Desperate Housewives, I am your bitch.

The Fresno Fair

This weekend Nicosan travels back to the breadbasket of the world, the Central Valley to visit some old ghosts, I mean haunts. I will be visiting the Fresno Fair this weekend with my girlfriend and family, a ritual that was has been a family staple since birth, but that I have not done in 6 years or so. It shall be interesting with lots of the things Fresno is known for: babies, livestock, turquoise jewelry and food. Ah, how I have been missed a good, live calf birth in the morning, warms the coquels of my heart.

In reality, the whole trip to the fair revolves around food. There are the great American classics, Corn Dogs, Frozen Bananas and Shish Kebobs oh my!! I have been dreaming about a cinnamon roll from the fair for 6 years, how I do miss that Canela goodness. My heart is palpitating as we speak. There isn't a great deal more to the fair, not much more you would like to buy or anything of that nature, but it definitely provides for people watching and good ol' fashion Fresno fun.

Oh how we love you Fresno, and you too Clovis, with your FFA members and their Bush/Cheney Hitler Youth buttons, it brings me back to the warmth of our heartland in California. But all jest aside, it is cool visiting home. As a farm kid myself, I miss nature, especially living in this bastion of urban sprawl that is LA, I miss being in the peace of things.

My girlfriend is so nervous about being good around my family, but she doesn't need to worry, they like her a lot, once we chill at the fair, everything will be right as rain. I will make sure to take pictures for you, to show all the agri-goodness that we indulge in at the Big Fresno Fair!

And the down the stretch they come

We have three weeks left in this horse race that will result in the naming of the 44th President of the United States, and the same typical tactics are being used by the Bush Campaign to paint John Kerry as a tax and spend, Massachusetts liberal. Not to say that Kerry hasn't deserved some heat, I think his campaign has lacked the focus and teeth necessary to meet this unprecidented barrage of attacks by Bush.

Bush has nothing to run on except fear, you can tell that by the language of the rhetoric that they are using on the campaign trail. A nation unprotected from terror, huge tax increases, and lost morals... it is all a bunch of crap if you ask me. If anything, Kerry may be as much of a hawk as Bush, it is just that his military tactics are much different. Secondly, he won't raise taxes on the middle class, he knows better then that. But Kerry has failed to attack back, knock Bush's plan and in succinct wording describe the crux of his agenda. He can beat Bush easily if he does this, Kerry and Edwards have to tear down Bush's shallow policy. But will he do tat I don't know. I think that the campaign needs fewer voices hitting hard, no holds barred, because Bush is gonna do the same.

Rodney

To paraphrase Ali G, much respeck to you!

Discipline in the Democratic world.

So I just watched the Vice Presidential date the other day with my sister, who called me the night before to tell me that she had gotten tickets to a Debate Viewing Party at some Movie Studio people suare. I put on a suit, got some smellm' in ma hair and was pumped because she also told me that a famous raconteur was going to be at this event to give a peptalk to these Hollywood folks. Unfortunately, the guy flaked, and we were at the event to watch the debate and schmooze with the n0uveau-riche.

I learned a lot that night, the debate went well, I felt that while Cheney was on top of his game, as he usually is, he did leave some major openings for our man John to come in and kick some rhetorical ass. Edwards was not fantastic, but he proceeded to furiously punch holes into every policy, foreign and domestic of the Bush campaign and he succeeded to a lesser extent in clearing up some perceptions of Kerry/Edwards policy. I still think the debate was close to a draw, though I give Edwards the nod dude to his stylistic advantage. However, what I got most from the event was my distaste for many Democrats who are not disciplined about analyzing the antagonist more. Every time Edwards would make an argument, they would cheer and snicker... and while they were funny in the way they did it, it grew tiring. I felt like I was in a Pink Floyd video where everyone looks and acts the same, they just have different fashion and ego statements that all result in a conclusive, cohesive crowd.

My sister is not one of these people, she and I were talking the entire time about our likes and dislikes throughout the debate, and how both sides could help or hurt eachother. It comes from the way we grew up, the way our parents taught us to analyze situations such as these, and own natures as people... she was a debate/forensics champion in high school and one of the best I have ever seen in person, and I have met many good politicians and operatives in my day. We both have strong vested interests in helping elect Kerry and Edwards and ending the reign of the Bush/Cheney Administration.

Kerry and Edwards seek to reverse the trends of cutting taxes and spending vasts amounts of money the federal government doesn't have to fund a war that has no end in site and distracts from the focus of the war on terror and on terrible policy failures like the Medicare bill, and pork-loaded Farm and Energy Bills. We need to address all of these issues, but not at the detriment of another. As we gave seen with No Child Left Behind and Medicare, the Republicans are all talk and no play, because what matters most to them is retaining power. I think the Democrats hurt themselves by not risking things and at least standing up to some of this bullshit legislation that the Republicans sell to the public as Chicken Salad, but in reality is political Chicken shit. It may hurt us in the short term to be principled people, but better to be principled about trying to make government policy helpful to all Americans then trying to get a majority in congress. Its been 10 years since the Republican takeover, we have controlled the Senate for 1 1/2 years in that time, and the house, none. Let's face it, it is going to take us Dems to get our shit in order and come up with a philosophical underpinning that we can sell to the American people, just as the Republicans did, but it takes discipline and patience, which as we saw in that debate party, very few Dems have.

We need more exchange like the stuff my sister and I had... but it is gonna take discipline, and maybe we should look to the other side to see where our future must take us.

Y'all need to get your stuff in order.