i'm home, dear
oh, were you gone
i suffered cyberinterruptus a month ago
oh that's what it was

this particular holiday celebration has never excited me. both terms in 'liberty and justice for all' always strike me as somewhere between inexact and irrelevant to the real world. but i always enjoyed the quality time the 4th gives me with my puter. and this time i can celebrate my return to the net with unabashed joy.

three noteworthy additions
1 - i'm now living on the second floor so i get to actually watch the free fireworks show for the first time while listening to my neighbors celebrating their liberty with real guns.
2 - i'm working hard at getting down adding my liberty slideshow to today's blog and with a little luck it will appear in the final version of this blog somewhere along here.

worth 1000 runs 'contests' to encourage photoshoppers to play with photos on particular thems. they recently ran one i've called their most recent one liberty redux using the statute of liberty as a base. somewhere within or elsewhere, there was a suggestion that the white house press office should have simply photoshopped airforce one on a pic of the ol girl instead of sending the real thing by for a flyover. at least obama wouldn't have had to apologize.
3 - and that provides me a not bad seque to some good ol gw irony. even in the new era, living in oklahoma still invites comparison to living in utah with baptists substituted for mormons. and northwest oklahoma had a firm lock on redness way before it became symbolic of your politics rather than the color of your neck*.
so it shouldn't surprise me that gw should take the lead from richard nixon and pick the area for public return from an ignominious end to a presidency. nixon went to enid; gw is going to the 4th of july rodeo in woodward, oklahoma, as part of his going to small venues with 'real' folks plans. here's some notes from the washington post story:

WOODWARD, Okla. (AP) — When the middle-of-nowhere town of Woodward invited George W. Bush to its Fourth of July celebration, no one really expected the former president to accept. But he did. Now this community of 12,000 is scurrying to get ready for what some locals are calling the biggest thing ever to happen to Woodward, a place where cattle outnumber people.
...
About 9,200 tickets have been sold, which would be the biggest crowd for Bush since he left office in January. Over the past five months, Bush has made about a half-dozen public appearances. He seems to especially enjoy rubbing elbows with regular folk. He paid a visit to a Dallas hardware store in February. Three days later, he dropped in on a political science class at Southern Methodist University.
Asked why Bush accepted Woodward's invitation, his spokesman in Dallas, Rob Saliterman, said only: "President Bush believes there is no place better than Woodward, Oklahoma, to celebrate the Fourth of July and looks forward to being part of this event."
Though Bush left office with a dismal 34 percent approval rating, he remains popular in Oklahoma. The state hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and was the only state in 2008 where every county voted for Republican John McCain. Bush carried 81 percent of the vote in Woodward in the 2004 elections.
"Maybe some young kids and old Democrats didn't vote for him, but I think the rest of us did," said Kris Day, who owns The Cowboy's Tack Shop with her husband. ...
Seats for the speech range from $25 to $500 for the "Oval Office Ticket," situated in the first rows, close to Bush, VIP parking and
complimentary beverages. ...

*note to self - remember when conservatives used to affiliate red with badness and communism.

say goodnite george - remember the nixon

some 30+ years ago, i stood at fisherman's wharf in san francisco with a happy crowd celebrating the exit of richard nixon from public life, the presidency and washington. i suspect that's the first time i truly began to understand the word 'bittersweet'. there seemed to be some at least poetic justice to nixon's exit in disgrace. but actually nixon's own words in an earlier exit told more than we wanted to hear.

'I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know — just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, ...' press conference after losing the election for governor of
california, (7 november 1962)

nixon did leave us with his mess not to return until a public appearance in little ol enid, oklahoma, in support of outgoing governor henry bellmon. my political junkie father took my mother to that event even tho he was an adamant and lifelong democrat. enid and northwest oklahoma had been the red state portion of oklahoma before it became a statewide phenomenon. enid was the home base of my mother's side of the family and the only small town i visited regularly during my childhood.
[the only 'citation' i could find for the event: http://paperson.blogspot.com/]

fast forward to this day in history when george bush continues to make his own version of a cheesy exit that for me is both satisfying and irritating. he has done badly and left a terrible legacy for his successor. but i and some others have lost the special joy of sharing our distaste for him. we will no longer be able to enjoy the wonders of the jokes about him that the new technology gave us. they and he now pass into the artifact stage of history and our individual selves. my original intention was to offer a few last humorous images of him. but at this moment that seems as unnecessary and inappropriate as pursuing the crimes he and his folks committed against us all. face it friends we simply won't have george bush to kick around anymore

words fail me as 2008 ends.

the yin and yang of the 2008 to 2009 cusp seemed to require some comment. then the classic dickens, 'it was the best of times, etc.' popped into my mind. i factchecked my recollection and found the whole quote was more than worthy of repeat. so today i offer it followed by a wonderful youtube piece. together they speak to my thoughts and mixed emotions today.

'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we are all going direct to heaven, we are all going the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities on its being received for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.' Charles Dickens, the opening words of A Tale of Two Cities written in 1859 imagining the days of the french revolution some 70 years before.

New Lang Syne 2008 [Thank god It's Over]

Courtesy of Larry 'avguy' at filmstrips original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkkCJpJiEhk