NEW YORK COUNTRY GIRL: January 2009

My fellow citizens.*

A lot has happened since my last post which impacts just about everyone on the planet.

On this day we gather because we have chosen hope over fear,

unity of purpose over conflict and discord.*

We've seen the inauguration of a new president of the United States of American. YoYo Ma and Itzhak Perlman and two others performed at the ceremonies and were spectacular. Today I hear they "lip synced" or in this case "finger synced" their performance because it was too cold outside for their instruments to remain tuned. They pre-recorded John William's arrangement of Air and Simple Gifts (no matter - beautiful...listen) I was already aware that YoYo Ma did NOT perform with one of his more spectacular cellos...it was the buzz on the Internet about the performance (on top of accolades.) Oh well, I loved the music, pre-recorded or not. I was stupefied watching the musicians perform - they were all without overcoats or gloves (of course.) As I listened to their sound in the cold winter elements - I realized the energy of their passions was not unlike a heater in their pants.

The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit;

to choose our better history...*

President Obama is left handed....which is an interesting twist on how bills will be signed for the next eight years. He is quoted as saying at his first signing; "I'm left handed; get used to it." Funny.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given.

It must be earned.*

True to his word, our new president has closed Guantanamo Bay detention center. Where the detainees are scheduled to reside or if their civil liberties will be finally extended to them will unfold to national scrutiny.

Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested

we refused to let this journey end.*

Many of us are counting down to the promised withdrawal date from Iraq and hoping our troops will not simply be moving over to Afghanistan.

Included below is a withdraw from Iraq count down counter for those browsers which can link to it based on Obama's (and a few others) published date of withdrawal.

If your browser doesn't support the link and gizmo...you will, unfortunately but not insignificantly - see a big black hole. Which amounts to about the same thing.

I've read the Kite Runner and the later book - A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Both are wonderful stories in themselves but they tell us of a ravaged nation. Hosseini writes so beautifully, the reader is embedded in his prose as the stories unfold. He taught me many details and broad strokes regarding Afghanistan's culture, society and community which I'd never have encountered in conventional journalism. The waring factions within Afghanistan are numerous. The problems in that country, like every other civilization, are very, very complex.

We saw our government get involved in Afghanistan to short circuit the Taliban. The aftermath opened the door for the return of waring feudal tribes who fought to control whatever is left of the country. The Afghan people seemed to have been seen as mere blades of grass on a vast,remote and dissolute killing field by the Russian army, the Afghan feudal tribes, the Taliban, and US forces within their boundaries. Who will be next?

Regrettably, the Taliban actually brought stability to the nation...but at what cost? Civil liberties were maimed, brutalized and eventually lost. The Taliban system of "justice" was barbaric with soccer stadium executions and squads of armed men in the back bed's of pick-up trucks roaming streets looking for infractions among the population. No one was safe. During the Taliban tenure on top, men reverted to full beards; women were banned from educational centers; woman returned to being literal property - owned by husbands; females legally had no voice within their community or families; woman and girls were shamed when they were raped and nearly killed and were compelled to go underground emotionally or literally (as in suicide.) The burka re-emerged to mask a woman in public. Women were forced to travel only with a male family member. If she had no male family member alive or still within the country...a woman couldn't emerge from her home to purchase anything or cook food in communal ovens, assuming there was anything to buy or any currency to buy it with or food to eat. The Taliban vigilantes where/are dangerous zealots who criminalized the normal life of the Afghan citizens in the name of a interpretation of religious doctrine. As a result of decades of invasion, wars, repression and family genocide, many Afghan's were forced into exile.

Now the Taliban is on the rise again. One extreme or the other isn't a solution. Many eyes are on Obama to see the evolution of an Afghanistan policy. What we don't need it another war.

I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged, the 1957 monumental novel by Ayn Rand. Two or three things are immediately apparent.

First, old paperbacks have very small type and were printed on very poor, thin paper; the yellowing stock of the aging paperback makes the small type slightly easier to read (the economy forces me to reread old paperbacks or in some cases, first time read eBay bargain older books - I've got to begin to use the inter-library loan system); the story line of Atlas Shrugged is very anti-corporate (although in 1950's we'd have said " anti-industrialized complex"). Ms. Rand weaves a story around the power corporate America exerts upon politicians and governmental policy - (sound familiar?.) The story is very Rockefeller Center in style and tone - meaning - very deco.

