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Whirled Views 02.23
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QOD: What’s one of your favorite childhood memories?
Topic: News Desk, Watercooler Chatter
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First?
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Here’s my quote of the night from the debate.
http://www.breitbart.tv/newt-hammers-cnn-on-birth-control-question-you-never-asked-obama-why-he-voted-for-infanticide/
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Chas I’m out for the day. You’ve got the conn
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Sawgunner, trying to keep control of a group of obstreperous women is what created the cliche, “trying to herd cats”.
Pun intended. So, have at it.
I don’t have any good childhood memories.
Playing Lone Ranger comes closest. And going to the picture show on Saturday afternoons to watch The Lone Ranger.
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On Friday nights, we would eat fried chicken and then go see the new John Wayne movie.
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Not every summer, but a few summers during my childhood, my sister and I got to go to a family camp in Vermont called Eagle Camp. (Our parents took us at least once, and other years our grandfather took us.)
I loved it, and looked forward to it all year. I loved the food (Boston brown bread and butterscotch pudding were two favorites that I never got at home). The mosquitoes were bad, and the 6-12 repellant we rubbed on our skin smelled bad, but we could go swimming at the lake every day (well, I’m not sure about Sundays), go fishing either from the dock or in a rowboat, or just walk along the shore.
There was a cabin full of toys for the children, a library full of books (my favorite place, especially on a rainy day), and games I never got to play anywhere else – croquet and shuffleboard. There were bikes we could borrow to ride into town, and scheduled events such as croquet and shuffleboard tournaments, bingo night, and skit night. Even just walking around camp was fun.
I waited eagerly all year to go to Eagle Camp, even more than for Christmas.
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Religious broadcasters group reportedly urges IRS review of Media Matters’ status
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/22/religious-broadcasters-group-reportedly-urges-irs-review-media-matters-status/?test=latestnews#ixzz1nDL49txR
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Like Mr. Obama is going to let the IRS look into one of his major supporters.. which could hurt his 2012 relection.
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Back then this was a small agarian town, so many people can’t imagine that I have harrowed oats or cut alfalfa. On a summer day we couldn’t wait to get out of “the village.” Best childhood memories were days at the beach, surfing, building sand castles and forts, catching sand crabs, sitting by the fire as the sun turned the water to gold. Or riding horses bareback in the hills, taking them swimming in the lagoons on hot days or tying them to a tree while we girls skinny dipped in artisian springs.
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Best childhood memories was cutting wood and going fishing with my dad.
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Good snowy Colorado morning! We awakened to a half foot of snow this morning…I have called a personal snow day for us all!
I had a wonderful childhood…small townish, come home when the street lights come on, we never locked our doors, everyone knew everyone. Summers were spent outdoors with friends, winters sledding on my Uncle’s farm…cousins were our best friends.
My favourite childhood memory would have to be Christmas…Mom and Dad always made it special. Going to church for Christmas Eve Candlelight service, returning home with family packed into our small home…but there was always room for one more…and no one left before midnight….
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Lot goin’ on today. Some bad, some good. I guess we start with the bad.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/federal-judge-finds-defense-marriage-act-unconstitutional
“A federal judge in San Francisco says the U.S. government cannot deny health benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee by relying on the 1996 law that bars government recognition of same-sex unions.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled Wednesday that because the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally discriminates against same-sex married couples, the government’s refusal to furnish health insurance to Karen Golinski’s wife is unjustified.
The Department of Justice originally opposed Golinski in her lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management, but changed course last year after President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder said they would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act.”
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Here’s some good.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/judge-rules-state-cant-make-pharmacies-sell-plan-b-contraceptives-violation-religious
“Washington state cannot force pharmacies to sell Plan B or other emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying the state’s true goal was to suppress religious objections by druggists – not to promote timely access to the medicines for people who need them.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton heard closing arguments earlier this month in a lawsuit that claimed state rules violate the constitutional rights of pharmacists by requiring them to dispense such medicine. The state requires pharmacies to dispense any medication for which there is a community need and to stock a representative assortment of drugs needed by their patients.
