Defending Lance
Lance Armstrong doesn't need his name on the list of "official" winners to prove he's a champion ("U.S. doping agency erases Armstrong's 7 Tour titles," Aug. 25). He fought bravely, courageously, honorably and successfully.
I rarely watch sports, but I watched him struggle to win those seven bike races. He will always be an inspiration, a hero, a role model and an American icon to those who cheered him on through all his battles.
BARBARA ERNEST
Winston-Salem
Memory lapse
I found myself rather amused while reading the Aug. 26 letter "Obama's faults" — especially with the writer's lapse of memory and failure to understand what any president can or cannot control (gas prices). In my view, it is simply unwise to elect someone (Mitt Romney) who possesses the same laissez-faire policies (George W. Bush) that placed us in this economic nightmare.
In conclusion, one must analyze Romney/Ryan's plan to "save Medicare and Medicaid" (vouchers). Quite frightening. But according to the letter writer, I'm the complete idiot because I'll vote for Obama?
GARRETT BROWN
Winston-Salem
Sum It Up
The Sum It Up question from Sunday was: Was the Republican National Convention a success?
George W. Bush didn't speak. I guess they didn't want to remind everybody who created this mess to begin with. Maybe he's still busy looking for weapons of mass destruction. A mirror might help.
BOB BRELSFORD
Apart from the Clint Eastwood tirade, yes.
WILLIAM SAMS
Yes, the Republican convention was a success. We learned that Mitt Romney is not a robot and that Paul Ryan is a liar.
SUZANNE CARROLL
If you consider success to be muzzling Ron Paul, continuing the war on women, limiting diversity, failing to talk about two questionable wars that bankrupted the country, intimating that we might engage in two more, and blaming President Obama instead of Congress for everything except Original Sin, then yes, the RNC was a success.
AL BAKER
Both conventions are prime examples of preaching to the choir. Will any undecided minds be changed? Probably not. Will they float trial balloons of which lies work best? Yes.
We have two groups of hogs eating at the public trough calling each other pigs while we the taxpayers have to keep pouring in the feed.
Time for a third or fourth party. We have a polluted system, and the old saying is true, "The solution to pollution is dilution."
KEN HOGLUND
If success in this case is defined as spending a lot of money for nothing, then I guess it was a success.
MONA POTTS
I don't know. Why don't you ask the chair?
ARTHUR S. LINK III
Absolutely! "It made my day."
DON WOLFE
Well, yes and no. A presidential candidate was nominated, and he accepted the nomination. Since this was supposedly the purpose of the convention, it was a success — but that success was accomplished long before the convention. If the convention's purpose was to provide answers — well, it left a lot of questions. I was moved when Ann Romney described the happy days of the Romneys' early marriage, living in a basement apartment, eating cheap food off a fold-out ironing board, while Mitt Romney pursued both business and law degrees and she was a stay-at-home mom. I was even more moved when Paul Ryan explained how he and Romney plan for the majority of Americans to experience those halcyon days of tuna and pasta. One question is this: While jobless American families undergo this sentimental experience, will the same source that paid the Romneys' rent also pay their rent?
DOROTHY MATHEWS
Was the Republican National Convention a success? By comparison to what ended last night --yes. Republicans had a low bar going in. Dems had a high bar of expectation and walked right under it.
ReplyDeleteMemory lapse. Well, you know yourself best.
ReplyDeleteClint Eastwood was proved right. Empty chair. Mercifully for Dems, the empty chair was replaced by the "empty suit". When you are outshone by Joe Biden....you are finished. Even the masterful job of the lawyer Bill Clinton defending his guilty "client" didn't do any good. Had this "State of the Union" style talk taken place outdoors in front of 65 thousand people...there would have been a riot.
ReplyDeleteArthur, the chair replies Charlotte crushed Tampa, now just hope the Panthers can do the same to the Buccaneers.
ReplyDelete"It's just more fun being a Democrat."
Delete-- Jackie O.
Our musical act: The Foo Fighters. Their musical act: The Oak Ridge Boys. Nuff said.
They wanted Lawrence Welk, but he's been dead for 20 years.
DeleteHe can't lead an orchestra any more, but he can still vote.
"The Republicans are doing to the country what the democrats are doing to their secretaries."
DeleteJoan Mondale
"Democrats don't even know what hole to screw."
