I wrote some time ago about this country not able to move from its racial issues that so haunted its minorities and set this country back at the time.
But we are no any longer in the 50s and early 60s, this is 2010, and we have some state legislatures in the south who are trying to propose presidential candidates to prove their citizenship, and even though it does not say that they want proof that Mr. Obama is a native of the U.S., the language of that proposal is only short of mentioning the president’s name.
These are the same people who were against the civil rights legislation, and who cannot live with the idea that an African American is the head of the Executive Branch of government, a.k.a. president, that he is the commander in chief of the military, and that he is a democrat.
State Legislator Berman from Texas, the proposer of this requirement, first said that he wanted proof of the President’s place of birth, and then admitted that the reason he wants this is because of what he calls "the radical proposals" of our president.
It is amazing that almost 100 years after the end of the civil war in the United States, the defeated states have still not accepted the fact that they were defeated, and that this is a union.
I wonder what President Abraham Lincoln would say about these developments after all this time.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The Right's Intolerance
We read today that Andrew Shirvell, the Assistant to Michigan Attorney General, has been fired because of cyber bullying a gay student at the University of Michigan for the only reason that he was gay.
To no surprise Mr. Shirvell is a Republican.
The reason I mention his party affiliation is because we have seen during the last 18 months and especially during the campaigns of 2010 that the Republican Party has used methods of brutality, bullying and intolerance. The examples of this were in Alaska when candidate to the US Senate Joe Miller was being questioned by a reporter and one of his bodyguards (ala Sopranos) handcuffed the reporter, only because Mr. Miller felt uncomfortable with the questions. We also saw violence by employees of Rand Paul’s campaign towards peaceful demonstrator, pulling the woman to the ground and then kicking her head.
Since Obama has been sworn in as president we have also seen right wing militia arming itself. We also saw fanatics come to public events armed with AK47s, semi-automatic guns and all kinds of other weaponry. These do not belong at public events unless their owners have other plans, and are considering making use of them.
The amusing thing is that the right in this country says that these things happen to both sides.
I challenge Fox News, who stands to right of Attila the Hun, together with out-of-the-mainstream people such as Rush Limbaugh to show examples of events organized by or for Democrats where these things happen.
If memory doesn’t serve me wrong the last president assassinated in this country was a Democrat and he died to the hands of former marine.
Again, if I am not mistaken, the biggest domestic attack by an American was also a former marine, Gulf War veteran.
It is not a coincidence, I am only interested in the facts, or like former Senator Patrick Moynihan would say: your entitled to your opinion but not to your own facts.
To no surprise Mr. Shirvell is a Republican.
The reason I mention his party affiliation is because we have seen during the last 18 months and especially during the campaigns of 2010 that the Republican Party has used methods of brutality, bullying and intolerance. The examples of this were in Alaska when candidate to the US Senate Joe Miller was being questioned by a reporter and one of his bodyguards (ala Sopranos) handcuffed the reporter, only because Mr. Miller felt uncomfortable with the questions. We also saw violence by employees of Rand Paul’s campaign towards peaceful demonstrator, pulling the woman to the ground and then kicking her head.
Since Obama has been sworn in as president we have also seen right wing militia arming itself. We also saw fanatics come to public events armed with AK47s, semi-automatic guns and all kinds of other weaponry. These do not belong at public events unless their owners have other plans, and are considering making use of them.
The amusing thing is that the right in this country says that these things happen to both sides.
I challenge Fox News, who stands to right of Attila the Hun, together with out-of-the-mainstream people such as Rush Limbaugh to show examples of events organized by or for Democrats where these things happen.
If memory doesn’t serve me wrong the last president assassinated in this country was a Democrat and he died to the hands of former marine.
Again, if I am not mistaken, the biggest domestic attack by an American was also a former marine, Gulf War veteran.
It is not a coincidence, I am only interested in the facts, or like former Senator Patrick Moynihan would say: your entitled to your opinion but not to your own facts.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Resuslts of the election of 2010
As we witnessed last Tuesday November 2nd the biggest takeover by corporations through the Chamber the commerce with the with funds from foreign and national large corporations where Democrats were outspent 7 to 1 in many races we should stop and reflect why didn’t the Democrats loose the Senate as they lost the House of Representatives, and the main answer is because people are not convinced with the Republican Party either. If we just look at the candidates that the Republican Party had chosen to run for the Senate we can see that they had no qualifications, they were radicals and racists. There was one exception to that is that the candidate for the House of Representatives for Ohio who even dressed as a Nazi. I give him credit; at least he wore the uniform with whom he felt identified with.
