Just got back from the emergency vet. We're not sure what happened exactly, but Louie has lots of scrapes on his undercarriage, and several puncture wounds. And he won't put any weight on his right rear foot. Also he had shat himself also. The ER vet isn't sure what happened but all we can figure is something attacked him. He'll be okay though and got some pain meds and antibiotics, but that doesn't answer the question of what happened.

Sequence of events: We leave house. We come back after about an 1 hour. Leon arrived sometime during that hour to find 3 separate poopy presents for us. Leon puts Louie outside and locks him out with Kobe. We come back and let Louie back in. He doesn't come through doggie door-which is half raised-but has to come in through people door. He is noticeably limping. When I check him out, I pick him up and notice that he's poopy all over his backside. Decide he needs a bath. In bath notice all the redness and punctures. Then dry him off, decide he looks pathetic and take him to vet, and get above diagnosis.

So was it a rat, raccoon, cat, possum or did he scrape himself up somehow. Took a survey with a flashlight of the backyard, thinking if it was an attack, that Kobe probably dispatched whatever it was. He's killed a raccoon before back there so this isn't an idle thought. Didn't see anything tonight, but we'll look tomorrow in the daylight.

For now Louie is resting comfortably next to me after his very traumatic day. Poor little guy!!

If you are on my friends list or if you read my journal, I want to know 36 things about you.
I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know a lot about each other - I want to know you better!
Comment here and re-post a blank one on your own journal if you feel like it.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
Yes I'd have to say so. Most important of my life, I'm pretty sure.

02) What was your dream growing up?
I wanted to be an astronaut, then an astronomer, than a astrophysicist. Also a baseball player.

03) What talent do you wish you had?
I wish I were more inherently musically and had a beautiful voice.

04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
Mexican Martini

05) Favorite vegetable?
Spinach

06) What was the last book you read?
Neal Stephenson- Diamond Age

07) What zodiac sign are you?
Cancer- drippy water sign :)

08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
Not so far, still not ruling them out just haven't been so moved.

09) Worst Habit?
Biting fingernails

10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
Not sure, I think I look innocent enough.

11) What is your favorite sport?
Baseball/softball

12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
Total optimist.

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
Making out sounds good, talking about philosophy sounds cool too

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
Loosing my teenage years to severe migaines.

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
I can put both ankles behind my ears.

16) Do you have any pets?
4 in the household and 3 are ours. 1 Lab sharpei mix:Kobe, 1 lab: Sunshine, 1 jack russell/chihuahua mix:Louie, and Mauli who is anyone's guess.

17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
I'd welcome you in and be happy to hang out unless I was overwhelmed/stressed out. I do like notice usually though :)

18) What was your first impression of me?
Hard to answer. I've heard others say quiet, fully present, warm, gentle.

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
scary, I don't like them. Only the Cirque du Soleil kind and even then iffy.

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
I used to want to be taller, now I'm pretty happy with all my parts.

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
conscience for most things. Depends on the crime

22) What color eyes do you have?
greeny/gray/blue with gold circles

23) Ever been arrested?
Not so far.
24) Bottle or can soda?
cans are the best, but fountain even better if done well.

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
Pay down debt with most and spend 2000 on a cruise to South Pacific

26) Favorite band to listen to when you're mad?
Linkin Park
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
Place isn't important, its the people you're with.

28) Do you believe in ghosts?
I see no reason not too

29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Dance, talk about random stuff

30) Do you swear a lot?
Not compared to my peers but more than many folks. Don't know, its all relative.

31) Biggest pet peeve?
I don't know, there's a lot of little nuisances in life. I'd say someone's lack of planning suddenly causing an emergency on my part is the worst.

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
emotional
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
Absolutely, life is about emotions and love is the most important of these.

34) Favourite and least favourite food?
I love pizza, Korma curry, and guacamole. I don't like beans

35) Do you believe in God?
Yes I believe God/Goddess is all around us in everything we do. Much nuance here that I won't go into

36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
just did!

Not so long ago, a bright shining star came to us in the form of Kira April. Please join me in wishing my sweet love the happiest of birthdays! Happy Birthday Kira, I love you!!!

I'm very thankful to work next to a greenbelt area. Just took a break and passed by a rabbit on the trail, saw about 15 turtles in the creek, loads of fish, and birds, and some tiny hopping frogs. Not to mention the dogs and humans in the park. Makes my work day so much easier to get through.