Ralph’s Thriftway in Olympia, Wash., and two licensed Washington pharmacists sued in 2007, saying that dispensing Plan B would infringe on their religious beliefs because it can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, an act they equate with taking human life.
The state argued that the requirements are legal because they apply neutrally to all medicines and pharmacies, and that they promote a government interest – the timely delivery of medicine, including Plan B, which becomes less effective as time passes.
But Leighton ruled that the state allows all sorts of business exemptions to that rule. Pharmacies can decline to stock a drug, such as certain painkillers, if it’s likely to increase the risk of theft, or if it requires an inordinate amount of paperwork, or if the drug is temporarily unavailable from suppliers, among other reasons.”
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One of my favorite memories is that for Thanksgiving and Christmas all my older brothers came home and we played games (Life and other games like that). It was a houseful, and it was nice. (There are seven of us kids total, including my four older brothers; since the youngest of them is seven years older than me and the others older still, I don’t remember when the first three lived at home, just their coming to visit.)
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Chas-I’m really sorry you don’t have any good childhood memories. That makes me sad for you.
QOD: I have quite a few fond memories from childhood (I grew up on a 100 acre ranch with goats, chickens, cattle, rabbits, horses, etc., so I was rarely bored), but two jump out at me this morning. The most special one is when my dad took me on a “date” to have dinner and see a play when I was about ten. I got all dressed up; my mom even curled my hair (she rarely did things w/ me; my sister, who was six years older, usually did all the “mom stuff”)! We ate at The Magic Time Machine, a fun restaurant in San Antonio (the closest real city to Bandera), where the waiters dress in costumes and act silly. It seemed very fancy to me at ten, with tablecloths and candlelight. My dad made me feel like I was the most beautiful and interesting person in the room. I was so proud to be out with him all by myself.
My dad owned a small company in Houston (he’s now retired). When we moved from Houston to Bandera in 1979, he had plans to commute for a few years and then sell it. But, the bottom fell out of the oil & gas market in the early 80’s and he couldn’t afford to sell. So, he continued to commute to Houston from Bandera (a 45 minute flight or 5 hour drive), and was gone Monday through Thursday. To his credit, he almost always made it home in time to attend Thursday night football games to watch me cheer. He rarely missed a game in four years. And he was there for almost every recital, play, etc. But, I still missed him when he was away.
So that night was magical for me. I felt like a princess with a father who adored her for four blissful hours. I remember we talked and laughed all through dinner (my dad’s a pretty funny, loquacious guy). It was great!
My second super-fun memory is attending a two-week summer camp called C.A.T.S (Creative Arts Theater School) in Dallas. I went for five years and looked forward to it all year long. I made some life-long friends there and loved performing. It was a positive, formative experience for me, and one where I got to shine.
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Chas – You have mentioned before that you don’t have any good childhood memories. I hope you don’t mind me asking – why not? Did you have a bad childhood?
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Good morning from the beautiful Pacific Northwest! Favorite childhood memory? Family reunions in Saskatchewan or Manitoba once every 3-4 years. My parents were both born in SK and we’d gather with my dad’s side of the family at one of my aunt/uncle’s house for a week or so. Gramma, three sets of aunts/uncles, and 14 cousins of all ages made for a lot of fun and memories. Sometimes we’d put on shows for the adults with skits and songs. I can still today name the year of almost all the reunions and who’s house it was at in that particular year.
Related good memories involve going to Victoria, BC at least once a year — on the ferry! — to visit the uncle and aunt of my dad, and their four boys. These folks didn’t attend the reunions in Saskatchewan, so the memories are different. One of the good ones involves the wood shop in their basement. Others involve going to city league baseball games for which Uncle Geoff was the game’s announcer. We’d get to hang out in the announcer’s “booth.” Yum, they made good hotdogs at that stadium. The last good memory worthy of mention also involves food — sitting at their kitchen table eating bowls of Shreddies. Best cold cereal ever. In our family, if anyone goes to Canada, you can bet there are Shreddies in their car when they cross the border.
