Thoughts of the day

Well, it's Wednesday, my free day. Mondays are exercise or lounging and planning days. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are errands and work at home days, on my photography business and projects. And Wednesdays are free. From spring to fall I usually grab the 4x5 camera and go some place, and from fall to sping I parse the trips and spend more of them at home working or doing other things. Simply a free day.

Mondays and Wednesdays are the days I usually don't buy newspapers but read the on-line version. The other three work day of the week I buy papers to read at lunch. So what have I glearned or learned of interest.

Alas, the Obama administration has dropped the term, "global war on terror" to be what it really is, "overseas contigent operations", meaning separating the idea from the reality. This is good. It's not a global war but civil wars in two countries, which has, as all wars have, global effects and impacts. But at least they're using better descriptors.

But the Obama administration isn't reversing much, if any, of Bush's secrecy rules. That's not good and even bad. Bad for Americans, and bad for our civil rights and liberties. This means we still won't know any more than we did under Bush what the government is really doing with people, many innocent people, like keeping information classified from public view and conducting surveillence under secret silent warrants. They're not giving us what this country means about freedoms because they still don't trust us, the American people.

I'm saddened by this, even though I know it's been going on since our country was founded. We've always had government secrets and secret programs, but ever since WW II it's grown disproportionately out of fear and under the Bush administration, it literally went over the top with unilateral secrecy when most wasn't necessary. And now they're rolling on at the same level of secrecy.

That was scary and spooky under Bush, but to me, it's even worse under Obama because we don't know what's going on behind the lies. He promised transparency and less secrecy, and we're learning he learned it's better not to have as much transparency and to be less secret. True, it's a different world, but still not to trust your own citizens?

What's a peace conference without the Dalai Lama? Certainly not peace and more discrimination and politics. And now cancelled. We're sorry, peace isn't attainable today due to fear.

What's the policy of letting more prisoners out early or not even spending time in prison despite felony convictions? Certainly not safety and security for people.

Reading science news, they've found structural differences in families with a history of depression, mainly the brain's cortex, where one hemispere indiciates potential and both real possibilities. I'm not sure I agree with the connections they make between physiological and psychiatric conditions, it's interesting.

On the personal side, I haven't heard from MySpace who banned this blog, along with another blog of mine. I don't expect an answer, or maybe just the, "Tough shit" answer. The one thing I've learned that jerks do well, being arrogant and ignorant, and that's the usual perspective of many blog founders and their staff, like Facebook and MySpace.

Well, that's it for now. Ding! Sorry, gotta' go, the hotdogs are ready.