Posting fool alert

So, my About editor lives in Geneva now. Big change from Slavic Village.

Wasn’t really a question as to why: in less than a year, her house in  Cleve was broken into four times. Her car got it once. Oh, and one time when she went to the bathroom someone walked in and stole her laptop.

Lovely.

Two years ago, while we met in person at Heck’s (Best. Burgers. Evah.) she told me that Slavic Village was a wonderful place to live and relatively crime free. She stands by this statement being true when freshly minted from her lips. Not too much, now.

So her home is pretty cool – a neat 1870’s brick building where allegedly the founder of Oldsmobile, Mr. RJ (or some such initials) Olds, spent his early boyhood. It has a neat screened in porch and loads of character.  Oh, and no crime out there in the eastern sticks.

But I went to Geneva on the Lake, one of my favorite haunts, and lots of Mom and Pop fun places are gone for good. Hard to tell without paying close attention; it’s basically all boarded-up for winter. Some boards won’t be coming off, though.

Jimmy Stewart’s comment in “The Philadelphia Story” sprung to mind,  his sarcastic “The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.”  So, conversely, is the ugliest site in the world what happens when the priviliged class no longer has any money to burn?

Hardly. Maybe for now, though, it’s a sad sight and one to which we’re unused to viewing up close. 

My editor believes we’ve turned a corner with Obama (a fine man, but no miracle worker, so sayeth I as always). 

She made a fabulous lunch and we went over our big plans for the CIFF this year. I’m attending some weekend film forums at CSU that correlate to the festival events and praying to get tickets to the closing night film, starring Rachel Weisz. Paul Ruffalo and Adrian Brody, the name of which escapes me at the moment.  No volunteering this year, because it really made for a long ten days.  Just director interviews, film reviews (which I will post links to as always) and a film slam piece.  Maybe an interview with Bill Guentzler, if we can get him to stand still long enough.

Best time of the year ever.

And now, some questions to ponder

We have time, don’t we? While we watch the world as we’ve known it slowly fade off, with the country shedding jobs at nearly 700,000 a month, some of you must have some time on your hands. If not now, perhaps eventually. Good a time as any to check the contents of your souls while answering these questions:

1. Did you approve of the Iraq war when it started, even knowing, as everyone knew, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

2. Did you simply swallow, unquestioningly, the official list of events as they happened that day, despite myriad holes that did not and could never add up, like where was Norad and why did they not follow stated protocols – amongst many other problematic issues?

3.  Did you pay attention to the fact George W. Bush had the worst job creation record, officially, since Herbert Hoover, as of 2004, and what that would mean for our economy?

4. Did it cross your mind that huge deficits were unsustainable over any length of time, let alone nearly a decade? And that never, in the history of America, were taxes lowered at the same time one war was underway – let alone two?

5. Did you buy one of those cheesy metallic ribbons for our troops, but fail to bat an eye as these young adults were returned to combat duty, over and over, some without much leave time at all?  Did you know that allegedly more troops commit suicide right now than are killed in combat?

6. Did you look at all the pictures of Abu Ghraib?  The really horrid, awful torture pictures made available on the Internet and elsewhere? 

7. If so, did you say anything about them? Do anything?  Feel much remorse and sorrow for what our country was becoming and how your own actions or inactions helped along the spread of evil?

7.5. Did you speak out, protest, write any letters to your Senators, Congressmen, State Reps, Governors….anyone….over any of these matters?

8.  When new shopping centers started popping up everywhere, and there was a new Chipotle, Wal-Mart, another ubiquitous Olive Garden or Lowe’s, did you stop to think how these stores would be sustained with so much overlap? And why we were destroying the land to build new plazas when old shopping plazas had plenty of empty rental units?

9.  Do you still think people who don’t have jobs right now just don’t want to work, or do you realize how bleak things really are?  During the Depression, it was still a widely accepted myth that people were just “lazy” and unwilling to do the work that was available.  I hear it, still, around here.

10. If you answered yes to more than two of the above, how you doing with that whole looking in the mirror and sleeping at night jazz? 

We really do reap what we sow in this world, and it appears the US has a bumper crop coming in. No matter on what side you fell…you will share in the harvest. But it’s always nice, while there’s some breathing time, to ascertain what kind of evil comes about when otherwise good men and women do nothing to stop it.