto industry had the capital (and would use it) to build cars that customers could afford - cars that don't run on the overpriced gasoline that the customers cannot afford. Imagine a world where we could save our auto industry without further destroying our habitable climate!

I am not an expert on either the car industry or even alternative vehicles; although I peruse them almost daily on the Internet, looking for my future wheels. I'm going to take the first opportunity to lose my current guzzler and stop pouring my money into Exxon-Mobile's record-breaking quarterly bonuses. For once I'd like to see the oil companies in financial trouble... instead of everybody else.

And so after much nosing around online, THIS is the car that I want. The only reason I can fathom that this car isn't already on the roads... is the power of the Big Oil.

Detroit Automakers, Paulson, Congress, President-Elect Obama, and whoever else is involved in the process of saving the American Auto Industry: If you build these, we will come.

feduphoosier

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Tuesday November 11, 2008 · 7:43 PM PST

2008/11/11 · 19:43

Dear President Bush:

At the behest of my late friend and fellow Hoosier (yes we also claim him) Abraham Lincoln -- I believe you would know him as a former occupant of your current residence, The White House -- I am sitting before this keyboard to offer his reflections on your historic unpopularity.

(Cross-posted on ePluribus)

feduphoosier

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Tuesday October 28, 2008 · 11:22 AM PDT

2008/10/28 · 11:22

My husband and I were driving around Bloomington this past weekend, and couldn't help but notice two huge, wooden signs posted in front of two homes in different areas of the city. Both advertised upcoming home auctions. We were horrified by the size of the signs and talked about how we hoped the people had already moved out and didn't have to suffer through that added humiliation.

We lost our business, and then (because we had spent all of our money trying to save it) our home in the upheaval following 9/11. We've been there. It's a nightmare.

Then we mused aloud about how fun it would be - if we had the money - to buy a foreclosed house at an auction and hand it back to the owner.

Just like Texan Marilyn Mock apparently did for a total stranger at a home auction Saturday... probably around the time we were having our little 'Santa' fantasy.

feduphoosier

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Saturday September 01, 2007 · 2:34 AM PDT

2007/09/01 · 02:34

Tonight I sat down with great expectations to watch my neighbor John Mellencamp on Real time with Bill Maher. Mellencamp is very quiet about his political leanings here in Indiana; but his music is the voice of the quiet, tolerant Midwestern liberal living in a 'red state;' trying always to cut through the propaganda that seems to hold our neighbors in a trance. When I heard him describing the 'Great Swindle,' I wanted to leap off the couch and cheer.

I was listening to him just now explain, at Bill's request, about 'what is going on in the middle part of America.'

Bill commented on John's patriotism (without judging it, but...) and John commented that people in this part of the country are very patriotic. Yes, that is true. And as he also pointed out... the ones that do vote for a 'Fred Thompson in his red pickup truck' are naive.

As John put it, they tell the truth; so why should they doubt someone else's word? And what's wrong with being naive?

feduphoosier

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Tuesday August 28, 2007 · 9:10 PM PDT

2007/08/28 · 21:10

Alternate title: Going to the dogs after Katrina

Like many countless other Americans from all over the country, I somehow found a way down to Louisiana after Katrina. I wasn't trained as a medic or in rescue, I wasn't a 'trained Red Cross volunteer,' and so they wouldn't take me. My car barely ran and I had no money. I have a chronic health problem (but I had been doing a lot of walking, so I hoped...)

Honestly; it hurt too much to watch. Watching the slow drowning death of New Orleans broke my heart more badly than anything I have ever witnessed before, in my entire life. In fact, my heart is still broken. I can tell; right now, as I am sitting here writing this. The feelings are just as raw as they were two years ago. It has forever changed me, remade me, and I will never be the same person I was before the storm blew ashore two years ago today.

Sometime shortly before Rita, I was in my car and on my way to Louisiana to volunteer in an animal rescue shelter.

"Wade in the water
Wade in the water children
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water"

feduphoosier

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Saturday August 11, 2007 · 9:36 PM PDT

2007/08/11 · 21:36

After writing my original diary, in which I asked my late friend Abraham Lincoln if he might speak on my behalf concerning our loss of constitutional protections, I mentioned my - our frustration with this endless war, and our president's incomprehensible statements in it's defense.

As it turns out, Mr. Lincoln has plenty of experience with stubborn, clueless presidents and 'endless wars.' Recalling his own, frustrating days in Congress, he will now address the members of the 110th Congress on the subject of 'mentally perplexed' presidents... and war.

I have once again offered to take this letter down as dictation (I serve at the pleasure of the president.) My words will be identifiable as regular type; anything written by Mr. Lincoln will be in

blockquotes;

with the addition that I will make use of strikeouts to enhance readability ( ~~Mexico~~ becomes Iraq; it should be clear.)