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Chas is probably like me. He didn’t really have a bad childhood, just a bad memory, and can’t remember much of it. It was a really long time ago ya’ know.
Just teasing you Chas. You know I love you my friend.
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Traveling in the car with my family on some road trip. Looking out the window, hearing stories, swimming in hotel pools. My dad was a traveling salesman, and this was the best way to spend time with him.
Other great memories, same dad, snuggling close while he read The Wall Street Journal on the rare evenings he was home, and he’d pick out “hard” words for me to practice reading out loud. I would have been five or six.
Some statistics for you from northern California today. Only one light rain storm since last April; no rain in forecast. Little snow on the watershed mountains in the Sierras.
It’s supposed to be 78 degrees today and beautiful–except for the part of us getting worried about water.
Gas: $4.27 at Shell.
My son, Stargazer, passed his oral exams toward his PhD in Astronomy yesterday. He’s reaching for the stars and this Mama is proud. Rejoice with us–he’s been studying hard the last five months! Now he gets to spend a year doing research on small variable stars. Or was it suns? Or planets?
It’s all numbers to me.
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QoD: Getting together with my huge extended family produced some of my best memories. There was a saying my maternal grandfather had “We don’t have much money, but we have a lot of fun”, and every last one of his descendants and several in-laws and outlaws took it to heart. Each reunion, Christmas, family wedding, and even funerals were a delight. I enyoyed participating in the outrageous and hilarious antics of my cousins. But listening to the witty banter, endless tales and spirited debate of my elders was even better (I was reading Plato’s Republic recently and I found it hilarious, because one of my uncles is exactly like Socrates in his debating method). I don’t think they realized how much one of the youngest members of the family was listening, but now it is a pleasure to be able to participate as an equal in those conversations.
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The more we know, the worse Obama’s payoff to donors gets.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/22/bonuses-given-after-raises-at-solyndra/
“Several of the nearly two dozen employees at bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra LLC who were approved for bonuses Wednesday had months earlier received pay raises as high as 70 percent, a fact the company never disclosed in its request for bonus cash.
The company’s bankruptcy attorneys sought permission for the bonuses in a court hearing, arguing that the extra cash is needed to keep key employees from fleeing only to be replaced by more expensive outside consultants.
With little chance of stable employment and officials moving to liquidate assets, the workers needed to wind down the company have little incentive to stay, the Solyndra attorneys argued.
But an attorney for fired Solyndra workers railed against the plan, saying several of the proposed bonus recipients had received significant salary increases even after the company went bankrupt.
The disclosure drew sharp criticism from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath, who called it “shocking” that the company had not disclosed the pay raises in its bonus request.
Solyndra attorney Bruce Grohsgal defended not including that information in the bonus request, saying the raises were given as part of the company’s ordinary course of business since the employees had taken on more responsibilities.
“There was no thought we were hiding something,” he said.
Riiiiight. Sure.
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What if? From Joel Rosenberg, Dead Heat
What if political debates that obsess and divide us prove one day to be trivial pursuits, distracting us from the important issues of our day?
What if in the midst of presidential campaigns, we find ourselves one day blindsided by gathering evils we either do not see or fail to appreciate?
What if the fortunes we amass do not protect us from weapons being formed against us?
What if, In our never ending hunt for power, prosperity and celebrity, we somehow gain the whole world and forfeit our souls?
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Re: childhood memories. We grew up poor. Elvera grew up poor in the country and didn’t know she was poor. I was a city boy and knew I was poor. I attended six elementaary schools and four high schools – five if you count one twice. Elvera spent the first five grades in the same room.
I have lived in places where I went into the woods to relive myself. In high school, I showered after gymn class.
I was usually ashamed to let my friends know where I lived.
Fortunately, my friend, Bobby Murray, didn’t care.
Enough for now. There’s more, buy you get the idea.
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Clarification: Dad was not a drinker, or slothful. He was a good dad and a hard worker.
He was a poor money manager.
