The Daily Brief

Hey – what’s up Team Obama?

The media is filled with numbers about the economic crisis. But the numbers do not tell the full story.

They don’t?  I’m confused – I thought unless you had numbers you didn’t have the full story.

The story of this crisis is in homes across the country — homes where a family member has lost a job, where parents are struggling to pay a mortgage, and where college tuition has slipped out of reach.

Usually when a politician wants anecdotes and not numbers he’s trying to spin a story to a conclusion not supported by the facts. 

But Barack doesn’t play that way. 

You know when Tom Clancy totally let his muse get on top of him and he had Jack Ryan catapulted to the Oval Office and it was like all was Suddenly Right in the world? 

Barack is like Jack Ryan, but real.  Totally.

Share your story about how this economic crisis is affecting you and your family and join your fellow Americans in supporting bold action to speed our recovery:

http://my.barackobama.com/sharestories

Well, OK then!

My Crisis Story

My government wants to spend a whole bunch of money on a whole bunch projects of dubious value.

The crisis will end once the government stops helping.

Respectfully Submitted,

Brian Dunbar
Neenah, Wisconsin

I’m sure their filter will have that sucker right back into the public’s face.   Real Soon Now.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

This tickled my funny bone. Dynamic entry …  Sluggy Freelance style:

And what are Torg, Riff and Gwen doing? They’re hunting zombies, duh.

And what am I doing at zero-dark thirty? I was woken up by the forces of darkness and e-vil [1] because a Very Important Server had stopped talking.

Windows – man don’t tell me it sucks: it is such a kick-ass operating system that it finds a way to issue a BSOD at 01:00 in the a.m., just so I know it cares.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Also known as third shift.

Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735

would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

Now that is an example of a good law: it’s just, it makes sense and it pokes fun at an individual who richly deserves it. 

Too bad it’s got a snowball’s chance of passage.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Watch the government piss away [1] your money!  On the Web! [2]

StimulusWatch.org was built to to help the new administration keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend. We do this by allowing you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed “shovel-ready” projects in your city, to find, discuss and rate those projects. These projects are not part of the stimulus bill. They are candidates for funding by federal grant programs once the bill passes. Learn more by reading the FAQs.

So .. what are you – my out of state virtual friends – being asked to pay for in my fair state of Wisconsin?  Welp, I’m glad you asked!

• $500,000 to eliminate bus fares for one year in Sheboygan.
• $2,000,000 for new sidewalks in Superior.
• $3,800,000 for a recreational trail in Green Bay.

Anyway – this is what my state wants from the stimulus pork:  Subsidized bus fares, sidewalks and walking trails.

We thank you kindly for your participation.

[1] Sort-of Stimulus Watch. Anyway, it’s Transparent Government. Whatever that means.

You can do this once, or twice.  But you can’t get all excited about every bit of pork the government wants.  There are more of us than there are of them but for them it’s a full-time job.  We’re busy making a living and can’t afford the time needed.

[3] No, seriously – we’ve got candidates for the highest office in the land who are not ashamed at lying, but only chagrined they’ve been caught.  People who want cabinet positions who (whoops) forget to pay taxes.  Congress critters who pay back taxes only when people raise a shit storm .. and don’t have to pay any penalties.  Who, not to drag on and on, feel that because they’re on the People’s Business they can act like immoral shits.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

They’re working hard for you …

Mr. Obama’s tendency to work late into the night will also pose problems. Politico.com reports that the White House staff is “preparing for a return to long nights, heavy weekend shifts.” Requiring a senior staff that meets at 7:30 a.m. to work until 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. will quickly cause burnout and diminish the quality of advice and oversight.

Perhaps too hard?

I don’t know running a large organization from fishing for cod in the Atlantic, but I do know about working long hours.

Meeting at 07:30 means getting to the office at 07:00 at the latest – you gotta get your stuff lined up for a meeting. Which means leaving for the office by 06:15, so awake by 05:45.  So .. 5 1/2 hours of sleep at best after getting home after working until midnight.

Every .. day.

And this is the senior staff – the younger and dumber junior staff will man up and come in earlier and leave later than their bosses.

You can work seventeen hour days for a while, when it’s important. But you can’t really do that on a regular basis without burning out. You start making dumb mistakes and your thinking gets sloppy.

Which might not be a great idea when you’re the guys who want to run the country.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’: The relief for Americans that President Obama spoke of in his Inauguration speech are on the floor of the House today for a vote …

Excuse me, President Obama?  Which part of

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

translates to these bits of crap from the stimulus package?

