News To Me

Daily Five Minutes 1/25/10: Elementary Ballroom

You haven't lived until you have spent a Saturday afternoon watching Elementary Ballroom.

Let me set the scene: Mountain View High School gymnasium, with way more fans than the usual high school basketball game.  12 Elementary Ballroom schools represented (~200 dancers?).  Parents of all of the kids.  The kids are grouped into two sides of the gym (girls with roses in their hair and girls with daisies in their hair).

The competition starts with some required dances (Merengue, Fox Trot, Cha cha cha). Everyone dances their required "Heats" in front of a panel of judges.  There is no tapping you on the shoulder if you're terrible, just notes taken down and submitted to the "panel." Then there are dances by the "featured couples".

Got the picture?

OK, now for the fun. Most of the boys don't really want to be there, so their expressions range from fright (no one wants to screw up, even if they don't want to be there) to disdain (girls still have cooties at this age, remember) to disgust ("I'm dancing when I wish I were playing sports"). I don't know what would get a boy to dance who doesn't really want to (of all of the parental battles to fight, that one seems close to last on my list just above "You must memorize the names of all of

The boys who DO want to be there are having a great time, though. The dances are usually lively and the music if fun.

Daily Five Minutes 1/21/10: Is it Romney's Mass. now?

Scott Brown got elected--a liberal Republican from a very, very liberal state. He overcame a 20 point deficit in less than a month, which is fairly unprecedented in politics ("Dewey Defeats Truman"-esque).  But he owes his meteoric rise from sacrificial lamb to US Senator to one of the Bay State's favorite sons, a politician with the golden touch.

No, not one of the Kennedys. Mitt Romney.

Romney believed in Brown before any one else. He leant Brown credibility by endorsing him early on. Then he leant his considerable organizational skills to the Brown campaign, believed in him through the early dark days of polling, helped him raise money--and he did all of this while not stealing the spotlight from Brown (unlike what Obama stole from Coakley).

Some believed that Brown ran away from Romney's legacy as Mass. governor, owing to the fact Romney championed and passed the Mass. version of universal health care. Nothing could be further from the truth. In his victory speech, Brown said:

I’m grateful to all those from across Massachusetts who came through for me even when I was a long shot. I especially thank a friend who was there with encouragement from the very beginning, and helped show us the way to victory - former Governor Mitt Romney.

I am an unabashed Romney fan. I believe that he would make a wonderful President. And, with his help, Scott Brown has just proved that a Republican can win in the liberal Northeast. Brown, however, is returning the favor.

Because of Brown's win, Romney should be the GOP front runner for President in 2012.

Daily Five Minutes 1/19/10: Coakley Shouldn't Be Kennedy

Martha Coakley wants to be a US Senator. Martha Coakley should not be allowed to represent any part of our government, and certainly not grace the seat held for decades by the Kennedys.

I am never confused with a Democratic Party apologist. I am conservative in action, though sometimes more moderate or liberal in thought. But I wouldn't vote for Coakley even if I were to the left of James Carville.

For decades the Kennedys (mostly Teddy, though JFK before him) represented Massachusetts and the Democrats well in the US Senate.. I don't have to agree with their policies or their politics to recognize good Senators when I see them. Teddy Kennedy was never meant to hold the highest office in the land--too volatile--and he is certainly no paragon of virtue--see Chappaquiddick. But he was a good senator, and an effective representative for strong liberal values. As a conservative, one could always count on Teddy to be consistent in his liberalism.

That consistency is a virtue.

Martha Coakley is a bumbling attorney who has always looked beyond the mark. When she was a prosecutor she inherited the toxic Amirault case...and prosecuted it beyond rational limits. Her career is littered with personal grand-standing and zero political consistency.  She stands for nothing.

In this day and age is celebrity really all we care about? Martha Coakley has attempted to become a "celebrity" lawyer, and thus advanced her career. She became Attorney General. Now she wants to be a Senator. But what qualifies her to represent Massachusetts? She has decided that celebrity status in politics is what qualifies her to be a Senator. In other words, she has become the Paris Hilton of the Democratic Party.

Much has been made of this seat not being "The Kennedy Seat" but "The People's Seat." Certainly her opponent, Scott Brown, would have you believe that this is not a seat to be "held" for a Democrat.

I disagree. I believe that the most liberal state in the Union deserves a strong liberal candidate to replace the Liberal Lion himself. I believe that there must be dozens of  qualified candidates out there who can stand for liberal values and represent their constituents well.  Massachusetts deserves that kind of strong representation--someone who follows the Kennedy's strong stance, and not the Me First approach of John Kerry. And Coakley is certainly more Kerry than Kennedy.

As a Republican, I drool over the possibility of reducing the Democrats majority in the Senate. I would love to have a GOP Senator from Massachusetts sending a message of opposition to Obamacare. But Massachusetts deserves better.  And even I can see that a reasoned debate, between consistent representatives of differing points of view, is healthy for our country's future.  We just won't get that debate from Martha "Paris Hilton for Senate" Coakley.

Daily Five Minutes 1/2/10: Nerd Dating

I took most of the holidays off from blogging and from using the computer in general. I have a lot of things that I think are interesting and "news-y", but here's a little weird one to start off the year:

"10 Ways to Flirt with a Nerd".

As a lifelong nerd, I was amused by the title of this article, so I read it (though I don't normally frequent "Marie Claire"). Some truisms:

[Nerds flirt as much as anyone else. For example] if a hunger policy expert comes over and, out of the blue, starts telling you about food insecurity issues in rural Texas, he’s probably hitting on you — but just doing it very poorly.

The author's definition of nerd is encouraging--it is anyone with a driving and passionate interest in a particular subject and the absence of social graces when it comes to talking about that subject. From the article, if Tommy Lee (a heavy metal drummer) would expound at length on the proper way to prepare a snare drum for a concert to anyone who would listen, then he would be a "drum nerd" AND a rockstar. Nerd status is not conveyed solely on the Star Trek/Comic Con crowd.

So that makes all of us nerd-like in certain areas of our lives.

By the way, how do you know if a nerd is falling for you? Well...

He actually notices he’s rambling on about the neurology behind toxoplasmosis, for instance, and stops himself, saying, “But enough about zombies. Would you like another glass of wine?”

So, to the nerd in all of us I say, "Happy New Year"! Now let me tell you about voter fraud...<grin>