I'm the luckiest man alive

I haven't been blogging much, because I had some BIG changes in my life, and I didn't want to spoil the surprise by tipping them off accidentally in my blog.

As of 8:15, Saturday April 29th, KBraptor has made me the happiest and luckiest man on the planet. To set the scene, I asked KB earlier in the week if she wanted to go for a walk--which was weird because I hate walking in the AM. Then this Saturday, we woke up (me MUCH earlier because I was having nightmares that my ring was inadequate. Yes, my ring only. aHEM!), and drove to the Week's Foot Bridge, the place of our first "date" many years ago.

I asked her to pose for a picture, which made her even more suspicious because I don't really take pictures. And while I'm fumbling for the ring I hid in the camera case, I'm trying to say some long speech that I had memorized earlier in the week. Of course, I forgot that I was only thinking the speech and not actually saying it.

So, when I presented her the box, I completely jumbled and botched the line, "Will you make me the luckiest man and do me the honor of marrying me, KB," I think I said something like, "Will you me and make me the luckiest man of marrying me and do me the honor." Eventually I just gave up and thrust the box at her.

She was like, "Are you kidding me."

Then I got up on my knees. And then I said, "Wait, is that a yes?"

And she said, "Yes, it was a yes." Smiled, and we hugged and kissed.

I then proceeded to try and get people to take our picture, but I think the site of a big, black man in a hooded sweatshirt, lunging at passerbys, yelling something unintelligible scared people off.

Me: "heywillyoutakeapictureofmeandmynewfiancerightnowbythebridge?"
Them: "Uhhh-hhhh! AHH!!!!"

Yes indeedy. For the past two months, I've been to nearly 20 jewelry stores (some of them more than twice), brought out 5 people, and changed my mind at least 9 times on which ring I wanted to buy.

Now, I'm engaged. Wow....what a day.

Don't ask about the wedding (or if I have to a tracking device inserted underneath my skin). Let me take this one day at a time.

Taking a new writing course. Said I should start writing more often. Using lists of 10s to organize my thoughts (kinda like jackie graham's "8-ball"). Well, 13 and 24 are lucky numbers for me... Uh, don't think I can do 24...Let's see what I can do.

So, here I go...
1) Don't really like touchy-feely or emotional movies because I usually avoid uncomfortable confrontations or change in my life unless I'm really mad.

2) Need to work on that huge fault in my personality because it's not really leading me anywhere. I should also try being less stubborn to change, and just relax and not get angry.

3) I should get over #1 + #2 and go see that movie "Akeelah and the Spelling Bee"; and then see, "United 93" about September 11. Just deal with the fact that I may be uncomfortable to see people deal with adversity. But here's why Akeelah might be a gem. From Wesley's Morris Boston Glove review from 4/28/06. Bold and Italics are my own.

The movie nails the contradiction gifted students feel in an
inhospitable environment. Akeelah skips a lot of her classes because the curriculum is unchallenging. But her friendship with Javier (J.R. Villarreal), a charismatic fellow speller whose family is much better off, exposes her to nicer neighborhoods and his more academically rigorous school. In one touching scene, Akeelah shows up with her best friend, Kiana (Erica Hubbard), at Javier's house for a party. Kiana is so perplexed by the rainbow of happy, frolicking kids that she can't even bring herself to get out of the car.

Alas, the film is full of black children, like Kiana, whose self-esteem is eaten away by defeatism and a cancerous inferiority complex that seems to pervade the entire community. But in a moment that, due to its uplifting preposterousness, amounts to an act of magical realism, Akeelah's entire neighborhood helps her study for the bee -- from her mother and her mailman to the local gangsta!

Later in the movie, that device is repeated, producing one of the happiest feelings I can remember having in a theater. Obviously, it's emotional propaganda. But it's just the kind of propaganda our children need.

4) Can any of those things count for more than 1?

5) Baseball is a fun sport. If the Tampa Bay Devil Rays weren't in the same division as the Red Sox, I'd root for them like crazy. Young, play hard, incredibly fast...sure, a player might throw a bat at an umpire or at the opposing picture, but that's just ONE guy. The whole team has wicked potential.

6) The Celtics need to make the basketball playoffs next year, and have a fighting chance to win. NO EXCUSES!