$19.99 billion in mandatory spending for the Food Stamp program.
$726 million for the after-school snack program.
$650 million for additional Digital TV transition coupons.
$200 million to pay Americorps volunteers.

Graham crackers and juice for the kiddies is bold swift action to revitalize the economy?  Food stamps are going to lay a foundation for new growth?  Television for the love of sweet thorny-headed Christ.

Pigs .. to .. the .. trough.

Legislators in committee dickering over provisions of the Stimulus Package

We seem to have collectively decided in November that something must be done and the government was the one to do it. 

I can’t deny that – for a lot of reasons – we’re in a pickle.

But the problem with having the government do this is that – at best – a few thousand people in Washington decide what is best.  To quote Tommy Lee Jones from ‘Men in Black’

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Or to be more charitable: they’re making some very important choices on your behalf, for you, based on their own self-interest. 

Whatever comes out of a mess like that in the best of all possible worlds might work. But more often for everyone except those few thousand people the results will be sub-optimal.

Do we need the government to do something?  Probably.  But the very best thing the government could do at this point is to just go away.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

An Iraqi soldier wears a mask with a skull print during
a patrol on the outskirts of Basra, 420 km (260 miles)
southeast of Baghdad November 23, 2008.

Say what you will about the Iraqi army – but if this guy is representative they have their motivation fixed at a very high level.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

… without a taste / of culture / cool .. culture. [1]

If you thought the response to Hurricane Katrina, the IRS and the DMV were bad, just wait until the government gets it’s piddy-paws on ‘culture’ …

By yesterday, 76,000 people had signed an online petition, started by two New York musicians who were inspired by producer Quincy Jones. In a radio interview in November, Jones said the country needed a minister of culture, like France, Germany or Finland has. And he said he would “beg” Obama to establish the post.

If the government was responsible for culture we’d never have had have Hee-Haw.  And that would be a tragedy.[2]

“We are not quite sure, especially in this environment, what the secretary of the arts could provide, but foremost is advocacy for arts education and awareness of the financial rewards the arts bring to a community,” said Weitzner, the host of a chamber music series at the Brooklyn Public Library.

“We want to get some of the gravy for stuff we like instead of seeing all the money go to hillbilly music and those rock and roll fellows.”

“A month ago at my high school in Seattle, I asked a student if he knew who Louis Armstrong was. He said he had heard his name. I asked him about Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. He didn’t even know their names. That hurts me a lot,” Jones said.

Aw, man.  Jones is hurt because kids choose to listen to Beyonce instead of Louis Armstrong. 

Everyone – let’s give him a salary and a position and an official bully-pulpit to shame us for liking stuff that is hip and cool and with it.

Or, let’s not and reflect on the wisdom of Ralph Peters instead …

It is fashionable among world intellectual elites to decry “American culture,” with our domestic critics among the loudest in complaint. But traditional intellectual elites are of shrinking relevance, replaced by cognitive-practical elites–figures such as Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, or our most successful politicians–human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary. Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures. While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people’s culture. It stresses comfort and convenience–ease–and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx’s dream, and his nightmare.

Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can’t wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather “Baywatch.” America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no “peer competitor” in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted–men and women everywhere–clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.

American culture is criticized for its impermanence, its “disposable” products. But therein lies its strength. All previous cultures sought ideal achievement which, once reached, might endure in static perfection. American culture is not about the end, but the means, the dynamic process that creates, destroys, and creates anew. If our works are transient, then so are life’s greatest gifts–passion, beauty, the quality of light on a winter afternoon, even life itself. American culture is alive.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Tip o’ the hat to the Sons of the Pioneers
[2] No, I’m not kidding.  Hee-Haw was sincere and funny and they had good music.

Dear Hamas,

You really gotta get better at the agitprop thing.

Obviously faking CPR and having your own web guy stand in as a cameraman and bereaved older brother … you people are embarrassing yourselves.

Respectfully Submitted,

The Media Savvy West

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Wherin it becomes clear the UN brass does not know it’s ass from a hole in the ground.

Who killed the Palestinian driver of an aid truck and wounded two others as their convoy made its way into the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing during Thursday’s “humanitarian cease-fire?”

According to the foreign media, who based their information on UN sources, IDF tank shells blasted the truck. According to the Magen David Adom medic who claimed to have taken the Palestinians to an Israeli hospital, the truck actually came under Hamas sniper fire.