Delete-Bucky
Bob, thanks for posting letters.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure. :)
DeleteOR looks quite lovely. Hope ya'll are having a good time.
DeleteWent to Crater Lake today. Getting ready to leave for rehearsal dinner right now.
DeleteNew York Times poll: 7% of Americans think Obama's stimulus package worked.
ReplyDeleteI like Arthur's comment. Poor Clint's head is as empty as that chair.
ReplyDeleteW did speak at the convention, but only on video...they didn't want him anywhere near Tampa. The WMD is somewhere under all that brush on W's ranch...if he keeps clearing it when the cameras are off, he'll find it.
And you've gotta love it when Ken Hoglund starts talking about hogs.
Which reminds me...how are the piglets doing Phargo?
ReplyDeleteI think Phargo has been smitten by the goat kids...he mentions them almost every post. That is understandable, because goats in general are really charming, not to mention better behaved than most people.
All piglets have been sold. A man from Kernersville is dropping by tomorrow to pick up the last one. But by the looks of things this morning, :) we will soon have more piglets.
DeleteI wonder if that little piglet will be going "wee!" all the way home.
DeleteNow instead of "talk to da hand" I'm sayin' "talk to da chair."
ReplyDelete¡Yo también!
Delete;-)
Anytime Clinton gets that crooked finger out, and starts waving it at you, you know he's getting ready to lie.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious the disease he has, has affected more than one appendage.
what's the pathology, Bucky?
DeleteDon't toy with me Bob. You know the deal.
DeleteDunce has rapturous dreams about that finger every night.
DeleteI do know Harry Deal from Taylorsville in Alexander County. Remember Harry Deal and the Galaxies, 60 Minute Man. Well Harry owns a fried chicken restaurant in Taylorsville and a recording studio. I always thought it would have been clever if he had named his son Harry, Jr. instead of David. That way they could go by Big Harry Deal and Little Harry Deal. I often see apples at Whole Foods from Deal Orchards in Taylorsville.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteGood afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Armstrong never failed a drug test. Being a trainer, Phargo would probably be the best bet on this forum to know if that translates into Armstrong having raced clean each time. Regardless, coming back from cancer to just compete not to mention win the Tour de France was still an amazing accomplishment.
LTE 2: I'm not sure the POTUS election is as critical to what will happen with our economy as much as it is the Congressional makeup. If there is a Congress that refuses to compromise to get anything done, especially in regards to the looming deadline for extending the tax cuts and avoiding the automatic spending cuts, then the economy will continue to sputter. Imo, the "complete idiots" are those who vote for "my way or no way" TB's who would rather see the US sink than compromise.
Sum it up: I didn't watch it, so I can't say. Conventions are nothing but pep rallies anyway. I'm not sure they really serve a puropose anymore. On the responses, well played by Arthur :). This is one time I'm in agreement with Mr. Hoglund about the conventions doing nothing more than preaching to the choir. Mr. Baker did bring up a potentially vital point about Ron Paul. Paul does have a very loyal following, and one can't help but wonder if the R's treatment of Paul at the convention will lead his followers to write in Paul or simply skip the POTUS vote altogether. There are enough of them to swing the election in close states.
Yes an amazing athlete. Test results are all in the timing and the 1/2 life (Wordly's World) of the substance being used.
DeleteI too wondered that Ron Paul was shut out of the convention. Has Romney already forgotten that he only took about 65% of the primary votes, and that there are still many Republicans who are less than enthusiastic about him?
DeleteSince the swing states will decide the election, maybe Romney should be looking at three of them: Iowa, in which Paul took 25% of the primary votes, Virginia, where Paul took 40% and NC, where Paul took 11.12%. Can Romney really afford to throw away 34 electoral votes if the Paulists decide to stay home on election day?
Anyone know the next flight out to Kiev?
ReplyDeleteSleeping Beauty
I don't normally pay the slightest attention to the "entertainment" press, but a female friend suggested that I take a look at this piece.
ReplyDeleteIt is an angry, but excellently written, rant that speaks to what I said yesterday about the silliness of comparing the dalliances of two men to what the scumbags like Huckabee, Akin, Ryan and others are trying to do to American women.
If you don't get it, I feel really sorry for you.
Trampire
There should be a photo of Clinton beside the word scumbag in the dictionary.
DeleteStill cannot directly reply to posts . . .
