Picking My Brain

When John McCain and Sarah Palin show up on your doorstep, how can you not answer the door?  Even though I don’t like them, I was presented with an unexpected opportunity today to attend the Republican rally held right in Media, one block over from Ten Thousand Villages.  At first I wasn’t going to go.  I don’t support them - so why should I go to a rally all about them?  But then I figured it was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.  I could say, “I was there.”  Or even, “I participated.”

So when I got done at Villages, I took a stroll down the street just to see what it looked like and how many people were there.  I had no intention of staying very long, but by the time I got there, I realized it was almost time for Palin and McCain to arrive.  So I took in the sights until they started.  The picture to the right is of the stage setup in Veteran’s Square.  I was about two blocks away.  Not too bad of a picture for my little camera phone!  With my bare eyes I could make out the specks that were Lieberman, McCain and Palin.  Unfortunately, they are too small to be seen in these photos.

It was certainly an experience - and exactly how I had imagined a rally would be.  Ticket holders got to be in the first block from the main stage.  The rest of us who didn’t have tickets were able to line the streets in the second block.  You didn’t dare cross the yellow tape though, the police were all over anyone who did.  As you’d imagine security was quite tight.  Ticket holders had to go through a metal detector, then get wanded down.  Actually, the metal detectors seemed a little silly to me.  Those of us not sent through were really not that far away from the action.  Anyone there could have done anything.  The cops were being jerks though, check out the beginning of this video.  The cop is actually wanding down the baby stroller:

Of course there were police dogs as well.  This one was huge!

I was lucky enough to end up near people who were mostly Obama supporters.  There were some McCain/Palin supporters around and since I work right in the area, I figured I would just stay as neutral as possible.  I didn’t join in the chanting even though it was very temping:

If you look close in this picture, you can see a protester wearing a red bandanna over his face.  I did see the cops a few minutes later in the area where he was. He’s under the yellow sign.  It didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t think it was appropriate for him to have his face covered.  There were plenty of other protesters there, he didn’t need to fear any sort of retaliation.

I thought this sign was pretty funny.  It got some ex-Hillary supporters all up in arms though.  They thought the guy who made it “should be ashamed of himself - Hillary would be ashamed of him!”

As for the rest of my post, I’ll leave you with some videos.  The videos themselves probably aren’t very interesting, but I have audio of everyone’s voices.

Lieberman introducing Palin:

Palin speaking (in this one you can really only hear her voice, it’s very hard to decipher any actual words):

McCain speaking (again, listen for his voice.  I really can’t tell what he’s saying here.)

So that was my unexpected day at a Republican rally.  It was really quite an interesting experience - but the next one I go to will be a Democratic one!  O-Bam-Ma!!

I didn’t really watch much of the Conventions the past two weeks.  I don’t need to spend 8 days listening to speeches by people I don’t know spout the same accolades and rhetoric to a crowd of people who have already given their support to the candidate.  I’ve pretty much decided that I’m voting for Obama and Biden.  Republicans generally stand for the things that I really stand against.  Oddly enough though, I ended up watching more of the RNC than I did of the DNC.  I didn’t see Biden’s or Obama’s speeches.  The only thing I really watched with any interest was the public roll call.

As an aside, I lost a lot of respect for Clinton when it was clear that Obama had the majority vote and she refused to concede.  Her die-hard supporters really irk me when they say things like, “we don’t like how the process turned out.”  To quote one of the political commenters I overheard: “That’s the way the democratic process works - somebody wins and somebody looses.”  I felt that she looked like a really sore loser and should have acted more maturely.  However, I do have to give her props for doing the right thing and calling for an end to the roll call and declaring Obama the candidate.  If only she had acted with such grace earlier.

Besides, something just doesn’t feel right about electing her president.  It was bad enough when Shrub (what I like to call George W.) was elected.  But I just can’t imagine that a presidential line that goes Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton is what is best for the country.  It was designed so that many different people got to hold the office, it’s not meant to be a dynasty.  I like Lewis Black’s idea of how to pick the next president: strap a parachute to a monkey and send it up in a plane.  At some random point over the US, push the monkey out of the plane.  Once it lands, the first person whose hand the monkey touches is the new president.

So of the RNC, I watched Palin’s and McCain’s speeches.  I really did not like Palin.  I will admit, she’s a strong woman and I can appreciate the idea of a woman VP.  Women have been excluded from the White House for far too long.  But I was completely turned off by all of the negative things she had to say.  I felt that she didn’t focus on the future, but used her speech to attack Obama and Democrats.

I wasn’t too fond of McCain’s speech either.  I used to like McCain well enough - he’s known for speaking his mind and voting with his conscience.  He may align with the Republicans, but I always got the impression that he voted the way he felt was right, not just along party lines.  I was disappointed when he started pandering to the uber-conservatives and the uber-Christians.  To me, he was doing the exact opposite of what I admired him for.  I wasn’t all that impressed with his speech.  Yes, he is a hero for what he did and what he was subjected to in Iran, but I’m already tired of hearing about it.

I was also very disappointed when he felt the need to address protesters during his speech by saying “Ignore the noise and static.”  Here’s the video. Also, notice how the first people to lay hands on the protesters are NOT security, but conventioneers. The protesters got what they wanted, didn’t they? They got to you. You heard them. YOU made their protest a success!

