Politics

Just a little bit of follow-up to the election, this past week, of the first Pope Francis.

I liked him. When he came out onto the balcony, and smiled. He has a nice smile. He chose a good name. All in all, I'm about as pleased with his selection as a secular non-Catholic can possibly be. But then, I seem to have somewhat different criteria for a Pope than some of my left of the aisle colleagues. For one thing, I was not surprised to discover that he is, in fact, Catholic. Read more about Is the Pope Catholic?

This morning, a column in the New York Times by Ta-Nehisi Coates, sparked a conversation in a Facebook group of which I am a part. Coates writes: Read more about The N Word

1. Nothing substantial will get through the Republican House on gun safety issues.

2. Spending is not out of control. The Republican Tea Party Congress is out of control.

3. The issue is not "big government" or "small government." Neither of those positions have any substantive meaning behind them. Neither addresses the function of government vis a vis the needs of its citizens. Read more about Random Thoughts

Even I was struck a little dumb listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. Over-reaching much? I had to ask myself.

Job creation via infrastructure upgrades?
Raising the minimum wage?
Fairness for women?
Getting cars and trucks off of oil?
Path to citizenship for undocumented workers?
Talks with Iran?
Gun safety legislation?
Pre-school for all children?

Rimshots 1, because there might be a Rimshots 2 in the future. Bouncing off the headlines from the 02/07/13 New York Times.

U.S. Increases Pressure of Economic War on Tehran Read more about Rimshots 1

I just had one of those frustrating conversations with an acquaintance of mine who blew in here to ask if he could borrow my handtruck to help a mutual friend move. I had been trying to think of something to say in this space today, but I had left the TV on in the other room and he, noticing a story, started railing about "journalism today."

"Manti Teo," he said. "Who cares?" I said. "But don't you see that they are just filling time with the topic of the day?" he said. "Of course," I said. "That's what they do."

He told me that "the system is broken." Read more about Miscommunication

Here's three things that caught my eye this morning:

"We give up our rights one piece at a time."
CHARLIE HOUCK, a banker who attended a discussion held by Senator Joe Manchin III about gun laws in West Virginia. Read more about Speaking of Morning

With President Obama's Second Inaugural coming up tomorrow, it seems I should be waxing largely upon my nation's future when, instead, a piece in this morning's New York Times sends me back to the future of another nation entirely. Read more about A Question of Honor

Okay. That's a bit of a joke. I was looking up other possible interpretations for AGW and one was All Going Well.

Two others were, of course, Accelerated Global Warming and Anti Global Warming. Three very different meanings of one little acronym. Read more about All Going Well

So, we've talked ourselves off of the ledge and life may go on for a while, but we aren't out of the slough of geographical idiomatic despond as yet. There's still a ceiling overhead, and just like Alice, we really aren't certain what pill makes us larger and what pill makes us small.

There's another geographical feature that comes to my mind when I think about all of the issues facing us in 2013 and the journey that must be taken to deal with them somehow, someway. Read more about The Cut-Bank