Randomized and Uncategorized....This blog

I'm not sure if anyone really cares about blogging anymore. 

Our lives are so exposed and so EASY to expose with far less effort these days that it's hardly worth the effort.

I mean yeah, there's no shortage of "CEO corner" examples but that's just marketing fluff to appease shareholders.

It's rare that I see anything genuine simply because so few care about the medium.

Which is one of the reasons I started this blog.  I was fairly certain nobody would read it which lets it live in a kind of limbo of being "online" but still largely anonymous.  That also removes the barriers to my content that come from trying to please an audience.

Take it for what it's worth and I have to admit sometimes it's absolutely worthless.

But there are those times when something magical happens.  Brief interludes where thoughts, ideas and emotions flow freely culminating in something that gives me pause.

And I wrote it!

If you want to know the purpose it's quite simple really...

It's a collection of points in time, a sounding board and sometimes just a writing exercise.  Most of the time there's no grand plan, no agenda, no motive.

In fact it's much like the classic personal diary except I rarely expose the personal except to illustrate a concept I may be trying to get across.

I've actually had readers contact me expressing concern over certain posts that may seem indicative of some kind of internal strife. 

Trust me, nothing is further from reality. You're just getting a window into my process of purging those things that are better not internalized.

That kind of thing is at odds, however, with something that's always worried me.  That is, being misunderstood and sending the wrong message.

There are times when words can't express what's in my head no matter how hard I try.  Thoughts and emotions, joy, sorrow, befuddlement and amusement. 

Some things are meant to be expressed in other ways...

Of course that's not the sole purpose of this blog.  Writing exercises, commentary on popular culture and even my own brand of philosophy are found here.

A grab bag of disjointed topics collected together in one grand mess. 

So love it, hate it or ponder it just know that I'm probably doing the same after I hit that "publish" button.

Thank You! (100K views)

Thank You!

We just broke 100,000 views of this blog.  Yes, it took 5 years to do it, yes, most sites get that in a day but to me it's a major milestone so THANK YOU!

Your support is the catalyst to continue and I intend to.

So whether it's popular culture, TWIT or anything else I cover know that if it's worth writing about I'll be sure to post it here.

Tell you friends!  Looking forward to the next 100,000 views!

Arizona Monsoon 2016 Highlights

So let's take a break from the activism for a bit and explore one of the other reasons for this blog's existence. 

I've said it before.  I'm a frustrated storm chaser.  I'm fascinated by weather and storms and if I could afford it I'd have one of those home weather stations just so I could check barometric pressure and wind speed every 5 minutes.

Alas, I'm just an enthusiast with a smartphone and an old 1 Megapixel camera that eats batteries like a 5 year old eats fruit loops.

Below are some of my favorite examples of this year's Arizona Monsoon season.  I actually got lucky in  a few videos and caught some dramatic shots but truth be told this year's monsoon was more about wind than rain.  In fact the meteorologists are saying we're actually down 2 inches this year having not broken 5 inches in total.  

Some places got much more than that but those were isolated cases.  In one storm event a part of the valley received 3 inches of rain in an hour.  That doesn't sound like much if you're from the Midwest or deep South but here it translates into freeways underwater and cars floating around.

Of course I can't let this post end without mentioning that you can enjoy most of these videos Ad Free thanks to TWIT's abuse of YouTube's copyright system.  The very same one that Leo's brain-dead zombie henchmen led by the #DarkTrollWitch  have used to demonetize the entire channel till November....

Leo's on a boat for this year's vacation.  I hope he doesn't get too seasick but Karma being what it is....

Anyway...

Try to enjoy these snippets of time from this year's Arizona Monsoon storms brought you courtesy of my crappy cameras and poor videography.  

You might see something that surprises you!

Peace..

Thoughts on all the recent violence. Terrorism or otherwise

Nice France

Baton Rouge Louisiana

Dallas Texas

Terrorism, Racial Inequality, Fear.

I wish I had some profound insights to share but I don't.  I'm just a normal guy trying to make his way in the world.  So aren't we all.  

I'm sure you've felt some of the same frustrations as the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes but you dare not express them lest you be labeled a radical sympathizer.

Is Western society far too enamored with money and power?  Does it elevate the inconsequential above social responsibility?

Of course it does.  

Do we judge others based on what we know or the rhetoric we find most convenient to our own bias.

