Southern Journal-Observer

W Is Gone, the World Can Breathe Again

George W. Bush has left the White House

Gone is the terror

Gone is the torture

Gone are the abuses and excuses

 

The neocons ruined a nation and a world

W was a neocon with no insight as to what that meant

 

Gone is the arrogance

Gone is tyranny to the middle class

Gone is the inability to think, to say I’m sorry

Gone  is the absences of habeas corpus, that came with the U.S. Constitution

 

Donald Rumsfeld shot before he tried to think

Dick Cheney fired at anything that moved, including friends

 

Gone is the disregard for the environment

Gone is superficial, the slipshod, the confused

Gone is W, fiend of the super wealthy, foe of the working class 

Gone is a man who is less than an idiot

 

What is left?

A hull, a burned out case, a people and world in shambles

 

 

Today, the New York Times published a list of books that either have been read recently by President-Elect Barack Obama or ones he is currently reading. 

As for me, I have read the Bible, "Self-Reliance," by Emerson, I have "Team of Rivals," but have not read it yet, "Moby Dick," some Niebuhr and all of Shakespeare's Tragedies.

How many of these  have you read?

A Reading List That Shaped a President

Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s favored reading matter as mentioned in this article:

A Reading List That Shaped a President

Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s favored reading matter as mentioned in this article:

• The Bible
• “Parting the Waters,” Taylor Branch
• “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Gandhi’s autobiography
• “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin
• “The Golden Notebook,” Doris Lessing
• Lincoln’s collected writings
• “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville
• “Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison
• Works of Reinhold Niebuhr
• “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson
• Shakespeare’s tragedies
•   
• Full story and more from the Obama book stacks.  

Plucked!

Maybe it is just me, but I am beginning to get an uneasy feeling about Obama. I know he has a full plate, maybe several full plates, but I am looking for him to keep his word.

Unlike politicians we've had recently, in which their word was worthless, Obama was elected to stop all that. Now we are beginning to hear that it will take time to close down the infamous Gitmo Prison, that the economy is worse than at first expected, etc., etc.

Right. I get that. Gitmo can't be shut down overnight. It might take a couple. You let those people go who have never been charged. Fit 'em with ankle bracelets if you must, but if this nation has not charged them with crimes of any nature, war or criminal, they should be returned to their countries of origin.

As for the economy, I was never for giving the bankers, the car dealers, the real estate moguls, the Wall Street firms access to my tax money. Why should we as a nation bail out those who put us in this fix? If you are going to use my tax money as my meager retirement dwindles to toothpick size, then let's make sure we give it to the people who will get us out of the fix, and not take our money as a bonus pay just because they feel as if they need a bonus check. 

I haven't had a bonus check since I was a young reporter in Pensacola, Fla. The publisher gave us a turkey at Christmas time. That was nice, of course. You felt beholden, and like a plucked bird.

I still feel as if I've been plucked.