Let us look at some of the Candidates for Senate, particularly Tea Party candidates, such as Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck and Joe Miller. Three of them lost to Democrat candidates including 2 incumbents. We can leave out another unqualified Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino, candidate for Governor of New York state.
We cannot kid ourselves that this is a “grass roots” movement when people like the Koch brothers spent millions funding this supposed cause and gave to Republican candidates to defeat Obama, and we can never forget Karl Rove, whose support comes down to 3 billionaires.
Ron Johnson who defeated Russ Feingold for the Senate seat for Wisconsin outspent his rival 7 to 1. With unprecedented amounts of money being spent in this election, most of it for republicans, we have to thank this radical Supreme Court and its decision to allow unlimited amounts of money from unknown sources to fund campaigns.
We also have to face the facts, Fox News campaigns, raises money, endorses and contributes money to Republican Candidates, something that no other network does or allows of its employees. The amazing thing is they the management of Fox says that their employees such as Sean Hannity and Glen Beck disclose on TV that they contribute financially to the same candidates that they interview, that is absolutely a joke, they never do. Keith Olbermann contributed $2,400.00 to 3 candidates, and was suspended indefinitely. So let’s not kid ourselves that Fox News is fair and balanced. They are not. They are just simply a spokesman of the Republican Party. They should be ashamed of themselves for misleading the public.
In terms of the results of the election, the Republican Party picked up 60 seats, the biggest gain in over 60 years. But if they think that the gains were the result of people liking them better, unless we see substantial improvement in the market place in two years they will be voted out as well. People wanted to punish Obama and the Democrats for a chaos that they inherited with unfunded wars, the TARP fund proposed and passed during the Bush Administration, the meltdown of the financial system during the Bush Administration, the collapse of Chrysler and GM in the first month of the Obama Administration. The proposals of the Pledge to America don’t add up. How can you cut $100 billion from the budget and propose to extend the Bush tax cuts to the top 2 percent of income earners when that alone will create a hole of $740 billion. I guess they use a different math. The reason Democrats got voted out of office is because the economy has made very slow progress, not enough to absorb the big unemployment and thus the low turnout of democratic voters. Although exit polls showed that the government was doing too much to these folks it did not do enough.
Let us look at some of the Candidates for Senate, particularly Tea Party candidates, such as Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck and Joe Miller. Three of them lost to Democrat candidates including 2 incumbents. We can leave out another unqualified Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino, candidate for Governor of New York state.
We cannot kid ourselves that this is a “grass roots” movement when people like the Koch brothers spent millions funding this supposed cause and gave to Republican candidates to defeat Obama, and we can never forget Karl Rove, whose support comes down to 3 billionaires.
Ron Johnson who defeated Russ Feingold for the Senate seat for Wisconsin outspent his rival 7 to 1. With unprecedented amounts of money being spent in this election, most of it for republicans, we have to thank this radical Supreme Court and its decision to allow unlimited amounts of money from unknown sources to fund campaigns.
We also have to face the facts, Fox News campaigns, raises money, endorses and contributes money to Republican Candidates, something that no other network does or allows of its employees. The amazing thing is they the management of Fox says that their employees such as Sean Hannity and Glen Beck disclose on TV that they contribute financially to the same candidates that they interview, that is absolutely a joke, they never do. Keith Olbermann contributed $2,400.00 to 3 candidates, and was suspended indefinitely. So let’s not kid ourselves that Fox News is fair and balanced. They are not. They are just simply a spokesman of the Republican Party. They should be ashamed of themselves for misleading the public.
In terms of the results of the election, the Republican Party picked up 60 seats, the biggest gain in over 60 years. But if they think that the gains were the result of people liking them better, unless we see substantial improvement in the market place in two years they will be voted out as well. People wanted to punish Obama and the Democrats for a chaos that they inherited with unfunded wars, the TARP fund proposed and passed during the Bush Administration, the meltdown of the financial system during the Bush Administration, the collapse of Chrysler and GM in the first month of the Obama Administration. The proposals of the Pledge to America don’t add up. How can you cut $100 billion from the budget and propose to extend the Bush tax cuts to the top 2 percent of income earners when that alone will create a hole of $740 billion. I guess they use a different math. The reason Democrats got voted out of office is because the economy has made very slow progress, not enough to absorb the big unemployment and thus the low turnout of democratic voters. Although exit polls showed that the government was doing too much to these folks it did not do enough.
