This here's an email I recently sent to my longtime (35-yr) pal up in Vancouver, who happens to be an ordained (and then unfortunately de-frocked) minister of the United Church of Canada. The (ex) Reverend David Logan also happens to be one of the best blues harmonica players in the world, so when I write to him, I do so with utmost respect. We're both a couple old progressive visionaries from way back, and I thought some Kossacks mighy enjoy a peek into our correspondance. I am absolutely sure the Reverend Dave wouldn't mind. Most of the stuff I email to him, I could say to everybody. Is that not the very nature of the internet?
"Good Golly Miss Molly -- there's only nine more hours left in the year... I better get busy and accomplish something! Numerologically speaking, 2008 is way more auspicious than 2007, which has always struck me as being an awkward sort of number.
People ask me sometimes, do you believe in numerology? Sure I do. I believe in astrology too, and the Tarot, the I Ching...even Creationism up to a point. I believe in Science, in God, the Power of Love, the Idiocy of Bush, and all sorts of other stuff. I'm a little skeptical about the Big Bang theory though.
How about yerself Rev? You got any beliefs left after all these years? And, are you gonna party tonight? Throw some of Little Walter's magic out to the starving masses? I sincerely hope so.
I'm not, or at least, I doubt that I will. If someone were to call and invite me somewhere I'd probably go, but otherwise I'm perfectly happy to celebrate the occasion alone. I LIKE to be alone, and generally I find solitude just as rewarding as, and more comfortable than society. Course I like society too, and you can't have one without the other, but I prefer my proportion to be about four to one, in favor of solitude.
Today I went to work at the job-site, which was absolutely deserted and EXTREMELY cold. Well below freezing bye. I worked about five hours or so, wrestling ladders in the snow, applying the "faux" oil base, with very good results.[Note: native is a painter who does faux work for rich people] Boy oh boy, those lintels and beams do look convincingly OLD, as if they'd been there for a century -- which is what Mr. and Mrs. Client want. And so (here is the point of the exercise) they'll be willing to shell out a thousand bucks to me, toute de suite, so that I can pay my dear landlady the $650 that I shall owe her tomorrow. Thus keeping my old adversary the wolf, at a relatively comfortable distance from my door.
Here in the USA next week, we are having the first (and very influential) primary elections, to decide which candidates will be running for President next November. For the Democrats, it looks like a neck-in-neck race between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. I am rooting for Obama. For the Republicans, it doesn't much matter who they nominate, because whoever it is, they are bound to lose in the general election. Dubya has made such a God-awful mess of everything, that the entire Republican Party is in a shambles, and all their candidates seem kind of stupid, if not outright depraved, and the electorate is pretty well sick of them. None too soon, says I.
Of course Republicans have been (and still are) busy rigging polls, but now they are being scrutinized as never before, thanks to the internet, and a rising liberal consciousness. I doubt that election shennanegans like what happened in the last two elections, will be able to occur in the next one.
Add to this the fact that strong elements within the US intelligence community and the US military have outright DEFIED Bush and the neocons. At the cost of their own careers, many of them. This neocon idea of America uber alles, they don't, all of them, buy it. High-ranking generals, high-ranking CIA officers, they are putting their feetsies down, and saying no, we ain't gonna do this.
So I would say that the political prognosis is...for the first time in quite a long while...hopeful.
There will be a Democratic President in 2009. Whether this President will be Obama, or Clinton, or Edwards, is open to question. Any one of these three will have opportunities to halt the nation's slide toward fascism, or better yet, to reverse it. But the Powers and Principalities that will be alligned against the next US President will be powerful and deadly. Make no mistake, a truly democratic President of the USA will be risking his/her very life.
Ciao, talk with ya next year --- Sky