**UPDATE - I meant to do more of the funny ones...
19. Approach a woman out of his league. Ever have a shoeshine from a guy you really admire? He works hard enough that he doesn’t have to tell stupid jokes; he doesn’t stare at your legs; he knows things you don’t, but he doesn’t talk about them every minute; he doesn’t scrape or apologize for his status or his job or the way he is dressed; he does his job confidently and with a quiet relish. That stuff is wildly inviting. Act like that guy.
22. Give a woman an orgasm so that he doesn’t have to ask after it. Otherwise, ask after it.
38. Tell a joke. Here’s one: Two guys are walking down a dark alley when a mugger approaches them and demands their money. They both grudgingly pull out their wallets and begin taking out their cash. Just then, one guy turns to the other, hands him a bill, and says, “Hey, here’s that $20 I owe you.”
40. Speak to an eight-year-old so he will hear. Use his first name. Don’t use baby talk. Don’t crank up your energy to match his. Ask questions and wait for answers. Follow up. Don’t pretend to be interested in Webkinz or Power Rangers or whatever. He’s as bored with that shit as you are. Concentrate instead on seeing the child as a person of his own.
41. Speak to a waiter so he will hear. You don’t own the restaurant, so don’t act like it. You own the transaction. So don’t speak into the menu. Lift your chin. Make eye contact. All restaurants have secrets — let it be known that you expect to see some of them.
42. Talk to a dog so it will hear. Go ahead, use baby talk.
I've started using some of the online bookmarking resources. They are pretty nice, and really I've been wanting something akin to this for awhile now, especially for storing links to favorite church talks, and political pieces. The most popular one I guess is Del.icio.us. This one isn't as popular, and is meant to be used more as a networking kind of resource is Diigo. I think I'm going to eventually start using Diigo more because it has a feature that allows you to highlight parts of a webpage, and insert post it notes. This might seem totally weird to you, but I've actually been wishing for that kind of feature for years now. I read a ton of stuff online, and I want to treat the internets as one of my books. Lame, I know.
Last night while running I had about a dozen different things that I wanted to explore deeply, and pen my thoughts to paper. If I thought I could get away with writing as a living, I think that I would probably go for it. The blog has been helpful in getting me to formulate my thoughts on a variety of topics, and I think doing the Blogcritics stuff will help me to take it more seriously. It's nice to have this place as my sanctuary where I can put my personal thoughts in the same place where I might post something that can be irreverent/offensive to some. Or maybe my personal thoughts can accomplish both of those tasks.
I read this piece by Thomas Sowell. It's just a smattering of thoughts on different topics. A couple of the parts that I liked:
Even if you think our presidential choices this election year are between disgust and disaster, anyone who has ever been through a real disaster can tell you that this difference is not small. It is big enough to go vote on Election Day.
One of the ways in which people are similar is in the lengths to which they will go in order to show that they are different.
The great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a good catchword could stop people from thinking for 50 years. The big catchword this election year is “change” — and it has already stopped many people’s thinking in its tracks.
Whoever said that overnight is a lifetime in politics knew what he was talking about. Just six months ago, the big question was how Hillary and Giuliani would do against each other in this year’s presidential elections.
Can you believe how much the presidential landscape has changed just in the last six months? That really was the case. And for Romney, if it hadn't been for an upstart campaign from Huckabee (and those snooping kids), and the virulent Bush hatred and Romney's distant, but related political perspectives, he could have been the GOP candidate. It's crazy how much can change in such a short period of time.
And Karen showed me this link.
5 comments:
I think Romney really lost when he started making religion a factor instead of making it a non issue. He played defense so well that he thought a little offense couldn't hurt. That's where they had him. That would be a tough line to walk though. Regrettably, we are left with the chaff.
I couldn't disagree with you more. Romney had been a candidate for about 10 months before he delivered The Speech on religion, and if anything, he was doing everything he could to avoid the issue altogether. It was never going to be a non-issue and was impossible to ignore, which is why he ended up making the speech so close to the primary season. And especially with a hard core evangelical candidate like Huckabee, it was never going to be a non-factor in this race.
I go back to what I said before, Romney resembles too much the typical conservative, therefore he resembles too much the current presidency, which a lot of people irrationally despise. For whatever reason, the feeling in the country is one of pessimism and people want a departure from that, which most often gets revealed in a change in the leadership. And we've seen that on display with the balance of power shifting in congress back to the left. That's why Obama is encountering success as the "change" candidate, and the same reason that McCain is the GOP nominee because he's perceived as being the rogue Republican, i.e. not typical of the establishment.
Romney was ultimately (moreso publicly) removed from contention in the backroom dealings of the WV convention. Romney had already lost the South but he had an overall chance if he could manage to carry a portion of the social conservatives (evangelicals). I agree that religion would always be considered in this election. (The Wall Street Journal found that over 50% of voters would not vote for a Mormon. A good argument could be made that religious bigotry is more prevalent and allowable than its sex or racial counterparts. The WSJ estimated the intransigent evangelical bigot makes up about 21% of the category) Those were sunk costs, long lost before the race began.
I still believe that Romney lost not because he was too conservative but because he was perceived and labeled as too liberal. His stance on many issues was portrayed as wishy washy. His political track record in a Democratic state including a Gay Rights parade were detrimental to his winning over the other 79% of one of the party's core demographic. I said before that The Speech was his demise because I believe that it further polarized him. He was now easier to hate and was going to push his religion on everyone.
Romney was probably the most dangerous candidate to both Hilary and McCain at the time and both ran considerable smear ads against him prior to Super Tuesday. I think he was attacked because he was the most prominent threat.
Change is the buzz word in any campaign when there is current economic strife whether real or perceived. The VP-ship brings these issues to light again as McCain interviews this weekend. Will the perception of change be the mitigating factor or will it be something like consistency or predictability?
Whether or not the "backgroom dealings" of the WV convention really was as bad as some people (especially the Romney camp) made it seem, is debatable. And really...it was good strategy.
I think the fact remains that with Huckabee vying for the candidacy, there was no way Romney was ever going to secure the nomination, and more particularly, the evangelical vote. Obviously.
I don't agree with him being labeled as being too liberal - McCain is WAY more liberal than he is, so why is he the nominee? If anything, the speech helped solidify him amongst prominent conservatives, e.g., Limbaugh, everyone at National Review, even Michael Reagan, son of Ronald Reagan. I still think Romney is too closely associated with typical Republicans, and that's why McCain has secured the GOP nomination because he is perceived as being a "rogue," or not among the party's mainstream.
Yes, he was attacked because he was the most prominent threat. There's no doubt about that, given the support he had garnered up to Super Tuesday.
I was surprised at who McCain has invited to meet with him this weekend. Gilcrest? I guess being in a swing state alone is pretty big. I hope it'd be Romney, but I'm not sure that will help him secure a different demographic of voters that he wouldn't already win.
you know that family guy where Peter takes over directing the town play and Lois publicly censures him for being an idiot and his response is that super long, multi-toned fart that makes everyone die laughing? it's hilarious, and i'm laughing right now.
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