Book Steps and Scary Rick Perry
Hello everyone
Well, I had been doing a good job at blogging every two days or so, but now it looks like it's been five days since my last post. Still, it's better than over two year long hiatus I took up until recently, so there.
Rob Happenings
There's not much to report on the Rob Happenings front. I guess the biggest news is that I edited the first50 51 pages of my book and sent it out to a few friends to look over, and maybe tell me what they think. This may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is. Only Cathy has seen what I've written up until now, so to have someone else, even friends, look over what I've been working on for over a year now is leaving me quite anxious. I haven't yet heard anything back from any of them, which means they either think it's pretty awful and aren't saying anything, or they just haven't gotten around to looking at it yet. I'm obviously hoping for the latter, and since it's only been a few days since I sent it out, that's probably the case. Plus, Cathy said she thinks it's great, but then again she's my wife, and she's supposed to be supportive and all that. So yeah, nerves.
I guess I should get used to it, though. If all goes to plan, lots of people will end up reading what I wrote, and some will no doubt hate it, and that's how it goes. As long as they pay full price for the book, I guess I won't care what they think. That's not true, of course. Any negative criticism will no doubt drive me up the wall, because that's how I am. Oh well.
I'm considering posting the first few pages of the book here, on Rob Dow's World, but it's not yet ready for public consumption at this point. A few friends, including ones with English degrees, reading it? Sure. The general public? Not quite yet. But it will probably happen soon, so stay tuned.
Politics
Unsurprisingly, Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to run for president. A while back, I had an online conversation/debate with someone over Sarah Palin, and the guy claimed that I was "scared" of Sarah Palin. I had a hard time comprehending how that was supposed to be a compliment to Sarah Palin, but then I realized the other guy had a sports team mentality about politics. His team was the Republicans, and he wrongly assumed I had the same mentality, and that my team was the Democrats. To him, it was like a sports team drafting a good player, and the rival team being afraid of losing. I've never understood that kind of thinking. I don't give a shit which party wins--I just care about the policies they enact, and how they affect me. If anything, my team is me and my family and friends and neighbors. But I suppose in a way he was right, because the idea of a President Sarah Palin does scare the hell out of me.
I feel the same way about Rick Perry. The more I learn about this guy, the more afraid I am of the idea of him being president. I'm not sure what's worse--that 30,000 people attended his public prayer session, or that they were oblivious about being used by Perry to position himself in the media spotlight ahead of his presidential campaign announcement. Meanwhile, 100,000 people showed up in a different part of town for free school supplies for their kids (the organizers expected 25,000), because the schools weren't able to provide them thanks in part to Mr. so-called Christian's policies of cutting funding to schools and programs designed to help poor people.
I'm also disturbed about how Perry embraces the anti-science movement. Although I'm not a fan of the way this mom coached her son into asking questions, the real story here is how Perry responded, calling evolution "a theory that’s out there," despite the fact that evolution is not really a controversial subject within the scientific community, and we've even seen evolution take place in our lifetime. And yes, evolution is "just a theory," but so is gravity. In science, "theory" means "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena," as opposed to everyday usage of the word, meaning "a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation." It bothers me that I have to even explain this distinction. It should be something most people know, but that assumes we have a decent educational system, which of course we don't. See my earlier comment about cutting education funding.
Speaking of education, Perry also has pushed abstinence-only sex education on Texas school kids, despite plenty of evidence it doesn't prevent teens from having sex and doesn't cut down on teen pregnancies. When confronted with this evidence and the fact that Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country, Perry refused to admit reality and insisted that it worked, to the point that people in the audience were actually laughing at him.
Perry is portrayed as some sort of fiscal genius for "creating jobs" in Texas during a recession, but if you look at the fine print, you realize that jobs he supposedly created were almost all part-time minimum wage jobs (which Texas leads the nation in) with no health benefits, and that the while the job rate is growing, the population rate is growing even faster.
And do you like never-ending war? Expect plenty of it with Rick Perry, not that the current president is much better in that regard.
Oh, and apparently he's got a complete messiah complex going on.
I could go on and on, and I just might in another post. But for now, you get the idea.
And Now, a Musical Interlude
I'm usually not into music this poppy, but I can't get this Kings of Leon song out of my head, and so now you will have it stuck in yours.
Although, am I the only one who thinks the video is a kinda country-ized ripoff of this one? Probably.
In Closing
According to blogger, I've had over 1,000 page views this past month. Of course, many of those are probably the same people, including myself, visiting this blog more than once. Although I do appreciate the comments that people have left so far, I'd love to see more. In fact, since I started blogging again, I've gotten more spam comments than real comments, and that's even including my own responses to other comments. So don't be afraid. Leave a comment. It's just not fair if I have to do all the work, no?
Rob
Well, I had been doing a good job at blogging every two days or so, but now it looks like it's been five days since my last post. Still, it's better than over two year long hiatus I took up until recently, so there.
