doing it the old fashioned way!!!

start small. start at  the bottom and work your way up. build a fan base. it takes money to make money,  everyone in politics is corrupt and they only care about themselves. We have heard all the familiar statements.

I  will decide to run for De Soto City Council. This is, after all, the place where I live--small and lacking as it may be to my tastes--but how will this city ever evolve if not for someone like me to decide to REPRESENT the people whose voices cry in silence to be heard!!! I will be their emissary.
I will speak for them. My own ideas will still be mine and mine alone and I will happily present them to the citizens but if they are not 100 percent behind them, then they will not be acted upon by me.

I want nothing more than to "love my country."  And so that love must start at the smallest denomination of governance: city council.

My announcement rally shall be held on a certain soon to be forthcoming Tuesday evening on the Desoto City Council steps. Will let you know ASAP!!!

what does it mean to be Represented?

well of course TV is only Partly to blame. I suppose people have always looked inward and dug around for reasons why one thing is this way, another that way--some people more so than others. And for those of us like that--outside the circle of real people , credible suits and ties briefcases multi cell phone meeting meeting meeting kind of life those people do not open their begrudging arms in a welcome hug. We whose inner clocks and thoughts don't run parallel to success and possible fame
are left to gather sticks to stoke the fire. We know we have the ideas, the dreams, the thoughts that this world  needs but we just can't plug what we have into the outlet thus we remain isolated and dream-ridden to the point of hopelessness and despair. We do not feel the remotest connection to politics--local, state, national, global...we do not see anyone like us in Washington or any other political arena. Where are the artists elected to the state house of representatives?  And so we begin to think hard about what it means to be elected as a representative to a county, district,  state or nation.  A representative is supposed to represent the interests, needs, concerns of a certain group or collection of citizens--and not just the registered voters.  Yet all we hear out of the mouths of politicians is babble of jobs, the economy, mortgages, banks, etc. Nothing whatsoever about the plight or position of those of us in this world who write poetry, draw, paint, glue things, write songs, strum alone in the basement, concoct stories, just think of ideas about everyone and everything. Who  represents those of our American citizens like that?

So Many Broken Americans

when a person is broken, wounded, what helps those who recover and heal accomplish that?

When you listen to the speeches politicians make about how they vow to promise a better economy, jobs, all that abstract stuff, where are the specific examples of broken people in their district? it seems that the American psychological state is irrelevant to the strength of our country--a so called superpower..  And so very many live in hopeless despair just getting from one day to the next?

There's talk of mental illness as it relates to guns--but what about how it relates to people's general  dispositions for a multitude of reasons, some familial, some societal, some governmental.?

So very very many people in America are tired, dejected, deflated, disheartened...many of them long ago stopped following political discourse--much less a proactive approach to their neighbors. On the street where I live, of amongst a dozen houses, I know not one name.
That shame is not just mine but oh so many of our anonymous neighbors and possible friends. I think TV is  mostly to blame.

Brainmush, Crap, and Spelling Bees!!!

You hear people talk about nothing all the time and you start to feel your brain going to mush. You think well if I have to listen to crap all day I might as well get drunk, too.  It's a defeative, sad, uninspiring, unworldly place that many of us call "home." I keep trying to get my friends (both of them) and my 78 year old mother to get excited about vocabulary quizzes and spelling bees, or to play questions games to make our brains work in different ways, but they all three have reasons or excuses"as to why they just flat out refuse to participate. Spelling bees and "playing school"is something for everybody of any age. Huge governmental educational initiatives will never succeed because it is not in a school classroom where most relevant learning occurs--it is in the moment of glee you feel as you try to spell a thirteen letter long word and you get it right. Really, it's about getting new spark plugs for most every American adult who believes that once they are out of school, the learning part of life is over. Wise  ones know that is far from being true.

Yes, there comes a time in all of our lives when we like to do nothing more than stare out the winter window at a lucky morning of snow--how glorious, how rare!

radical People of America Party Announcement

Well all right then I'll tell you since you asked so nicely--yes, I said that I believe it's time for the Democratic Party to have it's own Tea Party." Let's call it the Radical People of America Party. Face it: you can't even begin to count the unheard voices in America. The voices who stay silent for a thousand reasons. The voices who have felt all their lives that even if they talked no one would listen. The voices who felt so disconnected from America that they'd rather speed their car off a cliff than register to vote. What about those voices?

Such an embarrassment how the so called big wigs  in the United States Capitol behave. On the most fundamental level, from a young age, many children are taught that it's best to get along with people--even if you don't agree with them. And yet look at the bozos in charge" there in Washington--the fighting, the name calling, the refusal to back down, the frighteningly small and closed mindedness these big wigs show to all the world to see. What American can truly say at this time in history that we are not the one hundred percent laughingstock of  the world? And to  some people, the behaviors and lifestyles and ideas of Americans are so sickening and infuriating that there are those who would like nothing better than to pull off 9/11's every single  day of the
week.

If people are to actually believe in the popular advice of lead by example then what kind of example are the disagreeable types in Washington setting? We know. We just feel helpless. Wait a minute--why should we feel helpless when it is we who elected these Washington big wigs to represent us in the first place. we sit in  the recliner ranting at the evening news when we should be getting out paper and pen to write to those WE elected to help us to  ultimately have better lives--happier, more prosperous, less countrywide in fighting, a feeling of pride in the good things our nation accomplishes and  the kind of goodwill our country could share with world. 

So, here marks the beginning of what I will call The Radical People of America Party. Think for a while on what the word radical really means. Get back to basics with the word. It's not really up to those in Washington to decide and control our fates as United States citizens--that my friends is up to us

Toward A Toothless America

I knew a girl when I lived in seoul south korea who changed my life when she introduced me to vintage Jackson Browne music, but she also taught me something in a poem she wrote. The first part read "Ï am thinking of how so few people wear necklaces out of teeth."

Saving baby teeth as a memento of childhood and tooth fairies makes the whole idea of losing a tooth exciting and even something to look forward to and there seems no greater joy for a seven year old to be so happy to make one twist with the tongue and voila! the tooth is out.

And then we grow up. We have back molar cavities, some requiring root canals topped off by a cheap trashy looking stainless steel crown. We need expensive x-rays to verify the strength of our teeth before getting a much needed professional cleaning. Or we chip a front tooth or lord forbid one or two get knocked out or broken .

And so what are we without dental insurance supposed to do? Many--too many-- do without dental care for decades. The reasons vary: maybe their insurance plan does not include dental care. Maybe there's not a shred of extra cash to pay for the treatment needed .Some people just resign themselves to a life without dental care

And whose idiotic idea was it to separate the mouth and teeth from the rest of the human body?

And why is this true in the united states of America? Why? Who in the world made the decision that insurance plans must be connected to employment? And the practice of only giving an employee 38 hours a week instead of forty just so that company can avoid providing insurance benefits to people who need it seems downright meanhearted and greedy to me.

I know many people in my town and in my circle of friends who have desperately needed dental care and couldn't get it so their teeth fall out and break so easily. One man I know is completely toothless so he quit his substitute teaching job because he got tired of the comments and jokes calling him an old man.

People all at once ought to start wearing necklaces made out of teeth. If America is going to let her citizens go toothless well then let's just take a huge bite out of that age-old lack of dental coverage
May the sight and stench of rotted American teeth flow all the way to Washington dc so that all the self-absorbed politicians with excellent dental coverage--including the President--might realize too many citizens toward a toothless America that they are propelling