The massive seven-ton, 15 food tall cast bronze of the colossal Atlas statue pictured on the book's cover which wraps around its 1000 plus pages, has stood at the 630 Fifth Avenue main entrance front court to Rockefeller Plaza since it was installed in January 1937. Conceived and designed by Lee Lawrie, and modeled by Rene Chambellan, it depicts the story of Atlas from Greek mythology. The largest sculptural work (no, the annual Christmas tree does NOT count) in Rockefeller Center, it embodies both the Center's mythical and heroic theme as well as its Art Deco style.

(this is a wonderful logo)

Over the course of nine years, in the depth of the Depression, the building of Rockefeller Center would provide employment for 75,000 workers. But the impact of such a massive undertaking was felt even more deeply on the city's morale, boosted by the Rockefeller's confident move. (The junior John D. had to under write the construction loans with his own funds to push the project forward.) His faith in progress was also evidenced by his choice of a modern architectural style, Art Deco, over Gothic which was much in vogue at the time of construction. Architects Raymon Hood, Wallace K. Harrison, and Max Abramovitz, with others designed the complex of 14 impressive Indiana-limestone buildings, including a 79-story tower soon taken over by RCA (Radio Corporation of America - and then NBC and now General Electric owner of NBC.) The vertical thrust of the whole complex was meant to symbolize humanity's progress toward new frontiers, a theme dear to Rockefeller, who sought to advance that cause through his philanthropies. (PBS, The American Experience, People and Events: The building of Rockefeller Center 1931-1939

Leave it to the Rockefeller family to make a big statement. Atlas looms over you as you enter the Center through central doors. Many people file past the gargantuan Atlas with an enormous wire frame globe on his muscular shoulders, as they are about to embark on a quest to conquer (or at least "see") the world. The office which issues US passports in a single day is still in room 270 on the second floor (as it was in 1966 when I first passed through this traveler's right of passage.) Never let it be said that the Rockefellers didn't embody foresight in their long tenure as one of our nations prominent business and philantropic families (owners of the early monopoly - Standard Oil and creaters of the structure of modern day philantrophy - the senior John D. was the country's first billionaire, and the world's richest man, retired at 57 and lived another 40 years...the 2008 family's worth is $318.3.) Wasn't it smart to include a long term tenant such as the New York (and Long Island) Passport Agency in Rockefeller Center's occupancy lists?

Nelson Rockefeller was my personal benefactor. As governor of New York state, he expanded the college and university complex of the state university of New York system. His planning literally tore up the potatoe fields of Suffolk County on the North Shore of Long Island for what would become the substanstial and well respected Stony Brook University. Today the university has 24,000 students on its 1,100 acre campus, is ranked 127 worldwide among all universities, has a $1.8 billion all-funds budget for 2008/2009 (only $200 million comes from the state of New York), has decreased its water consumption by 24% and water usage by 38%. The campus has spread beyond its borders in what one supporter calls its "manifest destiny" incorporating a NYC space, and an entire campus in Southampton, NY and many other acres here and there for ecological research or some such endeavor. Stony Brook University was elected to the Association of American Universities (AAU) after a 44 year aspiration to be included in with the top research universities, public and private in North America.

While I was a student at Stony Brook the campus was brand spanking new and being built around those who sought to study and teach within its confines. There were only a few hundred people on the campus learning bits of this and that. Wearing a short skirt in a 8 a.m. biology lecture assured one of a grade point advance of at least one point. That's part of how our eduction progressed. One day in 1964 Nelson Rockefeller came to the campus where he was presented with a golden shovel (or maybe he traveled with his own.) He spaded a little dirt from the spot where the student union building would one day rise. Thereafter, the students referred to Stony Brook en total as "mud with a purpose." What had been a beautiful track of land became a giant red brick and concrete laborinth of rectangular structures connected by wide cement walkways with no one to walk upon them - we paved paradise and put in a parking lot.

Thank you Joni Mitchell. Thank you Nelson Rockefeller.

But the story of Atlas Shrugged...the story is one which mimics the current corporate manipulated America we live within (and the one of all our long years past since the phenomenon began)... without the iPhones, laptop computers or anything of the technology era we can no longer live without. Even without today's instant data transfers and messages, cell phones that take pictures and play tunes, refrigerators that broadcast DVD movies as well as instantly provide ice in several sizes, cars which know where you are on the planet at any given moment and don't burn gasoline, and dogs who can never become lost while they wear their own GPS tag.... Ayn Rand's characters' got their messages fast, furiously and in our collective faces. Hard to believe how they did without instant messages and ice chips. I am not sure if computers and the internet would have greatly changed Ayn Rand's story. Her characters would simply or complexly as it happens, be talking, writing, blogging about what was falling down around them a good deal more (sort of like our current blogoflush of thoughts which we all have ample opportunity to formulate, share and conjoin to even more of the same...who reads this stuff)? Otherwise...sameolesameole. I am interested , however in the spelling of Ayn, aren't you?

