Dollars For Democrats

Once along time ago my dad and I covered our precinct with straw hats on and JFK buttons showing. These were really cool buttons, about twice the size of a silver Dollar. If you looked at them on one side they had JFK and LBJ. On the other angle they delivered a photo of JFK. My presidential pin man John Tilley, who deals in such wares claims they are not worth too much.. Maybe 10-15 dollars nnow because so many where made.
We went house to house of the democratic homes in our precinct, Buri Buri, asking for a dollar or two donation. The democrats were at that time the party that collected from the grassroots. It was the party of the middle class. Our subdivision was a working man's subdivision with firemen and elevator repairmen as our neighbors. We had a list and only knocked on doors with registered democrats living. I cannot remember how many dollars we collected. The money went into a can. Big political influences with pacs were unknown then.

Today there is a groundswell of the same sort. The groups that contact me are not ringing my doorbell, they are pounding my email address. Move on is one or those that recognize the power of the under 10 dollar contribution. If you donate to one of those groups you will be pounded forever. The phone call connection has run its course. I do not donate from the phone. So much phone tree stuff is stopped by caller ID. They charities have learned to use phones that are not identified.. it is still difficult to deal with phone solicitation.

By reading this,and being a part of blog community,open the ties of a new way of communicating. It is a different way to move past old paradigms. You may read this anytime during your day. You have a very direct way to participate in its content... through comments.

:)

Pat

juno not Juneau

Sue and I went to see Juno tonight.

We both enjoyed this movie. The sterotypes were there, but the quirkiness of the main character, was hard to to like.

She could rip off the metaphors like no bodies business. At times it was hard to keep track. The high school lingo can me somewhat problematic.

Sue said that the adoptive mother has a real baby in real life and she is never caught not smiling. Her dad is Ben Afflack.

Its a good movie and recommended.

Love
Pat

Millennials?

In a recent article in Newsweek, Andrew Romano, himself a millennial describes the movers in the Obama victories as what generational theorists call mellenials. Andrew writes a daily blog for Newsweek that readers here may access from the link section at the bottom of the page. These voters were born in the 80's. Heather, Linzi, Cammie,Dom, and Sean are all considered part of this group. They have different profiles than there Boomer parents. Obama embodies my generation's attitudes and aspirations, for better or worse... quotes the Newsweek article. Andrew Romano is a Newsweek blogger. He is 25, his editor is 31. Andrew was given the green light to follow this segment of the primary elections. In Iowa, Obama has a nimble Iowa youth program. Haunted by the spector of Howard Dean, whose hordes of orange-hatted out-of-state volunteers failed to fulfill the Vermonter's youthful potential in 2004, Team Obama had already hired four times as many staffers and invested five times as much money in the state, opening an unprecedented 31 offices and launching a novel "BarakStars" program to target 40,000 untapped 17 year olds set to turn 18 before Election Day.

What about Millennials? What are they like? Andrew Romano admits that summing up an entire generation with a few brush strokes is always hazardous,especially in politics. But as a millennial, he describes soem of the sterotypes as ringing true. According to Moreley Winograd and Michael D Hais, authors of "Millennial Makeover" MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics," millennials aren't confrontational or combative, the way Boomers (whose generational mantra was "Don't trust anyone over 30) have been. Instead, millennials belong to what social scientist William Strauss calls a "civic generation," drawn to issues of "community, politics, and deeds, whereas the boomers focused on issues of self, culture, and morals." Reacting against the excesses of our parents- especially their efforts to advance moral causes through partisan politics- we prefer to address problems by reforming institutions from within. We're team players, say Winograd and Hais, conditioned through constant social interaction (often online) to "find consensus" , win-win solutions to every problem. We distrust conventional channels of information and prefer to learn from our peers (again, often online). We are diverse. After George W. Bush, we believe, as Obama Youth vote director, Has Riemer puts it, "that it matters who's running government, and that government is a powerful way to make the country a better place. Millenials are more optimistic about the possibility of change than the Boomers.

Hillary Clinton's mesage reflects the Boomer generation. Obama represents the millenial message of the Democratic party.

How does this relate to the students we teach? Are they a different breed apart from the mellanial? How does the group the Acaia fit into the picture?

As usual more questions than answers..

