Joan, Is the music over? If the 60’s taught us anything, it depends on which drummer we follow - or whether we play along. These days I’m hearing Fairwell Angelina, written by Dylan, sung by Joan Baez. An anthem for this moment in time, with all it’s intended irony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3RkxFr0Fe4 As Dylan said, “This land is your land and this land is my land…sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.” On Barack Obama’s Facebook page, we discovered that he actually filled out his music tastes: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and The Fugees

James, like you, I have a few bucks left in IRA and working on paying off a c.c. My portfolio (what is that exactly?) went to doctors and medicine the past 10 years, that savings account is on empty. Lucky I am that the IRA is in bonds. Waiting for a VA pension which hubby was entitled to for the last 16 years but they forgot to tell us. Fortunately I am a very good cook and I can whip up good meals with potatoes, onions and whatever is left in the cupboard. When I married an artist 40 years ago he told me there would be lean days. I did not care. I promised him I could make hamburger meat into 50 different recipes. Now we no longer eat red meat so I do not have to worry about that. It will all get better, James, the pendulum always has to swing back and forth. Lets make sure we vote.

Being a “starving” writer with no second income in the house, I didn’t have stocks or an IRA, either. But even though I kept my house note low, I now may be upsidedown…at way under $200K. No one here in AZ can sell…or almost nobody. We are stuck. Some neighborhoods are declining with untended houses in them. More gangs. I am worried about my mother’s trust—all she has to live on. She suffers from dementia and my sister and I take care of her—she lives in a group home a ferw miles from here. It’s $2700 a mo. We can’t get the trust away from B of A and I have not had the nerve to ask how it is at the moment. They have been pretty funky at investing it over the last 20 yrs—so I fear the worst. She may be moving in with me. What I want to know if what’s next—are “they” suddenly going to announce: “Oh,we forgot, looks like there isn’t going to be any internet anymore, either”? Something like that. we may be looking at Water World and if the candidate you think is so great isn’t as great as you seem to think, he will be presiding over the end of the US as we used to know and love it.