The question we ask today is not whether our Government is too big or too small,

but whether it works.*

And we all have figured out, Osama bin Laden is not in Afghanistan. He's in Pakistan. So....let's hope we don't consider waging war with another nation a means to keep the American military industrial complex functioning no matter what boost so doing might make to our sinking economy. Wars simply put more money in the hands of angry people. One can hope we don't make that mistake again.

Obama is struggling with an economic stimulous package as I write. I'm in favor of a "newer deal" as I've mentioned here before. I'd like to see public funds go to supporting the creation of public art works. Some of the most magnificent work we have in our public domain was produced during the degression as part of the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.). The Federal Art Project grew out of the WPA. The F.P.A. created over 5,000 jobs and over 225,000 works of art for the American people. Why not do this again as part of our economic stimulus? Artist have to eat and pay rent in 2009 too.

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off,

and begin again the work of remaking America.*

In day five of the Obama presidency, he's called for accountability for the billions of dollars "given - loaned" to the financial institutions which successfully brought down the world economy. And he's asked that the American citizens be somehow the eventual benefactors of the bail outs...not the greedy movers an shakers who continue with their multi million dollar bonuses and grand life styles...instead of being out on their asses and sued up the kazoo as they should be. One hopes the accountability will include a regular ledger which lists where the dollars have been spent. Somebody send Citibank QuickBooks. And that this information would become soon public. Those who have not acted responsibly...which appears to be the upper echelons of financial institution folks who made dominoeing bad decisions for years....should be held, finally accountable. Again, one can hope that we don't make that mistake again

We've entered a new era:

We are now funding and allowing stem cell research - this will be a remarkable addition to many hereditary diseases like MS - to my understanding;

we're allowing funding to international agencies which have liberal abortion policies so that those in need can actually get help (some of which might be planned pregnancies);

an economic stimulus policy is being reviewed in terms of job loss and items which affect real people; and so much more.

Tuesday, the day after the inauguration, Hillary Clinton was confirmed as our new Secretary of State. When I was a political science major, I always said the political job I wanted was Secretary of State. You get to travel (I'm being light here.) I thought it was an incredibly important position. It was wonderful to see Obama put remarkable trust in the hands of his loyal opponent. And smart.

Today NY governor Patterson nominated Kristan Gillibrand to replace Hillary Clinton as New York's junior senator. Congresswoman Gillibrand is currently in the House of Representatives from my district. She has only been in Congress for two years and a few months having won her second election in November, 2008. She's a conservative Democrat. I've probably sent her several hundred e-mails in support of environmental issues while she's been in office. So, in my mind, she's a home town girl. Although she actually lives in the way more posh part of the district...Saratoga, NY. She is far superior to the swine who occupied the post prior to her election...Sweeney who was in Bush's back pocket or maybe in his jokey shorts. Kristan is a breath of fresher air. I hope she can hold her weight as a senator. It's a big step forward for her. And I fret about who will replace her in congress from my district. We've got some real sleeze ball politicans in my county.

Remember it's only day five.

I'm getting used to hearing Obama's voice speaking in radio news about what's going on. I don't recognize his voice as yet. He's thoughtful, soft spoken, clear in everyday language and obviously intelligent. He doesn't appear to withhold bad news. Each time his voice comes on, I wonder, "who's that speaking?" As I said, getting used to Obama.

I hope he likes his job.

________________________________

* Quotes from President Obama's inaugural speech. CNN and other television commentator's spoke of there being few memorable phrases in this address to the citizens of the USA and planet Earth. Were we listening to the same speech? Pretty damn memorable to me.

In an entirely different, but somehow related direction

The economy continues to slither downward. This personally affects me - making me become semi-retired out of necessity, but not by choice or inclination. Nonetheless, I'm working on a couple things. One for the community and one for a friend. Neither will pad my checking account (although the second project is promising, I'm also writing children's stories for the publication.)

If you click on the images, they will enlarge in a separate window. You must then proceed back a page in your browser to return to newyorkcountrygirl blog (which I'm hoping you will want to do. There is always good stuff toward the end of an entry....promise.)

A poster for an event to benefit the New Lebanon library building fund:

BUMPLES,

the story magazine for girls and boys

Design drafts for a new children's online magazine which will debut in the early spring. (These designs incorporate the wonderful style work and elements of a talented web designer and programmer - Elipidio and the inspiration of publisher and author, Jennifer Sheehan.) The editorial staff includes adults, children, a bilingual puppy and a turtle.

volume 1