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Check out the natural themes in these great paintings that can withstand the rigors of family footwork!

And check out this letter to the editor that the artist wrote:

A friend recently asked me, "What is it you Democrats want?"  I had to stop and think a bit.  "Well," I said, "to grow the Party, to elect Democrats, to reverse the course George Bush and company have led us on."

In November, I showed up at a Party function wearing a campaign pin to which I had affixed a picture of my grandson.  I realized that I wasn't working for a particular candidate or party, so much as I was FIGHTING for this child, for all the generations to come, and more than that even, for this planet to which we all cling in fear and hope.

But to answer my friend, in concrete terms; this, in part, is what we want.

1)  Fairness.  Corporations and the wealthy should have to pay the same tax rate as the rest of us.  They don't.  Everyone knows this.  It is inexcusable.

2)  A health care system that includes everyone.

3)  Energy independence.  No more subsidies for oil companies.  That money should go to innovation in alternative energy.  Our idle factories could be producing wind and solar, and other systems, providing new technology and good jobs.

4)  New thinking in education.  Our kids aren't dropping out because they're stupid.  It's because they don't believe in the future.  Our society raises them to be mindless consumers instead of problem solvers.  We need to challenge them, involve them, invite them to participate politically and otherwise.  Education needs to be about ideas, innovation, meeting the challenges of an increasingly crowded and complicated world.  Education needs to be RELEVANT.

5)  A government of the people.  At the very least, average citizens deserve representation equal to that the corporations enjoy.  Until that happens, nothing will change.  They will just keep getting away with it.

6)  We need an acknowledgement from government and the private sector of our responsibility to the planet and all of its inhabitants.  We must accept our part in the degradation of our world and join the many nations already working to make changes, and we need to influence those who are not, to begin to do so.  This is not a political issue.  It's a matter of survival.

7)  We must demand a renewed commitment to international diplomacy.  America must lead by example, not by bullying.  We cannot afford the Neanderthal attitudes of the current occupants of the Whitehouse.  NEVER AGAIN should we allow our brave troops, our sons and daughters, to be sent into harm's way on the basis of faulty information or downright lies. 

8)  After 9/11, George Bush asked us to keep shopping, keep traveling.  For the challenges we face, we must ask more of ourselves and our leaders.  During Word War II, the public sacrificed proudly.  We need leadership that represents the best we can be.  Until that happens, we will continue to be ignored and exploited by the scoundrels in Washington. 

I will close with the words of Bob Marley, "Get up.  Stand up.  Stand up for your rights...."