Life – Page 47 – Doug's Views

November 8, 2006April 18, 2020

Yes, I will gloat in the Democrat victory

I have not hidden the fact, even though I am politically independent, I dislike the GOP so much that I will not vote for a Republican. However, I did vote for one on Tuesday and that was Joe Testa who is Franklin County Auditor.

I am pleased as punch that the GOP lost BIG Tuesday. They lost most of the offices here in Ohio including Governor. They lost the majority in the US House and are on the brink of gaining control of the US Senate.

The national victory for the Democrats is a HUGE rebuke to President Bush, the GOP, and their neo-con cronies. They were the ones who squandered the budget surplus, got us into a protracted war in Iraq on fabricated evidence, and ruined our reputation in the world community.

The wingnuts can try and spin it anyway that will help them feel better but the GOP LOST and they lost big.

The Democratic victory was also a rebuke to the cable TV and radio talking flacks who had no clue what was going on, so much so that until today kept attacking Democrats on behalf of their GOP masters.

You can stick it up your asses Karl Rove and Fox News…..

After 2004, I really thought my fellow citizens were mentally challenged but after tonight they are just slow on the uptake. It took them 6 years but they finally arrived at my conclusions and turned the bums out.

The other small satisfaction I got is in two different races related to my fight to keep church and state separate.

Deborah Owens Fink, the state school board member who was leader of the movement to force Intelligent Design into Ohio public schools, lost her election to another term. She had only 28% of the vote as of 11 PM

In Indiana, Rep. James Hostettler (R-IN) who introduced the “Public Expression of Religion Act” that was passed as the “Veterans’ Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2006”, lost his House seat tonight.

November 7, 2006April 18, 2020

I voted today

I voted today, for the first time in my new district.

It was in the vestibule of my local grocery store, so while pondering all the judges running for election, I got see all the morning shoppers getting their coffee and groceries. I am use to going behind a curtain so it was a bit of getting use to.

Ohio has an ID requirement. My driver’s licence has my previous address and some news reports were saying that others had issues casting a regular ballot with a DL with an old address. Despite the fact that the law says it doesn’t matter if the address is old as long as you are in fact registered at the current address.

Did I mention there were a lot of judges on the ballot?

Those were votes I wished I made more effort to research before today.

October 21, 2006April 18, 2020

Project Runway at this Old House

Nifty title, no?

I just wanted to comment on 2 TV shows I watched this week in the same post. So, sue me.

Project Runway

I have really tried not to be sucked into this reality show. I am not a fashion person or even care about the fashion industry even though I do know something about the history. Simply put I watched a few episodes of the Season 3 of Project Runway because Bravo repeats it so often – talk about roadblock programing.

I did watch the finale and I was not shocked that Jeffery won. Couture isn’t about what regular people will buy and wear – it is all about art and style. Jeffery had the trendy and arty part down. A woman wearing a dress that makes her look like peppermint candy has to be arty, no? The judges on the show were looking for that and that is why Jeffery won. Why else would they ignore the fact he went over budget on his finale designs.You knew he would win the show when he won the couture challenge in episode 9.

If the criteria was about what practical people would buy and wear then it was a tie between Uli and Laura. I liked a number of their designs. Laura’s bead work was stunning and the swimsuit Uli designed was nice.

Project Runway

This Old House

One of my long time favorite shows is finally getting back to basics – at least for this season.

The crew of Norm, Tommy, Richard, Roger, and Kevin began work on renovating an East Boston duplex that was built in 1916. This time money is tight and they have a strict $250,000 budget to use on both units.

Some recent projects had moved away from the formula that made the show a great watch as money became no object. It is great seeing what someone can do with unlimited funds but that gets boring and doesn’t relate to what many regular rehabbers go through on their houses.

For example, in a scene in a recent episode of the East Boston project had Tommy, Norm, and Kevin looking at the stucco on the outside of the house and an expert told them the stucco was original. They learned that totally redoing the outside would require a good chunk of the budget and only patching the cracks would be the least expensive option. Another episode had an electrician explaining to Norm that the house still had active knob and tube wiring that would need to be replaced. The homeowner also learned that the cost of removing a street tree that has clogged up the sewer main to the house would be the same as if they just dug up the sewer and relocated it.

The other part of the return of the show is the homeowners would do some of the labor to save money.

The refocus on the basics seemed to start this past spring, when TOH helped renovate a burned out row house in Washington DC that would sold to a moderate income family through the group Mi Casa.

I remember one episode when Kevin is told the budget for that rehab would be $200,000 he mentioned they spent that on just a kitchen on another project.

It is great to see it back. Now if I can just get my local PBS station not to interrupt it for their pledge drive so I can watch whole project it might be better.

This Old House

October 9, 2006April 18, 2020

Football Deja vu

While reading the Findlay Courier online this past Thursday, I read the article they wrote about the Findlay High game the next day. The article talks about that week’s opponent and the coach’s view of what FHS is expecting.

