20060902

"One of the Keys in Controlling Congress"

Click on the picture above to hear North County Public Radio's coverage of the
Mike Arcuri-Ray Meyer veterans forum in Utica last month.

Even Ray says that this race is a tie (as of Aug 16th at least). And if the Republican says that the Democrat is neck-to-neck with him this early, Mike's ahead.

He also says that "we" need to apply more pressure on the Iraqi civilian governtment to get its own armed forces up and going. Well, given that we're occupying them right now, the only more pressure wuld be along the lines of how "we're" treating people in Gitmo. Gee... maybe we can put Saddam Hossain in power and he's watch out for our interests.

Oh yea.

Been there and done that.
Maimun

20060830

Baseball, Politics and strange intersections

Click on the TV image to see Mike Arcuri's ad.

It's been a busy week. (and yes, it's only Wednesday!!) Campus is bustling again with life now that the students are back. It's inspiring to look out over the quad and see students, walking, running, relaxing, hacky-sacking, etc all with books going to or from classes. Welcome back!

I had a strange realization on the campaign side of life. Way back when, I managed to collect an entire set of Star Wars trading cards. I think back then, you paid a quarter and got a 10 or so cards and a stick of really hard, tooth-breaking pink bubble gum. At least I think I paid a quarter. I do remember that it took me a while to build the set and while the complete set was a few inches deep, all my combined duplicate cards were several time the depth of the set. But the fun was in the process... the buying, the sorting, the filtering, the trading. Several years ago, I was on vacation and came across a trading card show. Alongside all the sports cards were the newer gaming cards. And there was a vendor who was setting completed sets of Star Trek cards. The ease of filling out and handing over a check for buying the set was a sharp contrast with working and building my Star Wars set. It was rather disappointing even though I much prefer Trek to Wars.

I feel a little the same way over Mike Arcuri's trading cards. Oh, no doubt I'll be working hard with them... but to give them away rather than collect them. I've already seen the whole set and I'll have one before they're all gone. But the searching, sorting, trading won't be a part of things for me. I'm excited about these new campaign pieces. Most campaigns think of some off-the-beaten-path fun ideas, but often they get pushed aside or lost among the traditional bumper stickers and lawn signs.

My first hint of things to come was Dick, a mentor, recommending that I ask Mike about the baseball cards. If I didn't respect and trust both of these men, I probably wouldn't have bothered to ask. It just sounded too much like a set up for me to be the punchline of a joke. But, I did ask, though with memories of dad taking the family to a baseball game when I was a child and that I couldn't see cute Bucky Dent well enough and that I spent the game reading a Hardy Boys book over shadowed the question.

Once I got through the idea of baseball and into political trading cards, I was looking forward to them. That I took one of the pictures is especially fun.

And they are fun enough that I'm moving making some time to work on Artistic Trading Cards closer to my "Do" list. It might not get started until after Election Day, but at least I know what my first art project will be!

It's been a strange week of intersections. An old friend of friends who found this blog online celebrated her anniversary and in the weird small-town-ness of Utica, she'd married someone I had gone to gradeschool with. I crashed a fundraiser for another fellow I went to junior high with, Chris Giruzzi who is running for Town Justice in Frankfort. And a dear friend's daughter, a young woman who just registered Democrat, who I've known since she was born, started college.

It's been a week of echoes from long ago coming back to play new songs.
Maimun