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I don’t have any fond childhood memories either. I’m sure there were some fun times but none that I remember fondly. My parents were of the “seen but not heard” school and nothing was ever done simply for our enjoyment. We never once went on vacation anywhere. I do have many memories of promises made and broken – mostly because the folks got into a big fight and stormed of into their corners. One memory is of sitting in a hot car that was packed for a picnic and each in a separate room sulking. My mother has severe emotional issues and my dad may or may not, but putting up with hers brought out the worst in him.
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LShaffer,
I share your misery I’m afraid. I just don’t have many fond memories of childhood. I remember only one family vacation ever. To AC, even saw the horse jump off the tower into the tank. We saw dolphins in a tank too. They asked for a volunteer. I wanted nothing ever in my life as bad as to pet that dolphin. They picked my brother instead, and then he was to much of a chicken to even touch it. That’s all I got as far as good childhood memories go, and even that has an asterick. Disappointment was the rule for most of my childhood.
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Chas, LShaffer and The Real – My childhood has both good and bad memories, so I know a little of what you feel. I wanted to point out that though you did not have good memories for yourself, you are and have created good memories for other children – Chas, you have done that for three generations now. Thank you for stopping the cycle and making life better for another child.
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My favorite childhood memory would be school field trips.
On a school field trip day we would be taken out of the compound in big armored gray school buses, the kind with bars on the windows.
Then we got to break up rocks all day long on railroad beds, using big heavy sledge hammers.
I am pretty sure that I was on a sort of school athletic team, because they would keep all of us athletes chained together while we were breaking rocks, which is sort of like a team, when you think about it.
The Principal would come to see us, sometime along in the middle of the day, just to see how things were going. He wore a uniform and a big white ten-gallon hat, and always had on really dark sunglasses, so you never saw his actual eyes.
He never talked to us students – just to the teacher aides who were supervising our field trip.
These teacher aides were generally heavy-set, uniformed men, carrying rifles, riding on big horses.
They did not talk much either.
But I think they cared quite deeply for all us students, because they always watched us, all the time, very carefully.
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Whatever did you do, Drill, at that tender age to deserve the chain gang?!
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Fond childhood memories are blocked by mom dying when I was 7. All But I remember trips to the mountains for picnics and hiking in the summer or to play in the snow in winter.
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Well we all knew this would eventually happen.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57383089-10391695/second-gun-used-in-ice-agent-murder-linked-to-atf-undercover-operation/www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/baytown.pdf?tag=contentMain;contentBody
“Prosecutors recently sentenced a Texas man, Manuel Barba, for trafficking a weapon connected to the murder of Immigration and Customs (ICE) Agent Jaime Zapata. Nobody was more astonished to learn of the case than Zapata’s parents, who didn’t know that Barba had been arrested or linked to their son’s murder.
“The family was obviously surprised to learn that there was a case involving a weapon linked to the Zapata incident,” attorney Trey Martinez told CBS News. Martinez represents Zapata’s parents and the surviving ICE agent in the assault, Victor Avila. “They were surprised they had never been contacted in the capacity as victims so they could give a response or some kind of reaction at the time of sentencing.”
“Documents indicate ATF opened its case against Barba, entitled “Baytown Crew,” in June of 2010. During the investigation, court records state Barba recruited straw purchasers and “facilitated the purchase and exportation of at least 44 firearms” including assault rifles. On August 20, 2010 Barba took delivery of the WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle later used in Zapata’s murder, obliterated its serial number, and sent it to Mexico with nine others just like it. Nearly two months later, on Oct. 8, 2010, ATF agents recorded a phone call in which Barba “spoke about the final disposition of … firearms to Mexico and also about the obliterating of the serial numbers before they were trafficked.” Barba told straw purchasers the guns were destined for the Zeta drug cartel.
A warrant wasn’t issued for Barba’s arrest until four months later; coincidentally, the day before a rifle he trafficked was used against Zapata.
Barba is now the second weapons trafficker who had been under ATF surveillance to be linked to Zapata’s murder. As CBS News previously reported, ATF had also been watching suspect Otilio Osorio during the time he trafficked a different weapon used in Zapata’s assault. Records show ATF watched on Nov. 9, 2010 as Osorio, his brother Ranferi and Kelvin Leon Morrison transferred a cache of illegal weapons to a confidential informant but failed to arrest the men at the time.