Monday, November 1, 2010
La muerte del ex-presidente Kirchner
La semana pasada el pueblo argentino vivió varios días de luto por la muerte del ex-presidente Néstor Kirchner, marido de la actual mandataria Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Mucho puede decirse, como también mucho se ha dicho del ex-presidente Kirchner y de la actual cabeza del Poder Ejecutivo pero uno debe de mirar con asombro o con alegria, dependiendo de que lado del espectro uno se encuentre, de la gran cantidad de gente que fue a rendir homenaje, a despedir al lider del Partido Justicialista. Uno puede estar a favor o encontra del hecho de que los restos del ex-mandatario fueran velados en la Casa Rosada en lugar del Congreso, donde tal vez deberían haberse velado dado que no era el actual presidente, pero las puertas estuvieron abiertas desde las 10 de la mañana del jueves hasta casi el mediodía del viernes. Originalmente las puertas se iban a cerrar al público a las 9 de la mañana, pero a esa hora había más de 15 cuadras de gente esperando para pasar por delante del féretro.
Yo, desde la distancia, a pesar de no tener una posición favorable hacia los ultimos dos mandatarios, sus metodos de gobernar, sus posiciones y muchas de sus decisions, seguí por distintos medios tanto del internet como la television gran parte de los acontecimientos.
Hubo muchos aplausos, un hombre cantó el Ave Maria, gente daba apoyo a la presidenta, las madres de la plaza de Mayo estaban presentes, pero lo que me pareció muy importante, como sudamericano que soy, fue la presencia de un gran numero de los presidents de los paises de Sudamerica, incluyendo Lula, Mujica, Evo Morales y Chavez (cosa no sorprendente, dada la inclinación de estos últimos dos y del ex-presidente Kirchner), pero tambien estuvieron el presidente de Colombia, el de Ecuador, y el actual presidente de Chile Piñera Echenique, que viene de un partido de inclinación conservadora, lo que también demuestra que el futuro también pasa por Sudamerica, dado que todas son democracias, y eso produce estabilidad y crecimiento.
Con respecto al ex-presidente fallecido la television pasó una pequeña sinopsis de su mandato, algunas de ellas de character demagójico. Pero cuando la historia se escriba tal vez más importante será la del canje de la deuda externa, que a pesar de haber sido ideada y hecha por el entonces Ministro de Economía Lavagna, se hizo durante su administración.
Ahora vendran días muy interesantes desde el punto de vista politico como también del futuro de la Argentina, con muchas luchas internas del Justicialismo, y en que posición quedará la oposición, si podrá sacar provecho de esos momentos de incertidumbre y confusion. Mucho dependerá del mensaje, las alternativas y la unificación de esa oposición para hacerle frente al partido en el Poder Ejecutivo. Mucho también dependerá como maneje al Secretario de la Confederación General del Trabajo, Hugo Moyano, dado que éste tiene la capacidad de complicar la función de cualquier administración, como lo hizo con el Presidente De La Rúa.
Mucho puede decirse, como también mucho se ha dicho del ex-presidente Kirchner y de la actual cabeza del Poder Ejecutivo pero uno debe de mirar con asombro o con alegria, dependiendo de que lado del espectro uno se encuentre, de la gran cantidad de gente que fue a rendir homenaje, a despedir al lider del Partido Justicialista. Uno puede estar a favor o encontra del hecho de que los restos del ex-mandatario fueran velados en la Casa Rosada en lugar del Congreso, donde tal vez deberían haberse velado dado que no era el actual presidente, pero las puertas estuvieron abiertas desde las 10 de la mañana del jueves hasta casi el mediodía del viernes. Originalmente las puertas se iban a cerrar al público a las 9 de la mañana, pero a esa hora había más de 15 cuadras de gente esperando para pasar por delante del féretro.
Yo, desde la distancia, a pesar de no tener una posición favorable hacia los ultimos dos mandatarios, sus metodos de gobernar, sus posiciones y muchas de sus decisions, seguí por distintos medios tanto del internet como la television gran parte de los acontecimientos.