7) Basketball needs an organized minor league like baseball. Baseball remains in our national conscience, not because it's the most fun sport to play, nor because it's the cheapest or most expensive...it just has it's roots into every community. Even communities where football or even basketball takes root, baseball teams at every professional level try to keep a certain level of comittment to developing young players and youth interest in the sport. Except in Boston, but you could tell the city of Boston that the sky is blue and it'll find creative ways to make it permamently gray. If basketball did that, showed the same committment in the US like it's doing in Europe, without relying on shady AAU "camps" run by shoe-companies, it would see it's ratings increase and the level of play elevate beyond it's current annoying mix of thuggery.

8) I think the point of the lists is to write something minor to keep your creative juices flowing and not having it bogged down by a single point.

9) Duly noted. And next time, I'm using a smaller number like "4" or "3 x 2/3 - 19^1 + 4".

10) Video games are addictive. Pretty soon every pusher-man's going to be hawking the newest EA Sports video game, or a year-long subscription to IGN.

11) Why does money rule the world? Why can't we just try to make each other comfortable and try hard NOT to make each other uncomfortable? Why do we always need to keep score?

12) Is there a better action film than Bad Boys? Is it not called Die Hard?

13) Since this is a prime number, remember Optimus Prime? How about Prime from Mailbu Comics?

My Next Video Project

And I'm not even kidding about this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frTEAHeBtus

And here's what other people have done. There isn't a 5 person one yet. Shut up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u12gN1s6lik&search=haruhi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzssvTk4YC8&search=Haruhi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EtveuCueV8&search=Haruhi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8ybjdPSLGI&search=Haruhi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDdUDdeuUo&search=Haruhi

Just wrong...John Henry was one of my heroes!

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45794/print/

Modern-Day John Henry Dies Trying To Out-Spreadsheet Excel 11.0
February 27, 2006 | Issue 42•09

BALTIMORE—Office laborers across the nation are mourning the passing of Wallace Peters, 42, the mythic three-column accountant at Chesapeake & Ohio Consultants who pitted himself against Microsoft's latest version of the popular spreadsheet program Excel.

Although Peters was able to balance his sheet a full 10 seconds before the program did, the man celebrated in song and story as the "cubicle worker's John Henry" was pronounced dead of a coronary thrombosis late Monday evening.

The late Wallace “Wally” Peters, whom colleagues are calling a 21st-century John Henry
"He died with his pencil in his hand," shift supervisor Thomas Kaptein said. "Wally Peters was an accounting-driven man."

Peters was known for remarkable physical attributes. Sources from Chesapeake & Ohio report that the accountant had a neck so skinny, his necktie had to be slung a dozen times around it. Those who worked closely with Peters say he had the strength of one-tenth of a man, could tabulate two tables of figures at once, and had thumbs and middle fingertips so calloused that he could sharpen a pencil with his bare hands.

Peters challenged the computer after an interoffice memo announced that Excel's powerful upgraded accounting software would render jobs in the accounts receivable division obsolete and result in sweeping layoffs. Although warned repeatedly by his colleagues in billing, Peters insisted that he could beat the software "to the bottom of a large balance sheet of bedrock-hard figures."

Accounting crewmen who worked alongside Peters said his legend as an accounting hero was formed by his willingness to answer to the challenge.

"He'd tell us, 'Now, 20 rows down, the accounting's hard as granite—it's the hardest thing an office man can stand,'" said Huddie Ledbetter, one of Peters' former trainees, "'but you keep your pencil sharp, and you keep your pencil working. It's the life of a numbers-crunchin' man.'"

Sources say Peters, who was born to poor temp workers in eastern Virginia, would often go to offices where his mother worked and sit on her knee. According to his family, he once took up her pencil and said, "Pencil be the death of me. Oh, Mommy, this pencil be the death of me."

Assistant accountingman William Broonzy said he would never forget the sight of Peters battling the mechanical spreadsheet.

"The Excel spreadsheet started off to working, with its hourglass running hard there on the screen," Broonzy said. "But old Wally Peters had his pencil filling columns, throwing graphite off like locomotive steam.

"It threw graphite like a smokestack throwing steam," he added.

"He was adding up three columns like a thresher threshing wheat," said Kaptein, who admitted feeling some remorse about allowing the contest to happen.

As the software whirred away across the desk, Peters' coworkers report that they knew the big numbers would put Wally to the test.

Peters matched the spreadsheet cell for cell, even though complicated quarterly-returns numbers for one of Chesapeake & Ohio's largest clients, Greater Southern Intellectual Properties, slowed both man and machine.