Farm friends will like this one....


http://www.fortunewatch.com/the-financial-crisis-has-hit-everyone/

My sweetie is currently in a new musical play about the Ocean and you fabulous people are invited to come see it! Its running Thursday through Sunday from now until June 6th. And bonus, now you can buy your tickets online instead of over the phone. It's $10 on Friday and Saturday or 2 for 1 with 2 canned food donations for Safeplace on Sundays and Thursdays. Please come out and see it if you can!

More info: http://vortexrep.org/
to buy tickets: http://vortexrep.tix.com/Schedule.asp?OrganizationNumber=1922



Here is the "official" blurb about the play:

Reawaken your love affair with the Ocean. From the makers of Sleeping Beauty and Dark Goddess comes a spell-binding new theatrical work that celebrates stories of the Ocean. Follow the journey of the Child of the Gulf as she encounters powerful oceanic deities and otherworldly spirits from diverse global mythologies. Join her as she meets the Mer (Maid and Men), the Sirens (Greek), Olokun (Yoruban/West Africa), the Selkie (Northern Scotland), Lakshmi (Hindu/India), Hine Moana (Maori/New Zealand), Sedna (Inuit/Arctic), Pele (Hawai’ian/Pacific Islands), and Chalchiuhtlicue (Nahua/Central Mexico). This extraordinary cast of mystical characters lures the spectator to dive deep and discover treasures within the history, magic, and exploration of the precious Ocean. All Oceans are one Ocean.

VORTEX Repertory Company--now celebrating its 21st season of stunning original work--presents the world premiere of Oceana by the award-winning collaborative team of Bonnie Cullum and Content Love Knowles. With dozens of original shows and compositions under their belts, Cullum and Knowles team up again for this extraordinary new work. In addition to writing the show, Cullum directs and Knowles serves as musical director.

With inspiring live music, magical intention, rich storytelling, and fantastical spectacle include a watery set by Ann Marie Gordon, awe-inspiring lighting by Jason Amato, fantasy costumes by Talena Martinez, Rain falling from the INSIDE of The VORTEX by Kenneth Gall and sound by Roy Taylor, Oceana promises to be an extraordinary feast for all of the senses.

Oceana features a stellar cast with award-winning VORTEX Repertory Company artists Gabriel Maldonado, Betsy McCann, Kimberley Mead, Kira Parra, Mindy Rast, Yvonne Reed, Andy Agne, and Jonathan Blackwell, and also stars Kimberly Pruit, Rachel Martsolf, Barton Bryan, Katherine Craft, Brenna Pritchard, Jennifer Coy, and Karina Dominguez.

No show on Saturday, May 16—for the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.
Come in Costume to VORTEX’s biggest party of the year!

Last season, VORTEX received B. Iden Payne Awards for Outstanding Production of Musical Theater (Troades: The Legend of the Women of Troy) and Outstanding Director of Musical Theater (Bonnie Cullum), as well as Outstanding Ensemble for the Chorus of Troades and Outstanding Lighting for Jason Amato’s lighting of Troades. Now VORTEX presents a production of extraordinary imagination and beauty.

Warning: Real water. Some nudity. Beware the Splash.

TICKETS
$30-$25 Priority Seating, $20-$15 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists
Thursdays & Sundays, 2-for-1 admission with donation of 2 non-perishable food items for SafePlace. Limited seating. Advanced purchase recommended.

Opens Saturday, May 9 and closes Saturday, June 6
Runs Thursday-Sunday between
ALL shows begin at 8pm.

Your chance to purchase raffle tickets to benefit my nephew Jamie's fight with cancer is almost over. Only two days left before the drawing. The tickets are $10 each. Please comment on my journal or send me an email if you're interested. The prize is a 42" LCD HDTV.

For additional details please see my immediate previous post.

My nephew Jamie has cancer. A big scary fast-moving cancer called Burkett's Lymphoma. He's 20 years old and being a cancer patient has been his full-time job for the last three months. His daily treatments prevent him from working or going to school. He was forced to move back in with his parents. He is fortunate to still have insurance coverage, but many things that aren't covered fully, and meeting these expenses during these economic times has been difficult for his family. I know it's a terrible time to ask for money, but if anybody can spare some, he really needs the help. A paypal account has been set up in his name to help with expenses. You can donate directly to this account (ssorgern at gmail dot com) or, if you prefer, I can give you a mailing address privately where you can mail a check.

