I know this isn’t a documentary I’m posting; it’s a piece of political media, but I think it is really important so I’m posting it here. If you watched I.O.U.S.A. or An Inconvenient Truth or any other myriad of works created in the past few years, you know we are in deep shit. We came together to elect Obama because we believed that he would assemble the right people and get us on a course to changing our tides. He’s trying but I have to admit to having dropped the ball. The election and inauguration were such high moments, it was a long pendulum swing back into “real” life. That’s the thing though, our “real” lives are in jeopardy.

Ray Pride had a video project at Sundance were  he was asking people to share a hopeful, truthful moment with him/everyone. My outlook is bleak so I told him I wasn’t sure if I could come up with anything to share for the project. I did come up with something but he never asked me again to do it, so hey, blog fodder, right? Well, you’ll notice that I even forgot to make my post about it post-Sundance.(Ray, help me out with a link if you read this – I can’t find it.)

My hope came in the form of Over the Hills and Far Away by Michel Scott Orion, an Austin filmmaker whose film premiered at Sundance and in full disclosure, the Austin Film Society funded through its grant program. My experience with the film, which follows Rupert and Kristin Isaacson as they trek through Mongolia with their autistic son in search of a “cure” for him, was one of a life affirming nature. I use the quote not because it was said, but because it is a catch-all word for emotions, hopes, and dreams of the family and the filmmakers though they never put it into those simplistic terms.

It’s easy to get tied up in family and nature, riding horses or taking care of pets, traveling or being in the tub together. Whatever it is that you want for yourself and your family is in jeopardy and we aren’t even paying attention even though life is something we value.

Obama’s recovery plan sounded over-bloated and like another bad bailout nightmare the way it has been insufficiently covered by the press. It may very well be bloated, I don’t know the details. I do believe that what he lays out here in this video is nothing short of the New New Deal. It’s that bad folks. We’ve got to get back in the game and keep going. If you haven’t stopped, you are awesome. If you have, I don’t know, donate some money or something. Or pass along a YouTube video. Whatever you can do. Something is better than nothing! And see Over the Hills and Far Away at SXSW! I promise, I won’t steer you wrong on docs.

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P.S. Hey Obaminators, “the Recovery Plan” is your first mistake. You needa sexier title for it. I mean, “The New Deal.” Come on, of course we want a new deal. You came up with “Yes We Can,” give us something to sink our teeth into now.