The government has kept a close hold on nearly all information surrounding Zapata’s murder, denying the family’s Freedom of Information requests on the basis of an ongoing investigation. The Zapata’s attorney says they will keep pursuing the information by “whatever means necessary.”"
The govt has kept a close hold on the evidence to protect Holder and Obama. CYB. The families are yet another casualty of this failed policy.
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I had some of those bad times and a lot of very sad times, but I must say I have a lot of great childhood memories.
I remember playing neighborhood games, even though we lived in the country and there were not a lot of kids. We still managed baseball, hide ‘n seek, tag etc. We also slept out in shacks (we built ourselves), a greenhouse (my parent’s) the back of a truck under a real parachute and had lots of sleep overs with cousins.
The neighbors took turns bringing us to the skating rink in the winter and the swimming hole (a wide spot in the creek with cows right where we swam sometimes!) in the summer. We walked all over and rode horses sometimes.
My dad built us a scaffold so we could slide down the little hill in back of the house. He made a trail just big enough for a tobaggan full of children to slide down. We banked the snow around the trees, but hit our fair share. We argued who would sit in the front and who would push us off the scaffold.
We also played games indoors. I remember it all fondly, even the fights. Playing ’spoons’ could be very hard on the silverware with my brothers and their friends.
In short, I can remember lots of bad things, but I will treasure the good and the good was better than a lot of people have. It is easy, too, to let an accumulation of the bad make the good too hazy to even see.
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Ditto to what Phos says in 27.
I am blessed to have great childhood memories — the beach, playing baseball, riding our bikes until sundown, going to Dodger or Angels games with my dad, camping and horseback riding with the Girl Scouts (hated selling those cookies though, I’ve just never had the ability to sell stuff), car trips back to Iowa (good and bad memories there!).
Some snippets of memories from Iowa on our many visits as I was growing up — standing in deep, deep snow; playing hide-n-seek and running barefoot through the field of daisies next to my grandfather’s house; snuggling in a big bed with my mom when some plaster fell from the ceiling during a rain storm (we were reading “Chicken Little” a lot in those days so I naturally concluded that the sky, indeed, was falling); skating at the indoor rink at the lakes; my mom teaching me to skip along the sidewalk as storm clouds gathered overhead one afternoon — I was transfixed by how the clouds moved so rapidly overhead.
Anyway, fun, carefree times for the most part, but maybe I just remember it that way. True, I never got the collie or horse I wanted so badly, but I’ve made up for it in the dog department as an adult.
I’m still plotting on how to get a horse for my backyard, however. 
I envy those who grew up on farms.
Although — that does bring up another rather odd memory. Hope you won’t think too badly of me, but I once decked a boy cousin on my uncle’s farm. He’d taken one of my toys away. I recall getting into a heap of trouble once all the adults in the house found out. But I got my toy back.
Congratulations to Stargazer — that sounds very impressive!
And Real #2, that was a classic moment in last night’s debate. Excellent.
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Oh, Donna, what a wild child you were. Would probably be sent to reform school today.
My grandparents also had a cabin that we went to a few times every summer. Some of my cousins would be there and the kids would all bunk together. We would be sideways on the bed like logs line up for an old road. My dad and uncle made a very wide bunkbed for the purpose. It was out of stripped popple. When I later mentioned to my dad what these were selling for he was quite skeptical. My dad and uncle also built a raft with a motor. We could go off fishing or just use it for diving.
These weekends were not my mom’s idea of fun and they were also a lot of work for my dad, since he also did the grass cutting and all the building and repairs along with his brother. For a child, though, the weekends were great fun.
We never took a family vacation, but we sure had fun in the everyday type of things kids did back then.
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My cousin was quite wary of me after that.
I remember one year he got two pairs of boxing gloves for Christmas. I loved those boxing gloves. But he never wanted to play boxing with me when we’d visit.
