Not being critical of the recent Health Reform Summit; No, for one brief shinning 7 or 8 hours, they all smiled for the camera, as "We the People" were treated to a re-run of redundancy. No, I’m talking about this blond I just met.  This little bundle of love, peace and harmony is too adorable to resist.  Her name is Zoe, and she is a tiny Tibetan something, resembling a miniature male lion, who tolerates my calling her “Simba.”  I know, but it’s all in how you say it.  You know like “step by step” really means, slow down so we can figure out a way to keep our friends in the shadows, deep in greenback pastures, even in a time of famine for the multitudes.  “Somebody’s crying Lord, Kumbaya.”

I discovered the land of Zoe with my partner the midnight monster, a true veteran of slipping in and out of protective shadows.  She’s a survivor, born with a bad leg and living on the streets for her first five weeks.  Only she and her mother made it.  Mom, crazy with fear, anger and loss, could neither be consoled, nor acclimate to "Change is in the air," but her little creature of the night, still had glimpses of hope and light. The keepers warned me she was "an unknown quantity," as they gloved up to open her cage.  She leapt out, past the intruder, jumping to and running up my left arm, perching on my shoulder in sphinx position, purring mission accomplished.  When we got home, I named her, “Soulmate.”  “Somebody’s laughing Lord, Kumbaya.”

Zoe's terrain was the middle ground of a household which now, thanks to my adding the demon from the trash cans and cardboards, was shared by two adversarial cats, each slashing and clawing their way over feared displacement to get to the top of the heap, for the imaginary prize of pride.  As working together is not an option, there is perpetual jockeying for a superior position through repetitive talking points. Oops, I mean, repeated hot air and hissy fits.  Whenever the cats are in the same room, there is no play, for while the battlefield offers the great sliding door view of bird feeder guests, there is only one superior vantage point: whatever position the other wants. Whatever the original agenda for the day, the snarling intimidation and hissing saber rattling dominate the airways, in their constant attempts at securing the advantage by any means.  “Somebody’s singing Lord, Kumbaya.”

The drama is far superior to anything on television, so I mute the “start over” spin and watch the slinking antagonists in their posturing performance, revealing a mental state so out of balance.  Though war is neither necessary nor inevitable, it is practiced as the fine art of distraction and re-direction.  Just as I’m convinced to reach for the security blanket of a quick dousing from the water spray bottle, it is not needed, for there is yet at least one “Voice of Reason” in the room.  It is the peace keeper “Simba.”  Disguised as a Tibetan Spaniel, Zoe rises to the occasion, not only stepping between the two power hungry foes, but bravely walking back and forth between the partisans, offering licks of “can’t we agree, we’re closer than ever?”  Of course, for her Mother Teresa efforts, she often suffers the fury exuding from the small minded enemies of cooperation.  Still, somehow, she endures sharp swats from both sides of the isle.  Yet on some days her reaching out results in the offenders departing the battlefield, proving with the end of greedy territorial mussel flexing, it isn’t a battlefield after all, but rather a land of great "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and prosperity potential. Alas, however, “lines” have been committed to memory and drawn in the sand, and tans must be shown off for “lights, camera, action.”  “Somebody’s sleeping Lord, Kumbaya.”

I still Dream, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…” and that it won’t be in incremental itsy bitsy, step by step conservative procrastination.  Actions speak louder than “stop, start over, step by step” evasion of “Charity Begins at Home.”  ALL must insure safety, health and security for ALL Americans, by insisting on a government that hears ALL who cry out from the wilderness.  While all of us can and should applaud the tremendous generosity Americans have shown the people of Haiti (and will bestow upon Chile) in their time of need, is it not Reasonable to remember to look right in front of us, at our feet?  Just as others have been forced to live in tents, so have millions of Americans, every night, some even veterans who served us honorably.  Just Imagine if every relief USA dollar sent to Haiti, was $.90 instead, with the left over $.10 going to Community Centers who help America's Homeless.  Just Imagine what mission that would accomplish.

Please take more than a moment to ponder this truth, and then remember that in this severe winter of our discontent, American overnight tents and cardboard boxes, are in Feet of Snow.  Yes, Think globally, but PLEASE Act Locally.  Americans need America’s help too.

Please Give Hope A Hand: http://www.hopecommunitycenter.org (434) 872-0200,  341 11th Street NW  Charlottesville, VA 22903.  In this time of many great causes for which to fight, let us share some of our financial attention as well with those here at home, without homes.  “Somebody’s praying Lord, Kumbaya.”

Giving HOPE a Helping Hand,

Marcello Rollando,  A Reasonable Voice for a Rebirth of Our Humanity, Freedoms, Honesty and the Rule of Law http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1155138731

The difficulty we are experiencing in this 21st century gives us reason to pause reflectively in recognition that there are those who have been or are seeking public office whose agenda is not very heroic. They are programmed by the “money changers” about whom we were warned centuries ago. They are the users up and abusers of the great gifts, of this exceptional “work in progress,” we call America. To be sure, they are convincing imitators of goodness, while profaning our faith and feigning patriotism. However they are not the good guys, for good guys do not look down on us from on high, while saying “no” to our Asking, Seeking & Knocking for a more secure footing in every way. From the shadows they keep us focused on personal problems and fearful of what tomorrow may bring. For in re-directing our preoccupation to what we think has been, they get back in!

