Working in the Muck.

YOU NEVER QUITE GET THERE.

One thing about running a store. You realize that you'll never get to completion. You'll always have too much of one thing, too little of another. You'll always have a hodgepodge of fixtures, old and new material jumbled together.

Yesterday, I finally removed my defunct T.V. and DVD player since I no longer show Anime on them. I have dropped most electronic gadgets over the years, because the more complicated the display, the more likely it will break. Good old wood and plastic and paper last pretty much forever.

IT'S A PROCESS.

Anyway, watching the Stimulus in Congress, was like watching a cobbled together sales program. You make do, try to fit it all together, and hope it passes muster. I seemed to be seeing it very different than the 'experts.' I think Obama did exactly what he said he'd do: he got a package out of Congress, he didn't freak out or make threats, he didn't panic and change course (or if he changed course, he did it quietly behind the scenes.)

A NATION OF NINNIES.

We want it now, and we want it perfect, and we want it to satisfy Me, Me, ME!

SAUSAGE COUNCIL.

I consider myself a progressive, a liberal, but if the previous council was run by progressives, they were 'pie in the sky' type. Big plans, just as the city was going down the tube.

The Chamber of Commerce types may have taken the city council back, but I think they're more likely to get down in the Muck and actually try to scale back. I may not like how they do it, I may not like the good ol' boy composition, I may not like the leaning toward real estate interests, but....

The old council showed no signs they were aware of the impending disaster, nor any willingness to scale back on their pie in the sky plans.

I still shake my head over their hour long cable T.V. program about how they were going to fix Third St. and the downtown corridor. They thought they were living in a world of unlimited money back then.

What I'm saying, I guess, is that the previous council may have been doing the wrong things for all the right reasons. The new council may do some of the right things for all the wrong reasons. To save their own ass, their own investment in Bend.

I would trust in a crew that is trying it's damnest to save the ship because their own necks are on the line, than a crew that seems to dither, to be unaware of the dangers, or even worse, proclaim that they're willing to 'go down with the ship!'

I could be wrong. I could be out of my depth here. It could be they are only out to save their own investments, that they'll jump into the last lifeboat. That the President of the White Star Line will by waving goodbye as the rest of us go down with the ship.