Rob Happenings
There's not much to report on the Rob Happenings front. I guess the biggest news is that I edited the first
I guess I should get used to it, though. If all goes to plan, lots of people will end up reading what I wrote, and some will no doubt hate it, and that's how it goes. As long as they pay full price for the book, I guess I won't care what they think. That's not true, of course. Any negative criticism will no doubt drive me up the wall, because that's how I am. Oh well.
I'm considering posting the first few pages of the book here, on Rob Dow's World, but it's not yet ready for public consumption at this point. A few friends, including ones with English degrees, reading it? Sure. The general public? Not quite yet. But it will probably happen soon, so stay tuned.
Politics
Unsurprisingly, Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to run for president. A while back, I had an online conversation/debate with someone over Sarah Palin, and the guy claimed that I was "scared" of Sarah Palin. I had a hard time comprehending how that was supposed to be a compliment to Sarah Palin, but then I realized the other guy had a sports team mentality about politics. His team was the Republicans, and he wrongly assumed I had the same mentality, and that my team was the Democrats. To him, it was like a sports team drafting a good player, and the rival team being afraid of losing. I've never understood that kind of thinking. I don't give a shit which party wins--I just care about the policies they enact, and how they affect me. If anything, my team is me and my family and friends and neighbors. But I suppose in a way he was right, because the idea of a President Sarah Palin does scare the hell out of me.
I feel the same way about Rick Perry. The more I learn about this guy, the more afraid I am of the idea of him being president. I'm not sure what's worse--that 30,000 people attended his public prayer session, or that they were oblivious about being used by Perry to position himself in the media spotlight ahead of his presidential campaign announcement. Meanwhile, 100,000 people showed up in a different part of town for free school supplies for their kids (the organizers expected 25,000), because the schools weren't able to provide them thanks in part to Mr. so-called Christian's policies of cutting funding to schools and programs designed to help poor people.
I'm also disturbed about how Perry embraces the anti-science movement. Although I'm not a fan of the way this mom coached her son into asking questions, the real story here is how Perry responded, calling evolution "a theory that’s out there," despite the fact that evolution is not really a controversial subject within the scientific community, and we've even seen evolution take place in our lifetime. And yes, evolution is "just a theory," but so is gravity. In science, "theory" means "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena," as opposed to everyday usage of the word, meaning "a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation." It bothers me that I have to even explain this distinction. It should be something most people know, but that assumes we have a decent educational system, which of course we don't. See my earlier comment about cutting education funding.
Speaking of education, Perry also has pushed abstinence-only sex education on Texas school kids, despite plenty of evidence it doesn't prevent teens from having sex and doesn't cut down on teen pregnancies. When confronted with this evidence and the fact that Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country, Perry refused to admit reality and insisted that it worked, to the point that people in the audience were actually laughing at him.
Perry is portrayed as some sort of fiscal genius for "creating jobs" in Texas during a recession, but if you look at the fine print, you realize that jobs he supposedly created were almost all part-time minimum wage jobs (which Texas leads the nation in) with no health benefits, and that the while the job rate is growing, the population rate is growing even faster.
And do you like never-ending war? Expect plenty of it with Rick Perry, not that the current president is much better in that regard.
Oh, and apparently he's got a complete messiah complex going on.
I could go on and on, and I just might in another post. But for now, you get the idea.
And Now, a Musical Interlude
I'm usually not into music this poppy, but I can't get this Kings of Leon song out of my head, and so now you will have it stuck in yours.
Although, am I the only one who thinks the video is a kinda country-ized ripoff of this one? Probably.
In Closing
According to blogger, I've had over 1,000 page views this past month. Of course, many of those are probably the same people, including myself, visiting this blog more than once. Although I do appreciate the comments that people have left so far, I'd love to see more. In fact, since I started blogging again, I've gotten more spam comments than real comments, and that's even including my own responses to other comments. So don't be afraid. Leave a comment. It's just not fair if I have to do all the work, no?
Rob
Labels: Kings of Leon, politics, Rick Perry, Texas, writing
posted by Rob at 2:31 PM
4 Comments:
Great post Rob - all of it, though I do think we need regular Tucker pictures. Also - will get back to you on the book soon! Lack of response is only due to my poor time management.
Thanks Jess. Maybe I'll add a Tucker photo per post, as a sort of regular feature.
Re: Rick Perry. Never trust a man with televangelist hair. The only plus side I can see to him being elected president is Texas will no longer be stuck with him as governor.
From using the Texas Emergent Technology Fund to award millions to his campaign contributors, to his questionable purchase and sale of Lake LBJ property that made him millions, not to mention his gutting of the Texas Education Fund and requirement that all Texas teen girls be given the HPV vaccine, which I believe was also produced by another contributor.... I could go on and on. And don't even get me started on the abstinence thing.
Chelle
Excellent points, Chelle.
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