Also, one of Jamie's other uncles donated a brand new 42” flat panel LCD TV as a prize in a raffle to benefit Jamie's treatment. The raffle tickets are $10 each and the drawing will be held on March 27th. Don't worry if you're outside of the Austin area and want to buy a raffle ticket; you're still eligible. My parents have offered to pay for shipping to whoever wins the TV. We can either send you the raffle tickets through the mail or scan them and send them to you in email if you prefer.

Any and all help you can give would be greatly appreciated. You can donate anonymously, but feel free to post to my journal if you feel so moved. You can also email me at (quantum_dancer at livejournal dot com) or any of the other email addresses you have for me as they all go to the same place. If you'd like to read more about Jamie's story, please click ( here for a letter from his mother. )

I feel so proud to be an American today. Watching the Obamas actually get out of the armored car and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to chants of Obama, Obama brought me to tears. And hearing that no arrests have thus far occurred during the inauguration makes me think that we really are experiencing a coming together as a country. Even Rick Warren's invocation was shockingly inclusive. I sincerely hope that this coming together can carry on past this inauguration day. But honestly it just feels good to be hopeful about our country again. Its not that I've ever hated my country, but I have hated so many of our recent decisions. This feeling of hope is so welcome, so addictive. Its so nice to feel unequivocally proud of my country, even if its only for a day.

Bush reported to be drinking heavily
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Dec 5, 2008, 00:25

Email this article
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(WMR) -- With less than two months remaining in office, George W. Bush, witnessing a devastating defeat for the Republican Party, worse favorability ratings than those of Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal, and the most devastating economic situation since the Great Depression, is reported by a number of well-placed sources in Washington as drinking heavily.

After having tried to explain away the collapse of several Wall Street brokerage houses by saying, “Wall Street got drunk,” it appears that it is Bush who is suffering from bouts of drunkenness.

According to informed sources who spoke to WMR, Bush was visibly drunk at the recent G-20 economic summit in Washington and at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, Chinese President Hu Jintao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper were among the world leaders who had the chance to witness an inebriated Bush both at the G-20 and APEC summits.

WMR has long reported on Bush’s heavy drinking. On July 31, 2007, WMR reported: “WMR has learned that the January 13, 2002, incident in which President Bush claimed to have choked on a pretzel and passed out briefly was a cover story designed to divert the media’s attention away from Bush’s heavy drinking. A well-placed White House source has confirmed a previous account of another well-connected White House source that Bush had been drinking while watching a Sunday NFL playoff game between Baltimore and Miami.

The White House nurse on duty examined Bush after he passed out from drinking at around 5:35 pm and took a blood sample ostensibly to check his blood sugar levels. The blood sample reportedly showed Bush’s blood alcohol content at a level considered to be legal intoxication.

Bush fell from his couch bruising his cheek and cutting his lip. His eyeglasses also cut the side of his face. Bush blamed the incident on his failure to heed his mother’s advice and chew all his food before he swallowed.”

On June 6, 2005, WMR reported: “A well-heeled Republican donor to the Republican Party was very frank about George W. Bush’s mental and physical condition. Attending a May 17 Republican National Committee $1500 a ticket fundraiser at Washington’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Bush supporter commented that he and others in attendance were talking the entire evening about Bush’s strange appearance. The donor and GOP supporter said that Bush ‘looked like he was on crystal meth,’ a reference to the illegal drug crystal methamphetamine, a hallucinogenic stimulant.”

On September 22, 2005, WMR reported: “The White House press corps has been whispering about Bush’s drinking over the past few years. None dare write or speak about it lest their credentials are lifted and further access cut off by the most vindictive White House in American history.”

On March 13, 2007, WMR reported: “Our White House Press Corps sources report further disturbing news about President George W. Bush. Our sources have witnessed a clearly inebriated Bush approaching members of the press corps and making rude comments, including one particularly crude remark about First Lady Laura Bush. In that case, Bush, nodding toward Laura, called her a ‘c**t.’ While Bush’s drinking is no secret to the White House press contingent, that particular comment was reportedly the worst they have heard uttered by Bush. Our sources also report that Laura Bush’s stays at the White House are less frequent and that her overnight trips to the Mayflower Hotel often coincide with the president’s drunken binges.”