What is certain is that there is one dead Palestinian, and two others being treated at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center for gunshot wounds.

UN officials in New York placed the blame squarely on Israel …

Whoa – this one is a poser.

Tanks rounds – I know this is a shocker – blow shit up. That’s what they are for.

Rifle bullets tear people up.

It is safe to assume that if you’ve got one dead guy and two wounded guys with bullet holes in them that what got them was not big frickin’ shell from a tank but a yahoo with a rifle.

‘Cuz a 120mm shell had hit them they wouldn’t a) have bullet holes in them and b) there wouldn’t have been enough of any of them left to carry to the hospital.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The sermon from ‘The Bishop’s Wife‘

Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking.

Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts.

But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe. For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. Its his birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that.

Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.

Amen!

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Like this;  a company went, not to a bank, [1] but just this place where I gotta send a big chunk of my money every year.  And they said ‘hey, man, I’ve run my company right into the ground, I need some of that cash you guys jacked from the public to tide me over while I change my ways.’

Which, put that way, sounds like a junkie whining that this time he’s really really sorry he put his rent money up his nose instead of paying his rent, but if they just let him slide a few weeks he’ll have the dough ..

And I said to the guys running the place ‘hey, that sucks, don’t do that’.  And their governing body voted ‘no’. And I said ‘cool’.  And the guy who runs the place said ‘well, shucks, ah’m gonna do that anyway’.  And he did. [2]

And then the company, all bright and perky, blows a big chunk of cash [3] telling me ‘thanks, buddy‘.

To which my response, after careful editing because my first through fifth responses contained language that might make a sailor blush is …

Mr. Nardelli?   You, your dealers, or any of the one million people who depend on Chrysler for their livelihoods will never see a dime from me.

I was serious about this before but that ad really cheesed me off.

Kia?  I’ll need a new car in a few years.  Let’s talk.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] A bank has stricter rules for handling money than the government ever will.

[2] It’s a weak metaphor, granted.

[3] Cuban cites 100k for the cost of the ad in the Wall Street Journal.

The cops – well, the FBI – hauled Illinois Governor Blagojevich (D) [1] out of bed this morning and hauled him off to jail, for being corrupt and stupid. [2]

When asked for comment ..

Obama told reporters he was “saddened and sobered” by Blagojevich’s arrest.

“I was not aware of what was happening,” Obama said. “I had no contact with the governor or his office and so I was not aware of what was happening.”

The President-Elect, when shown a picture of Governor Blagojevich, commented “So that’s what he looks like. I was wondering.” [3]

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Twelve paragraphs until his party affiliation is mentioned, fwiw. If the Tribune Media company is wondering why they’re bankrupt, this is a clue.

[4] It’s not a direct quote, in other words.

Dear GM, Ford and Chrysler, and their associated dealerships,

The more you insist on trying to steal borrow my money without permission to bail your sorry asses out of trouble, the less I want to buy your product.  And my interest in buying a new domestic car – never strong – has been waning mighty fast this autumn.

If you want my business you’d best quit while you’re ahead.

That is all.

r/s
Brian Dunbar

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Dear Hollywood,

Marines don’t use the term A.W.O.L. Having a character use that term is a sign that you’re not paying attention.

It’s also Yet Another Sign that 99% of television is crap.

So, cut it out.

Thanks!

r/s

The Public

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

This was inevitable.

“It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.

“Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

This was also inevitable …

The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists,” he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies.

An intelligence agency source added: “One of the terrorists was shot through either eye.”

A senior National Security Guard officer, who had earlier explained the operation in detail to rediff.com, said the commandos went all out after they ascertained that there were no more hostages left. When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: “Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?”

It would be ideal to have the Bad Guys alive as prisoners – it’s difficult to interrogate a corpse.  Information is important.

On the other hand, the bastards who launched the attacks on Mumbai made it clear that this is the way the game is going to be played. So if Sam the SAS guy or Dave the Ranger – or when it gets down to that, Carl Civilian with his trunk rifle – find a room full of of maimed bodies and a terrorist against the wall under his gun …

I suppose we’ll have to get our information from another source, hunh?

Unko bachana kaun chahega?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

And how does Santa Claus get presents to the troops?

With style. And firepower.

“Ho ho ho – gunner – fléchette – naughty children”

“Identified”

“Up!”

“Ho … ho .. ho – fire!”

“On the way.”