What shadowy puppeteers fear most is consistency with Ghandi, FDR, Bobby, “Abraham, Martin & John,” who saw things not as they were, but might have been. A good man under constant fire, President Obama stubbornly fights to keep "the Ship of State" afloat in a sea left mined by lesser men. Americans love to bestow heroic status to many with less than heroic intentions. Like our votes, Presidents have been both good & bad for America, so perhaps we should worship less, and research more when choosing them. Too often polls reflect overreaction to misconceived expectations. So unless we wish to have our lives, the security of our children’s future and our Nation’s International Dignity muddied in the sludge of tyranny again, we need to stop believing in corporate owned “talking heads” and the National panic they beam, in the wake of a recurring Nixon, Bush and Cheney theme.

Now in tragedy, we can finally see our neighbor and benefactor HAITI. Any History buff can tell you that this most unfortunate, poverty stricken country, we now join an international effort not only to help, but to save, is in large part a recurring chapter in our Nation’s story. As an all but forgotten footnote, Haiti is the missing link which reveals the best and worst of America’s past, present and future: We Are A Connected People! In many ways the slave rebellion of Haiti, coming so soon after our own successful Revolution, is as vital to America being a country with a national reach “from sea to shining sea,” as our National generosity is now necessary to their survival. True it was the Europeans who began our march to the Second Continental Congress, our Declaration of Independence, the great experiment in our International “Exceptionalism” as “The First Modern Democracy,” albeit compromised at present, by the unpatriotic hypocrisy of “The Patriot Act,” and in the past, by the slaughtering of Native Americans. However, without “the War of Knives,” followed by Napoleon’s 1802 invasion, Crete-a-Pierrot, the arrest & death of Haitian freedom leader Toussaint, and, in less than 30 years after our own, the Declaration, in January 1804, of the Second Republic in the Western Hemisphere, we wouldn’t be the sum total of who & what we are. We’re connected.

If the ancestors of the very poor black Haitians who bravely hang on after the recent devastating earthquake, hadn’t made it “the better part of valor” for Napoleon to give Haiti back to the Haitians, in all likely-hood, our President Jefferson would not have had the opportunity to ignore Congress and the Constitution, and enlarge our not always united United States, by doubling the size of America with his 1803 Louisiana Purchase. See the connection?

As a Progressive Independent, I make every effort to listen to all points of view and choose the “Candidate” over the “Party.” I continue to appreciate and respect Republicans like Everett Dirksen and Governor Nelson Rockefeller, yes Goldwater too, and even those “tea baggers” who long for the rebirth of what the 50’s are supposed to have been, under the Golfer-in-Chief. However, living through the slow undoing of our National human decency and International respectability, resulting from the activities of people like, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Rove, it became increasingly difficult to understand how “We the People” could settle for such a poor reflection of ourselves, in our government. I know we have never been the perfect people our movies and even history books portray, but surely we know the Bush League redefined each of us to the world, in a most disappointing and embarrassing way. I'm not an Obama worshiper, and I have little faith in either National Political Party. However, there is no comparison between the lack of leadership of the self-serving Bush League and the mature, calm and deliberate leadership of a President with an International vision, who seems to reach out at every opportunity to embrace and include all points of view. It’s more than Bipartisanship. It’s International accountability. It’s connecting, responsibly.

Yes, truly, that is the question. There are no more "sure things." The Robber Barons of Corporate greed set free by The Bush/Cheney Regime, have successfully eliminated our American certainty, and replaced it with near financial ruin. Yes, I'd hate to see anyone but a Kennedy in the Massachusetts Senate seat, but it's time for the American citizen to stop thinking in terms of the Media created fantasy of Blue vs. Red, used by “talking heads” to ease their herding of the masses. As both Steele & Reid have proven, there are mental midgets in both National Parties.

This is a call for recognition: it's not about Color, or Party, or who you voted for in the past. It's about a new low for those in high office. It’s about a middle class that needs to rise up and put Banks, Wall Street, Media and Government in their proper place and perspective. It's about the newly “have nots,” taking back America from the "Money Changers."

And, it’s about Time!

Now we have no choice but to give elected officials and Business Institutions a taste of being “Left Behind” in the “Dark Side” they have created. It’s Time for “We The People,” to step back out into the Light of Free Will, Free Thinking and Freedom. It’s Time to restore the rights of both those who have paid their dues for family & country and those who have paid their debt to society. It’s Time to resurrect our Human Decency and protect it from all industries who look down on us as cattle to be herded to financial slaughter. Time to realize Corporate CEOs and their Board Members don’t care about you, your children, nor your neighbors and friends. Time to “Seize the Day, confident in the truth that, Corporate leaders don’t believe you & I will really do anything about their using us to maintain their lifestyle with outrageous bonuses. Out of sight, in the shadows of secrets and lies, Banks and other institutions are scrambling to think of newer schemes to drain our financial blood, and keep their corporate hearts beating the life out of us and our Nation. However, now they scramble also, out of a new fear of us. They are scared of the President with the new look from the foreign country of Hawaii. They are scared of what might happen when “We the People” decide to push back. They are scared of us, out here in the real US. HEADLINE: Wall Street lives in growing fear of Main Street. This is the Truth that sets us Free.