ReplyDeletedotnet, I would fly to Dulles, JFK, or Logan, and start looking for flights.
OT, did Ryan and Huckabee really say the things the article reports. I am familiar with Akin's idiocy, of course.
Yes, they did. Huckabee is the "intellect" behind Akin and any number of other assholes. And yes, the great intellectual Ryan, cornered by a reporter and desperately trying to shift the attention to Romney, accidentally told the truth as he sees it and said that rape is a method of conception. What a low-life.
DeleteWatch Ryan here
I ought to be offended...unlike the Dunce, I don't post made up shit. But I'm not, because I have no control over where others get their information. Mine comes from the best news sources available.
Keep making a fool of yourself fool. I'm laughing, and I'm sure others are too.
DeleteTell us about the 4.5 million new jobs like you and Clinton said were created. I love a good joke.
Obama campaign ad: Instead of a Medicare 'guarantee', you'll get a voucher under Romney.
ReplyDeleteThese liberals just don't get it. The money is going to run out fools!
Dotnet, I liked the "Sleeping Beauty" piece so much that I sent it to my friend at the library, which means that it has now made its way to some very quirky corners of the world through his 600+ database of friends and former students.
ReplyDeleteNeither he nor I are particularly fond of conceptual art except when someone gets it just right, as the artist has done here. Imagine walking into that room and there she is, the Sleeping Beauty herself, and you are told that if your kiss wakes her, she will marry you.
People whose minds are locked (I could name at least one) would probably find that frightening and run for their lives. But those whose minds are not yet sunken in the mire of self-love (meaning self-doubt) might find themselves intrigued, even challenged.
What will happen if I kiss her? Will she just continue sleeping, or will she wake up. And if she wakes up, will she really marry me?
Of course, in the back of our mind, we know that this is just fantasy and that the contract is unenforceable, but at the same time, we are allowed to step outside of the box that we all live in and take a chance. Who knows what might happen?
Great stuff.
"They wanted Lawrence Welk, but he's been dead for 20 years.
ReplyDeleteHe can't lead an orchestra any more, but he can still vote."
Probably in more than one location, along with other ghosts exercising their franchise
There's no telling how many ineligble people are voting. Nobody is policing the electoral process. Not even Jimmy Carter.
DeleteI'd trust many Latin American elections over the one coming up in November.
Delete"Ryan . . . accidentally told the truth as he sees it and said that rape is a method of conception. What a low-life."
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking, he is correct: conception can occur after such an attack, but I wouldn't campaign on that. I don't know that he is a lowlife, but that reflects a lack of mental agility at a very sorry best. It is indeed a disgusting statement.
Don't fall for it Stab. All deversionary tactics. They don't want to talk about the economy, and Obama's pathetic leadership on the most important issue facing America.
DeleteGoing further, why Ryan would involve himself in the subject reflects further lack of foresight. I assume the comment stemmed from the outcry over Akin's stoopid revision of biology. Ryan should have repudiated Akin, and acknowledged that the Mo Senate seat is lost, unless Akin drops out (probably lost, anyway). Romney at least did repudiate Akins' comment.
ReplyDeleteOT noted that a commentator says that Clinton's speech swung the election. I doubt that. I don't doubt that Ryan will cost Romney votes.
Ryan couldn't have repudiated Akin without repudiating himself, because he is a co-sponsor of the draconian "Sanctity of Human Life" act. That's why he was being asked the questions in the first place. And his remark was not the technicality that you cite, it was to attempt to make rape "just another method of conception", which accurately reflects his thinking.
DeleteRyan is not a "conservative Republican". He is a right-wing nutcase Pee Pee Party loony. Romney did not choose him as his running mate. I'm not impressed by Romney's flip-flopper mind, but I will give him credit for knowing better than to choose Ryan as his running mate. Ryan was imposed upon Romney by the TBs.
I really wish that people would make an effort to find out who is running this "Romney" campaign before they start discussing it in the first place. A question like "Did Huckabee actually say that?" tells me that the questioner knows nothing about the Huck man.
Bucky, such things are in the news, and draw attention. Of course, the economy is an uncomfortable topic, but one that has been so far ill-addressed by Romney in terms of stimulating job creation. So, when you aren't furnishing substance, issues like Ryan's comments assume disproportionate importance.