“Ho ho ho – target shredded – cease fire”

Um, anyway.  The turret rotates, the cannon fires confetti.  Of course it won First Prize, Best Youth Group for Cub Scout Pack 9 in Waukesha.

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Hey, Representative Barney Frank, what’s the Big Idea [1] for bailing out the UAW Big Three Automakers?

Steve Inskeep: I want to ask you about something mentioned in that report from an economist from the University of Maryland. What makes you think the $25 billion would even be enough?

Rep. Barney Frank: We don’t think it would be enough. The way we have this structured, they will get $25 billion if the bill passes, with a lot of conditions.  But they would have to prepare and file by March 31 a plan that shows how they plan to get much more efficient and to get cars that can be marketed.

But let me ask you about the first thing you said, Congressman, because you said you don’t think $25 billion is enough.

Right, I’m trying to explain to you how it works.

OK.

They get $25 billion — the federal government would be in the first position to be repaid. We will come ahead of the debt holders, the shareholders, etc. They file this plan on March 31. If, on March 31, the president does not believe that this is going to get them the viability with energy efficiency cars, they have to repay the loan; they get no more money. If they can show by March 31 a plausible way to go forward, then we would consider giving more money, again, under equally stringent conditions.

The test of any idea is ‘would I do it with my money’.  Because that is what is really going on here.

I’m being asked to loan a whole bunch of money to three businesses that are over-extended, are saddled with a lot of debt and obligations their competitors don’t have, who have made some bad choices in the past and find themselves in a bit of a pickle.

They’ve got three months to work up a plan to make efficient cars and market them.  Because, I guess, up to this point the boys in Marketing have been playing Hearts in the break room.  God only knows what the engineers have been doing instead of their jobs, all this time.

Then they submit this plan for approval to a guy who has never worked for a for-profit company and whose business experience is nil. 

And if this guy says ‘yes’ then I will loan these folks more money.  How much more is not specified .. and the spokesman for the plan gets kinda shifty-eyed and starts talking about a bunch of hoo-ha when I ask how much.

Pass – but thanks for the opportunity!  I think I’d rather keep my money in a high-interest savings account instead of .. well you didn’t say what the interest rate would be did you?  Hmm.

I’ve got a better idea!  Why don’t we draft a law so that any company could go to a special court and get protection from creditors while they reorganize?  Jobs might be lost, but not all of them, some creditors might have to settle for partial payments .. but it is sure ’nuff better than the entire shebang going out of business.

Crazy idea, I know – but it’s worth a shot.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Idealism is based on big ideas. And, as anybody who has ever been asked “What’s the big idea?” knows, most big ideas are bad ones.
O’Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 256

Scared, alone, a civilian engineer kidnapped by very bad men.  He estimated his odds of being rescued by the military a one out of a hundred chance.  Then late at night .. they came.

“They knew who was who,” the engineer said. the SEALs quickly demonstrated that, aiming their silencer-equipped weapons to shoot and kill the kidnapper in the room before he could fire a round. The engineer said he heard the sounds of the operators shooting and killing a guard posted outside.

The SEALs turned to the now former hostage and told him they were there to take him back.

It’s all over the internet.  The best we have, putting themselves at risk to bring back one of our own. 

It won’t be on CNN.  If it’s in the paper, it will be inside, below the fold.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Happy 233rd, Marines!

Q: What does U.S.M.C. stand for?
A: You Signed the Mother-lovin’ Contract

Q: What do you get when you cross a Marine with a gorilla?
A: A retarded gorilla.

A sailor in a bar leans over to the guy next to him and says, ”Wanna hear a MARINE joke?”

The guy next to him replies, ”Well, before you tell that joke, you should know something. I’m 6′ tall, 200 lbs, and I’m a MARINE. The guy sitting next to me is 6’2” tall, weighs 225, and he’s a MARINE. The fella next to him is 6’5” tall, weighs 250, and he’s also a MARINE. Now, you still wanna tell that joke?”

The sailor says, ”Nah, I don’t want to have to explain it three times.”

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Looking for good classical music?  Behold: Music interpreted by Mr. S. D. Rodrian

I had the Mozart’s Piano Sonatas playing most of yesterday – he’s really very good.

I know – this takes the ‘knuckle-dragging Marine’ image and completely trashes it.  And just in time for the Marine Corps Birthday next week.  But what can you do?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Despair is not only a sin but bad tactics.

There is a nice twenty-mile stretch of Wisconsin 29 from the interstate to Kewaunee.  The road is straight, but hilly and and there are only a few places where you gotta slow down for towns.

