NYC and Coffins

Well, here we go... second post and already heavy stuff. Before I get to it, I will tell you about my first day at Grad school.

Well I was late. Late getting up (stupid alarm clock), and then after rushing to school I would have gotten to class on time if I wasn't almost a mile a way from my building. Literally. It took me 10-15 minutes to jog/walk to class. I wasn't late fortunately. Then I found out that they were changing our schedules. Strangely, they didn't tell us that they were going to do it. Not only that, but they added a class without dropping another one. Therefore, a) our tuition would go up for the semester and b) we would have 16 hours of grad school work! We got it worked out and I'm only taking 13 hours. Whew. Getting new carpet put in at my apt. b/c the complex didn't give me a new one before I moved in. So, kind of a stressful day, but whatever. So onto the meat:

Okay, so the question has been raised of whether or not NYC should be the site for the RNC. Is it dissrespectful? Is it setting up the RNC to be more of a protest ground than a rally? Is it a good idea?

In my opinion, there is no better place than New York City for the RNC. Every policy decision that the Bush administration has made has had one single event in mind, 9/11. On that day America was attacked. And since that day, American soil has not been violated. Where else would you go to say: "America was attacked and I have done everything in my power to stop these terrorists from hitting us again." Isn't THAT the most appropriate place? "New Yorkers, Americans were killed and as your President I did everything I could to protect you." To me, this is a no brainer. Of course its going to be controversial, but I really believe that people have forgotten how the world has changed. They don't understand that after 9/11, there was no international primer for how a country should act in the international arena. Before every member of a president's staff was well educated in international relations, but after that day as the towers burned, so did all we know about International Relations. I'm getting off topic, but I think goes back to exactly why Bush should be in NYC. He has worked for three years so that 9/11 didn't happen again.

Real quick, I read a study that wanted to find out what NYC felt about this. Instead they went a step further and polled famlies of victims of 9/11. They found that people agreed basically along party lines. So I'm sure this debate will follow suit. Just like everything in this election...

Which brings me to the inevitable discussion of what of those people who disagree; the dissenters, the protesters, sometimes the flat out morally bankrupt people of America. Yesterday, protesters walked through the streets of NYC carrying faux coffins of dead American soldiers draped in American flags. This enfuriated me. What are these people thinking? First of all, these are families of dead American Soldiers who came out carrying these coffins. How horrible. They are using their sons and daughters death to make a political statement. Is there no honor in death? Isn't there some other way of protesting to war and protesting Bush's campaign? Isn't there some other way to say my child died and its because of a war I don't agree with? I've heard arguments that they are merely trying to "make a point." Well, the point was well made. That these 'parents' are more concerned about protesting a political convention than honoring their son or daughter. They died in the defense of this country and deserve the highest honor. This doesn't even begin to cover the fact that if I were an American soldier right now serving their duty to this nation, how I would feel. ESPECIALLY if I didn't agree with the war, because God knows I would not want a symbolic funeral march in front of a political rally no matter if it was the Donkey or Elephant who was leading the charge. Dispicable...

Feel free to comment on any of this, I'm sure some of you will have reactions....

Here is something funny to leave you with:

According to the American Kennel Club, dog owners — by a margin of 51 to 37 percent — trust President Bush more than Sen. Kerry to walk their dogs.

Blog title...sexual innuendo...a predictable hook?

Who knows.

Anyways, this is my first blog. I'm also starting graduate school on Monday (today is Sunday) and so it will also contain a lot of my first experiences there. Of course, by nature I'm a fairly political minded person so I am looking forward to meandering through my own political discourse in an attempt to see where ya'll stand... but more importantly where I stand. Whilst doing all of this I will be trying to stay away from run-on sentences, but I can't promise any grammatical wonders.

That being said, I heard something pretty funny the other day. It takes some background for those who may or maynot know me, so bear with me. For the most part I am Republican. I am open to most opinions, and even disagree with some hard line Rep. ideals. Anywho, back to my funny story. To recap: Logan = Republican +\- 3 points. However, my girlfriend of 5+ years could more closely align with Democrats. I won't paint her into a corner b/c she will probably be reading this, but she'd agree with me. There is something to be said about enviroment influencing political views, as our parents share our same political views. Anywho, back to my funny story. To recap: Logan = Republican +\- 3 points. Megan (Logan's girlfriend) = Democrat +\- 3 points.

So we are at dinner with her family and I am testing the political waters by saying how the swift boat veterans are a creepy organization after seeing the Manchurian candidate. I mean here is a man who has all these medals, and is running his election with these medals as credentials to run the nation. And then there are all of these swift boat guys saying his account is completely inaccurate and that he is not a hero. However, there are people on Kerry's side saying he is the greatest war hero ever... greater than Aubrey Murphy and that other guy in WWI who captured 50 Germans by himself/ a la Manchurian Candidate plot line. Megan quiped that she didn't think that Hollywood was going after John Kerry, implying that Dubya was a more valid target. I could already see that politics was not going well, so I decided to back off and talk about Gymnastics. I mean, hey, crazy thing about that Paul Hamm huh? We were in astonishment that people were asking him to give back his gold. Of course for my apparent ignorant political views (to the sarcastic democrat), Megan's aunt added in that George didn't give back the presidency after he "won" in 2000.

Ouch.

At that point you have to make the decision... do you take the bait (kind of like my blog title) or do you just leave it at that? It being my girlfriend's family... I did like any good self respecting voter with a conscience and shut the hell up. There is some places you don't want to go.

So that was my quasi funny novel, hope you enjoyed. Hope to post some more in the next few days.

-Logan