Barack Obama made an interesting point today as he spoke to folks in Rolla, Missouri.  Observing the truism that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of madness, he noted that "more of the same" is exactly the economic strategy of John McCain.

McCain today pledged that he would not raise taxes ever if he's elected President.  (At least he didn't say, "Read my lips.")  Indeed, McCain intends to cut taxes even further than the Bush/Rove administration has--offering additional tax breaks to corporations (whose tax rates are at near all-time lows).

So let me see if I've got this straight--We're in an economic turndown that promises to become a full-blown recession.  We've got record deficits because of Bush's tax cuts and ill-advised (very expensive) "war" in Iraq.  McCain's solution is to cut taxes further and stay in the war.  Hmmm.

I used to like John McCain, back when he was seemed to be a genuine maverick.  But I lost about 90% of my respect for him when he became Bush's (pardon the expression) "bitch" during the '04 campaign.  Since then he's seemed to me to be flailing around, declaring over and over again that he'll change things in Washington (to try to co-opt Obama's message) while proposing policies that, if they change things at all, will only make things worse.

Want an example?  How about energy solutions.  McCain says, let's drill more in offshore oil fields and ramp up nuclear power plants.  Well, since oil rigs are at capacity, the drilling won't help.  Nuclear power is part of the interim energy solution but long-term, we need to go with renewable energy sources...not create more (and potentially bigger) problems by creating more nuclear waste.

I lost the last 10% of my respect for McCain in recent days as he went on the attack with a few anti-Obama ads.  McCain had it rough during the 2000 primary election with Rove doing push polls suggesting he had an illegitimate black child.  He's not reached that low, I'll admit.  But it's surprising that a man who claims to have such high integrity would not flinch at ads equating Obama with shallow celebrities and suggesting there's a media bias for Obama.

He accuses Obama of not being substantive while simultaneously whining about how unfair the media is and how Obama's too popular.

What is this, high school?

So how could McCain impress me?  If he looked his party of tax-cut hogs straight in the eyes and said, "You've had an awfully good ride these past 8 years.  And now it's time to pay the piper.  We have an economic crisis in this country and we can't solve it by collecting less revenue.  We can get some by cutting programs, cutting pork barrell spending, reducing expenses in Iraq.  But we can't get there without more revenue and since you got almost all of the Bush tax cuts, you'll have to shoulder a bit more of the burden with the money you've saved in taxes since 2000."

Never gonna happen.  But that would be integrity.

Some days there are just so many things bouncing around that it's difficult to come up with a single topic for one's blog.  Today?  Such a day.

First up, a link to a website courtesy of my friend, Kelly Bozza--author of a great book about how to make a difference in the world by making every Monday matter. The Every Monday Matters website (lovingly known as EMM) puts out a weekly newsletter.  Yesterday, it contained this link about "Johnny, the bagger."

It's a seemingly simple story about how a young, developmentally disabled man, took a customer service challenge to heart and changed a grocery store.

When you look deeper, though, the story speaks to all of us.  What can each of us do to make the day special for each person we encounter.  A smile?  A hug?  Really paying attention?  Giving someone else priority in line, in traffic?

What can you do right now?

Next (and on a wildly different level), how cool is it that Richard Branson literally unveiled his new space-going aircraft today?  Granted, at this point the short jaunt into space (two hours tops, it sounds like with a mere four minutes of weightlessness before coming back to earth) is only for the ultra-rich at this point.  Folks who can blow $200,000 on an adventure and bragging rights.

But this sort of innovative, barrier-shattering engineering is what propelled us into the industrial age.  What gave us air travel and combustion engines, movies, radio, internet...and what will take us to the next level of invention.  Bravo Branson. 

Now if we can just apply American ingenuity to clean energy...

Lastly, lessons learned through golf. 

As some of you may know, I am a tad competitive at times.  (Just a tad.)

So it was a wonderful experience today to hit a solid seven iron up onto a par 3, closest to the pin.  And to be able to enjoy that moment even though my partner (sweet woman named Cheryl) hit her shot about three inches closer to the hole than I had, no more than two minutes later.

To be able to enjoy my shot, and then to celebrate her besting me is perhaps one of the most profound moments of change in my adult life.

Maybe "they" were right all along.  It's not about winning or losing.  It's about doing your personal best. 

I did a little roaming on the internet yesterday, amid sniffles and decompressing from a (depressing as usual) visit to prison.  One item I ran across on YouTube piqued my interest enough that I listened to quite a bit more speechifying than I'd originally planned on.

First, I gave a listen to the (really audio) file of James Dobson's critique of Barack Obama's speech at the 2006 "Call to Renewal" conference.  The broadcast was aired two years after the speech in a  "Focus on the Family Action" segment.  The show was cohosted (I should say tag-teamed) by Tom Minnery, a VP in Dobson's political wing of his religious media empire.