ReplyDeleteI am increasingly disappointed in politics and politicians.
Actually, Romney's strategy is to attack Obama on the economy while avoiding making any specific statements on what he will do to fix it, because he has no idea what to do to fix it.
DeleteThe reason that Clinton's speech could be the big game-changer is because he chose to address every aspect of the economy specifically, thus changing the Democrat's strategy to turning the economy into a specific policy matter. Read the speech.
From here on out, every Obama speech will deal with specifics of economic policy, hoping to force Romney into making a specific response, which he has no intention of doing under any circumstance.
But from now on when he says that he will create 12 million jobs (over what period? Just bullshit), he will be under enormous pressure to explain just how he will do that, and of course, he has no idea.
Clinton changed the game...now let's see which side can play it better. Romney better hope that Clinton stays out of it from here on out.
Well, here's one place that we know he won't be voting:
ReplyDeleteLawrence Welk Birthplace
Strasburg, North Dakota
Lawrence Welk is North Dakota's favorite son, a local boy who made it big. He was born on the outskirts of Strasburg in a sod house and -- though North Dakotans may deny it -- hated the place. He hated farming, hated his parents, and for all we know hated North Dakota. The sixth of nine children, he essentially sold himself into paternal slavery to pay back $400 he borrowed to buy his first accordion. He left home for good on his 21st birthday and never looked back, playing weddings and radio barn dances until, in 1955, he finally debuted on national TV. His parents weren't around to appreciate it; they had been dead for 15 years.
Lawrence's birthplace, officially known as the Ludwig & Christina Welk Farmstead, is nestled among wheat fields north of town, out in the middle of nowhere (as are most North Dakota attractions) but fairly easy to find. A boom box sits in a window of the farmstead barn, pumping out happy accordion music. All you have to do is turn off Highway 83 and follow your ears.
An Ungrateful Son
The farmstead is very soothing, much like Lawrence Welk's music. A small main house, freshly painted and neat-as-a-pin, stands among a few cottonwood trees flanked by a summer kitchen, a barn, a granary, a windmill, a blacksmith shop, and the Lawrence Welk celebrity outhouse. In the barn, up in the hayloft door, stands a dummy wearing a Beatles' moptop wig and holding an accordion. This is supposed to represent young Lawrence. A bandstand, "dedicated to him" in 1989, stands off to one side. Lawrence didn't attend the dedication. His childhood rival played there instead.
In fact, Lawrence never visited at the bandstand and never saw the years of effort that his neighbors and friends put into restoring his birthplace. He often donated money to Strasburg, but specifically requested that none of it go to the farmstead restoration. He was invited many times to view the work in progress, but refused every offer. He died in 1992 in sunny, southern California, the year the restoration was completed. It is not recorded that he cared.
Lawrence Welk isn't running for president. A pathetic, pretend leader named Barack Obama is.
ReplyDeleteHe was elected to do a job four years ago, and he didn't do it. Now it's time to get somebody that will.
Obama has these dopey Democrats begging for more taxes. How dumb can you get?
DeleteLet's look at it. What is Obama offering: more taxes and more regulation, which leads to more unemployment and a worse economy.
DeleteAnd people are actually going to vote for him? Unbelievable
OT, I do not know much re the Huck man, so your insinuation is correct, except that he is the outwardly genial host of a boring show that I do not watch (yes, I've seen enough of it to know that it is boring). I was incredulous that anyone would say such a thing.
ReplyDeleteI am startled that anyone running for office would be stupid enough to utter the amended statement by Ryan that you furnished. Aside from the sheer offensiveness of the thought, the illogic behind it is disturbing when contemplating the thought process.
Hey, I'm as baffled as you are. I've never liked the "Star Spangled Banner". For one, it's hellishly difficult to sing... the average citizen simply does not have the vocal range to do it; for another, if you actually listen to the words, it's a kind of dopy song.
DeleteI would much prefer "America The Beautiful", or better yet, Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land", because it expresses American exuberance and confidence and values better than any song I know.
But if I were running for high office, I don't think I would bring any of that up, because the rabble would accuse me of being anti-Merican. Let sleeping dogs lie.
I'm not aware of any history that would bring Akin and Huck to be questioned closely on the subject of rape...maybe there is some. Ryan dug his own grave with his sponsorship of the "Sanctity of Life Bill", which is essentially yet another attempt to find a way around Roe v Wade. He richly deserves whatever consequences that that brings forth.
