The Republican establishment has moved a bit closer to full fledged panic after a video of their candidate for president was dug up from a "hot-mic" Donald Trump celebrity appearance 11 years ago. It offered an audio picture of what most knew about the man who swaggered his way through the Republican primaries. His vulgarity and juvenile delinquent (my term) locker room talk is no surprise and fits his "can’t touch me" Billionaire grandiose narcissism, but hearing it on audio is still disturbing. It is totally degrading to women and makes me uncomfortable as a Christian, a husband and father, who chooses not to swear or use vulgarity — it is therefore hard for me to stomach that he’s "MY" political party’s candidate for president. This is bottom of the barrel filth and doesn’t help the GOP which is already polling poorly with the female demographic (thanks to Trump).
To his credit (cough, cough), Donald Trump did apologize (something rare for him) … and makes most of his supporters squirm as they try to defend everything positive in the platform. At this point, the Trump campaign is starting to sink the entire GOP ship … House of Representatives and all (something not even imagined a few weeks ago).
I feel for the country and the direction we are headed and am thinking to myself: "How ironic, the one area conservatives always had over liberals was they stood up for values and morality — now it has been torched by this ego driven, unethical businessman who now has only one thing going for him … the fact that GOP policies are better for the country than those of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. That said, I’m having an increasingly harder time of even convincing myself to support my party’s candidate."
Personally speaking (and assume I’m not alone), I wish Trump would drop off the ticket because I would be far more comfortably supporting and voting for Gov Mike Pence.
The Giffords are part of a growing, but little-known community of people called cruisers. (A 2011 survey placed the global total number of cruising boats at 10,000.) “Cruising requires that you learn to live without structure. And some people are really afraid of that.”
While many cruisers are couples or individuals who have given up the rat race to live a life-long dream, some are families who spend months, even years at sea or living on a boat in distant lands. “It’s about the absolute sense of freedom. You get to explore the world and bring your home along with you,” says Lin Pardey, an author and 45-year veteran of the cruising lifestyle who, with her husband Larry, literally wrote the book on it. “But cruising requires that you learn to live without structure. And some people are really afraid of that.”
Archiving another project idea for living on the hook (someday) yet still having hot water for dishes, cleaning and SHOWERS (a freshwater shower is a luxury for most sailboats).
What is the goal? More and better paying jobs, profits for companies and growing tax revenues to fund government services, entitlements and improved ability to pay down our nation’s debt.
How do we accomplish this? There are two ways government helps to create jobs in the US. The current Democrats remain focused on #1, while the Republicans propose #2 — only one is sustainable enough to improve pay and benefits over time, so think before you vote.
Democrats #1 — Government hires directly or offers incentives to companies that hire employees … often adding employees they often don’t yet need in return for the tax benefit. This spending requires more from taxpayers and increased borrowing which elevates the debt. The result is what we have been seeing … a tepid recovery and a sluggish economy. The country seeing the slow rise in part-time and a minimum wage jobs, all with declining benefits. (visualize this as a single pie cut into increasingly smaller slices)
Republicans #2 — Government lowers corporate and individual taxes putting more money back in the hands of consumers and useful capital (often parked overseas) back in the coffers of business here in the U.S. As consumers spent, prices rise (supply and demand) and businesses uses their capital to expand production and hire additional workers. Competition for the best employees increases wages/benefits and as the economy grows, employees have more bargaining power. (visualized as the more pies and therefore larger slices for all willing to work)
Bonus: If the economy grows, so do tax revenues and ability to pay for government services, save long term entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security AND if voters can keep our Federal Government from ballooning, we can even begin paying down our national debt.
So before you vote this November, weigh carefully, not just the personality of the candidates we see, but for the philosophy and ideas of each political party that gives us the best chance to grow our economy while keeping us safe.
Hurricane Matthew is blasting up Florida’s Atlantic coast at this early morning moment. I’ve been back and forth between baseball and the Weather Channel which spent much of the night broadcasting from all places, Fort Pierce, FL. I exchanged text messages at midnight with our friends riding out the storm there and will stay up a few more hours until the worst of the winds pass. Mark and Dar plan on checking on Encore tomorrow if the roads are clear … so I’ll know more if the marina and our sailboat survived.
Matthew’s track seems to be ever so slightly east of what was projected, but I also realize the surge and wind is still substantial … still hurricane force. We’ll find out tomorrow how our marina and Encore made out.
On a happier note, “my” Cleveland Indians won game one of the ALDS against Boston in an excellent 5 – 4 game … I’ll credit the win to the home crowd! Goodnight all.
Let’s hope this “curtain call” (cough, cough) isn’t a precursor for Hurricane Matthew bearing down on Encore in Fort Pierce Florida?
The subject line was more of a slip of the tongue regarding “curtains” when I really intended a twisted “Suzy Homemaker” innuendo — Sailor Homemaker (my attempts at sewing curtains).
Failed joke aside, I did bring home one of the old nasty looking curtains or port coverings from our sailboat in order to replace. The thought was that I would get Brenda to sew up 7 of these for the boat, but “if you want it done, you just have to do it yourself.”
Actually I could only muster one of these (for now) as I need to take apart the old ones in order to reuse the fabric and plastic hooks. After being taught to use a seam ripper it wasn’t all that bad. I made a straight edge “fence” for the Sailrite Walking Foot Sewing Machine and dialed in the tension and threading setup for the lightweight fabric and threads. After some trial and error, I was able to stitch up the first of 7 … although I’ll have to check to see how it fits next trip down.
Perhaps I’m being a bit to self-focused in worrying about “just a sailboat” when millions of lives are going to be impacted by Hurricane Matthew? I think it is time for the final preparation … pray for safety for those in the path of this storm (and Encore).
EDIT: A buddy of mine was asking where the most dangerous winds were in the hurricane eye. Answer: When going north like Matthew, that would be the NE quarter — but the other big concern is over the storm surge which happens to be the NW quarter. This is projected to impact much of Florida and I’m not sure I’ve got enough long spring lines spidered to Encore? We could always do more.
Google calendar has automatically added a few important annual events to my calendar (my settings), but unfortunately it is not artificially intelligent enough to remove or delete.
Today I was sent a reminder that we normally celebrate our late dog Tootie’s birthday on October 5th. She is missed and I often catch what I thought was a glimpse of her nosing the back door (as she always did). Strange how our eyes and mind can play tricks with things.
After 17 years with a great companion, I’m not sure I want to go through the last year of life with another dog again … I think we’ll remaindogless.
knew about the man who swaggered his way through the Republican primaries. His vulgarity and juvenile delinquent (my term) locker room talk is no surprise and fits his "can’t touch me" Billionaire grandiose narcissism, but hearing it on audio is still disturbing. It is totally degrading to women and makes me uncomfortable as a Christian, a husband and father, who chooses not to swear or use vulgarity — it is therefore hard for me to stomach that he’s "MY" political party’s candidate for president. This is bottom of the barrel filth and doesn’t help the GOP which is already polling poorly with the female demographic (thanks to Trump). 