Do the people we trust with our safety view us as their wards or potential adversaries?  Sadly your complexion has an effect on that judgement.

Too  many labels: Black, White, terrorist, racist, capitalist, rich , poor, smart, dumb.

We become prisoners of our cultural indoctrination.  Threaten the construct at  your own peril.  The wrongs of the world are caused by the other guy.  The one that doesn't look like us, doesn't pray to the same god, doesn't see the world the way you do.

It stokes a fire of frustration that becomes a blinding rage.

I'm no better than you.  I have my own biases and prejudices and I confess I don't know as much about the world as I should.  

What I do know is that the more you try to control the world the looser your grip on it becomes.  

When you create a culture of denial your reap what you sow.  When you disenfranchise others for your own benefit civil discourse becomes impossible.  


This is how Dallas, Baton Rouge, Nice and Paris happened.  This is also how 911 happened.  

I shed no tears for Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or Micah Johnson.  I see them as bloody opportunists seizing the message of the disenfranchised for their own ends.

It's what politicians do just without the guns and bombs.

When your message is one of exclusion and your world view narrow and unyielding you create an incubator for terrorism and violence. 

Yes, the perpetrators are guilty of their own crimes but we have to take some responsibility for the environment that created them.  

There's always a catalyst, a spark, something that lights the fire.  Ignorance and indifference only fans the flames.  

Even Adolf Hitler didn't rise alone like some biblical Anti-Christ as some would have you believe.  He too was an opportunist taking advantage of the disenfranchised rage of a country on the verge of collapse.  

We're far too content with the superficial.  We want a bad guy to blame so we don't have to take any responsibility for creating him.

Worse, the world we live in thrives on the superficial.  Social media, 24 hour news cycles, news delivered by "personalities" without even the suggestion of objectivity.  

The message is controlled, massaged and pre-packaged.  We're spoon fed copious amounts of useless information.

We think activism is best accomplished by a Tweet or Facebook like. 

As though a click will end hunger, oppression, and economic disparity.

People are not being heard unless they make it into the news cycle and then only the most radical.  Is it any wonder with such low information that we think every Arab is a terrorist, Every Black man a criminal, Every Latino an illegal immigrant.

We caused this.  We created this environment and it will continue unless we acknowledge our complicity in it.  

They say we should create the world we want to see.  Creation requires knowledge.  Unfortunately, what we consider knowledge is often little more than packaged diatribe.  

The way to fix it?  

Ask the uncomfortable questions.  Challenge your mental status quo and see if there isn't a whole world you've been missing.

You can't escape the experiences your life has shown you but you can escape the ignorance.

The Arizona Monsoon has started!

I'm many things...

An IT guy, Gearhead ( Petrolhead to you UK guys), Gamer, Writer....

None of which are doing much for my wallet these days.

But one of the things these downtrodden, lean times has taught me is to appreciate what the world offers up.

To that end, I've become a fan of Arizona's Monsoon season.

For the past few years I've been grabbing video of the yearly monsoon storms that rage across the state from late June till Mid September.

I'm a frustrated storm chaser at heart as weather events fascinate me.

But like everything else I'm stuck doing it a bit half-assed.  I can't afford to chase a storm more than a couple of miles from my house which is why most videos originate from there.

But sometimes I get some great stuff simply because if there's a storm in the valley there's about a 75% chance that my house is going to be in it's path.

Take a gander at the latest videos I have from this year ( 2016 ) of the start of the season.  The first one captures the first storm of the season while the second one is a bit more dramatic with Thunder and lots of lightning.

I hope you get as much enjoyment out of them as I did capturing the excitement.  

"NO"

No,

I hear a lot of permutations of the word.

You probably do as well even if you don't notice it at the time.  In fact the word "NO" has probably saved your life.  

What do you think a glowing red stoplight is telling you?  

Simply, NO...

Because of course if we ignored it, chances are we'd probably be involved in some horrendous accident harming ourselves and others and ultimately spurring a flood of negative consequences.  All of them ultimately telling you...NO!

The word will have its due one way or the other.  I suggest the path of least resistance...

So NO can be a good thing.  A guard rail protecting you from a sheer cliff.  An intuition about maybe not taking a stroll down that dark, sketchy street.

NO gets a bad rap for being negative.  Nobody likes to be denied something. Be it a favorite morning danish or tickets to a popular performance the last thing you want to hear is that there's just NO more left.  

There are other kinds of bad NO's too.  