The main critiques of Obama seemed to be as follows:

1.  He diminished Christianity.
2.  He diminished Dr. Dobson.
3.  He misunderstands scripture.

Those sound (especially to those of an evangelical background) like pretty serious charges.  So I headed on over to Obama's actual speech.  Funny thing was, I didn't quite read it the same way Dobson and Minnery did. 

Let's take the charges one at a time.

1.  Barack "diminished" Christianity.  According to Dobson/Minnery, Obama did this by saying the following:  "And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution...Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation and a nation of nonbelievers"

According to Minnery, the big diminishment was that the 70% figure should have been specified to be "Judeo-Christian religion"--which, if I read my history right, includes Islam.

So his point would be...what?  That we're not a society composed of many different people who are disciples of many different faiths? 

No...it's more along the lines of what we fled from in England.  Since most people believe this, everyone should be ruled by it.

2.  Obama "diminished" Dr. Dobson.  How did he do this?  By using Dobson in an illustration of "left" and "right" religio-political views in the same sentence with...GASP...Reverend Al Sharpton.

Here's the quote: 

"And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy?"

In my opinion, it takes a special sense of oneself as ultra-important (and at least semi-perfect) to take offense at a comparison of left and right political spectrum that nearly any conscious, reasonably informed person would simply nod his or her head over and understand the intent was contrast.

Not Dobson though.  He was "highly offended."

Get over your bad self.

3.  Obama misunderstands scripture.  How so, you ask?  By questioning "which version" of scripture should guide us.

In fact, this was the very point of his speech where I found myself grateful for someone using critical thinking to approach the nexus of political and religious life.  Here we have a man who says, "Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles."

And he's characterized as someone who is "twisting" scripture for his own ends.  I guess Dobson and Minnery would see genuine engagement as that sort of behavior since they're so familiar with selective reading of the bible themselves.

So why am I preaching to the choir?  Because you might know people who hum along and they need to see this stuff...they need to be truly informed.

And because I read the subtext in Dobson and Minnery's comments accurately (as shown by a followup quote by Minnery on July 7th).  They are not interested in actively engaging in a discussion with Senator Obama about his beliefs.  Rather they are interested in swaying their adherents to remain faithful to the Republican party even if they have to twist the truth to do it.

The subtext?  Barack's not really a Christian.

Think I'm overstating?

Here's a quote from Minnery.  "We have to question whether he's even sincere as he speaks so lovingly about religion."

Minnery reveals more than he wants to in his unconscionable questioning of another man's soul when he says that Obama speaks lovingly about religion.

Give these guys a listen and see if you agree with me.

It's Dobson and Minnery who are in love with religion.

It's Obama who has faith.

 

My niece, Deanna, said I could post her photo (one from last Sunday's wedding shower).  Here she is!

We got back from visiting our friend in prison late yesterday--exhausted, emotionally drained and, in my case, fighting off an allergy attack. 

The good news (other than the fact it was a good visit) is that I've finally located the culprit in my recent allergy attacks.  I've been using one of those freebie lotions from one hotel or another when I travel.  It is scented with lavender.  I'm fine if it's just on my legs and arms but if I touch my face after applying it?  It's all over.

So, I am laying low today--checking out political stuff on YouTube, letting my sinuses return to normal (from their extremely swollen state this morning), and having tossed the lotion.

What are you up to this fine Sunday?

...of golf for us.  I know...I know.

We're turning into golf bums. 

Yet, it's for a limited time--sort of a sabbatical from regular life--and so I'm just going with it.

Except for those pesky times I hit a horrible golf shot.  Then I have a tendency to invest the game with meaning, to assume that an errant shot has some sort of weight on the scale of worth or relevance that...in fact, it does not.

I'm hoping to grow out of that (and grow up!)  quickly with more practice.

In the meantime, I bought an orange, a purple and a pink shirt for our visit to prison this weekend.

I know...I know.  I pledged to find a wild blue shirt with which to buck the system. 

Despite looking, I didn't find anything wild enough and...quite frankly, it's just not the windmill to tilt at this month. 

I'll keep you posted next month!  In the meantime, I might be offline for a day or so.  I'll catch you on the flipside.

When I was 18 years old, I wrote a poem about a middle-aged woman who had hurt my mother.  I frequently took my writing back to Madison High School, to Mr. Robinson's class, for his take on my efforts.  Here's a poem I wrote and took to him.

Act Your Age

You are
middle-aged thinness
massaged into tight jello packages.
You try too hard
to find life in perpetual youth.

Skin sizzled so often to that perfect bronze,
at 50 it makes a dull, midwestern print
of the wrinkled material
you pinch and paint into a face.