Hubo muchos aplausos, un hombre cantó el Ave Maria, gente daba apoyo a la presidenta, las madres de la plaza de Mayo estaban presentes, pero lo que me pareció muy importante, como sudamericano que soy, fue la presencia de un gran numero de los presidents de los paises de Sudamerica, incluyendo Lula, Mujica, Evo Morales y Chavez (cosa no sorprendente, dada la inclinación de estos últimos dos y del ex-presidente Kirchner), pero tambien estuvieron el presidente de Colombia, el de Ecuador, y el actual presidente de Chile Piñera Echenique, que viene de un partido de inclinación conservadora, lo que también demuestra que el futuro también pasa por Sudamerica, dado que todas son democracias, y eso produce estabilidad y crecimiento.
Con respecto al ex-presidente fallecido la television pasó una pequeña sinopsis de su mandato, algunas de ellas de character demagójico. Pero cuando la historia se escriba tal vez más importante será la del canje de la deuda externa, que a pesar de haber sido ideada y hecha por el entonces Ministro de Economía Lavagna, se hizo durante su administración.
Ahora vendran días muy interesantes desde el punto de vista politico como también del futuro de la Argentina, con muchas luchas internas del Justicialismo, y en que posición quedará la oposición, si podrá sacar provecho de esos momentos de incertidumbre y confusion. Mucho dependerá del mensaje, las alternativas y la unificación de esa oposición para hacerle frente al partido en el Poder Ejecutivo. Mucho también dependerá como maneje al Secretario de la Confederación General del Trabajo, Hugo Moyano, dado que éste tiene la capacidad de complicar la función de cualquier administración, como lo hizo con el Presidente De La Rúa.
Monday, October 25, 2010
It really comes down to the public
Until recently I thought that it came down to politicians to mislead the public into believing that this plan or the other would do the trick. It used to think that 2010 was a year of a very important election.
I thought that Democratic Party has lost a golden opportunity to level with the American people about the real picture of the country.
Don’t get me wrong there is still a clear choice. On a one hand we have a group of people who say that we, as insurmountable as the problems and the present status seem, if we stay the course we will see the light at the end of the tunnel. The other side believes in the same medicine for every illness: tax cuts.
I always say if doctors would prescribe every illness with the same medication, not only we would need them but we wouldn’t need the pharmaceutical companies as one would supply us with the one miracle medicine that would cure us.
But reality is different, and that applies to this as well. To make matters worse they encourage companies to export jobs to China, India and other Asian nations. A friend of mine believes that exporting jobs is good. He should tell that to all the people who have been unemployed for more than 99 weeks (99ers), and these people include PHDs, masters, etc., who have lost their house, their savings, and their livelihood. Our real unemployment is close to 20%.
So in that respect I think the choice is simple.
But my conclusion is that people don’t want to hear the facts. They behave like brats. They think that they are entitled to gas at 2.75 a gallon, pay low taxes, buy houses that they cannot afford, be the police of the world.
Let’s start with taxes, the Obama administration should tell the American people to grow up. Gasoline at 2.75 is unreal, because the moment that we add the cost of the Department of Defense to that, and the subsidies that the oil companies receive we are looking at probably the same amount that the rest of the world pays or higher, 6 or 7 dollars a gallon. Why do I mention the D.O.D. in this? Simple, we invaded Iraq because they have oil, not because of the weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein or any other excuse. If Iraq had just dust, like Sudan has, we would have never moved a finger.
Pay low taxes, another lie. By the time we add the federal income tax, state tax, social security, medical coverage, co-pays, etc., we are paying more than the Europeans and Canadians do.
And I don’t think I have to talk about housing as we will continue to see values deteriorate as far as the eye can see, especially when we are looking at possibly 3 million foreclosures in 2010.
The solution, in my opinion, is simple but unpopular. I don’t like to be deceived. In order to balance the Federal Budget, we should cut defense in half, roll back the age of retirement for social security, eliminate the cap for taxation of social security, eliminate the Bush tax cuts for everybody, not just the top, pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly raise taxes if need be. We either do this now, or we can fool ourselves for years to come, until there will no longer be a United States.
I thought that Democratic Party has lost a golden opportunity to level with the American people about the real picture of the country.
Don’t get me wrong there is still a clear choice. On a one hand we have a group of people who say that we, as insurmountable as the problems and the present status seem, if we stay the course we will see the light at the end of the tunnel. The other side believes in the same medicine for every illness: tax cuts.