So I've just finished my first painting class out at beautiful Laguna Gloria. The most interesting thing happened at my last class.I found out that one of my classmates is the owner of Tito's vodka. I had been wondering what business this guy was in that required him to answer so many phone calls and had him gallivanted around the U.S with his last trip to talk to the owners of Wrigley Field. But as class ended he presented the teacher with a large bottle of Tito's and everything became clear. I just checked the website, and sure enough there is a picture of Tito there that I recognize as my classmate who enjoys using lots of color, lots of paint, and making folk art.

As far as the painting class, I think it went really well and I got much out of it but for my next class I must find a teacher who is good at teaching technique. As a beginner, my style is largely determined by my knowledge of technique. I simply don't know how to make highly-detailed brush strokes yet because no one has shown me. The teacher I had specializes in abstracts, and when she sees your painting she knows what artist to show you to inspire you and how to help you to improve the piece you're working on. This type of teaching is useful, but for a more advanced student I think. Specific technique instruction is what I'm after at this point. But she was able to offer me quite a few pointers that have helped and that I think have stuck in my brain. And just forcing myself to go to class, and to make art has been worth it. Honestly, the hardest part for me is just getting started. Once I'm into the flow I really enjoy it and don't usually want the class to end!

For all the media out there who are coming out of their euphoria, let's not be under any illusions. Hope is never superficial! Harnessing our best hopes and dreams will be the key to making America the country we want it to be. Cynicism will never be able to accomplish what hope can. So on this day, Veteran's Day, let's take a moment to ponder what hope can do for a country.

We have a leader who can take us there, if only we can support him. "Ask not your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" has never seemed more appropriate.

So I'm sitting here reading LJ while Xmen 2 is playing on the TV. The phone rings and I notice a frog has appeared in front of me on the carpet. I get up and tell Leon we have a frog visitor. As he comes into the leaving room, Louie is sniffing the frog and as we come around the couch Sunshine grabs it in her mouth. Well at this point I'm hoping it was a dead frog. As soon as we pry it out of her mouth, it does appear to be a long dried out dead frog. But for a minute there I thought it was engaging me on the western front as Sunshine must have brought it in and dropped only a few inches from my feet.

Quite a surprise let me tell you.

Current popular vote totals:

Obama
62,946,627

McCain
55,754,431

Obama up by 7 million

Also Prop 8 in California is still too close to call because there's at least 3 million absentee ballots to be counted.

Dear Friends list,

How were you spending the evening when you heard Barack Obama had just been elected president?

This was one of those defining moments. It's a cliche as I think Oprah said it at least 3 times last night, but this really was surreal, and the last time I felt like this(besides personal falling in love type stuff) was when the towers fell. It was the complete opposite feeling but still similar somehow it its unexpectedness.

K and I spent the night watching the returns come in with our roommates and sweeties, minus 1, and with the addition of a couple of orphan friends who came over to watch the returns with us. Having them over made the night feel even more like a communal event. I'm so glad they came. I hooked one of those digital set top boxes along with some rabbit ears, and we watched over the air digital signal from the local stations. Which added to the hilarity and annoyance, because when the signal gets iffy, the audio and video go pixelated and the TV personality looks a little silly.

We mostly watched on ABC, although it seemed very weird not to see Tim Russert during any of the coverage. K had to work from home until about 9:30, which totally sucked. But the rest of us kept her company and drank wine and played Scattergories while watching the coverage. In years past, I've watched all the coverage without interruption, but living without cable has deadened my ability to focus on the bullshit for that long so I enjoyed the distractions.

The funniest thing that happened last night was at about 10 or so, Obama had about 207 electorals and McCain was around 130 I think. Several of us needed a bio break and the rest were refilling our wine glasses. We were out of the living room for 5 minutes tops. When we came back suddenly ABC had switched over to local news and the local reporter was calling Obama the president-elect. All the other stations had switched over to, but at least one of them had an electoral total and Obama had surged ahead to 297 or something. Basically we missed California, Washington, and Oregon come in. We weren't sure this was real, and none of us trusted it. We kept checking http://isobamapresidentyet.com/ and they said Obama wasn't president yet. Then McCain came on and gave his concession speech( very well done and honorable by the way) and we knew that it must be over. We waited for another half hour for Obama's speech and we could let ourselves believe that it was true. I couldn't stop the tears from flowing. I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of our future president. They rang true, ALL OF THEM! It was such a relief, and such a wonderful night!

