Guess what I did today?

What the heck are we doing????????????? Repeating the mistakes of the 1920s seems what we’re doing. The banks have cool secrecy laws that help them hide where money is shifted and stored. The laws were created by heavily lobbied legislators to stop any potential panic that might occur if Americans learned …the rest of the story.

So we Americans are kept in the dark, hand the banking industry our cash and trust they will do good with it. Hopefully they are. In the 1920s they weren’t so good. Again the Teasury worked with the banks to bankings interest. The Justice Department also leaned in bankings favor as bankings top dogs, certain investors and others on lower rungs made off with lots and lots of other peoples cash. It was an internal looting. Few were prosecuted.

Hopefully that is not happening now. Though ditching that much cash into a murky industry as banking sure must be tempting. The sad part is that we’ll probably never know.

Guess what I did today?

Amongst the projects I’m working on is the annual Christmas Card I send out. Here’s an enlarged part of the rough sketch of the card.

Was woking on projects today. Above is an enlarged part of one of the pieces of the art I inked today.

I am extemely worried about those that seem to think that Obama will make their economic life back to its free spending days as soon as he enters office. Obama will not do this. McCain could not do this. None of the former Presidential candidates could do this.

This is going to take time. Time to settle the US debt, the enormous amount of business debt and the individual American debt. I’ve been talking and drawing about this for years. Settle the debt and we can play a bit more again. This will take years. No matter what is done, it will take years.

If Obama takes the FDR route, with WPA and CCC projects, he could do what FDR did and prolong the bad economic times for a decade or more. Please remember it took World War II to get us out of the mess FDR created. Based on things Obama said during the campaign, increasing military actions and war seem to be a factors in his plans to make the economy better.

The words Joe Biden said about the new administration being threatened missed the critical words he said at the end of that statement. Words the media continuously snipped off when playing it. Those words are that the Obama administration may make decisions that are not popular with Americans and they’ll need backing for Obama no matter what they do. Those words need to be heeded. Obama backers I’ve spoken to have unrealistic views of what he might do. They truly think he’s God like. I wish Obama would make a speech to help ease these folks back to earth. It would truly help the country and better prepare them for far rougher times ahead.

A good deal of the American people, especially the young ones, think that answers are a push button away. Real life is not a push button answer. Americans are about to be reminded of that. I just hope they’ll keep their heads with Obama, the American government and their community when that happens.

We hiked 3 and a half miles from the Ross Prairie Trailhead. Here are sketches and a bit of film of me drawing Sandra took. The drawing above is the same I started and finished in the film.

For photos of the hike click here to see them at Genuine Florida.

We attended Ocali Country Days at Silver River State Park. The event celebrates the 1800s history of the northern Central Florida area. There are all kinds of re-enactors demonstrating everything from tatting to cane grinding to building a full-size cabin. Above is a sketch of a union soldier taking a break.

Just finished three more fiction novels. I originally was going to read three Randy Wayne White. As I read ‘Tampa Burn’, I realized I wouldn’t be getting to a second. I’m the only person I know who doesn’t care for White’s work. I know he’s currently considered Florida’s greatest writer. I just find the writing ponderous. The endings are unsatisfying and I don’t like any of the characters. Heroes and villains. I know it’s just me and I will continue to recommend him as so many, including Sandra, love his work.

So, off I wandered to a Mike Shayne novel written after the actual author moved on. The later novels had curse words and lots of sexual activites. THE reason I love the original series is that they were well written and excluded the mess of the later ones. ‘Armed…Dangerous…’ was poorly excuted, though I liked it better than ‘Tampa Burn’.

The Shayne cover was painted by the amazing Robert McGinnis. I absolutley love the face. Here it is enlarged.

While we were in Delray Beach, I picked up James Swain’s newest paperback, ‘Midnight Rambler’. It was terrific! It took a road I’ve rarely seen and had a good bad guy(s) with an intricate plan to be bad. Though a small bit contrived at one point, it still far outshone most of the fiction I’ve read this year.

Same Song, Different Singer….He just sings reeeaall good. How long will it take the audience to realize what’s happening on stage?

I’m not hearing the media pointing to the dramatic stock market drop to the election of Obama. It was going up, especiallyas polls showed more of an upturn to McCain days before the election. Wednesday it skyrocketed down. i had predicted a 500 point (dollar) drop. It was 486 instead. I did and do see it dropping more, especially after January 21st. I was a bit surprised at another 400 dollar drop yesterday. I noticed it’s up preceding an upcoming Obama speech. He better say something reeeeaaalll different than he was saying during the campaign to turn this around. The public won’t notice the different anyway.

Everyone…and I mean everyone, we spoke to supporting Obama, couldn’t explain and barely knew what Obama’s policies were or are depending on what he was or is supporting at the time. That includes the Obama lawyers I spoke to. Let’s see what Obama’s supporting today.

I was pollwatching Election Day without sleep for two days. The night before I assembled quite a few hundred signs. I left from there and drove 124 miles in 6 hours  putting up signs across Marion County. I went home, changed and headed to the poll assigned. Republican Roy Capshaw was with me to pollwatch. We settled with an “Obama Greeter” and an Obama Lawyer. There were two other lawyers there and a fourth who hung around for a while. Two more Obama volunteers came and sat in their car and watched me and Roy and the goings on. At one time there were 8 Obama people at 1 precinct. Three were being paid.

One of the lawyers told me that the greeter and lawyer setup was the case across the state in each of the 67 counties. Apparently, each precinct in Marion County had an Obama greeter, Obama pollwatcher inside the polling area and at least one lawyer. I went by a few other precincts and saw the greeters and lawyer.

In the end, I gotten overtired and had to leave. I quickly sketched the tree above that sat near the voting area.

Below is the cheat sheet handed to voters by the Obama Greeter. I spoke to a few people outside the area that wanted to see it, so here it is.

Here is the other side of the cheat sheet.

Too bad the ones passing these out didn’t think the voter might be able to think for themselves and not need such shallow direction.

Later was the Victory Party, as was hoped. Here a map is being colored red and blue for folks to follow.

A thumbs up from the faithful.

Even Dick Cheney joined us….well, he LOOKS like Dick Cheney. Actually it’s Roy Capshaw who was paired with me for pollwatching duties earlier in the day.

It’s Matt MacClain, Angie Boynton and Tammie Still pondering something more to do during the party. Angie helms our McCain HQ and lead us to victory in Marion County for McCain.

Here’s Matt MacClain, just re-elected Stan MacClain, just re-elected Kurt Kelly (I snapped this at a bad momment) and Glenn Tomblinson, who heads Campaign Graphics and created the outstanding political materials for a ton of politicians including McCain in Florida. Glenn made the sign in the background.

Finally, it’s Rejerio who has been summoned by John McCain on the secret Election Video Phone where he receives his top secret orders for duty to save the world.

…OK! Ok! I’ll stop! Rejerio watched John McCain as he gave his concession speech.