The Change we Never Believed in

I'm handling the political news. Dragonrane has other news. As you can read here Obama has caved on the public option of his health care reform package. I never counted myself as a supporter of his ideas, but I have to admit I am a little disappointed in him for not pressing through with it.

This was a huge talking point of his and to see him give it up simply because its largely unpopular is disconcerting. If he gives in on things he seems to really believe in then what else could be cast aside as his term wears on? It brings to mind all sorts of questions of if he wants to be a popular president or a productive one and what's he going to do if he can't be both?

I have a few more thoughts, but I'll let others have a go first.

Hi

Hi everyone, yes, we're alive. Even me. I had some issues with Medicaid and pills and things, but I'm still here. I was in the comic store today and found something so odd I had to get it. Here's a photo I took.
















And the variant cover that I missed out on,

Barack the Barbarian. Am I the only one who thinks the hero worship of him is going a bit overboard?

I'm told the crying will stop in a year or two...or four

Eric Christopher Edmont was born Tuesday June 16th 2009. He's got toes and fingers and lungs that work and everything. Wow.
I would have updated sooner, but it feels like I've spent the last week rushing in circles and laying in awake in bed. Right now I should be leaving for work. So bye. The Swoosh doesn't sell itself.

That's something at least

Wal-Mart is going to be opening 150 new stores and creating around 22,000 new jobs in the process.

They're probably not jobs you would want, but at least that's something isn't it?

Evolving perspectives (revolving perspectives?)

(The following post was originally posted by Natalie on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 on the blog Outermost Village Green and is being reposted here with permission. She only got one answer there. We can do better can't we?)

"Looking out from the top of a high tenement, over the housetops of Manhattan, I can see a pale tower with its golden pinnacle gleaming though the soft morning haze; and for a moment all the harsh and ugly lines in the landscape have disappeared. So in looking at our utopias. We need not abandon the real world in order to enter these realizable worlds; for it is out of the first that the second are always coming. "
The Story of Utopias, Lewis Mumford
pg.29


I often struggle between all the things I see that are disappointing in this city, the grimy streets (oh so much more murky with the new slush), the broken down buildings, the trash. When I moved down here I was overwhelmed by it all, having spent so much time in the country (which would be my whole life previous). But as I learned to live here I got used to parts of it, even started to see past much of it, to other aspects of the city. Sometimes those broken old steps and gangly rod-iron messes can look rather beautiful, striking even. and sometimes not..
Anyway, this quote resonated with me because of my experiences here in the city. Having had such a harsh reaction to so many of what I considered the " disheartening" aspects of living here and yet still coming to a place of appreciation. I can draw from these reflections of what my life is here and undoubtedly use it, in my life to come. Which is something I would very much like to be communal in nature ( and involving many, many more trees). Everything comes from what was before right?

Now a question is just what is it that will or could make up each of our realizable worlds? How does community ideally manifest itself?
Food for thought.

Love to all of you,
Natalie

A very simple question

Okay, so I've jumped on the Facebook bandwagon and have refound some of the people we went to high school with. Our old buddy Ian Kilday is working for a company that designs some type of armor for troops in Iraq. Serena, a girl we knew and were friends with, is working for State Street in Boston. Natalie is working at an art gallery in New York. Wong is a teacher at Kennett.

Are we just losers or something? What exactly are we doing with ourselves?

I should be happy, but I'm not. Not at all.

There is an anime reboot of FullMetal Alchemist airing Japan. It began three weeks ago and if you go onto the Funimation website you can catch it with English subtitles. I am doing this right now.
FullMetal Alchemist is one of the best animes I've ever seen. The animation itself is topnotch, the story and concept is very original and compelling, and the characters are all realistic and relatively three dimensional.

I should be happy about a new FullMetal show. But I'm not. Why you ask?

Because we've already had a FullMetal Alchemist show! It had it's run, it was really cool, and we all loved it. We don't need a rehash of something we've already seen with the same characters doing nearly the exact same thing. I don't want something old remade, I want something new newly made.

This new show, as cool as it looks, and it does look really cool, is a clear example of something I've been complaining about for years. A faltering creativity in all forms of narrative media. We can't come up with new ideas so now as we're struggling we're simply getting to the point where we're remaking things we enjoyed before.
I liked FullMetal Alchemist the first time I saw it. I don't need to see it again.

I don't want something cool like FullMetal Alchemist, I want something as cool as FullMetal Alchemist.