NO, you didn't get the job.
NO, you don't qualify for the loan.
NO, you're not going to be a rock star
NO, she doesn't love you in "that way."

They say the trick to get through this mess we call life is to keep things in perspective.  Sometimes that's hard to do and even in an age of constant communication we can end up feeling alone even though it seems like we're in a crowd.

You may have 10,000 followers on Facebook but one careless quip can make you a pariah.

NO can be a lonely place.

A friend recently told me, "After awhile hearing nothing but 'NO' can take its toll on you."

We were talking about my recent difficulties in supporting myself and while what he said was true I also knew that instead of NO being a wall, I had to keep endeavoring to treat it as little more than a low hurdle.

To be honest, the word hasn't been kind to me lately but then there's that perspective thing again.

It reminds me of that joke that Garrison Keillor (controversy aside) makes about the Lutheran philosophy of life. 

"Things could always be worse..."

Which sounds kind of self-defeating until you realize that it's an admonition to appreciate what you've got.  

I often remind myself that you're never really at the bottom until somebody's throwing dirt on your coffin.

Which, by the way, is why I'm not a fan of zombie movies or Lazarus stories.

Zombies are gross and I'm more inclined to believe that Lazarus was less resurrected than  buried alive...  

Sometimes NO can be a guide.  It can show you the way when reason otherwise fails you.  Take the example of not getting that job you were after.

Of all the possible reasons that could be responsible the only one that matters is: Were you honest with yourself when you went after it?

Was it really what you wanted or just something to continue a lifestyle you weren't that wild about to start with.

NO can be the ultimate "tough love."  It's half of the equation when people talk about what's in their "heart of hearts."  

They say, "The heart wants what it wants." and there's NO denying it NO matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise.

You know my story.  I've always tried to spend my time doing things in harmony with my passions and interests.  Sometimes that works, most of the time it doesn't but it's worth the struggle.

I want to be a writer so I write.  Nobody much cares about my work and I've received no accolades doing it aside from a few kind words from my peers.  

The point is that I continue to do it because NO is a hurdle not a wall.  I believe in what I'm doing and hope it brings some value to someone even if it's only me.

That's the point.  Take the adversity, the denials, the denouncements and use them as tools instead of letting them define you.  

Life doesn't always happen on a convenient schedule as much as we'd like it to.  Bills,commitments and mortgage payments all try to dictate what we're supposed to be.  It becomes far too easy to live according to someone else's expectations.  It knocks us out of sync.

NO wonder everyone is so miserable....

NO can be a good word.  A guidepost that forces you to choose what you're living for.  

There's a natural flow in all things.  Throwing rocks in its path only causes disorder and destruction.  

That may seem a bit Zen but it's the simplest way to express what I'm trying to tell you.

NO is just a tool, not a character assessment, not a valuation, not a condemnation.  

Just a tool....

A passion for the discarded

I've always had a special kind of reverence for old things.  Things discarded, battered and within an inch of being just a pile of scrap.

I'll look at an old car rusting away in some forsaken back lot and think, What was it like when it was new.  What places did it go and whom did it carry there.  What was the world like around it.  No doubt very different from where it is now.

It's a little sad to see such things discarded simply because they've fallen out of favor with their owners.

I feel the same way about anything abandoned, discarded, unloved...

But while I feel a subtle tug at the heart strings I also see potential.  I never believe anything is too far gone so long as someone is willing to take up the challenge to breathe life back into it.

Yes, there are exceptions and some things are just meant to be thrown away but these days it seems we treat everything from the cars we drive to the people we meet the same way.  Disposable when in our estimation they become too cumbersome.

I've been a fan of Science Fiction since I was a kid which is where I first noticed this fascination with the discarded and neglected.  I was a huge fan of Star Trek (the original series) and always watched with intense interest when the good ship Enterprise would visit some derelict spaceship or forgotten world.  

One of my favorite episodes was entitled, "The Doomsday Machine"  Where Kirk and crew set off to discover the fate of their sister ship who had suffered an unfortunate encounter with a world eating mechanized monster.

What fascinated me wasn't the alien device, however.  It was the bruised, battered hulk of a starship hanging helpless in the cold blackness of space.

The destruction was palpable but what thrilled me was when it was brought at least partially back to life ultimately sacrificing itself and providing the vehicle for Kirk to once again save the galaxy.