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My Hubby and his sisters have tons of fond memories and they revisit them frequently and often along with their parents who laugh over them, too. Many of them include cousins. Our grown sons seem to have many so hopefully we’ve managed to carry on the right legacy.
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I’m sorry you lost your mom so young, Peter L. May her memory be eternal.
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I can’t imagine losing a parent at 7.
My dad became ill when I was 16 and died nearly 3 years later. That was hard enough.
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Even the bad memory of fishing with my father, being on a boat and needing to use the restroom, or being in the hunting woods terrified of snakes were good.
I am currently looking for someone with a hunting camp that will just let me go wander the woods…
I really don’t care if I every go fishing again but the memories are good.
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Good Afternoon, Y’all!
I miss all of you when I miss a few days…
Lots of great memories – probably something involving time with my cousins at my Grandpa’s and Grandma’s in Colorado…
Have a blessed day if I don’t make it back today!
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Kim, is your yearning to “wander in the woods” nowadays with or without a gun?? At least wear some boxing gloves.
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Kim – 39
Wandering the woods in a hunting camp might not be a great idea
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Nope. It’s not. Kim must be having a bad day.
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I could do either one. I would go along with a hunter, believe me, some quiet time would be nice.
I could go after mornign hunting or before evening hunting when all the hunters were back at camp.
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Kim – all joking aside…I love quiet time in the woods, too. I’ve had some of my best talks with God there…
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I’m feeling quite annoyed by the president’s comments about oil and gas.
Grump, grump, grump.
Ah, ha. I knew he’d say it: “There are no silver bullets … ”
I am newly inspired to pray again for the coming election.
I may take the dogs to a fishing pier I used to ride my bike on — in a neighboring city — today. Feel the need to go back there, I’ll bring a small Bible also. I used to ride my bike on the bike path there on the beach after work, then stop at the pier, find a bench and enjoy the sunset while reading my Bible.
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Ah. I forgot. The mute button. Such a marvelous invention.
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Funny, they’re talking on fox about the possibility of $4 a gallon. Um, it’s over that now on the west coast.
I realize the average price nationally is still $3.50 or somewhere around there (which sounds downright cheap to me right now). But our gas prices spiked 25 cents a gallon within a couple weeks, just 7 cents from yesterday. I saw several stations the other day where it was in the $4.30 range per gallon (for regular).
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Megyn Kelly posted a photo of their dog on twitter. Scruffy, little and cute.
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Ah, Kim, you could come and visit us – I just got back from a walk in the woods with my parents. My mother was pointing out all the animal track and my father was looking at the trees. We had a snowball fight too, well, my mother and I did – my father just stood back and laughed. Good thing too, his aim is rather more accurate than ours.
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Thanx Phos, #27. I broke the cycle of poverty for my side of the family. Times were tough for my dad. He and his two brothers were abandoned when they were kids and ran wild for a few months until uncles took them in, separately. Dad left home at 17 or so, and got a job in a knitting mill. He worked in various mills ’till we moved to Charleston in 1941 and dad got a job as an electiran at the steel mill there. He was a good electrician and made chief electrician eventually. He made good money after that, but managed poorly and was broke when he retired. I paid off his house for him (but got the money back when we sold the house).
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I can’t believe we haven’t helped MUMSEE to even get to 57 yet!
Childhood memories – playing sandlot football and baseball with the neighborhood kids. Not only was it lots of fun, but we learned how to disagree,fight and make things right. Sometimes we had dirt clod wars.
Here’s one of my favorite book titles, although I’ve never read the book, “Just Hand Over the Chocolate and No One Gets Hurt,” – Karen Linamen
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Leo, I saw that on a T-shirt once.
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57! Thanks Leo!
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You skipped 54, 55 & 56 – Mumsee.
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Mumsee Cheats!</b?
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oops
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and Chas and Phos and Chas.
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I think the childhood memories are just about even — good and bad. I did have an awful lot of fun playing though.
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Eww. I found a dead rat in the backyard. Thank you Annie. At least she didn’t bring it indoors.
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This is why Arne stays inside. I don’t need presents like that.
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Who is paying $5/GALLON for gas.
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We have two new kids.