Witnesses said that when Peters wrote his balance down, he lifted his head up with pride, secure in the knowledge that he had saved his colleagues' jobs. As the sheets finally came off the printer, Peters laid his pencil down and died.

"We all saw it happen," Broonzy said. "He just laid his pencil down and died."

"When I hired him, he said, 'Boss, I am a born accountant. I can add a thousand numbers in my head,'" Kaptein said. "A thousand forests were felled for his pencils with their lead, and now poor Wally Peters lies here dead."

Shortly after Peters' death, top executives announced that all of the company's accountants will keep their jobs, but they will be trained to use Excel.

Survived by his wife, Peters will be buried at Mount Marian Cemetery next Sunday, pencil in hand.

Why My GF's awesome...

Me: " Yeah, some people consider it the gateway to the South."
GF: "So, it's like the marijuana of the South."
Me: "That's pretty good. Is that one yours?"
GF: "Yes. I am funny."
Me: "So, it's like how the Golden Arches are like the marijuana to the West."
GF: "Close, except that it's the Arche in St. Louis. Golden Arches are McDonald's."
Me:"Oh. I think I'll brush my teeth."

An East-meets-West sense of humor

I think the guy at the end says, "Good luck with that." Or something like that.

From Men's Health...

Things That Just Don't Matter
Let some other guy worry about all this nonsense

By: Duane Swierczynski, Illustrations by: Steve Brodner

Losing your hair. We're at a point in evolution when our bodies have decided, You know what? The furry stuff on top of our heads? Not really useful. Women know this. They look at Ed Harris and think, That guy has evolved.

What your father-in-law thinks of you. She married you because you're either just like him or his polar opposite. Either way, you're covered.

How cool your job is. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Be you an oyster shucker or a hit man, the important thing is that they pay you for having fun.

Your prowess behind the wet bar. You can make 31 kinds of martinis? So what? You're a man, not Baskin-Robbins. All you need is a tumbler and two fingers of scotch. Some ice, if you're taking it easy tonight.

Death. It'll be either unremarkable or really cool. If it's the latter, smile as fate cuts you down. Some guys sell their souls to be as cool in life as you'll be in death.

Going to work early. In the words of John D. MacDonald, "The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late and owns the worm farm."

Fame. Kato Kaelin is famous. Lynndie England is famous. You don't need to be famous.

Perfect attendance. People who take personal and sick days are happier, more rested, and in better physical condition to beat the living crap out of people with perfect attendance.

Warping your kids. Keep your son off the pipe and your daughter off the pole and you're ahead of the game.

Being witty. A quiet, knowing smile says "mature wisdom"; a crude joke about Lindsay Lohan says, "I haven't been laid in months."

How much money your colleagues make. They probably have smaller penises.

Pleasing everybody. You can't please everybody. But you can pleasure a few.

Getting fired. Dismissal from a job is always a promotion in disguise. You can catch an afternoon game, rethink your career, and bring possibility back into your life--all while the guy who just fired you is still at work.

Keeping up with technology. Because years from now, you'll learn you're just a simulation stored in some computer deep in the future. You think you're alive. You're not. You're a string of data manipulated by pimply programmers in small cubes. So does it really matter if your old iPod stores only 15,000 songs?

Slaving to fashion trends. It's the quickest way to date yourself. Everybody knows that the only thing Don Johnson ever wore was pastels.

Anniversary gifts. Remembering your anniversary, however, is worth its weight in diamond tennis bracelets.

That your wife doesn't look like Denise Richards. Because then everybody would go around saying, "Hey, look at that assclown with Denise Richards."

Religion. Keep your moral compass pointed due north, no matter your denomination, and you'll never have to worry about a collection plate.

The size of your penis. Especially if you're hung like Gene Simmons's tongue.

Her prior sexual experiences. People had your job before you, too. Someone else may have it after you. But it's your job now. Go to work.

Your prior sexual experiences. Unless you've had the clap so many times your college nickname was "Applause."

Pop culture. Brangelina might as well be a new high-fiber laxative. When's Fight Club 2 coming out?

Worrying about the afterlife. Why ruin the surprise?

Wealth. Make too much money and you end up wearing too much heavy gold and spoon-feeding Beluga caviar to a shih tzu. Who needs that?

What you don't have. Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe said it best: "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat, and a gun."

People need to start listening to me...

Look for yourself to see how much hate is coming from the Fundamentalist Right. This wasn't Christ's message people!