This opponent was Marion Harding High. Harding is a long time opponent. Marion is about an hour drive south of Findlay. This bit in the article caught my interest:

“I don’t know how much our kids know about the tradition of Marion and Findlay, but I do,” [Coach Mark Ritzler] said.
“Marion is a tough town with tough kids and it’s fun competing against guys like that.”
Ritzler can give his players first-hand accounts.
Like the game in 1985, Ritzler’s senior year at Findlay High, when the Trojans were tied for the Buckeye Conference lead and they went to Marion to face an 0-4 Presidents team. But records didn’t mean much that night as Marion built a 14-6 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Findlay scored with 11 minutes left and Ritzler caught a 2-point conversion pass from Robb Phillips to tie it. Ritzler also caught the game-winning touchdown pass with about 5 minutes left as Findlay got out of Marion with a hard-fought win.
The impressions have stayed with Ritzler to this day.
“I remember walking out on their field and their fans are screaming and the atmosphere was intense,” Ritzler said. “You want to play in an environment like that.”
Present is all that matters to Trojans

He was being diplomatic. The Marion fans back in 1985 were downright nasty that night. How do I know? I was there.

As I have posted previously, I was on the Trojan varsity team in 1985 with Mark and Robb. Even though I never started, since I was on the varsity I got to dress and go to all the away games.

Then the locker rooms at Marion’s stadium were behind the stands and we had to walk past the fans to and from the locker room. We were booed and called all kinds of names. Some even said some disparaging remarks about our mothers.

We were flat and through the first half Marion outplayed us.

At half time we went to the locker room a bit dejected that an 0-4 team was beating us. One guy, Dave Manley, tried to stir us up by urging us to play better. Coach Cromwell came in after a meeting with the other coaches and told Dave to sit down and be quiet. The coach wasn’t a yeller but that half time meeting was loud as he ripped the defense for seeming to forget what we practiced. He also loudly complained about the offense. He knew we were better than an 0-4 team and we better start playing like we were.

Then suddenly he was done and started to discuss the adjustments we needed to make to win the game.

Another game that year was also played in a hostile environment. We played Lorain Senior in Lorain.

Usually at away games we would change into sweats, throw the gear into our travel bags, get on the bus, and leave a few minutes later..

At Lorain, our buses were parked at a secure location away from Lorain’s stadium and at the end of the game we didn’t leave until a couple of hours after the game. They even had a local Burger King deliver a burger, fry, and drink for the team to the stadium. Then after the meal we got a police escort out of town.

I also remember they didn’t let the band or cheerleaders make the trip because the year before, when we played Admiral King in Lorain, the band bus was stoned after the game breaking almost all the windows out. The school was afraid it would happen again.

October 3, 2006April 18, 2020

Crap Happens

On Monday, the big news story was the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania.

I watched some of the coverage on the news channels before going to work. It is a very sad time for their community. I was a bit saddened to hear some of the news people saying factually wrong things about the Amish. One of the things was that the Amish reject any help from the government – that is not true. Here in Ohio the Amish do accept some government support especially when it comes to health care and their children. When they do accept it, the community, later, will have an auction or market day to pay back the state for the aid they received.

Of course, after every violent incident involving a school or children, the religious wing nuts make statements like the one I read in a forum posting on our local newspaper website:

Do you think there is a correlation with taking prayer out of schools and the escalation of school violence? Innocent voices raised in prayer each day kept God’s protection over the schools. Parents better pray for their children each day, I know I do!

Then there was this bit last night on the “Free Speech” segment of the CBS Evening News by Brian Rohrbough, father of one of the students killed in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado:

ROHRBOUGH: I’m saddened and shaken by the shooting at an Amish school today and last week’s school murders [in Bailey, Colorado]. When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting. Since that day, I tried to answer the question, “Why did this happen?”
This country is in a moral freefall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak without moral consequences. And life has no inherent value. We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong, and I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children. Suicide has become an acceptable action and has further emboldened these criminals. We’re seeing an epidemic increase in murder/suicide attacks on our children.
In response to Pennsylvania school shooting, CBS’ “Free Speech” featured Columbine father attacking evolution, abortion

That was just an uninformed comment. The Amish are about as religiously conservative as a religion goes, yet all their prayers didn’t “protect” them from the violence. It also doesn’t make one any saner. Mental illness doesn’t avoid the religious. In a press conference today, PA State Police reported the Amish school shooter wrote to his wife that he was angry with God.

Prayer is NOT a solution – it is what some do to cope with their lives.

People need to get some perspective. Mentally ill people, who perpetrate these killings, will do what they can to do harm. Unless we can gain some kind of psychic ability, we can NEVER prevent these incidents 100%.

The guy, who is said to have shot the Amish children, wasn’t on any law enforcement radar. The guy seemed to have just snapped (although I bet there were some signs his family and friends ignored).

My philosophy of life allows me to function without being crippled by the unknown. It basically boils down to “Crap Happens”. You deal with what you can control and try your best to slog through what you can’t control.