I will never forget it. Thanks to everyone who joined us bambina_cricket , squidly_colette, bouncyone, queenofhalves, and of course kiramor . It was a night to remember!

It feels like a dream now. The world seems the same this morning, but subtly different somehow. Of course nothing changes immediately and we still have to deal with GW for the next 2 months, but we won the election. I'm so happy, its hard to find the words. For the first time last night, I allowed myself to listen to Obama speak. I just couldn't bear to have the dream stripped from me if he didn't manage to win. He was the inspiring orator I have hoped to hear my entire life. My generation has been waiting for someone to inspire us politically, and it finally happened. We came out in force to drive this change, and Obama's charisma and GW's terrible economic policies have given us a new president, and he's an African American. I'm not sure I ever believed this day could come. His speech was one of inclusiveness and he made the effort to include not only African American struggles, but women's struggles. Even gay Americans were mentioned in his acceptance speech which gives me much hope that everyone will benefit from his administration.

I can't wait for it to start, and I can't believe a political figure has made me proud to be an American once again. It's been a long time.

I feel a tension in my tummy, that wasn't really here yesterday. I know its the election and I'm trying very hard not to let it in. Keeping my shields up. I've had them up for over a year now out of a sense of self preservation. For you see, in 2000 and 2004, I let this feeling in and had months of misery because of it.

This time will be different, I can feel it in my soul, but the nagging doubts remain and keep tugging at my tummy. By this time tomorrow the entire world will be headed on a different course. It will happen! We will make it happen.

history lesson
Presidential Firepower
How FDR saved capitalism in eight days.
By David Greenberg
Posted Friday, Oct. 24, 2008, at 4:34 PM ET

President Bush's vacillating response to the financial crisis has occasioned fond memories of the last president to face a banking catastrophe, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The comparisons are bound to be invidious. FDR's response to the panic of 1933 represented his finest hour—one of them, at any rate—while Bush's moves exhibit all the surefootedness of a dying animal. Yet FDR's early years should be revisited, not as an exercise in nostalgia or an excuse to bash Bush but as a chance to understand how FDR earned the reputation for sterling leadership that he retains today.

Though Roosevelt's charisma went a long way, his success in solving the banking crisis of his day can't be attributed only to his "first-class temperament." Unlike Bush, he had political winds at his back. Bush has been unable to win favor with anything close to a majority of Americans for more than three years, and he is now the lamest of lame ducks. Even self-described conservatives struggle to explain how he no longer represents their movement to the point where his party's presidential nominee shuns him. Contrast that with Roosevelt, who entered office in a historic landslide. The vanquished incumbent, Herbert Hoover, even received a telegram urging him to "vote for Roosevelt, and make it unanimous." New presidents usually anticipate a honeymoon of sorts. Roosevelt—whose Democratic party gained 11 Senate and 97 House seats in the 1932 elections—enjoyed the equivalent of an extended holiday in the Greek Isles.

But another key to Roosevelt's success lay in his mastery of a relatively new medium—radio—for speaking to the public. A few of his predecessors, notably Calvin Coolidge, had deployed the airwaves for political benefit. But where Coolidge skillfully delivered his inaugural and nomination acceptance addresses over the networks, FDR had his speeches drafted purposefully for broadcast—keeping them brief, simple, colloquial, and confidently comforting. (Listen for yourself here.)

Taking office when roughly 62 percent of all households owned radios, FDR decided at the start of his administration to avail himself of the medium, making special use of what soon became known as his "Fireside Chats"—an ingenious name (coined by a CBS executive) for an ingenious form of communication. The marvel of the hearthside box remained novel enough in the early 1930s that some listeners still confessed to asking the machine to repeat a sentence or to believing that little people lived inside it. And while most listeners didn't believe the radio to be magical, they did think it transformed their relationship to the man in the White House, as the late, great cultural historian Lawrence Levine and his wife Cornelia noted in their wonderful 2002 book The People and the President: America's Conversation With FDR.

Americans, the Levines noted, responded to Roosevelt's chats with an unprecedented stream of mail. "Listening to you, I could feel the presence of your honest sincerity in the room. I found myself answering you, nodding to you, chatting to you, and agreeing with you," wrote one citizen. "With only the lighted dial of our radio for illumination," wrote another, "a feeling of deep gratitude came over me. With no lites to disclose my surroundings, I might imagine myself in the same room—at the same fireside as our great President Roosevelt, listening to his stirring words."