Uh, dude?  Are you aware that part of what makes America America is the fact that we’re allowed to protest and voice our distentions and opinions?  If it was ever me giving a speech like that (and God forbid, I might add!), I would have told the guards to let them go and let them stay.  They had every right to be there, as long as they were peaceful and did not disturb the proceedings.  IF they continued to make an uproar, then they would be removed from the building.  Not arrested, not charged with any crimes, just removed, told thank you for your opinion, and not allowed in.

As I was wasting time wandering the intertubes this morning, I came across video of Obama at a town hall meeting faced with disruptive protesters.  And what did he do?  Well, he stopped his speech, turned to the man and said (and this is a direct quote):

“You’ll have a chance to answer your question, but you don’t want to disrupt the whole meeting.  Just be courteous, that’s all.  All you gotta do is be courteous.  That’s all.”

And then what does Obama do?  He actually keeps his word and calls on the protester during the Q&A.  The protester is handed a mike and allowed to ask his question.  Obama then respectfully provides his answer, even if he seems a little unprepared for the question and answers with a lot of stammering.  Here’s the video I saw of the Obama incident:

Before I’m done though, I do have to give props to McCain for one thing. Even though it ties into his whole “Country Before Self” and in many ways I think that’s an awful sentiment to put out, he did show an angle of it that I absolutely agree with:

“Friends, if you find faults with our country - make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government - join it’s ranks and work to correct it. Enlist in our armed forces, become a teacher, enter the ministry, run for public office, feed a hungry child, teach an illiterate adult how to read, comfort the afflicted, defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier, because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.”

If you’re interested, here’s the video. The part I’m referring to is at time 2:00:

Now there’s a reasonable answer to some of our countries biggest problems: take responsibility and do something about it. I think people on the whole need to stop waiting for someone else to fix the problem and do something about it. I can attest that even doing something as simple as working for Ten Thousand Villages makes me feel like I’m helping. There is something I can do. And if everyone did just a little bit, imagine how great the country and the world could become!

*climbs down off her soapbox*

Well, it appears the time has come for me to rejoin the world of employment.  I was offered a job last week, and yesterday I made the call to accept the position.  I’ve never had such a hard time deciding whether or not to take a job.

My new employer is YouChoose.net.  It’s a social networking site that users can call others to action.  So if you have a cause, say rescuing abandoned animals, you can crate a campaign on the site.  Then through technology that I don’t yet understand (but I will!), the site connects you with other users all over the internet with your same interests.  The idea is, the more people you have with you, the more you can accomplish.

The job sounds like a really good one.  I think I’m really going to like it.  My main focus is going to be writing weekly email newsletters to all of the YouChoose users.  I will also be doing some marketing and some advertising.  The marketing and advertising aspects are what really drew me.  I will gain such great skills and experience from this job.

The monkey wrench that really messed with my head was the salary.  My goal was to earn what I was making in my training position at Wawa.  Of course I was willing to negotiate, but since I have a college degree, there was a certain threshold that I thought I could reach.  The problem with this job is that there is no salary.  Nope, that’s not a typo, there’s no salary.  The best way I can describe the situation is: it’s a commission job with no base pay.  My commission will come in from my ad revenue, so if we start making lots of money with my ads, I will be making lots of money.  If we make no money with my ads, I make no money.  So there’s lots of money to be made, I just have to hope I have the skills and such to be able to tap into it.

The salary part really made it a hard decision.  Ben and I are anxious to start saving up a down payment on a house.  Since the wedding is fast approaching, I’d like to start moving on with our lives.  We’re not really planning on getting pregnant immediately after the wedding, but pretty much any time after the wedding is fair game, as long as we feel we can afford it and we at least have another bedroom for a baby.  There are some weeks we feel a little overwhelmed as it is now.  I know you can never really afford children, but there is a certain amount of comfort I’d like to have before I think about adding in that huge expense.

I felt like the experience and skills that this job is going to give me is something that I couldn’t pass up.  So I’ve devised a plan.  I can still claim unemployment as long as I’m making under a certain threshold.  I just have to deduct whatever I do make from my claim.  So that will give me time to feel out the job until November and see if it’s going to be worth my while pay-wise.  I’m also going to take a part-time job on the side.  The new job is really flexible, and most days I can actually work from home, so doing a part-time job should be no problem.

The part-time job I’m going to be doing is for Ten Thousand Villages.  I think I mentioned them before when I started volunteering.  It’s a non-for profit organization that buys handicrafts from artists in 3rd world and underdeveloped countries and resells them across the United States and Canada.  The difference between a Ten Thousand Villages store and a regular retail store is two things.  First - everything purchased “fair trade.”  That means that the artists were paid the fair market value for their products, not haggled down to a minimal price.  It also means that gender equality comes into play and that no children are used in the production of the product.  Second - Ten Thousand Villages then resells the products for fair market value in it’s stores.  Any profits the company makes are then sent back to the countries to aid in their development.  It’s a really good feeling to know that not only am I selling really amazing stuff, but I’m helping a family get on their feet and have a decent standard of living.

So my plan is to do these two jobs until November-ish.  If I feel that I can make it on what I’m making at that point, I’ll continue.  I’m actually going to keep looking for a job in the meantime in case something better comes along.  So I think I have a plan, I just hope it works.  When I get my newsletters up on the web, I’ll let you know so you can go read!