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We’re on our way, comfortably above $4 a gallon now.
Am I taking undue offense or does the president have a “tone” that’s somehow condescending and lecture-like lately? Ugh.
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When it comes to hunting, Annie rocks.
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And a new lamb.
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You mean when he is talking to us peons?
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Exactly.
I feel like I’m in the third grade again and being almost yelled at. But I was rather a sensitive child. When I wasn’t knocking out my boy cousins.
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No, he’s talking at us.
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Another State has surrender marriage
“Maryland to Become 8th State to Legalize Gay Marriage; Governor Expected to Sign Bill “
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Cheryl will appreciate this comment made by the Westminster dog show folks on FB:
“It’s been said that terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs.”
See? There’s a theological explanation!
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I feel like I’d want to throw something at the television when he talks to (or at) us like that.
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I don’t seem to recall that “tone” with Reagan, Clinton or either of the Bushes. Granted, since I don’t really agree much with the current administration it may stand out more to me.
But putting that aside, there is just this snarky tone that he cops that is so annoying to me.
OK, rant over.
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Donna, if it does that, turn the TV off. See my #22.
Along that line, I see on FoxNews the breaking news that John Edward’s GF gets to keep their sex videos.
Laugh or cry, your choice. I think it’s weird, but I don’t know how to feature weird.
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I just finished reading a long article about David Axelrod. The guy who made Obama president. He’s coming back for ‘12.
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Chas, I saw an interview with Huntsman today and he said something I agreed with — there seems to be a lack of a grand or sweeping vision from any of these candidates.
No inspiration. And you can’t beat an incumbent, even an unpopular one, without a compelling vision.
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Donna, one of them does have–but he isn’t geting much traction or media coverage. He’s actually considered sort of a kook; his vision is to return to the Constitution, and that seems rather dated these days.
Oh well.
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Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
I just never “got” the Ron Paul thing.
Chas, how did the Axelrod article affect your thinking about the race? Or did it?
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Donna, it scared me. Axelrod is an evil but efficient operator.
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Well, I suppose the left has said that about Karl Rove a few times, too.
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Re – Axelrod: The man also helped bring a certain premier of a certain Canadian province into power. Said premier bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain president in making wierd little despotic decisions, like banning incandescent lightbulbs. And how many governors of states go on trade visits to China? ‘Cause this premier did. Said premier is now no his third term in office, despite widespread allegations of corruption. His government is so much of a nanny, that one of my siblings has taken to calling him ‘Father M.” sarcastically. Oh well, it is now a minority legislature so we’ve clipped his wings a bit.
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Phos- Many US state governors go on trade visits overseas. Our former governor, and one from Iowa I know of went to China. I think even our current governor made a rip there.
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Chas, the Axelrod has been back, as in never having left the perpetual Obama campaign. Another nasty man with puppy-dog raised eyebrow eyes and an ends-justify-the-means script between his lying lips. He combines with Ploufe, Gibbs, et al, and complicity of the bought-off, lying, corrupt media to walk the electorate through the looking glass. Unbelieveable.
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I’m a bit late with the childhood memory but once I directed my brother, sister and cousins in our own version of the Wizard of Oz. We made costumes and props and everyone rehearsed their lines, but daddy wouldn’t let me borrow the film camera. Something about the film costing five dollars a roll plus developing. I ran across the cousin who played the cowardly lion a few years ago and she still remembered her part.
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Hmmm.
Latest Twitter followers include a local bankruptcy attorney, a maid service and a dog clothing boutique.
All of that may come in handy someday.
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#78
But, have you ever actually researched him yourself?
That’s what it took for me.
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Good morning.
I am getting the feeling that we will not see any action before or after the election to rein in the government. I think people want that, and that’s why they are unhappy with the crop of Rs running. We will have to fail like Greece before that happens. They will continue to kick the can down the road.
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Tammy, for me it helped when an intelligent close friend told me she’d heard Ron Paul in person and was greatly impressed. Up to that point (this was several years ago), I’d mostly heard about Paul from a relative whose heroes also include a few kooks, like a person who wrote a King James only book that includes “proof” the KJV is easier to understand than the NIV and that all the other versions were actually backed by Satan to mislead people away from Christ. But when this friend spoke about how good Paul was, it caught my attention.
