If you're not part of the solution...

It’s time for politicians to pay attention to what voters said in November 2008. Voters said, government is here to stay, so stop running against government and just start running the government well. We had a failure of leadership in Washington, and Obama won the Presidency because most voters felt it was time for a change. The task of restoring the jobs, the task of rebuilding the American dream, is urgent. Real people are losing their paychecks every day. Real people are losing their health insurance every day, while millionaire bankers send their lobbyists to D.C. to make sure executives of badly run companies don't lose their bonuses, let alone their pensions or their jobs.

Barack Obama and his team in the White House are clear that they work for the people who elected them, because special interests didn't fund his campaign. He's turned his attention to health care plans that regular people can afford, and won't lose when they lose their jobs - the President knows our wages aren’t keeping pace with the price of gas, food, and prescription drugs. He's rolled up his sleeves; Obama's working every day.

This is what happens when you elect a former community organizer. Voters saw that this is a man who leads by example, a man who's more interested in action than repeating memorized talking points in a press conference. Will you be part of the solution? If you're not talking with your neighbors about community needs and priorities, rest assured there are people who have every intention of controlling how the money is spent.

Obama won’t sit idly by and let our country become even more dependent on foreign oil and imported goods while big companies outsource our jobs. He's targeted education, for example, an investment in our children that will renew our economic power and secure their future.

President Obama gets that government is only as good as the people who run it; he and his staff were working even before the inaugural. Voters are hungry for more leaders with the common sense values Obama has shown, with the courage to do what it takes to lead a clean up of the mess in Washington - so that government "for the people" serves us all by keeping teachers and policemen employed despite special interests and partisan posturing that most of us find disingenuous if not downright unpatriotic in a time of crisis.

I'm not asking who you voted for, or if you're a member of a political party. My question is: What are you doing while Obama's team works to save the economy, jobs, and our environment?

I'm not asking if you can help, but as a citizen of the USA I'm hoping you will.

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Tea Party

No, I'm not talking about impersonating natives to perpetrate an act of insurrection against the British by vandalizing the cargo in Boston Harbor, but that does set the stage. You see, unlike countries that have longer history, such as Britain, China, and Japan, we've gotten away from tea in the U.S.A because of an oppressive tax burden - it didn't really bother the rich, mind you, but when an everyday beverage becomes so expensive that normal people find the price problematic, something has to be done.

And now we have coffee shops stacked so close together that you can hardly see between them in some places, and they charge - guess what? - a fortune for a cuppa Joe. For the price of one Starbuck's half-caf latte I can get well over an ounce of remarkably good tea. I'm not talking about Lipton's here, either. I'm talking visit a tea shop run by a tea loving entrepreneur, such as Indigo Tea in Burnsville, MN. Food Co-ops offer tea in bulk - even that bastion of new capitalism, Amazon, offers remarkable deals on better-than-average tea. The coffee shops work as fast as they can to get me in and out, but the tea shops encourage me to linger, they offer me tastes of something new, and conversation about the trade.

Tea is the wine of the warm beverage industry. It reflects where it was grown, with influences from how it was prepared between harvesting and arriving at the market. The history of tea is as rich as the beverage itself, which is considerably more diverse than most U.S. coffee-drinkers realize.

Learn about tea; Camellia sinensis.

Learn about Teaism.

I've got nothing against Starbuck's making a noisy buck in their frantic shops, or regional chains such as Caribou and Dunn Brothers that offer jobs in a good environment (albeit often still noisy,) and I applaud the entrepreneurs who run their own operation without the support of national ad budgets... after all, you can get a cup of tea, too, at many of these places.

But in an era when families face foreclosure and loss of health care coverage because the financial industry gamed the mortgage business and we left the foxes guarding the henhouse, it just makes me wonder about our consumer-oriented mindset and economic priorities.

So try something different - have some tea. If you're a coffee drinker and you need something dark and full-bodied to entice you into enjoying what billions of people around the world already enjoy, try aged Pu'erh from China's Yunnan province for a start - check a local supplier, order it through Amazon, or order it in tuocha form online from various small businesses, you won't be disappointed.

Next time you're in New Jersey, visit Cape May and you'll find an amazing array of tea rooms. You're been reading about the health benefits, now I'm telling you that there's more to "Green Tea" than just the stuff from Stash at the grocery store. Slow down and have a tea party.

Obama's Visit to Arizona Brings Hope to Foreclosure Alley

President Obama has people engaged, and Dawn Teo's covering both sides of the story for Huffington Post:

Dueling groups of anti- and pro-Obama demonstrators were setup in several "free speech zones" near the high school, smaller groups were scattered across sidewalks and street corners for several blocks, where former Governor Janet Napolitano's departure to take over as the new United States Secretary of Homeland Security gave Republicans full control of Arizona's state government.

Ms. Teo wrote:
"According to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, who spoke to the press before the event, about 6 percent of Arizona mortgages either are in foreclosure or are more than 90 days behind today. Across the country, nearly 10 percent of mortgages are behind, and in December, close to half of home sales across the country were "distressed" sales. Donovan says he expects about 6 million more foreclosures over the next 3 years."

The Obama administration is supporting legislation that, if passed, would allow judges to write down the principle and/or interest of mortgages when mortgage holders file for bankruptcy, and will be releasing new mortgage guidelines, which go into effect in 2 weeks that will standardize the mortgage loan process, including the appraisal process.

"Eyes brimmed with tears, attendees described the bleak outlook of being uprooted from their homes, a common fate in the Valley of the Sun. Besides the obvious transition from pre-election rallies to stately policy talks, today's topic -- the foreclosure crisis -- was sobering for the Mesa crowd."

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