On the South Side

Just a quick note tonight on the first presidential debate for 2004. I watched it with my dad and both agreed that Kerry did well. Bush, not so well. If we were scoring a high-school debate team, Kerry wins. But, this is not a high-school debate, this is real life and there many, many other factors that will come into play over the next month. I've always know this was going to be a tight race and I still believe that. I won't belabor any individual points that were either made or missed by the candidates tonight. I'll only remind all of something Tim said to us tonight: Imagine the person who has not made up their mind already and they sat through this 90 minute debate. That's a special person! What will they likely take away from it? They at least saw John Kerry as someone who "looks and sounds right." In Bush, they saw someone who talks like their uncle. They may not decide until they walk into the voting booth.

I'm simply saying that too many people think the Federal Government is their daddy. If one brings up the subject of Selective Service or even the Military in general, you're side-stepping my point because one of the things that the Federal Government is supposed to do is provide a strong national defense. In the case of national emergency, like a war for instance, we would all be called upon to sacrifice some of our luxuries. And this notion of a Draft next year; it's a just a smoke screen. Liberal Democrats are the ones pushing it in Congress. The White House and the Pentagon have stated that there are presently no plans for such a thing. Please read this article to get some of the details. This rumor mongering fits their preferred world-view that the we're all going to hell and it's Bush's fault. However, if there were to be a Draft, and Emily had to take her physical tomorrow, I would wish her the best and see her off. Just like all of you would. Back

I wanted to say one more thing pertaining to last night's entry before I hit the sack tonight. To all the young people out there: Don't ever believe that the Federal Government holds sway over your life; it doesn't and it shouldn't. You needn't depend on hand-outs, head-starts, rebates, or roll-overs. You should be out there loving life, living it, and never concerning yourself with what the Government can do for you. As I said last night, the Federal Spending will go up next year and the year after that, regardless of who is President. I have a fantasy that someday we'll actually reduce the spending in government. Crazy, I know. Imagine instead of the Feds taking your money in the form of taxes every paycheck, you had to write a check for that amount and mail it in to them.

I received an email from my niece the other day. I'll give her credit. She responded to my challenge to say why , besides the Iraqi War, she won't be voting for Bush. One thing I wanted to respond to tonight was a few misconceptions that plenty of people besides her have. They all fall under the general category of the national economy. Misconception#1: The economy tanked because of President Bush. Please do some research on your own on this one. Nobody thinks the bubble burst because of anything the president did or didn't do. It was already bursting when he took office and the 9/11 terrorists attacks just hammered the nails in the coffin. Misconception#2: The government (Bush) is raising tuitions and cutting financial aid for college students. The President has NOTHING to do with what colleges charge for tuition. The cost of tuition is going up because the demand for college is going up. The demand for college is going up because there's so much financial aid av

I was at Steak N Shake all night tonight. My father and I discussed everything from our own families to the Iraqi War. I asked him what he thought about Emily applying to Harvard. That's right, I said Harvard. A man from church who's a Harvard Graduate School alumni gave us an application. His wife said to me, "we think Emily is a very special girl and we think she should go to Harvard." You can imagine my response. Something like, "That's awful nice, whom do think should pay for Harvard?" Well as it turns out, Harvard doesn't need my money. As far as academic requirements go, that doesn't matter much either. Harvard lays out no minimum requirements for GPA or test scores. So, what the heck? Why not apply to Harvard? I'll mention again that these discussions with my father have been much more pleasant since he stopped trying to figure out what's wrong with me and started talking with me. When he can say to my face that he hopes John Ke

This the Pensacola Cross. Our family vacations on this beach each year and I've been keeping up with the aftermath of Hurrican Ivan. The destruction is hard to comprehend. I'm trying to keep the people who live there in my thoughts and prayers. It's hard as I keep thinking about myself and what will it look like when I see it next? This was a huge hurricane and a little barrier island like Pensacola Beach is not even a speed bump as it smashed right through it. Check out some of these pictures.

I think I'll write about something simple tonight. Oh, I don't know, like abortion. I think I'll stick to my Whereas/Therefore formula. Whereas: Life begins at conception. An unborn child is innocent of any crimes of man. There are approximately 126,000 abortions conducted each day worldwide ( link ). That's worse than any war. Pregnancy in the developed world is almost entirely preventable by behavior modification. (Sadly, only 22% of abortions are done in "developed" countries. This is an argument for another day: the correlation between power, poverty and pregnancy.) The desire to end an unwanted pregnancy is normal. There's nothing wrong with your emotions. But, because emotion often leads us into regrettable actions, I think a mandatory waiting period would be a big improvement. If you believe that it's a sad and harsh necessity to murder an innocent unborn child sometimes, then I have no argument with you. You have to live with that. I don

...and boy are my arms tired. But seriously folks. The weather was beautiful and we had 54 homes participate this year. I think that was more than we'd ever had. Usually, it's just about 50. It was a huge amount of work and every year at this time I tell myself I'm not going to head this up next year. Then I get over it and tell myself the next one's a year away. I'm going to get back into the swing of things; try to write a little each night. I may dip a toe into some, shall we say, "sensitive" issues. You can handle it, right? But tonight, I'm going to bed. Bellerive Day is over. Amen.

