All day long in my news reading there have been basically propaganda pieces(like this) in favor of a bailout of the US automobile industry. Politicians and executives pointing fingers and saying “if you don’t do this it will be on your hands” and other stupid stuff like that. If GM fails the only people whose hands it is on is the execs at GM for leading a company that puts out crappy cars that no one wants to buy. I’m sorry to the people who will lose their jobs… but that is not a reason for everyone in this country to chip in and cover a private company that is burning through $5 billion(!!!!) a month.
Who I am voting for on Tuesday 4
Posted by Daniel
on November 02, 2008
Well, this is going to be the first presidential election that I’ve ever voted in. Two years ago I documented who I was voting for right before my first ever time voting. I figured I’d do the same thing this time around. Here we go:
President
Obama(D) vs McCain(R) vs McKinney(G) vs Nader(I) vs Barr(L) vs Baldwin(IG)
I’ll be voting for Obama. I probably line up more with Nader or McKinney but being in a swing state and definitely lining up more with Obama than McCain I can’t do third party. Not that I think poorly of John McCain. I have a lot of respect for him and his service for this country, just have philosophical differences. FYI, any personal attacks against any candidate will be deleted from the comments so don’t waste your time.
US Senate
Warner(D) vs Gilmore(R) vs Parker(IG) vs Redpath(L)
This one is easy, Warner was a good Governor who worked across the aisle and seems to be a solid guy. He will represent the Commonwealth well in the Senate.
US House
Bobby Scott is running unopposed and people seem to like him.
Richmond Mayor
Grey vs Jones vs Pantele vs Williams
This is the one that has interested me the most so far. I’ve been down to Grey and Jones for a while now and keep going back and forth between them. I said before that Grey lost my vote in the second Style Weekly debate… but I think I’ll still end up voting for him anyways. I don’t trust Pantele AT ALL so he’s not even been an option. I’ve liked some of what I have heard from Williams but he didn’t run a serious campaign.
City Council District 7
McQuinn vs Kenney
Last election I opposed McQuinn but she had a quality opponent last time in Reggie Malone. This time Kenney only seems to be running because he has issues with Delores. She’s got my vote this time as she has done a reasonable job over the past 2 years.
School Board District 7
Coleman vs Edmonds vs Bond
It’s amazing to have such a small election with 2 high quality candidates. Either Don or Torey will serve us well. I’ll be voting for Don since I know him better and wish I would have voted for him 2 years ago. Part of me wishes Torey had run for City Council. I probably would have supported her there over McQuinn. Maybe in 4 years.
Update: I voted. The only change is that I wrote in Torey Edmonds for City Council. I guess that is my way of showing her support while still voting for Don for School Board.
Video of your Mayoral Choices
Posted by Daniel
on October 28, 2008
I provided the video coverage for RVANews for the last 2 Mayoral Forums but on by Style Weekly. The videos from the Arts and Culture Forum that happened a couple weeks are all in one place on RVANews.com. I’m working on getting the video clips of tonight’s Living and Working in Richmond Forum up as quickly as possible. They will be on RVANews’ Vimeo page as they go up. I’ll also amend this post with a link when they get their own page. This time I got to do cool stuff like patch into the sound system and since I decided to leave the liveblogging to others I actually did some work to make the video turn out better. Good learning experience for covering future events. I hope you enjoy getting to know the candidates!
Update 1: The videos are all up on the RVANews Vimeo page. They will get their own post on RVANews soon.
Update 2: The page got up on RVANews this morning. Enjoy!
Fear is not a reason to make a decision 1
Posted by Daniel
on October 12, 2008
I’ve had a couple conversations recently about politics with people more conservative than I am and all of the reasons given about why they supported John McCain had to do with fear of an Obama presidency. The amount of fear(most based on misinformation) should be a cause of concern, but that that fear is people’s primary reason for making a decision is very sad to me. There are many reasons to support a John McCain presidency. Maybe his ideology and worldview line up with yours more than Barack Obama’s do. Maybe you think we need someone with a lot of experience at this point. Maybe you think we need someone with a military background. Maybe you are a one issue voter and he is with you on that issue. Those are valid reasons. Fear is not. Fear is not a valid reason to make any decision. Luckily John McCain himself has spoken out about this a couple times recently. Senator McCain said “I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be, but I have to tell you — I have to tell you — he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” And I would hope we can all say the same about Senator McCain. There is no reason to be scared this election season. These are both decent men who we don’t need to be afraid of.
I suggest 2 good blog posts(first and second) that tell what the reaction to his speaking out has been. The first one also talks about the smear campaign John McCain endured in the South Carolina primary 8 years ago. Interesting read.
When it stops helping, stop doing it
Posted by Daniel
on October 08, 2008
So, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog… we’ve gone through some crap over the years. One thing that helped me get through some rough times has been my love of beer. There was nothing like a high quality beer to help take the edge off or to help me relax, etc. But I noticed a couple months back that it wasn’t helping anymore. The options seem to be 1) try more of it and maybe that will help, or 2) stop drinking. Well, I tried #1 a couple times and all that gave me was a slight hangover the next day. So a number of weeks back I decided to try #2. That has helped a lot actually. I do miss the taste of beer, but I am feeling much better.
That got me thinking about all the things in life that we do that helped at first but aren’t helping anymore… and yet we just keep doing them. We may justify it by saying “at least it’s not drugs” about our shopping addiction, but we still need to realize the point when our relationship to it changes. So, before life becomes a wreck of addiction or compulsion we should examine what we are doing with ourselves. Is it still helping? If not, stop doing it!
