Why We Shouldn’t Care

Lately we have all heard a certain amount of controversy surrounding Notre Dame University’s choice of commencement speaker…

And by a certain amount of, I mean a hell of a lot…

The opinion is (and in some ways understandably so) that a distinctly catholic university such as Notre Dame should not choose as their commencement speaker one of the most liberal, and more importantly most Pro-choice, politicians in the nation. The opinion is that the priests who are in control of ND should not decide to give the privilege of this speech to a man with such vile opinions on the subject of abortion. The opinion is that President Obama was not the right person to speak at the Notre Dame Graduation.

Here is why that opinion is wrong, in my personal analysis.

As someone who graduated Friday (from high school, not Notre Dame) I consider myself somewhat of an expert on recent commencements. Mine, for example, was a speech looking back at the four years we had spent in high school and what we should do with our future. This is what all commencement speeches should be about.

There’s no reason for someone to go on stage at someones commencement and begin talking about their political views. It doesn’t make sense. So I do not see why a person’s political views should even matter to making them an appropriate commencement speaker, and the certainly should not be a deterrent.

Secondly, I want to announce something that many critics of this may not have heard. Barack H. Obama… is… the President… of… the United States! If he is not qualified to give a commencement speech at a university, then I do not know who is. I realize no one questioned his credentials, but let me put you in a similar situation.

I assume that by your reading this, you are probably assured to be a conservative. Now, imagine if you will (for some of my peers this will not be hard) that you are approaching or have recently had your graduation. Would you not want the opportunity to have President Obama speak at your graduation. I don’t care what his political views are. I know I certainly would want nothing more. So shouldn’t we be thinking more about the wills, needs, wants, desires, and cares of the STUDENTS at Notre Dame before we think about the ethics of the people running it. Just because these people chose to attend one of the nations most prestigious universities, one that happens to be very catholic, does not mean that they chose to let that catholic influence guide every decision that was made in their regard. It should be their opinions, not the conservative base (of which, I will now remind you (so as not to come off too liberal) I am a strong member) which decides who the commencement speaker is at a graduation?

Finally, let me propose a deep thinking question. Who Cares??? Why should anyone, besides the students and faculty of the school in question, honestly care who gives the commencement speech at Notre Dame. It’s  because of the high profile that anyone honestly gives a… darn. If the Fighting Irish had nominated Evan Bayh as their commencement speaker, someone who receives a 100% rating from NARAL, no one would have been surprised, shocked, or offended. I hate to demean my own party (although, while this is not a time for a long discussion on the subject, but I prefer to think of myself as conservative rather than republican) but this is pretty clearly an instance of the Right trying to rag on President Obama for anything and everything they can. It doesn’t make much sense to me that they should make such a big deal out of this issue. Hey, guys, I don’t know if you know this, but he’s a TERRIBLE president. But I guess you’ll keep on focusing on why he shouldn’t be nominated to perform in his strongest form: speaking.

Don’t Think Twice

Arlen Specter…

“As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy the Democratic Party”

Also…

“In the course of the last several months since the stimulus vote, I have traveled the state and surveyed the sentiments of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania and public opinion polls, observed other public opinion polls and have found that the prospects for winning a Republican primary are bleak.I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate — not prepared to have that record decided by that jury, the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate.”

So which is it chief? Are you really at odds with the party you’ve counted yourself a member for the past twenty-nine years? Or are you just a yellow coward. Because when you started your speech, I almost believed you were sincere. And then I realized, big shock, that you’re a politician!

This game isn’t about morals. This game isn’t about “finding yourself increasingly at odds” with anything. This game is about winning, and if you thought you could be successful with the Libertarians you sure as hell would be.

So if you don’t want to call yourself a republican, that’s find. We don’t want to call you one either. But don’t by God call yourself a liberal because you sure as hell ain’t that either.

You’re an official member of the coward party, and when if you ever win a state they won’t paint it red, or blue, they’ll coat it yellow.

Nobody in this media is going to criticize you, after all your not a liberal becoming a democrat. You’re not Joe Lieberman… Because, among other things, Lieberman became a Republican when they weren’t the entirely dominant party. And I’m not about to say that he wasn’t playing the game, because there is no doubt he was. But the fact is, he’s a much more sneaky game player than you.

Now, I don’t want to take away any of your achievements. You’ve served your country and your former party for 29 years, and that’s great. But don’t think about crawling back when were back on top…

 ”I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind. You coulda done better but, I don’t mind. You just sorta wasted my precious time. But don’t think twice, it’s alright.”

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clock was striking thirteen

What is a billion? It is something that we cannot truly understand, but know this. If we go back a billion seconds in time, the year would be 1959. If we went back a billion minutes, Jesus Christ would be walking the earth. If we went back a billion hours, you’d better be a stonecarver because it would be the stone age. A billion days? There would have been no animals on the land.

So what’s 787 billion then?

I can’t even begin to tell you exactly what 787 billion dollars. What I can tell you is that 787 billion dollars is wrong. 787 billion dollars is messed up. To dig into my deepest, darkest, most Hemmingway inspired depths, 787 billion dollars blows.

