California's tent city

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened up a make-shift tent city for the homeless that sprang up in the capital city of Sacramento. The current tent city will be shut down and its residents allowed to stay at the state fairgrounds.

Schwarzenegger said he ordered the state facility known as Cal-Expo to be used for three months to serve the 125 tent city residents, some of them displaced by the economic recession. The encampment may be shut down within a month. The move comes after the Sacramento City Council last night agreed to spend $880,000 to expand homeless programs.

Some of the residents have been displaced as a result of the housing market collapse. Those who are displaced for that reason have been unable to ride out the market in high interest mortgages.

Times are difficult when tent camps are top news. We have to wonder how to cut state spending and prevent such mortgage disasters again without letting our democratic society fall into socialism.

Obama's Kenyan family

President Barack Obama's aunt is fighting deportation. It will be interesting to see how this might influence his stance on immigration.

In Kenya, President Obama's older half-brother has been hospitalized with stomach pains and is being tested for cholera.

Do as we say, not as we do

22 Georgia legislators fail to pay income taxes...

Stress, Gray and Tough Times

Have you ever noticed that a person ages while going through a stressful time? Take the eighteen-year-old who finds their first gray hair after the most stressful and painful year of their life. Or, the woman who grays in a year while battling through a messy divorce. Or, the President of the United States who is reported to age two years for every one year in office.

Just 44 days into the job, President Obama is already showing an astounding amount of gray. He is not alone though. Bill Clinton still had half of his natural brown hair when he took office, and was completely silver two years later. George W. Bush went from salt and pepper to all salt in a flash.

For the President who prides himself on his youthful appearance and stress free demeanor, he is certainly showing the stress of the times - an election, a floundering economy and war raging. It is a stressful season marked by the ever increasing light hairs reflecting from his hair.