"You can call this revolution. You can call this a people's revolt. Either way, it is our way of saying that we want justice and democracy."

Those words, though sounding stunningly like those spoken by our founding fathers, were instead uttered yesterday, by Roza Otunbayeva, former foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S. and now interim leader of Kyrgyzstan.

For the past few days the country is been in the midst of a takeover that left its leader exiled on his own plane and riot police huddled next to each other while being attacked. Yes, it was bloody.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is a natural manure."

Those, famous words of Thomas Jefferson, speak to the difficulties of revolution, and the realities too. Although, none may have ever spoken so eloquently on the subject than Malcolm X, who reminded that "revolution" is not a word to be thrown around lightly.

"...you don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution.

A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing "We Shall Overcome"? Just tell me. You don't do that in a revolution. You don't do any singing; you're too busy swinging.

Without specifically endorsing his politics, I can say that this was one of the best speeches Malcolm X ever gave, and the one I agree with the most. Revolutions are bloody, not peaceful. They overturn things. As happened this week.

--

What I was going to write about today, until I got wrapped into revolutionary talk, was far more technical, yet equally important: the economy.

Washington Post writer Ezra Klein wrote a piece yesterday, detailing the significant uptick in the economy since Barack Obama became president. And it is FULL of graphs and charts - awesome. One thing before I get into it: some of this can absolutely be attributed to George W. Bush. He didn't want to pass a bailout, but he had to and it appears to have worked. Now we need tougher regulations to ensure that is never needed again, but at that time, it was.

This first chart started circulating a couple of months ago, but has since been updated. It is a job growth chart for the last two years.
Now, just like unemployment rate, these are hard to look at without some context. First, jobs are often the last thing to recovery after a recession, simply because businesses want to make sure they are actually out of it before they start taking on payroll. Included later in his post was an unemployment chart, which may be an even worse indicator. Not only is it held down (up?) by the late recovering job market, but there is another line on that chart that shows what the "real" unemployment is - including people who have stopped looking or are working less than full-time. As that number (which no one pays attention to) comes down, the other one goes up, as a result of more people going back into the job market. So no matter what, the unemployment rate is still going to be high in November.

Just two other graphs I wanted to share, the first being probably the biggest indicator of wealth in this country: housing values.
Why are these important? It is like I said, housing values are a major indicator of wealth. A large portion of this country has their personal finances tied up in their house. I have had multiple friends with parents who, after getting them out of the house finally, sold their house and moved into a condo, or something like it. You see how high those values got after the Clinton administration, meaning people were taking significant profit on a house purchased a decade before. Few places saw this as starkly as Seattle.

When housing values go up, wealth goes up. Spending follows and economies recover.

And finally, GDP growth. This graph covers the entire Obama administration by quarter. It sort of speaks for itself, but the underlying point is that the economy is getting better. Just know that.

--

Couple of other notes on this no-so-sunny, not-nearly-as-warm Friday:

- Check this blog out. It is written by a former teacher of mine, Steve Miranda. He is no longer at Garfield, but at a community school where he does a ton of thinking on how education can actually work for students. By all means disagree, that's part of the point.

- President Obama called Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's omission of slavery "unacceptable".

- Rep. Bart Stupak, who obviously made himself the leader of the Democratic pro-life movement in the last year, before being called a "baby-killer" on the floor of the House of Representatives by a Republican, is retiring from his Michigan seat.

- Also, pay attention the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Newt Gingrich is there, saying that Republicans actually need to offer real, alternative plans to the "secular, socialist, machine now running Washington." Is that not a good enough tease?

Alright y'all, it's been a long week. I may sleep until Monday. Or I might find something else good to write. The possibilities...