Sincerely, feduphoosier

feduphoosier

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Friday August 10, 2007 · 10:38 PM PDT

2007/08/10 · 22:38

As I have had no luck at all in my frequent correspondences with my congressman and senators, I have finally come to the sad conclusion that I am simply not important enough, and my opinion is of no consequence.

In light of my apparent uselessness, I approached my late friend Abraham Lincoln and have asked him if he might use his considerable respect, leverage and mastery of the English language to write a letter to Congress on my behalf.

Due to his... inability to use a keyboard, and slight confusion as to the workings of the internets, I have offered to take this letter down as dictation, and he has allowed me the option of slipping in a few words of my own: the agreement being that I attribute his own words via use of

blockquotes.

Sincerely, feduphoosier

feduphoosier

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Saturday July 28, 2007 · 1:11 AM PDT

2007/07/28 · 01:11

Warning

I had a dream, of darkness and despair;
And in that blackness I did see a man
And he, when saw me, reached out for my hand.
I knew the face, the countenance so bleak
And I: I could not face those anguished eyes.

He’s pacing now, his hands behind his back
His shoulders hunched, his agitation clear;
"Our Constitution tossed aside – and why?"
Dark eyes, deep pools of wisdom and of grief;
In quiet desperation search my face;

And I, reminded of the ponderous price,
The heavy weight he bore to keep his faith;
To save the Union and restore the peace,
and now he does not rest, even in death,
But brings a dire warning for our time:

feduphoosier

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Thursday July 26, 2007 · 10:10 PM PDT

2007/07/26 · 22:10

Would you walk away from $5 billion to protect and preserve your tribal land, if you were the last remaining member of your clan? I guess that depends on who you are, how you think, and what you value:

"This is my country. Look, it's beautiful and I fear somebody will disturb it," he says, waving his arm across a view of rocky land surrounded by Kakadu National Park, where the French energy giant Areva wants to extract 14,000 tonnes of uranium worth more than $5 billion.

Jeffrey Lee is the sole remaining member of the Djok clan (which must be a lonely fate.) He alone is the custodian and protector of his tribal land, the Koongarra. "I'm not interested in money. I've got a job; I can buy tucker; I can go fishing and hunting. That's all that matters to me," said Lee, who has vowed that he will never allow the ecologically sensitive land to be opened up to mining. Not at any price.

Even $5 billion.

feduphoosier

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Tuesday July 17, 2007 · 1:38 AM PDT

2007/07/17 · 01:38

Over a hundred years ago, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the most stirring speeches in American history:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Surely the American Civil War as a time of much greater fear and terror than anything we have ever known in our sheltered, spoiled lifetimes.

And yet President Lincoln never demanded that the people BE AFRAID, never cut Congress out of the loop. He created a bipartisan cabinet of brilliant minds to guarantee that the best interests of the nation would be upheld, even at the cost of his own personal comfort (many of them hated him, and openly looked down on him because of his humble background.)

This was no rich men's pawn. This was a president. This man was one of us; and he believed in us.

feduphoosier

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Monday June 18, 2007 · 6:42 AM PDT

2007/06/18 · 06:42

Last weekend my husband and I found ourselves watching a PBS special about the life and music of John Denver.

I haven't thought about him in a long, long time. I suppose in these cynical days, people will laugh at me for writing this. I miss the simple innocence of childhood, and his poetry of wild places.

"Life is old there, older than the trees"

When I was little, John Denver was my 'nature bard:' his songs, a soundtrack for my wanderings in the overgrown fields, forests and rocky creeks of Southern Indiana.

Even as a small child, I connected with the words to 'Country Roads.' The lyrics resonated with me, and conjured up pictures in my mind. "Dark and dusty, painted on the sky:" I could see that. In those days there were no Sony Walkmen, iPods or CD players, so I'd sing to myself as I swayed in the wind, high above our house in the branches of a towering sycamore.

I loved the woods. I spent hours - entire days wandering the nearby fields and forests alone, rather than playing with other kids in my neighborhood. Something in those trees, in the forest fed my soul. I was less alone among the branches, birds and wild things than I ever was with people.

feduphoosier

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Tuesday June 05, 2007 · 12:38 PM PDT

2007/06/05 · 12:38

Anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It is very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by it.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Anger... or anguish? Or does one morph into the other? Are there times when anger is appropriate, and if so, how to keep it from eating us alive? How to remain impartial when the issues at hand are the survival of our democracy, the sanctity of our Constitution - and the survival of life on our planet? When faced with very real abuse of power and a total lack of regard for the will and the good of the people... how can one remain unmoved?

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I want this car, and I want it now!

A. Lincoln: Concerning the Greater Good

Stranger buys foreclosed home, gives it back to owner

My neighbor, John

Riding out Rita in a Katrina animal shelter

A. Lincoln: Endless war

Yours truly, A. Lincoln

A dream, a warning

Would you walk away from $5 billion to save the land?

Perished from the earth

John Denver is dead

I cannot be impartial