Jennifer mentioned some goofy games that we played when we were just tots. I have to add something to her story though. A chocolate milk race was, if I'm remembering accurately, done only by sipping one spoonful at a time. So, you would indeed race down the hallway to the cups at the kitchen table, but you had to drink it with a spoon. Much more challenging. Another odd thing we used to do was Twinkie Smashing. (I hope I'm not imagining all this.) You would take your Twinkie and hurl it towards the ceiling. Twinkies can take pretty much punishment, so I think 3 to 4 throws where needed to smash one. Success was measured by a smashed, but un-opened Twinkie. I remember recounting this story to someone and we were laughing quite hard. They asked, "were they unwrapped?" I halted my laughter and said sternly, "No, that would be stupid." I wonder if Jennifer remembers too, the whistle that blew every morning at exactly 7:30 a.m. that we heard from our bedro

The ridiculous title is on behalf of all my liberal/moderate friends who may have considered voting for the President if it wasn't for the Iraqi War. In other words, that single issue is keeping them from voting for him. Whereas: Sometimes, war is a necessary evil Your freedom was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001 and they'd kill you and your children if they could A solution must be sought; doing nothing is not an option A strategy to establish a democratic stronghold in the Middle East is risky and ugly but it is the best option The war we put off today will be fought tomorrow Therefore: Vote for President Bush If the Iraqi War is just one of many reasons you won't be voting for the President, that's great. Tell me about it on your own blog. But if you'd like to vote for him but just can't because of the war, then tell me which of those 5 points you don't agree with. If you can convince me that any of them is false, I'll....OK, I won't vote for Ker

I axed the Andrew Sullivan link from Blogs I Read over there in the right column. I've replaced it with one called PowerLine. The news that you'll be hearing tomorrow is more and more driven by segments of what could be called the New Media. And, a large chunk of this is in Blogs. (Just a reminder: Blog is short for Web-log.) This Blog that I've added to my list of Blogs I Read is getting some attention tonight. I won't recount all here, you can read it if you want. Just remember, what you read in the newspapers two or three days from now is on the blogs tonight.

As Jennifer recounted her story from this terrible day in 1998, I couldn't help but to add my reflections too. It was indeed a Sunday, and like most Sundays in those days, I worked the popular Brunch at the 9th Street Abbey in Soulard. I got home about 4 pm I guess, and Annette said, "Rich, I've got some bad news for you." I couldn't tell you how I knew, but from the inflection in her voice I knew that something terrible had happened. My subconcience blinked immedietly to the new baby of the family, Ryder Green. My other sister Becky and I had just been to Sacramento to visit them. But a second later the truth was announced: Don Coil was dead; a tragic mountain accident. The husband of my little sister, who so dearly loved to climb mountains had falled off of one. Disbelief doesn't quite describe the feeling. My overall feeling of that day was helplessness. When the phone finally rang with Jennifer on the other end, I simply didn't know what to say o

Labor Day, 2004. Where has the summer gone? Science Camp, Pensacola...gone. Bellerive Day is just two weeks away. Boy, I'll be glad when that's over. For those who don't know, Bellerive Day is the day when 50 homes on Bellerive and Dover have Garage Sales on the same day. Kingshighway Methodist is the center of the event and I'm the coordinator. To be fair, we're the coordinators; Annette is at least as responsible for it as I am. It's about one solid week of work. When it's over I know summer is really over and I can start preparing for Christmas. You laugh?! One must be prepared. Besides, I love Christmas; especially the music. I start practicing by Halloween at the latest. Anyway, this summer holds special meaning for us as a family as it's likely to be the last of our nuclear family summers. Next summer, we'll be saving money instead of vacationing and moving Emily to Columbia where she'll be attending college. I can't believe my l

So, thanks to Jennifer, I caught John Fogerty on NPR this afternoon. Though it was an interview from 1998, I still very much enjoyed it. He talked about the early days of the band and the origins of some of his big hits like Who'll Stop the Rain. Turns out he was in the National Guard and after his haircut he felt so violated and used(he described it as "like being sexually assaulted) that depression set in. The "Rain" is the "gobledygook" (sp?) that falls from on high throughout history. I can sympathize with this. In fact, when I was a sophmore in high school, I used this song in one of my papers. I was taking a Science Fiction class, (hey, it was the '70's man) and writing a year-end thesis-style paper. At the end of the year, the teacher read some of the papers out loud to the class, but did not read mine. I was feeling dejected when finally she said that there was one paper here that she wouldn't be reading because "no one would und

John Fogerty and me? Yeah, we go way back. Back to about 1969 when some of my friends' older brothers and sisters had a copy of "Creedence Clearwater Revival," the bands' self-titled first album. We'd put the record on when the older siblings weren't home. Suzy-Q just blew us away. (Being the very youngest of the baby-boomers, CCR introduced me to songs like that and Heard it Through the Grapvevine.) Fate would put us together again when Bayou Country would be the first record that I could call my own. My mother bought if for me while we were in a Woolworth's store. This record remains one of my favorites. As time went on, I would own all the CCR albums. And, as I learned to play guitar a little better, I would strum all the chords along with John. It took me years though, to figure out that John's voice was much higher than mine and I'd have to play the songs in a different key if I was going to sing them. So, John's been in the news