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Forward March





"I want my country back."





I keep hearing that exclamation from the disgruntled tea baggers. My my what a coded message if ever there was one. What are they really saying? I want this and I don't want this?
I feel there loss, but since when did time ever march backwards?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Not really. The more we want them to stay the same. Impossible.
Thousands of years ago the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said it best, "You cannot step in the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing upon you."
Yes they are.
What is also flowing upon us is the transition that we are right in the big middle of right now. Everyday, those "fresh waters" are evidenced in what is here and what is no longer here. You Tube is 5 years old today. Millions of videos are uploaded every 24 hours. It can't be reversed. In only 5 years imagine how many lives changed, lessons learned, surprises discovered...?
Two weeks ago, I finally stuck a digital camera in my truck for the express purpose of taking a picture of a South East Portland establishment with a most incongruous sign. The Dixie Mattress Company has long been an enigma as it sits in a semi-upscale but still funky business district with matching Confederate flag signs announcing it's existence. I don't believe it has been a mattress store recently. But like those houses that exist from time to time n otherwise lively streets, it's been an anomaly, part vacant, part deteriorating and part mystery. Glad I got the shot because last week the place was finally sold and will be converted into a wine bar, or a bistro, or maybe another pub. In this year, 2010, 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights bill, the DIxie Mattress Company flies no more.

Last week, when discussing the phrase "I want my country back," on his weekly TV show, comedian Bill Mahr quipped, "I want my country forward." I thinking of making and selling buttons with that phrase. How forward of me. Anyone interested in purchasing one?

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