A LITTLE BIT BETTER

I've been dealing with two days of fever and joint lockdown, but I wanted to express my happiness at the good news flowing out of the Oval Office. A year ago, I made a list of my top ten issues I wanted to see addressed by a new government. At the very top was "Restore the Constitution". This had several subcategories, including limiting so-called executive privilege, restoring transparency, enforcing accountability, returning checks and balances -- you know the rest.

I believed (still do) that if these Cheney-spored rots were scrubbed out, all else would follow much more easily. Which is why when Obama caved on FISA, he went down on my list of Presidential picks.

But damn, the Constitutional scholar in him is coming forth, ain't it? So far, I'm happy as a gator in a chickenranch.

I wanted to alert you all to an interesting website run by the St. Petersburg Times called "The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises". As of this morning, out of about 500 campaign promises, here's the scoreboard so far:

Promise Kept -- 7
Compromise -- 0
Promise Broken -- 0
Stalled -- 1
In The Works -- 14
No Action -- 488

Go to the site for more details. And bookmark it for future reference. Remember, happiness depends on noticing what's going right as much as it does expressing your expectations for improvement.

Or, to quote Jennifer Warnes in the working-class anthem for Norma Rae:

Bless the child of a working man
She knows too soon where she's from
And bless the hands of a working man
He knows his soul is his own

So it goes like it goes
Like a river flows
And time, it rolls right on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone
Maybe what's bad gets gone


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]