Ny Times
April 17, 2006
Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes Lawmakers to Act
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
NASHVILLE, April 11 — As dozens of mourners streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David A. Bass, a fresh-faced 20-year-old marine who was killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of protesters stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating his violent death.

"Thank God for Dead Soldiers," read one of their placards. "Thank God for I.E.D.'s," read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war. To drive home their point — that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality — members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell.

Since last summer, a Westboro contingent, numbering 6 to 20 people, has been showing up at the funerals of soldiers with their telltale placards, chants and tattered American flags. The protests, viewed by many as cruel and unpatriotic, have set off a wave of grass-roots outrage and a flurry of laws seeking to restrict demonstrations at funerals and burials.

"Repugnant, outrageous, despicable, do not adequately describe what I feel they do to these families," said Representative Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican who is a co-sponsor of a Congressional bill to regulate demonstrations at federal cemeteries. "They have a right to freedom of speech. But someone also has a right to bury a loved one in peace."

In the past few months, nine states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Indiana, have approved laws that restrict demonstrations at a funeral or burial. In addition, 23 state legislatures are getting ready to vote on similar bills, and Congress, which has received thousands of e-mail messages on the issue, expects to take up legislation in May dealing with demonstrations at federal cemeteries.

"I haven't seen something like this," said David L. Hudson Jr., research attorney for the First Amendment Center, referring to the number of state legislatures reacting to the protests. "It's just amazing. It's an emotional issue and not something that is going to get a lot of political opposition."

Most of the state bills and laws have been worded carefully to try to avoid concerns over the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. The laws typically seek to keep demonstrators at a funeral or cemetery 100 to 500 feet from the entrance, depending on the state, and to limit the protests to one hour before and one hour after the funeral.

A few states, including Wisconsin, also seek to bar people from displaying "any visual image that conveys fighting words" within several hundred feet or during the hours of the funeral. The laws or bills do not try to prevent protesters from speaking out.

Constitutional experts say there is some precedent for these kinds of laws. One case in particular, which sought to keep anti-abortion picketers away from a private home, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1988.

"A funeral home seems high on the list of places where people legitimately could be or should be protected from unwanted messages," said Michael C. Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Columbia University Law School.

The Westboro Baptist Church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, is not affiliated with the mainstream Baptist church. It first gained publicity when it picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was beaten to death in 1998 in Wyoming.

Over the past decade, the church, which consists almost entirely of 75 of Mr. Phelps's relatives, made its name by demonstrating outside businesses, disaster zones and the funerals of gay people. Late last year, though, it changed tactics and members began showing up at the funerals of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has put it on its watch list.

Embracing a literal translation of the Bible, the church members believe that God strikes down the wicked, chief among them gay men and lesbians and people who fail to strongly condemn homosexuality. God is killing soldiers, they say, because of America's unwillingness to condemn gay people and their lifestyles.

Standing on the roadside outside Corporal Bass's funeral here under a strikingly blue sky, the six protesters, who had flown from Topeka, shook their placards as cars drove past or pulled into the funeral. The 80-year-old wife of Mr. Phelps, slightly stooped but spry and wearing her running shoes, carried a sign that read "Tennessee Taliban." She is often given the task of driving the pickup trucks that ferry church members, a stack of pillows propping her view over the dashboard.

Next to her stood a cluster of Mr. Phelps's great-grandnephews and great-grandnieces, smiling teenagers with sunglasses, digital cameras and cellphones dangling from their pockets and wrists. They carried their own signs, among them, "You're Going to Hell."

Careful not to trespass on private property, the group stood a distance down the hill from the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ. Police cars parked nearby, keeping watch, but mostly making sure no one attacked the protesters.

"God is punishing this nation with a grievous, smiting blow, killing our children, sending them home dead, to help you connect the dots," said Shirley Roper-Phelps, the spokeswoman for the group and one of Mr. Phelps's daughters. "This is a nation that has forgotten God and leads a filthy manner of life."

At the entrance of the church, Jonathan Anstey, 21, one of Corporal Bass's best friends, frowned as he watched the protesters from a distance. Corporal Bass, who joined the Marine Corps after high school, died with six other service members when his 7-ton truck rolled over in a flash flood in Iraq. His family was reeling from grief, Mr. Anstey said.

"It's hurtful and it's taking a lot of willpower not to go down there and stomp their heads in," Mr. Anstey said. "But I know that David is looking down and seeing me, and he would not want to see that."

