Ready to go, Eh?

And with that, here's my first post. I'm not sure where this blog will take me, but I'll try to keep everyone interested in the latest tidbits.

I'm currently in Toronto on business for a few days, and it only took about 30 mins before I heard my first "Eh". But don't get me wrong...as Heavy D used to say...I got nothing but love for our neighbors to the north. Heck, their brand of music TV actually plays videos occassionally and you get to see wierdo European & French-Canadian acts you can't even hope to see on MTV2. Thought MC Solaar was a trip? Check out Tangiers

Of course, all this about Canada is just smokescreen so I don't have to talk about our new Gubernator. As a friend rightly pointed out, there have now been two, count 'em TWO, actors from "Predator" elected to governer in the US. Let's hope this trend doesn't continue to Apollo Creed, who, if you didn't know, has broken bread not just with Arnold, but with Sly Stallone.

And we Americans think the Canadians are screwy?!?

In all seriousness though, I understand where the sentiment comes from. The citizenry of any state or nation is usually quite uncaring about their elected representatives until someone or something wakes them up to the reality of the situation. They're mad as hell and they're just not gonna take it any more...of course what they will take is someone who talks generalities and about "changing" things. That's about right for a politician these days.

This time quite a few things came together to put Gray on the hotseat. As usual though, the citizen's ire has been focused because of a misguided notion that somebody new could clean things up. More power to Arnold, but let's face it, Gray's only real fault here is that he couldn't figure out the most important thing about being a politician: Making friends out of enemies. The budget? Well, the whole electricity debacle was put into law by our friend Pete Wilson, not by Gray. The economy and jobs situation is a more a result of the economic cycle and mis-guided federal policy. Gray certainly did he darnest to screw things up further and tried to apologize by passing laws he had previously opposed (and came off looking foolish and obviously trying to make up with The People), but Arnold's not going to be able to change the situation 180 degrees. Let's hope Arnold can make the friends he needs to create at least a little lasting change in Sacramento. Let's also hope that Arnold sees the light on Prop 54 as well as Prop 187. Everyone says they're tired of partisan politics, now The People will get a chance to see just how serious our representatives are about making amends. All cynicism aside, I think Arnold will get an unusually long leash on trying to make change. The People are very forgiving and especially when you've got a big smile, surgically-perfected face, and tight abs, they do indeed give you a lot of chances to succeed. However, if, as I expect, he sweeps some of the dirt under the rug, instead of sweeping all of it out the door, we'll be back to the usual a year from now with The People quite disillusioned and wondering where the world is headed. Conversely, if the jobs situation picks up, it won't matter what the hell Arnold does...people will be too busy cashing their paychecks to care.

What I hadn't even thought about though, is that Arnold gets to work with his erstwhile opponent, Cruz. Afterall, Bustamonte is still the Lt. Governor. How they get along could give us a good idea of how genuine Arnold is in his promises to change the state of things.

So anyways, I better leave something else to write about another time. I plan to talk a lot more about the realities of politics and re-connecting The People with their representatives as well as The System. Come back for more later. Thusly, time for me to click Publish