Derek Shearer Essay: Some Gloom, But Not Doom. Yet.

Derek Shearer, an old friend, has written a thoughtful, documented and moderately-scary essay about the state of politics and environment.

You compare his thinking and range of experience to the Tweeting mentality of Gubernatorial candidate (R) Scott Walker - - example: Stopped in Sheboygan @ McDonald's 4 a smoothie (I worked @ Delavan McDs as a kid.}

9:53 PM Aug 10th via TweetDeck" - - or the Facebook follies of presidential aspirant Sarah Palin, (her posting advice to N-word devotee Laura Schlesinger: "Reload"), and you see what we and out children and grand-children are up against.

We need big thinkers and fearless activists in Congress and in the streets, but we've got people in a tizzy over someone else's gay marriage or whether people can pray to Allah in a converted coat factory near Ground Zero - - and supposedly that passes for a political agenda.

Derek decides we are treading on very thin ice, so to speak - - a fair metaphor given the warming climate - - but he's hopeful.

I'm pretty much the same way.

Mainly because I've got two grown sons who are both walking the walk: Sam is doing business development at the Northwest Side CDC.

Matt is promoting clean energy and job development in South Dakota.

Neither of those environments are the easiest to negotiate, but I figure if there are enough Matt and Sams willing to go to work everyday with that much dedication, and if Derek Shearer and others pound away on the message and the methods, we can maneuver around the naysayers and the opportunists and the phonies.