Slow Sunday.. but busy week has passed.. and we’ve made some small adjustments to the blogging-habits, while two huge stories happened with the State of the Union speech and the growing turmoil in Egypt and the arab world..
The SOTU speech was about as expected – or maybe a little bit to the left of expectations – with a focus on long-term investments and romantics about growth and the future. So perhaps a little bit fewer elements from the right-wing agenda than we’ve seen in the last few months. But aside from that – it’s nice with speeches and words – but the facts and problems still remain the same.. debt, corporate grip on democracy, outsourcing, and demographics and hard times driving a division of society and a drift to the edges of politics. A return of facts and logic to the common ground/center would be a nice first step to solve a lot of these things..
The Middle East is less known territory, but it looks like things are moving towards more instability and possibly more conflicts and factions.. the arab world is about to double in population, from 400 to 800 million people, it’s a very young population – always prone to violent revolutions – and the dynamics between persians, turks, jews, kurds and arabs could change in some very unpredictable ways.. even if the whole region is in some degree always in turmoil.. it’s hard to tell what we’re seeing these days.. with so many unknowns and moving parts..
Next week is probably more fighting in congress – a things to watch are all the games before the upcoming budget – 80% of federal spending is entitlements and defense, and both are huge vote/donor-losers.. the WH is drifting to the right, the right is conflicted and divided, and the left is upset and holding on to the progressive agenda and safety nets for all citizens.
And we will be trying to keep our new schedule with a few postings in the AM – and discussing the news and other stories throughout the day..
And thanks to all commenters and blogging-friends for kind support through a bumpy January!
T&P.
