Something to Know -

1.   Yes. Obama won re-election.  However, one of the big wins following that event, is that Elizabeth Warren won her contest for the Senate.   Now comes the news that she will be be on the Senate Banking Committee.  This is not good news for the Republicans or Wall Street, since she has more knowledge that anyone around on the funny games and serious fraud that the banking industry has perpetrated on the American people:

http://www.nationalmemo.com/how-republicans-put-elizabeth-warren-in-the-senate-and-on-the-banking-committee/

2.  When you think that the Republicans would be making nice moves to appear to be moderat and thoughtful, they ain't doing it.  Also, you would think that the presence of former speaker Bob Dole, and himself a disabled veteran, that the GOP senators would be supportive of him.  Oh, NO, not them.  The vote was for the USA to ratify a United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  We already have the American with Disabilities Act already, but because it came from the United Nations, the right-wing sentiments are crazy nutso on them.   The UN is a subversive organization that the USA should never be beholden to, and the Tea Baggers hold that organization in contempt.  So much for the reformation of the GOP:

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/from-republicans-a-parting-slap-at-bob-dole-and-disabled-americans/?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

3.  Steve Lopez takes us to the Skid Row streets of downtown Los Angeles.   He gives us the stories of broken people who find help, strength, and the drive and ambition to get better and pay their own way into lives that help those who wonder the streets as the did before.   It goes on daily, and none of them know what the "fiscal cliff" is, and probably don't care.  To us, this is a different world:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1205-lopez-angels-20121205,0,2368527,print.column

--
Juan

"A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts."
       -- Colette

"The big thieves hang the little ones."
       -- Czech Proverb

"Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again."
       -- Franklin P. Jones

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
       -- Will Durant