Disturbed by the protests, a small group of motorcycle riders, some of them Vietnam War veterans, banded together in October to form the Patriot Guard Riders. They now have 22,000 members. Their aim is to form a human shield in front of the protesters so that mourners cannot see them, and when necessary, rev their engines to drown out the shouts of the Westboro group.

The Bass family, desiring a low-key funeral, asked the motorcycle group not to attend.

"It's kind of like, we didn't do it right in the '70s," said Kurt Mayer, the group's spokesman, referring to the treatment of Vietnam veterans. "This is something that America needs to do, step up and do the right thing."

Hundreds of well-wishers have written e-mail messages to members of the motorcycle group, thanking them for their presence at the funerals. State legislatures, too, are reacting swiftly to the protests, and the Westboro group has mostly steered clear of states that have already enacted laws. While Corporal Bass's family was getting ready to bury him, the Tennessee House was preparing to debate a bill making it illegal for protesters to stand within 500 feet of a funeral, burial or memorial service.

The House joined the Senate in approving it unanimously on Thursday, and the bill now awaits the signature of the governor.

"When you have someone who has given the ultimate sacrifice for their country, with a community and the family grieving, I just don't feel it's the appropriate time to be protesting," said State Representative Curtis Johnson, a Republican who was a co-sponsor of the bill.

Ms. Roper-Phelps said the group was now contemplating how best to challenge the newly passed laws. "This hypocritical nation runs around the world touting our freedoms and is now prepared to dismantle the First Amendment," she said. "A piece of me wants to say that is exactly what you deserve."

Green Lantern all the way baby!

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern 85% Hulk 85% Spider-Man 80% Superman 55% Robin 47% Batman 45% Supergirl 40% Wonder Woman 35% The Flash 35% Iron Man 30% Catwoman 10%

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Pretty Awesome...

My girlfriend and I were debating which is better: a lightsaber or a life-time membership to Disney World? Listen, you'd get tired after a year of going anywhere. But you would NOT get tired of a lightsaber.

Here are some interesting videos done by Ryan Wieber, who eventually got Lucas' attention and now actually works for LucasFilm. He even has tutorials on how to do lightsaber effects and other effects like cloning yourself on camera.

Guys, how come we haven't done this yet?

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday hon!

Joanie Loves Chachie

Wait...

Did I just see Mickie James dressed as Trish Stratus, and Trish Stratus dressed as Mickie James?

Set boner to stun!!!

Wausau

Wisconsin baby.

Thuggin' it up fo' real.

Gonna show these people what it means to be hard-CORE!

Gonna reveal some truth to these people like the White House revealed Valerie Plame's identity.

And let me not forget the Southern Strategy.

Please, let me not forget!

Thank you for letting me beat a point to death. I quote, from en.wikipedia.org:

Southern strategy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Southern Strategy)
Jump to: navigation, search
In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the focus of the Republican party on winning U.S. Presidential elections by securing the electoral votes of the U.S. Southern states. The phrase Southern strategy itself, was invented by Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips. For the years of 1948 to 1984, the southern states, traditionally a stronghold for the Democratic Party became key swing states, providing the popular vote margins in the Presidential elections 1960, 1968 and 1976. During this era, several Republican candidates expressed support for states' rights, which critics have argued was intended as a signal of opposition to civil rights. This strategy was largely a success, and the South is now considered a Republican stronghold.

Recently, the term has been used in a more general sense, in which cultural themes are used in an election — primarily but not exclusively in the American South. Yet, the use of the term, and its meaning and implication, are still hotly disputed.

Contents [hide]
1 Pre-History of the Southern Strategy
2 Roots of the Southern Strategy
3 Evolution of the Southern Strategy
4 Failure of the Southern Strategy
5 Modern appraisal in the Republican party
6 See also
7 References



[edit]
Pre-History of the Southern Strategy
After the American Civil War, Southern states gained seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and representation in the Electoral College since blacks were fully counted, instead of being counted as only three-fifths of a person, for election purposes. Resentment stemming from the Civil War and the Republican Party’s policy of Reconstruction kept Southern whites in the Democratic Party, but the Republicans could still compete in the Southern States with a coalition of blacks and highland whites. After the North agreed to withdraw federal troops under the Compromise of 1877, and the further failure of the "Force Bill" (to protect black voting) in 1890, Southern blacks, the base of Republicans power in that region, became increasingly disenfranchised. The white Democratic Party in the South enacted the Jim Crow Laws and undertook other measures to to ensure that most blacks could not vote. The Republican Party lost its ability to effectively compete.

