photoxpressions 07 - blue period

As winter crept into the valley of Whispering Pines, it has swept away the color and left us with shades of whites & blues. We've seen two snowstorms, one day without power, and numerous little dusting's of snow since Thanksgiving. I've also had the pleasure of experiencing freezing fog, something of an oddity, which lives here in the valley during winter mornings and livens up my morning commutes to the office.
Rae says that the valley reminds her of Narnia under the White Witch's rule. I am reminiscence of Picasso during his "Blue Period", which has inspired these pictures and this post. All pic's shot with "cyanotype color setting" on the trusty Nikon.

UN

In yesterday's Washington Post, Secretary General, Kofi Annan detailed his 5 lessons learned through his experience with the United Nations. Below is an excerpt dealing with what I feel is the most important lesson:

"How can states hold each other to account? Only through multilateral institutions. So my final lesson is that those institutions must be organized in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.

Developing countries should have a stronger voice in international financial institutions, whose decisions can mean life or death for their people. New permanent or long-term members should be added to the U.N. Security Council, whose current membership reflects the reality of 1945, not of today.

No less important, all the Security Council's members must accept the responsibility that comes with their privilege. The council is not a stage for acting out national interests. It is the management committee of our fledgling global security system.

More than ever, Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system. Experience has shown, time and again, that the system works poorly when the United States remains aloof but it functions much better when there is farsighted U.S. leadership.

That gives American leaders of today and tomorrow a great responsibility. The American people must see that they live up to it."

This is just another, of the numerous, global observations of the United States global "war/blunder on Terror". I'm trying very hard to not be anti-administration but, each day my frustration level rises with the mire our military is stuck in both Iraq & Afghanistan. Our global spread of "democrazy" gives me flashbacks of President Johnson in the late 1960's dealing with the Vietnam conflict.

Read the entire article here.