Then we had a man in my church who paid attention to things going on around us and predicted such happenings as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse, and his discussions convinced me that Paul was right on the non-bullying of other countries approach. So when my husband came along courting me, and was a Ron Paul supporter, that didn’t sound weird to me. Plus my best friend’s husband was a Paul supporter; I never talked with him about it, but I ended up with a lot of people in my life–intelligent, observant people–who were Paul supporters. When all the people around you who actually do research come to the same conclusion, it really does make you pay attention.
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OK Tammy and Cheryl. I have a question for you, since you brought up Paul.
Do you support his plan to undermine the will of Republican voters in the primary? That is what he is doing. Do you support this? From another post by me.
“Here’s a nice piece on how Paul wants to game the delegate system to his advanyage. Dishonest, and an attempt to nullify the will of Republican voters.
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/ron-paul-s-delegate-strategy-threatens-to-undermine-will-of-gop-voters?cid=PROD-redesign-right-next
“Imagine voting for a Presidential candidate, seeing that candidate win, but watching in horror as a losing candidate gets the lion’s share of the state’s delegates.
That, in a nutshell, is exactly what Texas Congressman Ron Paul is hoping for.
It works like this: After the actual caucus, there is another meeting where delegates are selected. What Paul’s campaign seeks to do is take those meetings over with supporters in hopes of capturing a majority of the delegates to the national Republican convention in Tampa.
The result is that the will of a majority of Republican voters will be undermined using a cold, calculating scheme that depends on voters being ignorant of the process.
Underhanded? Absolutely. Unethical? Perhaps. Illegal? No – at least not under GOP rules.
So far, Ron Paul has not won a single primary or caucus, but as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow notes, he seems happy.
“The name of the game,” Paul says, is delegates – at least in the states with caucuses.”
Might be legal, but it sure is dishonest. It’s an attempt to get around the R voters who won’t support him because he’s unelectable. He’s scamming the system to bypass the will of voters. I’d expect something like this from Obama. I’m a little shocked Paul would do it, but he is.
Do you support this?
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I’ve said I think some of Paul’s ideas are good — they should be used in crafting the future of conservatism in this nation.
Other ideas of his I think are reckless at best. And, again, some of his supporters are simply bad PR for the guy, they are like a dog with a bone.
Libertarianism is a curious movement that’s been rattling around on the political fringes for quite some time, existing on the continuum where the far left and far right, strangely enough, do meet and somewhat converge.
Now, for the first time, it’s managed to make its way onto the national stage in at least a semi-serious way.
I suspect it’s gained some recent adherents because of our overall “live-and-let-live” philosophy — as opposed to cultural consensus — that seems to be driving so much of our political thought and discourse these days). Maybe the nation is fragmented so much that there’s no avoiding that in the future, however.
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There is a tension between individualism and community — there are extremes of both and I think our nation in the past has managed a delicate balance, largely due to our shared values.
Being that the nation no longer has so many shared values (a drift that appears to be only increasing rapidly now with each generation), libertarianism begins to look like a way forward to many. I suspect we’re all something of “libertarians” in this country.
But I’m afraid we’ll turn into a patchwork of every state for itself, a mishmash of different kinds of marriages allowed here or there, abortion OK here but not in another state, lax drug laws here but not next door, strict immigration laws here but not so much in a neighboring state.
It wouldn’t surprise me if someday in the future — probably after all of us are gone — there could be a split and the world will see a couple very different USAs, side by side. ?
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Ron Paul has a nasty habit of the lazy language of the Left in blaming America first for terrorists’ attacks. That automatically disqualifies him as Commander in Chief as far as I’m concerned, no matter now good his other policies might be. End of conversation.
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DonnaJ, you remind me of how e pluribus unum is being turned backwards, upside down and inside out. Uniting our diversity under our Constitution will keep us strong – not splintering into so many diverse groups. But that’s another thread for another day for me.
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