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February 28, 2009
Noted
Picking up the mail is a chore for me. Occasionally the mailbox will include a magazine of interest, but rarely does anything wonderful arrive. Yesterday was one of those rare days.
I received a letter, addressed by hand, to me. At first I was a little distracted by the sheer novelty of having a letter in my hand to which I was the intended recipient. For a fleeting moment I considered the possibility that this letter was not what it appeared, but the return name and address was familiar so that idea was quickly dispensed with. Beyond that, I was slightly confused - what exactly should I do with the letter? Mind you, I'm well aware of the normal sequence following the reception of a letter. This was a far deeper dilemma. Should I "save" the letter?
But all of that passed in an instant and I quickly disgorged the letters' content. What was inside was a card, and two short notes. The card was a very attractive picture of Savanna Pine. And the notes were from my daughter and her boyfriend, thanking me for our hospitality when they visited us last Christmas.
The simple sentiments, the shape of the letters on the page, the paper itself all spoke clearly about the writers. And I drank it all in, and was refreshed. I love the sound of family and friends' voices on the phone. But I had forgotten how intimate a letter really is.
Posted by pgutwin at 9:09 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2009
Imagine the Future
Unprecedented national debt, huge stock market decline, job loss, world wide recession, failure of massive banks, partisan political arguments about what the government should do, blah, blah, blah. Enough already!
I'm pretty sure that everyone one the planet knows the situation is bad, but (some of) the media has gone way beyond covering the news, and broken through to hyperventilating about the trouble we're in. This is really not helpful.
These are tough times, but we're not going to get back what we had a few months or years ago. But that's not a bad thing - we have the opportunity, actually the responsibility to create something better than we had in the past.
A significant part of our savings has been wiped out. We've household income. We've lost a measure of the security we though we had. We're going to have to work longer and harder than we expected, and do without some of the things we expected or were enjoying. That's all pretty sad.
But beyond the tragedy of our loss, we have the chance of a lifetime to rebuild our lives and our nation. We'll discover new things about ourselves and the ones we love and our friends and neighbors. We'll find new ways to enjoy ourselves. And if we start rebuilding our lives the way we should be living, we'll build a country more focused on the things that are important, that really matter to all of us.
So lets imagine a better future. Maybe not so rich or lavish, but genuine and caring. We as a nation have done this before - we can do it again.
(Also, the picture above is by Rachel Rosenfield Lafo and captures the essence of my thoughts today.)
Posted by pgutwin at 3:36 PM | Comments (0)
February 3, 2009
Perspective
Apperently, there's been a big flap about the size of the pile of money $1 trillion dollars make. To sort this out, or at least to provide some context, Josh Marshall at TMP has made a comparison of the size of the pile of money in the Stimulus Bill to the Size of the pile of people now unemployed.
I'm just offering this as a way of clearing up any misconception - people are bigger than $100 dollar bills, and more important, too.
Posted by pgutwin at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)