Now that I'm getting older,it takes a lot to prepare for the two and three seminars I attend every year. I try to go to the Corpus Christi seminars because it's so close and the traffic's not as bad. This year seminar was held at Delmar College which was an area I was not familiar with, so my wife and I made a trip Saturday to scout the area to familiarize myself with the surroundings because I hate last minute surprises. In the old days, it was, take it as it comes and deal with it; I'm much more calculated now.
At my age, 4:30 in the morning is much more of a fog that it was and 20 years ago. I knew that I had to be on a road no later than 5:30 A.M. to attend an 8:00 A.M. seminar. My clothes were laid out the night before, the cooler was next to the fridge, so I wouldn't forget to pack drinks, my attaché case was in my car (tank full), and I wrote a note attached to the front door "Take meds." I put my seldom used iPhone headset in my ear, just in case I received a call and then it was "Corpus Christi here I come." I didn't allow for the first day of school, so that took an extra 10 minutes or so to get to my destination. As usual, GPS took me right to the front door.
I don't know about other retirees but legion357 nailed it several months ago when he told me that I missed the back and forth interaction. That's so true because even though the seminar was interesting, the new people I met, couldn't wait until the break, so we could continue our political discussions. It all started innocently because I was just sitting there prior to the start of the class, reading my USAToday,when someone made a comment which led others to do the same. We met at the first break and continued after each break and during lunch. I really enjoyed a conversation I had with a moderate Republican. It was an enlightening experience. He told me that he was going to vote for Mitt Romney, not because he likes him, but because he thinks, he will get a handle on the spending. He also told me something I found interesting; he said, “no one will believe that Democrats will hurt Medicare recipients, no more than people will believe that Republicans want more gun control." Those things are etched in stone.
It was a perfect setting for a civil discussion because we were going to be there for eight hours, so we had to be on our best behavior. My new liberal friends from Corpus Christi think that Victoria Democrats are too passive, thus allowing Republicans to take over. I've tried to explain that we have an older conservative population, but that didn't work with my new friends because they were to the left of me; if you can imagine that...:-)
I never opened my iPad, got back to my newspaper or my iPhone after the instructor told us to turn it off. At no time did I feel the need to check my email messages or my blog, and I just made one phone call to my wife letting he know that everything was all right.
After being made aware of that Ron Paul was speaking on CSPAN Sunday night, I immediately started watching his last political speech. It was sad in a way because it reminded me Willie Mays in his last days of playing major league baseball. Ron Paul sounded bitter, and he had a reason since he was shunned by Mitt Romney. He could have had a speaking engagement, but he didn't agree with the conditions. His speech would have had to be vetted and approved by the Romney campaign, and he would have had to include a full Romney endorsement. Ron Paul could not agree with it so his speech turned out to be one of liberty to drink raw milk, etc. The Ron Paul supporters and delegates have been treated as second-class citizens and some were kept away from the national convention.
It's good to be back even though I wasn't far away. Has it been your experience that when you mention Victoria, the one you were talking to will respond with" I have a relative or a friend who lives there, lived there, or I have been there?" I've only recalled a couple of times where I had to tell someone that Victoria was about 115 miles from Houston, but they were not from Texas.
4 comments:
I should've asked my new Republican friend what he thought of the latest Wall Street/NBC that showed 0% of registered African- Americans saying they would not vote for Mitt Romney. That's astronomical because I've never seen a 0% in a poll. I've seen 1% or 2% but never 0%..... That doesn't mean that Romney will not get one single black voter, it means proportionately, it won't amount to 1%.
I would like to know why Governor Jan Brewer is saying that Obama is race baiting by pandering to Latinos; doesn't she know that it's her policies that made Latino's angry?
I don't know why Governor Nikki Haley doesn't understand she sounds condescending when she says that voter ID will affect the white voters too.".... You would think she knows that there were only a little over 80 cases of voter fraud when President Bush was in office and ordered an investigation. That's about .00004%.
Then again, Mary Matalin and Greta Van Susteren think that women are only interest in the economy and don't really care about the intrusive social issues.. It bewilders me.
Am I missing something? I understand the politics of it but putting that aside, one needs is to rise above that.
SAN ANTONIO —" The future of Texas' voting districts is again in question after a federal court Tuesday found evidence of discrimination in new district maps approved by the state's Republican-controlled Legislature last year.
The U.S. District Court in Washington wrote in a 154-page opinion that the maps don't comply with the federal Voting Rights Act because state prosecutors failed to prove that Texas lawmakers did not draw the new congressional and state Senate districts "without discriminatory purposes."
Readers: A poster has sent two or more emails and I have sent one to the editor of our VA forum complaining about about the unnecessary foul language and behavior to no avail.
How about taking a few minutes and email the editor expressing your displeasure before the VA forum becomes a compost.......at least we can say we tried.
I had no luck with the editor. All I got for my efforts was that peer pressure was going to make folks behave. Of course! Why didn't I think of that?
Of course we see how well peer pressure is working, so now I am sending my objections to one of the publishers--Dan Easton at deaston@vicad.com.
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