Re-Blogging Potpourri

"Gee, Cyn, what have you been doing in the six months since you last posted?"

Well, let's see. I've written three full-length children's books from plots and characters suggested by my grandkids, and there's a fourth in the first trimester of gestation.

I've read about ninety million words in Scots dialect in the "Outlander" series, by Diana Gabaldon. Of the five books, the first two are excellent. (It must say something when the audio book version is less than one-fifth the original.)

I've watched winter winds and rain come and go and seen beautiful bloomy trees sport new leaves, and for the first time in my life I welcomed Daylight Savings Time. There. I said it. I know it blatantly steals an hour from morning folk to hand Robin Hood-like to night people, but this year I'm glad.

I've spent what's left of my retirement fund feeding finches over the winter, and I'm positive my house is now listed on birds' GPS services and birdgoogle as the best restaurant in town. The downside, as always, is the ubiquitous presence of doves and neighborhood cats. Not a good combination, as my flowerpots are filled with ripped out feathers. Lord, I hate cats!

The scariest thing that's happened to me was the day I discovered that Nancy Pelosi stands next in line to Biden in Presidential succession. Holy Crap.

Oh yeah -- I watched the media elect their very own U.S. President, and isn't it fun now to see the excuses they're making for the giant vacuum of leadership in the Oval? No? We're not having any fun now? Have Hopey and Changey been given the gong? Or did they just not pay their taxes?

I've also observed the lack of perspective as bloggers, commentators and those unbiased news dudes drone on and on about the disastrous "financial crisis." Why isn't anyone talking about the moral crisis that was its foundation?

If you watched MSNBC's "House of Cards" documentary that explained the building blocks of this mess, did you notice the players admitting participation but denying all culpability? "Yeah, I sold those derivative products based on subprime garbage loans that wiped out whole municipalities' pension funds, but heck no, I didn't feel guilty." I guess it's impossible to acknowledge guilt in a culture where "left" is the opposite of "right" and "wrong" only applies to a light bulb that doesn't last 350 years.

I consciously stopped writing this blog when everyone who could speak or type began discussing the rapture to come when He Who Would Walk On The Potomac took office. I stopped writing when it became ludicrously obvious that none of Obama's policies, positions or playmates would be given the scrutiny an American Idol contestant would endure, let alone a presidential candidate. "Governor Palin, can you detail the Bush Doctrine?" "Senator Obama, what was served at the banquet?"

I stopped writing when the collective media decided the race without doing its job. You don't believe me? Check out this site and spend $20 for a dose of reality.

While I know there's a need for a nation to be inspired, and a need for change from failed policies and fumbling, something in the back of my mind kept insisting there was also a need for experience, for qualifications, for something other than the ability to be elected -- and to give a rousing speech.

I'm afraid the penchant of American culture to choose celebrity over relevance and flash over substance, and to swallow whatever swill the media serves, will have consequences this time around. I hope I'll be proven wrong.