These and other heartfelt letters disclose not only a reserve of love for the new president that Bush can only envy but a palpable sense that FDR's ethereal words would somehow deliver them from what yet another citizen correspondent called her "long nightmare." While Bush's perfunctorily delivered midday broadcasts have failed to pierce through the cacophony of endlessly breaking bad news, Roosevelt's well-chosen words—spoken slowly and with a friendly laugh, usually at prime time in the East, when anyone could tune in—would bid the country to sit rapt and hold on tight.

Roosevelt also chose his words very carefully. Though he used speechwriters, like all modern presidents, he edited the drafts himself. Sam Rosenman, one of the president's hired pens, insisted that "[t]he speeches were always Roosevelt's. He had gone over every point, every word … studied, reviewed, and read aloud each draft, and had changed it again and again." This personal investment showed. Whereas Bush's remarks feel as if they went straight from a White House word factory into the teleprompter, Roosevelt's came across as inspired—and thus inspiring.

FDR had cynical reasons for embracing radio. With most newspaper editorialists opposed to him, he wanted a direct pipeline to a supportive citizenry. But his recourse to public speeches also rested on a view of government in which executive activism took its license and drew its strength from public opinion. "I can't go any faster than the people will let me," he said, and so he took care to educate the people about his goals in order to bring them along.

Nowhere was this method more in evidence than in his response to the banking crisis. Inaugurated in March, he wasted no time in addressing a catastrophe that had come to a head just before he took office. Two days into his presidency, he declared a "bank holiday"—a coy euphemism for temporarily shuttering the nation's chief lending institutions. A few days later, Congress—acting "promptly and patriotically," FDR said—gave him the authority to oversee the banks. Finally, and most critically as far as the public was concerned, Roosevelt went on the air the next week with his first Fireside Chat, opening with the simple words: "My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking …"

The speech that followed picked up on FDR's confident assertion, made in his inaugural, that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Like a friendly teacher, he spelled out with clarity how banks work. ("When you deposit money in a bank, the bank … invests your money in many different forms of credit. …") He went on to explain the crisis and his decision to intervene, stressing that most banks hadn't engaged in "incompetent or unwise" behavior but that the actions of a few had triggered widespread insecurity, which, in turn, had sparked the run on the banks.

Roosevelt laid out his plan to right the system, with special attention to the concerns of the average depositor—a person he literally imagined, recalling in his mind the builders, farmers, and clerks he knew from New York's Dutchess County. He even anticipated their questions. ("Another question you will ask is this: Why are all the banks not to be reopened at the same time?") He exuded none of the condescension that has long been Bush's trademark—that unearned confidence of the small-time operator who doesn't realize that in the big leagues, not everyone will be charmed by his patter. Instead of salesmanship, Roosevelt confidently insisted that his plan deserved the public's trust. "Please let me make it clear to you that if your bank does not open the first day you are by no means justified in believing that it will not open," he patiently explained. "A bank that opens on one of the subsequent days is in exactly the same status as the bank that opens tomorrow. I know that many people are worrying about State banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System. There is no occasion for that worry."

The reviews were gushing. "Our president took such a dry subject as banking," said Will Rogers, "and made everybody understand it, even the bankers." Years later Raymond Moley, a member of Roosevelt's "Brains Trust," concluded: "Capitalism was saved in eight days." And when the first of the banks reopened, people indeed kept their deposits in—and began putting their mattress money back in as well. The bank holiday was over, but Roosevelt's honeymoon was just beginning. By April 12, 13,000 once-destitute banks were operating again.

Of course, FDR did more than talk. Without policies to back up his rhetoric, the New Deal would have failed. (Despite a current of thought that insists that Roosevelt's economic policies did nothing, they in fact helped the economy and improved the lives of millions of needy Americans in both the short and long terms.) Similarly, without prudent management of the banking crisis, he might never have turned his 100 days into a whirlwind of legislation—legislation that included the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which itself further helped persuade citizens not to hide their money anymore.

FDR believed his rhetoric about fearing fear. He grasped the psychological dynamics of the panic and treated them as legitimate. And so he directed his speechmaking at the goal of fortifying the public's morale. In so doing, he managed to replace a downward vortex of panic with an upward spiral of hope.
David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers and author of three books of political history, has written the "History Lesson" column since 1998.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2203035/

Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC