Tag Archives: Politics

1 Million Miles = 1 Smile

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The Silver Sea

I’d go a million miles for one of your smiles, My Annie!

Anne left in the morning to campaign for Senator Claire McCaskill (D). I busied myself with arranging stuff and setting the basement back up the way we had it before the big dig. I had finished up with that and had just changed to go bicycling, when Anne called. She had locked the keys in the car. In my bike duds, I drove out to way west county (east KC) and rescued her.

Returning home, and still being dressed to go cycling, I went for a ride in the park. It was a bit on the cold and raw side of things, a true late fall or early winter ride. The park was relatively empty, except for the rugby players. I guess that it was their kind of weather too, a leather balls day.

I rode alone, the way that I always used to. I rode today with earbuds in, listening to podcasts, lost in my own little world. I know that biking with head phones is a safety concern. I knew that before I read about it on Slate this week. Full disclosure requires me to say that last weekend’s three vehicular near misses did involve earbuds. In my defense, I was always aware of the offending vehicles. The problem was that either they didn’t respect my road rights or more generously weren’t aware of me. I saw them, but they didn’t see nor hear me. This Vimeo movie, “3-Way”, gives an interesting record at just one NYC intersection of the interplay between cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles.  This video is kind of a non sequitur, but I loved its video game graphics.

All Saints Day

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Sunset Streak on Pink Water

Why was the skeleton lonely?
It was lonely, because it had no body.

A YouTube video that shows a crying four-year-old, Abigael Evans of Fort Collins, CO has become the latest Internet meme of this election season. Abby is seen tearfully saying, “I’m tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney.” Her tears were in response to one too many NPR articles on this election. The offending NPR subsequently offered this little girl a public apology. Their apology included echoes of the soothing words of her mother, “It will be over soon.”

What are the strongest days of the week?
Saturday and Sunday, the rest are weak days.

What kind of parent let’s their four-year-old child listen to NPR? Ah, I guess that would include me. It has been twenty plus years since I had a four-year-old in my back seat, but I can still vividly recall shuttling them to and fro to week days daycare to the sounds of NPR. I don’t think that either of them broke down during any of those elections, but maybe modern-day elections are just too intense, anyway, just a few more days, just a few more days.

One little girl cast a spell on our candy bowl. Her spell was supposed to make the candy jump from the bowl into her sack and it worked.

Kid’s Halloween jokes are just the best. Also, this just in, Abigael Evans polls well among Bronco’s fans. Bronco Obama should poll well in Colorado too. The following joke is from Joanie. I unilaterally tossed two of her ‘nurse’ jokes. Nurse humor in neither PG nor for the faint of heart. Here is her PG acceptable joke:

What do you get when you cross an elephant with a peanut butter sandwich? Either an elephant that sticks to the roof of your mouth or a peanut butter sandwich that never forgets.

Pontiac Moon

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Pontiac

The battle of the basement is over, well all except the paying for it. On Friday, the plumbers finished off the last few loose ends. They even moved and hooked-up our washer and dryer, a nice touch.

On Saturday, Anne canvassed for Claire McCaskill (D), the US Senator who is running for reelection in Missouri. Canvassing involves driving to Claire’s campaign headquarters, getting a list of names and then driving and/or walking door-to-door. Anne was in Warson Woods, a tony neighborhood that I’m surprised even sports enough Democrats to be worth worrying about. Anne canvassed for four hours. Unfortunately, Sunday’s Post-Dispatch had a front page article that announced the latest poll. Todd Akin (R), mister “legitimate rape” has recently narrowed the gap considerably. The poll says that he still trails Claire by 2%, but the poll’s margin of error is 4%. What does that mean?

While Anne was being all civil minded, I went bicycling in the park. While riding around the traffic circle in front of the Jewel Box, I almost got flattened three times. The first two times was from the same SUV. While I was going around this traffic circle, this SUV comes up from behind, the husband-driver decided that I was going to turn right and exit the circle, except that I wasn’t. I then had to veered out of his way. He stuttered stopped, but since I had veered, he decided that he had the right of way and pressed on the gas. With no time to get out of his way, I just stopped.

Fortunately for me so did he. With both of us now halted, I proceeded to give him an earful. What diffused the situation was his wife. She had both hands up, palms out and was waggling them in submission. No harm, no foul, so we went our separate ways. I figured that she could much more succinctly express my opinions then any of my expletive laced bleats ever could. Later in this ride I returned to the scene of the crime. This time I was cut off by a New River Church van. At least this driver might have prayed over me.

Tonight is game four of the World Series. The Giants are up 3-0 over the Tigers, so the Tigers are fighting for their lives. Certainly my Michigan outlaws are rooting for the Tigers. Also for sure Reverend Carl, pastor of Church of Baseball is also rooting for the Tigers. He always roots for more over less baseball. Well, dear readers even my Bros are rooting for the Tigers to win tonight and tomorrow night too. These two native Californians have tickets to Game 6 and want to see the Giants clinch at home.

Must See TV

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Direct TV Blimp

Last night’s Cardinal game was horrible. The Cards played horribly and it was horrible for a Red Bird fan to watch. At the end of the first four games, the Cardinals were up 3-1 over the Giants. In each of the three subsequent games the Cardinal bats went eerily silent. Combine this with rather lackluster starting pitching and the Cards inevitably quickly fell far behind the Giants in each game. Last night’s game was the worse, ending with a final score of 9-0. The last out was fittingly recorded in a pouring rain. The sky was crying its eyes out. To add insult to injury, late in the game, the San Francisco pitcher chose to bean Matt Holliday in retribution for his too aggressive slide into second, earlier in this series, classy Giants, classy.