Hard.

But lets move past the dollar figures for a second, shall we. Let us move past even the millions of dollars of wasteful pork included in the bill. I want to focus on one particular portion of the bill. I want to focus on the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, the health care plan included in the stimulus package that I’ll bet you’ve never heard about. From this point forward, I will refer to this bill by a delightful respelling of its acronym, FCCCER will become FUCKER.

Now, I’d  like to point out that this Fucker is the brainchild of a great American. I would never defame a man so patriotic as to not pay his taxes for three years and to thus loose his nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services. That’s right, children, the man singley not trustworthy enough to run our HHS is in fact trustworthy enough to change our health care system forever.

Fucker is a program which is designed to “moniter” our health care providers. It will “moniter” every treatment made by every dictir un this country. It will “moniter,” children, every thing that goes on between your trusted health care professionals and you.

Fucker is a real asshole. So is Tom Daschle. In Daschle’s book  Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, he addresses the subject of ‘experimental procedures.’ He says we should abolish them. So when you’re sitting at the foot of Grandma Suzie’s hospital bed, being told that she has an inoperable brain tumor, don’t even think about asking your doctor about experimental procedures. Fucker won’t let you do that. Fucker’ll fire your doc for trying to ave your grammy’s life.

So lets sum up. Burried in a bill designed to save your failing economy is a health care bill which will change the way you do business with your doctor forever. It effectively shuts down the health care field as we know it, freezing treatment and care where it is in 2009. It also provides very vague descriptions of what should be done in hospitals, and it gives one man at the head of Fucker the complete power to rule on the actions of hospitals, and their future.

So Tom Daschle got his way. Don’t feel bad for him. Sure, he lost his job, but ol’ Tom’s got something far better. He’s got love. Because Tom Daschle love’s Big Brother.

Now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own…

The word insanity is one rarely tossed around loosely anymore. In recent memory, this tag was thrown about more often than a third-string NFL quarterback with a pop-gun arm. (For more on this, see Ken Kesey’s classic novel on the subject… see, even independent bloggers can have product placement.) Still, there are certain people who deserve this word even in today’s incessantly politically correct world. I’m not talking about the young man who I walk past at school every other day who mutters incoherent greetings to passersby, nor am I even talking about the high-school graduate who occasionally enters my place of business hand-led by his mother, able to express nothing but pure joy. No, these people have serious  mental defects, and I pray for people in their place. Now, I am talking about the truly insane, the truly mad. I am talking about those perfect able to function, and still unwilling to do so. I am talking, of course, in this case, about Rod Blagojevich. He is truly a madman. I feel no sympathy for this man who still refuses any guilt in his corruption charges. He was corrupt, and deserves every day of jail he earns. Lets be honest, he is an evil man, and St. Peter will NOT call his name.

Gotta keep on rockin’. Some day gonna make it to the top

My congratulations go out to the probable future host of NBC’s Meet the Press. For those of you who haven’t heard, Tim Russert’s likely replacement is NBC’s chief White House correspondent, David Gregory. I’ve seen the man in action, and as far as promoting from within, I really doubt NBC could have found a more suitable replacement. He is currently the host of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.on MSNBC, and Meet the Pressseems like a natural transition for him. He’s got some pretty big shoes to fill, as Russert, who died suddenly June 13, was one of America’s better journalists as far as asking the tough questions of both sides. R.I.P. Tim Russert, good luck David Gregory.

P.S. I’m somewhat disheartened to admit that finding a suitable TITLE for this blog took me far longer to actually write the content. Well, here’s to striving for perfection.

The No Name Blog

hey there all. I was featured today on my friend, theteenconservative’s, audio blog. I think I represented myself pretty well.  Check it out (it’ll start immediately) right here.

Also, in case I do not return before Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving to all who read, and all who don’t. If you want to learn why you should be thankful, check out Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I try to keep personal stuff off RR, but honestly, it’s an amazing, albeit depressing (post-apocalyptic) read.

Finally, one humorous note: I just spell checked this bad boy, and WordPress, a BLOGGING website, does not recognize blog as a word in the English language. It won’t recognize this, either: LOLZ!

Ain’t it hard when you discover that he really wasn’t where it’s at?

So I’ve been trying to keep pretty positive about the whole “President elect Obama” thing, and so far, I’ve been successful. Well, the Time’s, they Are a Changin’. (yes, there’s a Bob Dylan theme).

Barack Obama, the greatest politician of all time, has truly impressed me. He’s hired the best political advisors in the world, showed masterful use of new technologies in order to get out the vote, and looked like a savior the whole election through. I’m impressed, truly impressed, that this diety, that this God among mere mortals, managed to take an election that almost any democrat could have won easily, and make it so very damn close. So Barack, how’s the stigmata healing?

Sure, I realize that the electoral gap was enormous, but look at that popular vote. The gaps not that big. Why’s that, you ask? Because, well, people realized who the better candidate was, and they couldn’t vote for him because he was in the wrong party, he was running against the messiah, he was blah, and yadda, and any excuse you could possibly think of to not vote for the right guy.