As I mentioned a few days ago, the Obama administration has been deliberately promoting Ryan's once obscure ideas for over two years in hopes of making him a target for now...I'm sure they never hoped in their wildest dreams that Romney would accept him as the VP candidate. When Romney announced that Ryan was the choice, the President praised him to the skies while trying, I'm sure, to keep the shit eating grin off his face.
But it isn't just the underlings who are tone deaf. During the RNC in Tampa, Romney brought his yacht up from the Caymans and held a fund raiser on board. There it sat, right out in public view, flying the flag of a foreign nation. And not a peep from the birthers.
What better example of our problems than a rich man who avoids taxes by hiding his wealth and his yacht offshore? Yet it was hardly noticed.
Romneyites like to style themselves as being for "American values". If Akin, Huckabee, Ryan and the man in chief represent American values, then the next time Romney parks his yacht briefly in American waters, he should just run up the white flag.
If Obamaites-Clinton, Weiner, and Edwards stand for American values, churches should be turned into porn shops.
DeleteI thought the yacht biz was tone deaf. I note that wealth seems to be a liability for R's, whereas for Dems it is either unremarkable, as with all the millionaire Dems in Congress, or cute as with the Kennedy adulation.
DeleteHey, anyone with any sense knows that money is the fuel, even the purpose, of politics. Joe Kennedy's money bought the 1960 election, just as surely as GHW Bush's money bought the 2000 election.
DeleteBut Mitty needs to understand that talking about his pals who own major sports teams and partying on a yacht flying a foreign flag...it turns out that it was not Romneys yacht...the "Cracker Bay" is owned by Romney's pal Gary Morse, a wealthy real estate developer...demonstrates a facet of his character that most Americans are not going to like.
The yacht party was especially ridiculous in that it happened on the day after Ann Romney gave us her "woe is us" bullshit story about living in a basement apartment and struggling to put Mitty through school. Please, Annie, shut up, put on your jodphurs and go back to your horsey lifestyle.
Yep, old Joe told JFK that he'd buy the election for him, but not a landslide.
DeleteMrs. Romney's tale did not square, since Mitt's dad was a captain of the auto industry. I did not watch the speech, though, or any others, except Rice's and Susana Martinez'.
Old Joe was quite a character. Fortune Magazine's 1st list of the wealthiest men in America placed him at around #12. A landslide wouldn't have been any fun.
DeleteI didn't see Annie's speech either, just picked up bits and pieces.
I did see Rice's speech. At 1st encounter, in the early Bushite years, I really disliked her. But when she became Secretary of State, I began to see her in a different way, definitely the best of the dreadful Bushite years.
She is an interesting person...maybe better off as an intellectual than as a politician, but she's still young enough to step back in.
Once engaged to some football player, but never married, yet one of the first two women to be admitted as a member at Augusta National. A wealth of contradictions.
She accompanied the cellist Yo Yo Ma on piano in a concert while she was Bush's security director. Wow! And still plays in a chamber group.
One of the few pols that I would actually like to meet.
Name dropping:
ReplyDeleteI read that Jay Leno took a 50% pay cut to save coworkers on his show from layoffs. I met the guy in Glendale in my CA days. He was then, as now, a nice guy.
I also read an article by LA Times columnist Robin Abcarian, datelined Charlotte. I went to a gathering at Robin's home in Los Angeles, nice lady and family.
Shame on you, Stab...you're worse than Mitty. Good thing you're not running for office.
DeleteMy friend at the library and I have had the same experience...accidentally running into celebrities over and over. He once, while he was still in high school, spent an evening sitting on a piano bench in a club in east Durham next to Thelonious Monk while the Monk led an extraordinary jam session that included members of the Count Basie Orchestra. The funny thing is that those who have never been outside of Podunk always think that you are lying.
When you live the adventurous life, things happen.
I've never met Leno, but he's always been one of my favorite comedians. And I've heard from those who do know him many stories about his great generosity.
And I must admit that there has been a time or two when I envied him his vehicular collection. But hey, he earned it.
We really should reimpose 'standards' for voting. These psychotics, like Rush, are determined to force their perverse world on the rest of us by voting for these deviant political figures.
DeleteBarney Frank and Anthony Weiner's rise to political office comes to mind as examples.