Simultaneous with last night’s ball game was the third and final presidential debate. As the Cards started their inexorable slide down to defeat, I started flipping over to the debate. At first I would only switch during a baseball commercial break, or when President Obama was speaking. Eventually though, I was even tuning in to hear Romney speak. Yup, it was that bad last night. 😉

I shouldn’t be so glum though, because the Cardinals have done so much better than expected. They had a grand ride this year. They were good, but they were also lucky. I’ve always said that I rather be lucky than good, and the Cards showed everyone just how good and lucky they are, or were. Last night it was clear that their luck had totally played out. Repeating in consecutive years has become almost unheard of in these modern times. For the Red Birds to have gotten as far as they did is a statement in and of itself. It is just that on Sunday afternoon, I saw the Direct TV blimp circling downtown Saint Louis, just like it would have tomorrow, on the first day of the World Series.

The Goddess of Speed

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1937 Packard Goddess of Speed Hood Ornament

On Sunday afternoon, I went for a leisurely bicycle ride in the park. We weren’t exhausted from our morning’s exertions in the basement, but Anne heard the siren song of school work and demurred. So, I set off alone.

The Rock n’ Roll Marathon was still going on in the park. Two bandstands were in the park and another could be heard over at King’s Highway and Pine. The shtick about the Rock n’ Roll Marathon is that they mount a bandstand at every mile, along the 26.2 mile route.

this Also going on in the park, just in front of the History Museum, was the Orphan Car Show. This is a classic car show that is limited to makes of automobiles whose manufacturers have disappeared. One of the club’s car owners tried to explain to me the rules of automobile orphanage, but it pretty much sailed right over my head, except to say that sometime in the not too distant future Pontiac cars will be eligible to join this club.

This paragraph is the political rant one, Repugs [KW] may want to skip to the next one or so. Crossing Clayton, I noticed that Crestwood has sprouted Romney yard signs. What gives? Missouri is a red state and is not in play. Maybe it is Romney’s rise in the polls? If so, that’s like rooting for the Cardinals after they are already in the playoffs. At the car show was a women wearing a Romney T-shirt and matching ball cap. I guess she was campaigning, or at least showing her flag. I resisted talking with her, because any such discussion would have been futile. Almost as futile as this rant, except that it makes me feel better saying the things that need to be said.

Personally, I think that Romney is screwed. He screwed himself the day that he wrote that New York Times Op-Ed saying that Detroit should go bankrupt. Meanwhile, Obama swept in and saved Detroit. Michigan, Romney’s adopted state is no longer in play. The state that his father ran American Motors from and then became governor of will vote Obama, as will Ohio, and for all of the same reasons. No Republican has been elected president, without winning Ohio. This one won’t win Ohio or the presidency. He is not a car guy, no matter how much he claims he is. OBTW, there were several AMC products on the lot.

The Laramie Project

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Rainbow Saint Louis City Flag

The Laramie Project is Moisés Kaufman’s play about the tragic death of Matthew Shepard and the events that surrounded his murder in Laramie, Wyoming. The 1998 murder of this University of Wyoming gay student made national news and left the towns people of Laramie in the center of a media firestorm. Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project made repeated trips to Laramie for more than a year and they eventually interviewed over 200 people. These interviews and the recitation of the words spoken and recorded form the basis of this play.

It starts shortly after Matt Shepard’s nearly lifeless body was discovered and encompasses the arrest of the two men that perpetrated this hate crime, Shepard’s eventual death from his horrible wounds and subsequent funeral. In the funeral scene the Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas is portrayed. The play goes on to cover the trial, conviction and subsequent commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment of Shepard’s two attackers, at Matt’s parents request. A brief epilogue closes this nearly three-hour play.

Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School produced this performance of The Laramie Project. Their performance run only encompassed four shows. The first two on Thursday and Friday conflicted with the Cardinals. Late this week, the school district published a letter informing parents, students and faculty that they had been informed that the Westboro Baptist Church planned to protest the play.

If you have not heard of these awful, awful people, Westboro loves to protest at the funerals of fallen American service people. They hold up signs that say that it was God’s will that this soldier was killed, because this country condones homosexuality. Many of their placards are much blunter and cruder. I saw this for myself today. Westboro has actually made a business from being so offensive. No one wants them to appear and may municipalities have tried to limit their freedoms of religion, association and speech. They sue, win and collect punitive damages that fund their church. Another Saint Louis municipality, Manchester, is currently in litigation over these arguments.

Rather than try to limit these people, Maplewood decided to fight fire with fire. A counter demonstration was organized and Anne let me know that in no uncertain terms we were going. “But Honey, what about the basement?” Why do I try, more importantly, why do I even question her wisdom. We had a great time. The morning’s gloom had cleared and bright blue skies greeted us. By my unscientific count there were at least 200 people on our side, maybe more. I counted and recounted Westboro’s half-a-dozen.

Like I said, we had a great time. We met old friends. Anne introduced me to more people than I could keep track of and we had a party. We had signs that spoke of love and acceptance and we had all of the best songs. We sang America the Beautiful, Kum bay ya and Imagine. We rocked! Meanwhile across the football field the half-dozen visitors were fenced in by traffic cones and enough police to go man-to-man, and still keep the bench warm.

After the rally we went in to see the matinée performance. By MRH standards the cast was huge, twenty students and four teachers. Even so, most of the cast had to double or triple up to cover the sixty plus characters. On Friday, at work, I was trying to describe this gathering storm to one of my co-workers. He dabbles in Community Theater, so I thought that he would be sympathetic. This was not to be. He recommended Guys and Dolls. Maybe he is just partial to musical theater? He has a good voice. As a MRH taxpayer, I am extremely pleased with this production.