: )
Pat

Do You need to know the Words?

Some of my music won Grammies. I just downloaded one that brought back some memories. Ricky Skaggs and the Whites won a Grammy for "Salt of the Earth." It is an album with some gospel songs on it. One of them was sung continually by Grandma Nellie... Blessed Assurance. That hooked me into downloading the entire album. In it also was "the Wings of a Dove." The harmonies will please dad. Imagine a Grammy for my Grandma.

Also on the download docket were Patti Austin's Avant Gershwin,spunky renditions of some of the musical Gershwin melodies and Micheal Brecker's Pilgrimage, he died last year of a very rare cancer. This is a wonderful jazz saxophone set. Rounding out this months selections (I get 90 downloads each month) was a couple of albums from the early 80's by a group called "Firefall." They are know for their tight high pitched harmonies. Also was a live album by Marvin Gaye.

Last night I noticed that Bebel Gilberto had an ITunes exclusive Live selection. It is a short album as some of the Itunes Live exclusives are. But the 3 dollar price was right. The lead off song was "Sweet Dreams are Made of this." A great song earthy and a little unpredictable with a nice bossa nova beat.. except they haven't taught her to inhale away from the mic. I think that finally Celine Dion has discovered this requirement.. or some fancy audio editing has occurred. The other issue for some people, is that many of her Brazilian songs are not sung in English. This decreases the abilty for an audience to sing a long unless they understand Portuguese.

Have a great Wednesday. We are doing catch up stuff today you cannot do during the day when school is in session without hiring a sub.

: ) Pat

Hotel Merced

With Sean's very able help we added another bed to the Brown hotel in Merced. The day bed which was set up in the blue room is now in the art room. The blue room now sports a new full sized bed. It will be available for occupancy as soon is Sue is able to get to a store.. they are all on sale and pick out some sheets and appropriate bed clothes. This is the perfect solution as the day bed will take up less floor space until it is need to house two people. The blue room will have the capacity to house a couple instead of just one that the single bed would allow. We are now ready to stage to Disneyland or cruise ships in LA, or Yosemite trips.

Getting the bed home was a little exciting. Of course we did it Okie style, on top of the Expedition. Carefully (?) tied to the rack we inched down "R" street and people that could not stand the slowness of the driver scooted off the side streets in a hump. We had a little shift at the railroad tracks.. but overall they rode just fine home. We saved the cost of tailer and the time. We looked into having it delivered.. 300 dollars more. This seems unreasonable when the whole thing only costs 466.

We were not alone in our quest for beds. It was difficult to find a flat cart at our local costco. The flat screen TVs were flying out of the store.

Linzi and Sean are considering buying a home in Sacramento. Its pretty exciting.

Love to All

Pat

Los Banos Woolgrowers

With Linzi and Sean home for the weekend, we all went to Woolgrowers in Los Banos. It is French Basque and very yummy. The french fries are to die for and to die of. We all had roast lamb which was very garlicy. The side entree, because it was Sunday, was chicken and rice. It is always in a rice pilaf style with bits of mushrooms and buttery sauce absorbed. It was great tonight too.

The day was beautiful. Cool but not an mile of breeze. The sun came out and we all enjoyed a wonderful Sunday.

Hope yours was great too.

Pat

Chair Pads at Costco

Lindsay and Sean are over this weekend. We all went to Costco. Sue was shopping for some chair pads. She found a nice set of brown ones. She looked for me as I was getting little and a few other essentials. When she took me back to the chair pads the brown ones in total were gone. She remarked to me that, how can in 5 minutes something in Costco has been purchase by someone else. We proceeded to look for another color. Yest the burgundy ones will do nicely.

Later in the store whom should we discover had the brown onces in her cart.?. miss Linzi. She knew mom was looking for some and she pitched them off the pile so that Sue could get them. Needless to say the brown ones were returned to the pile and we kept the burgundy ones.

Mom and Lindsay had a nice successful shop at Mervyn's. Linzi needs some new clothes for the upgraded job she has. My youngest daughter is wearing suits to work.. who would have thought!

We are missing Heather, she either ate too much gluten (blame the veggie burger) or she is stricken with food poisioning. He youngest cat Stanley is under the weather this weekend too.

Love to all. Hope you are having a great weekend.
Pat