I always say if doctors would prescribe every illness with the same medication, not only we would need them but we wouldn’t need the pharmaceutical companies as one would supply us with the one miracle medicine that would cure us.
But reality is different, and that applies to this as well. To make matters worse they encourage companies to export jobs to China, India and other Asian nations. A friend of mine believes that exporting jobs is good. He should tell that to all the people who have been unemployed for more than 99 weeks (99ers), and these people include PHDs, masters, etc., who have lost their house, their savings, and their livelihood. Our real unemployment is close to 20%.
So in that respect I think the choice is simple.
But my conclusion is that people don’t want to hear the facts. They behave like brats. They think that they are entitled to gas at 2.75 a gallon, pay low taxes, buy houses that they cannot afford, be the police of the world.
Let’s start with taxes, the Obama administration should tell the American people to grow up. Gasoline at 2.75 is unreal, because the moment that we add the cost of the Department of Defense to that, and the subsidies that the oil companies receive we are looking at probably the same amount that the rest of the world pays or higher, 6 or 7 dollars a gallon. Why do I mention the D.O.D. in this? Simple, we invaded Iraq because they have oil, not because of the weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein or any other excuse. If Iraq had just dust, like Sudan has, we would have never moved a finger.
Pay low taxes, another lie. By the time we add the federal income tax, state tax, social security, medical coverage, co-pays, etc., we are paying more than the Europeans and Canadians do.
And I don’t think I have to talk about housing as we will continue to see values deteriorate as far as the eye can see, especially when we are looking at possibly 3 million foreclosures in 2010.
The solution, in my opinion, is simple but unpopular. I don’t like to be deceived. In order to balance the Federal Budget, we should cut defense in half, roll back the age of retirement for social security, eliminate the cap for taxation of social security, eliminate the Bush tax cuts for everybody, not just the top, pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly raise taxes if need be. We either do this now, or we can fool ourselves for years to come, until there will no longer be a United States.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Peter A. Diamond
Peter A. Diamond was given the 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics. To most of us he is not a renowned figure. He was the professor of the head of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernacke.
Mr. Diamond was nominated to fill one of the vacant seats in the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately some of the members of the minority party in the U.S. Senate that has hold hostage this country for the past 4 years have decided that they will not allow President Obama’s nominee to be confirmed. The main one leading this fight is Senator R. Shelby from Alabama, saying that Mr. Diamond is not qualified for the job. I guess Mr. Shelby thinks that he is qualified to decide who is best suited to be one of the board members of the Federal Reserve.
This is the same party and its new spin off the Tea Party that is giving us some unqualified, unprepared candidates that may very well win their races, during a time where people want to take revenge with their government officials for the downturn that they are living. I will not say that they are right or wrong in their anger. What I can say is that we should look closely at this candidates and what they propose: privatizing Social Security, in my book that sounds like doing away with the most successful program in American History, privatizing Medicare and Medicaid, same goes for this program, privatizing the V.A., dido, and we can go on.
This party is also proposing rolling back what they call “Obamacare”. That means re-instituting the clause that allows insurance companies to reject kids with preconditions. That sounds like a humane position. But we should never forget that the insurance companies’ bottom lines come before the health of its insured.
They are running on the pledge to America which is cut taxes for the wealthy, deregulation to banking and increase of military spending. That sounds like the Bush-Cheney dogma that sets us back 10 years.
A friend of mine has told me more than once that I try to figure out people, although I try not I guess it is my nature, and I fall victim to my own temptation probably because after 25 years it worries me seeing this great nation falling behind the rest of the world in every single aspect from education to infrastructure to technology. Having grown up in Argentina and being a neighbor to Brazil the thing we always found amusing about Brazilians was that whatever you would talk about with them they would always answer the same “O mais grande du mundo”, which translated is the greatest in the world, which was a fantasy because they had zillions of problem including 60% of population living in poverty. Now living in the United States American people remind of those Brazilians as I was growing up.
Mr. Diamond was nominated to fill one of the vacant seats in the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately some of the members of the minority party in the U.S. Senate that has hold hostage this country for the past 4 years have decided that they will not allow President Obama’s nominee to be confirmed. The main one leading this fight is Senator R. Shelby from Alabama, saying that Mr. Diamond is not qualified for the job. I guess Mr. Shelby thinks that he is qualified to decide who is best suited to be one of the board members of the Federal Reserve.