It was that last gasp of life.  The Phoenix rising from the ashes if not a bit battered in the process but nonetheless once again relevant.

It's taught me a lesson.  Nothing is beyond hope so long as you're willing to try and the rewards can be truly great.  

I have two cars one is over 40 years old and I've owned it more than half of my life.  It's what I call a project car meaning there's always something to be done.  Mind you, many things have been done but part of the joy of owning it is the ever present opportunity to make it a little better.

When I first bought it nobody paid much attention.  20 years later, however, it seems I can't drive it a block without it coaxing a smile or an impromptu conversation.

It seems to bring others more joy than even I get from it.  I can only guess as to why but if I dared to try it's probably this...

It's not disposable.

It's a reminder that with effort,, some patience and a little love anything is within reach even if nobody else thinks it's worth the effort.

That's why I have a special place in my heart for those old, special things. They're a link to a tapestry of memories that can add color to an otherwise mundane present.

It's worth it to bring some of them into our future. 

By the way, I'm not just talking about cars and barns.  Today we live in a society that's far too quick to label everything disposable, even when those things posess a heart and a soul.

Learn to see the value after the luster has faded.  Learn to see the potential in the passed by.

.

Your past experiences can ruin your present so do something about it.

There's nothing you've ever done that wasn't influenced by something you'd already experienced.  

That may seem obvious but the longer we live the more baggage we drag along with us and it can have effects we may not always be aware of.

Every experience, good or bad, has value.  We tend to cherish the positive and bury the negative in hopes that those unpleasant memories fade to oblivion.

Thing is, we can't escape our own history.  Regardless of how hard you try all that we see or do is part of how we approach everything that comes after.

So with that preface I share with you a strange ritual that I participated in with a close friend.

My friend recently started a great job.  It's just about everything you could ever want.  Great pay, great people and a solid organizational structure that encourages individual success.

He's had it for about 6 months and every time I see him it seems his enthusiasm for the position grows.  Thing is, in the midst of all that positive energy I kept picking up on hints of some negative baggage carried over from his last job.

Understandable considering he had his last job for 16 years, the bulk of his career to this point.  

I remember the tension and frustration of those days.  He learned much of what he knows from the experience of working there.  Unfortunately, the last few years of it had burned some rather unpleasant memories into his subconscious.  It was a betrayal of sorts rooted in a misguided bureaucratic process.

For him it became something he never signed up for.  There were demands put upon him that had little to do with his primary function.  Couple that with unrealistic expectations with no support from a management team without a mission statement.

It became hell.  One that finally required drastic action to escape.  In the end he left on good terms with enough of a parachute to get him to his next job.  He was fortunate to have rolled the dice and won and when his latest job came along he won again.

But as I said, we can't escape our experiences.  With all the positives of my friend's new job there were echoes of his past causing interference.  He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and holding back much as he did in his old job.  

Something symbolic had to be done so that the subconscious hangups from his old bad experiences didn't color his new ones.

Negatives can always be turned to a positive but you have to be able to put them in their place first.  To that end I thought about how we might be able to do something that would create in his mind a clear delineation between his old job and his new one.

I had it!

A few years back he had given me a shirt with the company logo on it.  It was a token gesture of thanks for helping him out on a project we worked on together.

The shirt didn't mean much to me other than preventing nakedness.  I hadn't worn it more than twice and never felt quite right about having it since I never worked for the company.  The interesting part about it is that he never wore it and made a point of giving it to me as though he were trying to rid himself of it.

It occurred to me that since we both had some level of discomfort over this shirt that maybe it was time to bring it to a dramatic end.

So I brought it back to him but not to rejoin the rest of his wardrobe.  No, I had a far more dramatic end in store.

We were going to burn that bitch....

A week went by when my friend surprised me.  There was the shirt still rolled up in the plastic bag I had returned it in.  

We were going to do this and without a moment's hesitation on a particularly dark night we took the shirt to his back yard and set in on fire.

As we watched it burn and tried to stay out of the toxic smoke that can only come from a 50/50 polyester/cotton blend we gazed transfixed at what was meant to be a dramatic and graphic bookend to a bad memory.

It was a gesture to put the memory in its place.  My hope is that the image of that shirt ablaze supplants all those subtle little naggings that can sabotage his new job.

It's not unlike the story I was once told of the guy who bought a new pickup truck.  The story goes that a man bought a brand new pickup truck to replace one that was old and beat up.  He was getting ready to leave when a salesman came up to him and told him admiringly how beautiful it was and how he was sure the man would probably want to try to keep it that way.