The lowered, booming laugh
nervously echoes
out of the bloodspattered tool
you use to dissect others,
cut them down
to size.

Someone should shout into your cultured ear
the secret you scamper for.

Life is not a new Audi Fox.
Hearts were not made to be sacrificed
to your god of immortality.

Someone has slapped you to say
I care.
Rub the bruise,
turn the cheek,
hurt,
and begin to live.

Mr. Robinson had a two-word comment for me.  "Tough poem." 

At the time, I took it as a compliment.  But now that I'm approaching (on tiptoe) my own 50th birthday (2 1/2 years and counting), I see that he was making less of a comment about the craft of the poem and more of a comment about its perspective.

I'm not sure why the poem came back to me today.  But it has resonated.  And while no one could accuse me of middle-aged thinness, the line about tight jello packages hits a little close to home for this workout addicted gal.

There's a line, fine and hard to locate, between pursuing health and keeping the perspective of youth--life and adventure outweighing caution and aging.  I'm not sure where the line is exactly, but I hope that I'm erring on the side of adventure.

If that causes an 18-year-old to occasionally wish I'd act my age, I guess that's a good thing.  I understand where they're coming from.  And I know that someday, they'll appreciate where I'm coming from, too!

I didn't blog yesterday because it was a looong day--but also a very happy one.  I drove down to San Diego to attend Deanna's shower.  Deanna is my niece and she is getting married on August 30th to a terrific young man named Tim Brown.

Deanna's mom, Donna, is not only my brother Dean's wife (and thus my sister-in-law) but also my good friend.  It was such a joy to share this occasion with the family, to see Donna being MOB (Mother-of-Bride) so competently and with so much joy in her daughter's happiness.

I also loved the good natured teasing that goes along with being a Baldridge.  (Think of siblings pulling pigtails quickly and without malice and you have a good idea of the nature of our verbal sparring.)  I sat at the same table as my step-sister, Pamela; my sister-in-law (and birthday date sharer), Jeanne; my step-mother, Sally; my Dad's first wife, Pat--and a bewildered assortment of Brown family members who kept trying to trace the tangled knots of our family relations.  They were, by the way, all lovely women.

I was nominated for the task of writing down all of Deanna's exclamations and forming them into a funny-ish story about her wedding night.

I found out I can still blush.

Not a bad thing at 47.

It's also not a bad thing at 47 to be in love with your family.  To welcome with eagerness its expansion with the Brown/Baldridge union.  To celebrate young love--not easily won but sweeter for the victory.

I love being an aunt!  (To all my nieces.  And nephews.)

I just found out my brother-in-law, Ken, was participating in a golf tournament today, too.  His was the Great 8, Disc Golf tournament in North Carolina.

I think we had it easier!

Yesterday (Friday) was a long day, so I excused myself from blogging.  Thanks for your indulgence in checking back again.

The reason it was such a long day?  Office work in the morning.  Followed by a workout at the gym.  Followed hard on by a round of golf to prep for today's Audi Quattro Cup tournament. 

The format was 2 player, better ball.  Dan and I were a team, so the play went as follows:  Dan drove the ball.  Then I drove the ball.  Then we picked the ball with the best lie, that also provided the best opportunity for a good second shot.  Then we alternated hitting that ball until it went in the cup.

In some cases, we didn't pick the ball with the "best" lie but the ball with the least worst lie, as our playing partners for the day commented about one of their choices.  (He said, "Well, we've got bad and badder.")

We ended up scoring a gross 94 for a net 73, 1 over par.  If we'd scored the same as we did yesterday, we'd have tied for first in the tournament.  But yesterday, being as there was nothing on the line and we were playing with our friend, Renee'--well, let's just say conditions were better.

I've played in a few tournaments before but they've been pretty informal affairs--bank reunions, charity tournaments, etc.  This was an entirely different experience and I'm so glad we participated.  I learned a couple of important things:

1.  There's more strategy to golf than I usually consider in my own game.  That correlates with the fact that more experienced golfers will tend to save strokes with their brain by not assuming they can hit impossible shots.

2.  Even when you have a huge error, and even when that error costs you and your partner strokes--hang in the game.  That's easiest to do when your partner comes through with an excellent save, but it can also be done by putting the prior stroke behind you and accepting the shot you have rather than wishing for the shot you "should" have had.

3.  Practice is essential.  If we hadn't gone out and played (twice) under the same rules as the tournament, our score would have been much higher.

4.  It's harder to play when the stakes are high, even if you don't think you care about the stakes.

Overall, it was a success.  We finished in the top third of players, we enjoyed most of our day, we got a free shirt each...and (as Dan said) we're still married.

That's the best news of all.