This is the same party and its new spin off the Tea Party that is giving us some unqualified, unprepared candidates that may very well win their races, during a time where people want to take revenge with their government officials for the downturn that they are living. I will not say that they are right or wrong in their anger. What I can say is that we should look closely at this candidates and what they propose: privatizing Social Security, in my book that sounds like doing away with the most successful program in American History, privatizing Medicare and Medicaid, same goes for this program, privatizing the V.A., dido, and we can go on.
This party is also proposing rolling back what they call “Obamacare”. That means re-instituting the clause that allows insurance companies to reject kids with preconditions. That sounds like a humane position. But we should never forget that the insurance companies’ bottom lines come before the health of its insured.
They are running on the pledge to America which is cut taxes for the wealthy, deregulation to banking and increase of military spending. That sounds like the Bush-Cheney dogma that sets us back 10 years.
A friend of mine has told me more than once that I try to figure out people, although I try not I guess it is my nature, and I fall victim to my own temptation probably because after 25 years it worries me seeing this great nation falling behind the rest of the world in every single aspect from education to infrastructure to technology. Having grown up in Argentina and being a neighbor to Brazil the thing we always found amusing about Brazilians was that whatever you would talk about with them they would always answer the same “O mais grande du mundo”, which translated is the greatest in the world, which was a fantasy because they had zillions of problem including 60% of population living in poverty. Now living in the United States American people remind of those Brazilians as I was growing up.
This past summer
I have not been writing much this summer, and there are several reasons. For starters I went earlier this year to Argentina than I usually go. Instead of going in August or September like I prefer travellin I decided to go in July. I’m glad I did, as I think that it was a productive 2 week visit to my parents.
I then went to Chicago, together with my wife and son, to drop off my daughter as she had been invited to a conservatory. We then went back two weeks later to pick her up. Both the first and second times were very good, as the weather was great and it gave us the opportunity to go to the two tallest buildings in the City of Chicago, the John Hancock and the Sears Tower. The latter has 4 cubicles that were mounted on the side of the building, and, as they are made of type acrylic, you are actually outside of the building on the 103 floor, and whether you look up, side or down you have no concrete blocking the view. It is both exhilarating and scary, depending on your personality. I had a hard time at the beginning but I got used to it after a few minutes. You just have to avoid looking down as much as possible.
We also decided, as we were coming back from picking up our daughter in Chicago, that we would go for during labor day weekend to Cleveland to the Museum of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We had been there in 2002. There is a lot to see, and the location right by Lake Erie is great, together with the fact that it is like a Glass Pyramid.
I have been very busy as well, as people are coming to the realization that with interest rates as low as 3.875 % and prices at their lowest in many years , it would be foolish not to buy a house. There is no doubt that many people are losing their homes, but for those who are able to they know that they cannot let this opportunity slide by.
Of course that something’s gotta give. And it has. I have not been able to get together with the person I was discipling for almost two years until my trip in July. I have spoken to him since I came back but I have not had the time to get together with him. Once this wave passes we will surely go back to our weekly conversations.
I then went to Chicago, together with my wife and son, to drop off my daughter as she had been invited to a conservatory. We then went back two weeks later to pick her up. Both the first and second times were very good, as the weather was great and it gave us the opportunity to go to the two tallest buildings in the City of Chicago, the John Hancock and the Sears Tower. The latter has 4 cubicles that were mounted on the side of the building, and, as they are made of type acrylic, you are actually outside of the building on the 103 floor, and whether you look up, side or down you have no concrete blocking the view. It is both exhilarating and scary, depending on your personality. I had a hard time at the beginning but I got used to it after a few minutes. You just have to avoid looking down as much as possible.
We also decided, as we were coming back from picking up our daughter in Chicago, that we would go for during labor day weekend to Cleveland to the Museum of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We had been there in 2002. There is a lot to see, and the location right by Lake Erie is great, together with the fact that it is like a Glass Pyramid.
I have been very busy as well, as people are coming to the realization that with interest rates as low as 3.875 % and prices at their lowest in many years , it would be foolish not to buy a house. There is no doubt that many people are losing their homes, but for those who are able to they know that they cannot let this opportunity slide by.
Of course that something’s gotta give. And it has. I have not been able to get together with the person I was discipling for almost two years until my trip in July. I have spoken to him since I came back but I have not had the time to get together with him. Once this wave passes we will surely go back to our weekly conversations.
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