Day 195 in the Age of Obama!

Well I've taken some time off writing to simply observe life as it happens around me!

That means that I also took time off from my favorite websites and political TV shows—as they have also upset me with the constant complaining—whether on the left or the right! (OK I still listen to a few of my favorite radio hosts—mainly Thom Hartmann—and Stephanie Miller whenever I’m up early enough.)
And since I’m plugging them, I have to mention Ed Schultz—who really is doing a great job in his new TV gig.

My crankiness level has been very high throughout the last 26 days--for so many reasons--some personal and some more or less political.

One thing is for sure—I could never have taken so much time off, if it wasn’t for President Obama, as having him in office certainly allows me to sleep better than before in the last nine years, even though –there are some things that I wished he would handle differently—of course!

And yet he is such a clever politician, that I feel it’s wrong to second-guess him –even though he is so much younger than I am. I feel that there has been a very positive change in the world-wide picture since we elected him, despite of the NO-Party’s constant attempts to disqualify him in any way they can think of—no matter how ridiculous and absurd!

Our president is also a very good writer, (I’m currently reading ‘The Audacity of Hope) making reading about politics a better than dry experience, even causing me to laugh out loud from time to time!

During the last few weeks a lot of things have happened, from the hottest days ever in this neck of the woods (103) to the unfortunate death of two vastly different icons from the last century. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died on the same day—the 25th of June.

This happened to be a day when I was stuck in my biggest traffic jam ever in Seattle and therefore will stick in my mind as I could hear almost nothing else but Michael’s voice blasting from the gazillion cars surrounding me from every direction.

Normally I wouldn’t be in the city at peak hour traffic, but I had a really important appointment with Homeland Security earlier, and spent more than an hour trying to find the fucking place. In the end I arrived 20 minutes too late and was told to come back the following day. I was pretty upset; especially when I had just spent six precious dollars on parking for less then 5 minutes.

Pulling myself together, I then went on my way to meet a friend at a lecture way on the other side of the city, something she’d organized for Dr. Kerry Kriger, who was in town educating the public on the importance of “Saving the Frogs”.

But back to the traffic jam, even at the best of times—as in off peak—the area known as Sodo, is busy and annoying as it is the industrial business district as well as a gateway to the ferries and also close to the infamous Alaskan Viaduct, soon to be pulled down and replaced by a tunnel.

Actually it was that fact which led to the huge congestion—in fact two thirds of the street had been literarily dug up and the one lane remaining had to be shared by both north and southbound traffic. To complicate things even further, a train line for commuter and freight trains runs parallel to the all the streets leading north and south, so the people who had tried to escape the mayhem from First Avenue- to reach alternate routes-- were stuck at the rail tracks—like me and all the others. Altogether I was stuck in the same spot for 90 minutes, and another 40 trying alternate routes.

So much for the 25th of June—although I did make it to the lecture, it left me feeling frustrated when I remembered all the different animals I have been involved in trying “to save” over years, and the immensity of the problems we have to solve in order to save them and us in the process.

I think it all started for me in Sydney in 1973 or 74 with the first Greenpeace campaign to “Save the Whales”. My husband at the time, with the help of others and myself made a huge inflatable sperm whale to float along Sydney harbor. I still have all the newspaper clippings and we all seemed so sure that what we were doing would work. And to some extent it did, as indeed some of the whale killings stopped, especially around the southern waters around Australia. Also the one remaining “whaling station’ in Albany was closed a couple of years later. Of course now, more than 30 years later we are still trying to do the same thing, only now Greenpeace has somehow become our enemy, while others have picked up the battle to save the magnificent creatures of the deep.

Later, Diane Fossey and tried to save Gorillas, and gave her life no less! I didn’t do much but give money, and tried to get others to do likewise. Of course we still have some of these wonderful animals around, so perhaps our efforts weren’t entirely wasted. We still have Jane Goodall and her battle to save chimpanzees and all the other wonderful organizations involved in saving wolves, grizzlies, spotted owls, polar bears, penguins, and habitats for all kinds of creatures including coral reefs.

I can proudly say that I’ve spent countless hours over the years--signing petitions, and giving money whenever I could! In other words—my efforts have never really stopped.
I don’t seriously believe that I’ve have made any difference in the big picture, but I can’t really say for sure that I haven’t either. It just seems that we are on a one-way ride to oblivion and really don’t have much more power than the animals we’re trying to save.

In order to just save frogs for example—we all have to stop eating meat for a start, and stop all pollution, right down to the smallest detail. We’d all have to stop driving oil-using cars, stop polluting our waterways with oil driven motor boats, stop flying in oil-using airplanes etc, etc, etc, and so on—and even then it’s probably too late.

But when push comes to shove –that last sentence sounds very defeatist—and that’s not really me. I am a fighter to the end and for some reason the important people I meet in my life usually are too.

So I will continue to do the best I can, as it does at least give me personally some piece of mind that I have tried to be a more conscientious inhabitant of this beautiful planet. After all I am grateful for my existence, and so glad that I have had such an interesting life so far—and hopefully much more to come.

Since I didn’t post anything in July except for Roger Federer’s win at Wimbledon, there are a few other things I wanted to note.

I went to my only Pow Wow so far, thanks to a friend who took me there for my birthday. It was a great experience, although I wished I could have spent a bit more time there, and had a little spare cash to spend on one or two of the beautifully crafted artifacts.
My favorite part was the drumming and chanting, but the incredibly colorful costumes were stunning too. There will be some pics posted soon.