Good Morning, everyone.  I haven't been ignoring the inauguration.  I just haven't much to say about it.  All of the hoopla has been more of an annoyance than an entertainment.  I will be very glad when it is over and we can get on with it (what ever it is.)

Tripping through the blogs on my Google searches this morning I found this by ourfriendben at Poor Richard's Almanac.  Last fall I started collecting styrofoam egg cartons with the intention of using them as starting trays for my garden this year.  I also collected various size plastic containers that our cream cheese, cottage cheese, and margarine came in to serve as transplant pots.  We don't get soft serve margarine or cream cheese in tubs any more but I already have more than enough of them.  I won't buy any of the watering spikes because I am going to try something of a similar kind.  We are saving the squeeze bottles from dish detergent.  I will break off the cover cap, put a hole in the bottom large enough to fill from my watering can, and will burry the whole bottle between plants.  I will tell you how it works out.  We have a few coffee filters left that I am keeping to use as a porous cover for the bottom of some of my pots.  Last fall, after becoming more and more frustrated by the filters that continued to collapse letting grounds into the pot, we changed to a permanent filter basket that fits into the pot's filter holder.  Now we don't buy paper filters any more.

Wednesday, January 21.

Another good morning to everyone.  I didn't have much to say yesterday so I decided to catch up today.

My first stop on my tour of e-mail alerts was to Congress.org.  They have a partial list of the bills already introduced for House and Senate consideration.  As usual, it is a mixed bag.  Some, I think, are needed.  Others, are flummery.  Others fall into categories that are less politely mentionable.  The lead in to the list mentions that 500 bills have been introduced into the House and 200 into the Senate.  Makes you wonder what wasn't on the list the site made up.

Tom Englehardt at tomdispatch asks a very interesting question with several interesting ramifications: 'what will Obama inherit?'  And about how much of it are we very much in the dark?  Bush's people, throughout his administration, followed the old advice scifi writer Robert Heinlein put in the voice of Lazarus Long: 'In a government of the people, by the people, for the people--DON'T TELL THE PEOPLE.'  

For a good laugh go to Rants By Ronni and read 'Revenge of the Crone.'  It really strikes a chord for those of us who have been so totally frustrated by the impersonal systems that have grown up--and not just in banking.  Just try getting through to a real (and knowledgeable or competent) person at the cable company, or phone company, or credit card company (if you still have them).

I will finish off with a few observations on the inauguration.  Like so many of the bloggers I have been reading, I felt a lightness I haven't felt for a long time.  Like a burden or a depression being lifted.  I don't know how long the mood will last but I hope it will--for a long time.  I heard snippets of the new President's speech and just finished reading it on line.  His words echoed many of the thoughts that have been careening in my mind: the need for a new relationship with the world that depends more on cooperation and diplomacy than on force; a sense that we as a society must find new discipline and self-reliance; that government will help where it can but that as individuals we can and must act for ourselves.  As former (how nice it is to say that word) President Bush left the scene I was glad to be done with a man of iron ideology and jelly ethics.  I hope that the President Obama will be the man of iron ethics and reasoned principles he appears to be.  Ethics I can handle; ideology I can do without.  Reasoned principles I can handle; narrow, fundamentalist religion (of what ever variety) I desperately want to do without.  The words of the speech were important but the pictures from the inauguration were also important.  The most important for me was the picture of the reviewing stand:  the number of young children included (the Obama girls and the Biden grandchildren),  the extended Obama and Biden families and the connections they represent.  I suddenly realized that that had been absent in First Families for some time.  Family and other social connections seem to have been very weak or absent for most of the last several administrations.  The feminists of the 1960s and 70s used to say the personal was political.  Perhaps it will be again.