On hearing this, the man turned, thought about what he said and then proceeded to pick up a huge rock and throw it in the bed of the truck causing a huge dent and of course a number of scratches in the paint.

The Salesman, horrified, couldn't believe what he just saw to which the man said, " I need this truck for work and can't afford the distraction of keeping it pretty.  Now I don't have to worry about it."

Ok, a bit extreme but the lesson is relevant to the message.  You can't let irrelevant things distract you from what you're trying to accomplish.  If it takes burning a shirt or throwing a rock at a brand new truck to get the BS out of the way then do it.

John Batiste, Colbert & the unexpected...

Say what you will about late night talk shows (and I have) but every once in awhile you get something that transcends the context.

That happened tonight at the end of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert when Colbert introduced bandleader, John Batiste as musical guest.

Colbert explained that the performance was meant to mark the anniversary of the Beatles first TV appearance on that same stage some 52 years earlier.

The music that flowed from Batiste's piano was a quiet medley of Beatles standards finally coming to rest in a rendition of Blackbird.  

The history of it all had weight but Batiste's performance is what almost moved me to tears.

I was floored. 

To be honest, up to that point I hadn't thought much of John Batiste outside of just being a happy go lucky bandleader and sometime sidekick.  

Nothing wrong with that.  I mean Reggie Watts of the Late Late Show is entertaining, The Roots on the The Tonight Show are a lively bunch but I wouldn't go out of my way to explore their musical catalogs.

They all may be decent musicians in their own right but they're just not at the same level as what I saw on Colbert's stage tonight.

Batiste is something different and for me, unexpected.  Till tonight we hadn't really seen the breadth of his talent having been primarily performing upbeat jingles and backing for other visiting musicians on the program.  

In short, not exactly the kind of stuff they invite you to Carnegie Hall for.

Batiste and Stay human are releasing an album of the show's music plus a few of Batiste's own songs.  Might be worth picking it up which is something I never thought I'd say. 

Apparently I need to give Colbert more credit for spotting talent.  

#sotu : Look, I like President Obama but...

Hey, make no mistake, I'm positive the country is in far better shape than it would have been with anyone else in office the past 7 years.

It's an undisputed fact that given a largely hostile congress over 3/4 of his presidency, great things have at least been attempted.

• I don't deny that getting healthcare for those that didn't even have the option because of a pre-existing condition or lack of an employer sponsored plan is a good thing.
• I don't deny that throwing a lifeline to the American auto industry saved the last vestige of American manufacturing.
• I don't deny that because of programs like HARP and mortgage lending reform families are still in their homes.
• I don't deny that there's been some improvement in how student loan programs are administered.
• I don't deny that some people that didn't have work after the financial meltdown have managed to find something.

But let's get real here.  

There's a lot of fuzzy math and hollow declarations of victory to consider.  Let's start with the thing that makes everyone's world go round, money...

Banking reform has been largely toothless and your money can be just as much at risk as it was before the crash.  Worse, many of the people who caused the financial crisis are still holding the reigns and are even richer today than they were 8 years ago.

It's no secret that the top 3% hold more than 1/2 the nation's wealth and that's not going to change anytime soon. The tax rate isn't going to move if you're a billionaire and in spite of claims to the contrary there's little desire on either side of the aisle to change that when campaign coffers are frequently filled by that top 3%.

Many of which made their billions on subprime lending, oil futures and predatory credit and collection practices.  The rest made their money on Wall street which favors those businesses that keep their overhead low ( AKA Wages) and profits high.  So what has the Obama presidency done about all this inequity?

The "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" or CFPB.  Look, the old dogs haven't changed their tricks.  The best that can be said of the CFPB is that your credit card statement is a little easier to read.  Oh yeah, and they win "symbolic" lawsuits against defunct diploma mills.  

BUT...

It hasn't stopped abusive junk debt buyers from hounding hapless victims over debts long past any statute of limitations.  The only defense, an expensive legal action or bankruptcy..  With millions still in financial distress due to the financial meltdown, look for this to only get worse over the next few decades.

Speaking of money, don't get me started on student loans.  There's been a lot of flowery, happy talk over President Obama's tenure but unless you're a newly minted high school graduate don't expect much relief.