A whole lotta people who live on that road have yard signs. I didn’t count but I’d guesstimate it’s an even split between Obama – Biden and McCain – Palin signs [1]. 

Who has put up the signs grabbed my attention.

There are a fair number of businesses out there.  Not concessions or chains but single- proprietor shops; a gravel pit, heavy equipment rental and repair shops, metal fabrication shops, a lot of farms.

Every Obama-Biden sign was at a private residence. Every business that had a sign – and most of them did – had prominent signs up for John Gard .. and McCain-Palin.

Means nothing of course and it’s only anecdotal – but it sure is interesting.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[2] This is not an endorsement of vandalism, just noting the humor.

Wow.  I’m gonna need those middle-class tax credits [1] that Senator Obama wants: they’ll come in handy to pay my electricity bill.

You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

Awesome.  Because expensive power driving costs through the roof is exactly what we need.

As a campaign slogan I’m not sure ‘Vote Obama – he’ll double your electric bill‘ is a winner but what do I know?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Of course, I only qualify for two of them.

From SB7

Here’s a doozy of a non sequitur from Hege123l:

I don’t want a for profit company making life and death choices for me. Government healthcare seems to work fine for government workers, the military and our politicans…

Seems to work fine. We might imagine that Hege123l has never talked to anyone in the military.

Fort Ritchie, Maryland, 1989. It’s wet and rainy and cold in Maryland in the winter, and my nearly year-old son has chronic ear infections. Fort Ritchie has a clinic, so to the clinic we go. Sensibly (for the Army) dependents must wait until active duty soldiers are seen. Including the Light Duty Brigade showing up to get just one .. more .. day on their Work Avoidance Chit. Also, sensibly, unless you’re about to die you are seen in the order in which you show up. Appointments are for sissies.

What this really means is that if you want to be seen for anything you show up early and wait in a crowded room until after lunch time.  If your kid is in a lot of pain, you show up early .. and wait in a crowded room. This is actually less fun than it sounds with a one-year old doing a lot of crying and vomiting.

The Clinic from Heck has two doctors. One doctor has the bedside manner of a brick and while you’d like to avoid the bastard, you can’t because it’s luck of the draw. By the fifth visit my son has learned the diff between Doctor Asstard and The Good Doctor. By the tenth visit he whimpers when we’re in the wrong examining room and cries when the guy shows up.

The doctors – over the course of eighteen months – managed to miss that B. was going deaf and has a whole lotta scar tissue on his eardrums. His ear infections didn’t really go away until we moved to North Carolina, where the Navy farmed their dependent care to civilians who looked at B, said ‘wow, he’s deaf, no wonder he can’t talk well’, popped tubes in his ears and .. lo, he could hear.

Now, mistakes happen and anecdotes are only that.  Also some of the finest care I’ve ever gotten has been from Navy corpsmen, dentists and PAs.

But – from my experience – saying that ‘it seems to work fine’ is to ignore a whole lot of experience that says there are some pretty serious problems with ‘government health care for the military’.  To me, government health care will always be that small clinic at Fort Ritchie with one good doctor and one bad doctor and waiting in a ‘first come first served line’ with a baby in a lot of pain.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I live in real America.

I was born in Oregon, most of my family still lives there. I was raised in Oklahoma, then joined the Marines, saw a bit of the world. Now I live in a medium-sized town in Wisconsin.

It’s nice here.

We’ve got some manufacturing, some light industry, some business. We’ve got a river and a lake. We’ve got a park called ‘Riverside Park’ – the river sweeps by the place in a gentle curve. There is a World War One cannon there, looking over the river, pointing at the boat house on the other side. A flagpole with lights. A pavilion.

There is a new playground there with a giant plastic rocket as a centerpiece – a businesses in town donated most of the money to build it.

I take my kids there some Saturdays. There are always a lot of kids in and around it.

All of the parks here have purpose built sledding hills.  We don’t have any natural hills you can sled on. So the city built them for the kids.

That’s pretty nice as well.

There are some things that are not so very nice.  They’re the same things that everyone else has problems with, everywhere: the economy, politics.

Those things come and go. Thirty, fifty years from now, people will still bring their kids to Riverside Park, just like their parents and grandparents did. They’ll sit on the same bench I sit on, and watch their kids do what mine do: run around, play, have fun.

That’s pretty nice.

What about your Real America?

Idea from Bard Bloom.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.