Why’d Barack Obama win? He talked pretty. Real pretty. His main primary opponent was a woman horribly destroyed by the sexism her party, and her liberal media, thinks is so wrong. It’s impressive how that goes out the window when the dream candidate runs, aye?

So now, here we are, and we’ve got Barack Obama, the messiah, the savior, as our president-elect. Congrats, get your feet ready for a good cleanin’. Take some deep breaths for your new baptism. You’ll want a new life after the president-elect takes from you everything, he could steal. So…

How does it feel?

And When the Band Plays “Hail to the Chief,” oh, they point the cannon at you

Rupert Brooke

“The Soldier”

 

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

            Yes, I realize that this is a poem about England, and not America, but the mindset of soldiers rings true throughout the world. This is a day in America that has become less and less emphasized in our culture. As we’ve had no major, life-taking wars on a World War, Korea, or Vietnam scale in the recent past, we quickly seem to forget just how important our veterans are.

 

Don’t forget!

 

            The problem is, those who remember Veteran’s day at all seem to think of it as a day of remembrance, but it is not that at all. Our day of remembrance is Memorial Day. On Veteran’s Day, you shouldn’t remember, you should ACT. So go out. Find a veteran and give them a hand, a hug, a handshake, tell them how much they’ve done for their country. And maybe, make their day a little better.

 

It’s not much to ask; after all, if it wasn’t for them, God knows what this country would be like.

That’s Great, it starts with an Earthquake?

{Slowly, dramatically, the fog and smoke clears. Our hero, exhausted, battered, and covered in blood (more the blood of others than his own) walks towards the fourth wall. Stopping, he gazes once more behind him, examining the strewn, devistated bodies of friend and foe alike. Closing his eyes, the hero turns, exhales, and marches towards his future}

I’ve been meaning to write this blog for many days, and as we are now T+ 6 days from the election, I have failed. Enough about intentions, though. Go back and reread the “Director notes” which opened this blog. This is exactly what U.S. president-elect Obama looked like on Wednesday, right? The world has barely survived the election “battle,” and Obama now rises gloriously to lead the few survivors, right?

Stop. Leave your computer, go outside, look around, and return.

I mean it…

I’ll wait…

Now that you’re back, tell me, has anything really changed? Does the world look any different, really? Are there fires burning in your neighborhood that have been their since the 4th, or, perhaps, are their donkeys being burned in ephigy on anyone’s front lawn. I didn’t think so.

Sure, there are a few more leaves on the ground. Sure, it’s a hell of a lot colder than it was a week ago. But when you look at it from a wide lens, nothing has changed. Yes, a new president will take over in just more than two months. Yes, the party in power not only in the District but all over this nation will switch. But when all the “Dust” has settled, when all the offices are filled, and when the government gets back to work, this will still be the greatest country on earth. You’ll still have the right to voice your opinion. Hell, you’ll still have the right to write annoying blogs like this one! so maybe, before we lock ourselves in a closet for the next four years, think about the following three things:

1.) It’s cold right now, but it’ll get colder. Get some fresh air before the sound of a door opening turns your nose red.

2.) The leaves are still falling, so go find some and spend some time catching one, damn it.

3.) If you’re still hellbent on locking that closet door, set the alarm for two years, not four. After all, there’s ALWAYS midterms!

In case you’re keeping track at home

Hey. It’s over. Senator Barack Obama is now President Elect Obama and the dust is settling. Jay Nixon, democrat, is not suprisingly Missouri’s governor elect, and the only statewide office which will be held by a republican after innaguration day will be Lieutenant governor. So what’s new…

This stuff…

The democrats did NOT get 60 seats in the senate… their machine is NOT bulletproof.

Ted Stevens won… um, let’s ignore “how” for now and remind ourselves of this. Sarah Palin will soon be a senator.

And hey, Joe Biden and Barack Obama won’t…

Obama’s election leaves the door open for Illinois’ massively unpopular governor to promote himself to a national level. In a way, I hope he has better taste. In EVERY OTHER way, I hope he doesn’t…

My congressman, Todd Akin, won without discomfort. No surprise. Neither is it a surprise that my state senate seat and state rep seat are still held by republicans…

So where are we now. Libby Dole is out. That’s a discomfort to BOB DOLE… a discomfort also is seen in Dole’s friend (they won the world food prize together this year) George McGovern. He’s probably not happy about Obama, even though he SAYS he’s not a racist.

Alright, this is the first of two (probably) times I will mention this, because after this it should not be a subject. It is a beautiful thing that we finally have a president of a minority race. I don’t like his politics, but the symbolism in that single event is huge. Congratulations to him.

In closing, pray for Jim Lembke. Running for a state senate seat, Lembke STILL hasn’t been declared the winner, even while winning by 92 votes with 100% reporting. Also, please, seriously, pray for Dick Durbin. Though I do not agree with his politics, no one has been more miserable in reelection, as he lost his forty year old daughter over the weekend. God be with him.