Yes it's true.  Under this President Federally backed student loans are now administered by the Department of Education not greedy "servicers" who made billions by fleecing borrowers.  A practice that was often in collusion with private schools with shady reputations charging more per credit hour than Princeton or Harvard.

But if you're not 20 something, things aren't much different.  Yes, your payments may be tied to your income and not exceed 10% but that's been available  for over a decade.  It was one of the options you had when you consolidated your school loans.  Which many did mostly because their interest rate was higher than they were paying for their mortgage and frequently so was the monthly payment.

Still, nothing's been done or even mentioned about the last remaining loophole that all those "servicers"  milk.  That being the scourge of capitalized interest which over time can swell a $25000 loan to $40000 over a decade.  If your student loan originated sometime around Bush 2's second term or before then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Of course the reason most people go to college is to get a better job.  Nobody wants to be relying on Walmart or Burger King to support a family.  Yet that's the bulk of all those "new" jobs out there unless you count the dead end $10 per hour jobs that have sprung up in call centers in all of those "right to work" states.  

Every State of the Union address uses fuzzy math.  Speech writers pick and choose the most favorable of statistics to present a glowing picture.  Only once in the past century has a sitting president had to admit that the state of the union wasn't so hot.  Say what you will about Gerald Ford but at least he was honest about it!

So when I keep hearing about that magical 5% unemployment rate it drives me insane.  Much like President Bush 41's clueless V.P, Dan Quayle pointing to a Help Wanted sign at a Burger King as a sign of economic recovery on the 1992 campaign trail I don't see the substance in the numbers.  It's still harder than it should be for talented people to get the kind of work that they not only deserve but in most cases went into substantial debt for.  

What those numbers don't count are the millions who've given up not because of laziness but rather due to a lack of opportunities.  It's a common practice in technical fields, for example, to post positions with no intention of filling them in hopes of importing cheaper talent through work visas.  A practice nobody has addressed in any substantial way.  CEO's decry the lack of skilled labor pools while simultaneously dismissing experienced but "expensive" talent.

Lest we forget those who've long since fallen off the unemployment rolls.  2008 was almost a decade ago and many still haven't recovered.  Nor are they counted.

More fuzzy math.  According to the White House's own website the current rate of Americans without health insurance has dropped to 8.8%.  An attractive number to campaign on but just like the unemployment figures, largely meaningless.

The Affordable Care Act was supposed to get everyone medical insurance at an affordable rate.  Thing is, the only way the government can possibly know how many people are covered with any degree of certainty is through tax filings.  It asks you right on the form and if you answer in the negative then you get to figure out your penalty.

But if you're making less than $11000, chances are you're not filing taxes and considering many people are only finding low wage part time work that number could be huge.  

More fuzzy math.  Worse, many of those who've signed up for the ACA have found that their premiums and co-pays have in some cases doubled. 

Regardless of claims to the contrary, the only thing the Affordable Care act has done is to swell the coffers of insurance companies and punish those who often find the penalty cheaper than the insurance premiums!   It's a plan the Insurance companies love.  And why not?  It was their lobbyists that influenced the legislation and effectively killed any hope of a single payer, nationalized health care system.  Add a profit motive to a government mandated program and a whole lot of nothing happens.  Sure there's a few who benefit, good for them but most of us haven't.

The saddest part of the whole speech came near the end where the President essentially told working age people in their 40's and 50's, tough luck.  Too bad if you found your personal economy destroyed by a few greedy people peddling mortgages to Burger King employees.  If you're over 40 your best bet is to just wait it out till Social Security kicks in.  So much for hope and change.

It's not that I think President Obama is a bad president.  In fact I'm confident that he was the right guy at the right time.  Anyone else would likely have seen the "Great Recession" truly descend into another "Great Depression." 

Still, even the President had to grudgingly admit that all this economic growth has benefited those at the top of the money tree the most.  The rest of us are still fighting over scraps. 

You can thank a congress more concerned with vendettas and cronyism than meaningful legislation for that.  The past 8 years have been more about who gets to marry who and dismantling healthcare reforms than anything else.  Expect more of the same if another Democrat takes over.  It's been an 8 year grudge match that even extended to his own party.  So it's no wonder that much of President Obama's agenda has amounted to less than was hoped for.

While the President's speech was hopeful and steadfast in his determination he knows that with a lame duck presidency and an obstinate congress his words will ultimately  ring hollow.  Look at the speech as nothing more than a platform for his successor,