The South became solidly Democratic until the middle of the 20th Century. During this period, Republicans held only a few House seats from the South. Between 1880 and 1904, the Republican Presidential candidates in the South got between 35 percent and 40 percent of that section's vote (except in 1892, when the 16% for the Populists knocked Republicans down to 25%). From 1904 to 1948, Republicans broke 30% of the section only in 1920 (35.2%, carrying Tennessee) and 1928 (47.7%, carrying five states). The only important political role of the South in presidential elections came in 1912, when it provided the delegates to select Taft over Theodore Roosevelt in that year's Republican convention.

During this period, Republicans occasionally supported anti-lynching bills, which were filibustered in the U.S. Senate, and appointed a few black placeholders, but largely ignored the South. It was not until 1928 that the situation changed. In that year, Republican candidate Herbert Hoover rode the issues of prohibition and anti-Catholicism to carry five former Confederate states, with 62 of the 126 electoral votes of the section. After his monumental victory, Hoover attempted to build up the Republican Party of the South, transferring patronage away from blacks and toward the same kind of white Protestant businessmen who made up the core of the Northern Republican Party. However, with the onset of the Great Depression, Hoover soon became extremely unpopular and the Southern Republican Party fell apart. In 1932, Hoover received only 18.1% of the Southern vote for re-election. The subsequent policies of Franklin Roosevelt were very popular in the South, and the Southern Republican movement was set back a generation.

In 1948, a group of Democratic congressmen, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, split from the Democrats in reaction to an anti-segregation speech given by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, founding the States Rights Democratic or Dixiecrat Party, which ran Thurmond as its presidential candidate. The Dixiecrats, failing to deny the Democrats the presidency in 1948, soon dissolved, but the split lingered.

In addition to the splits in the Democratic Party, the population movements of World War II had a significant effect on the makeup of the South. The addition of many Northern transplants significantly bolstered the base of the Republican Party in the South. In the post-war Presidential campaigns, Republicans did best in the fastest-growing states of the South with the most Northern settlers. In the 1952, 1956 and 1960 elections, Virginia, Tennessee and Florida went Republican all three times, while Louisiana went Republican in 1956, and Texas twice voted for Eisenhower and once for Kennedy. In 1956, Eisenhower received 48.9% of the Southern vote, and he became the second Republican in history (after Grant) to get a plurality of Southern votes.

Many states' rights Democrats were attracted to the 1964 presidential campaign of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater was notably more conservative than previous Republican nominees such as Dwight D. Eisenhower. Goldwater's principle opponent in the primary election, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, was widely seen as representing the more moderate (and pro-Civil Rights), Northern wing of the party (See Rockefeller Republican, Goldwater Republican). Rockefeller's defeat in the primary is seen as one turning point towards a more conservative Republican party, and the beginning of a long decline for moderate and especially liberal Republicans. Goldwater’s primary victory is also seen as a shift of the center of Republican power to the West.

In the 1964 presidential race, Barry Goldwater ran a very conservative campaign (sometimes described a libertarian, part of which was an emphasis on "states' rights". As a conservative, Goldwater broadly opposed strong action by the federal government. In his state of Arizona, Barry Goldwater has been a co-founder of the state NAACP and had led the campaign to desegregate the state’s public schools. However, although he had supported all previous federal Civil Rights legislation, after much consideration, Goldwater made the decision to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and second, and that it was an interference with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose. This States' Rights stand has been interpreted as a subtle appeal to racist white Southern Democrats, and undoubtedly attracted many. However, this vote proved devastating to Goldwater’s campaign, contributing to his landslide defeat in 1964. One Johnson ad, “Confessions of a Republican” ran in the North, and associated Goldwater with the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, Johnson’s campaign in the Deep South publicized Goldwater’s full history on civil rights. In the end, Johnson swept the election, including a significant majority in the South. However, besides his home state of Arizona, Goldwater managed to pick off five Deep South states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, almost certainly because of his states’ rights position.

At this time, Senator Goldwater’s position was at odds with most of the prominent members of the Republican Party, dominated at that time by the East Coast Episcopalian Establishment. A higher percentage of the Republican Party supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did the Democratic Party, as they had on all previous Civil Rights legislation. The Southern Democrats often opposed their Northern Party mates--and their Presidents (Kennedy and Johnson) on civil rights issues. The point man in the Senate for delivering the votes to break the filibuster against the measure by 17 Democrats and one Republican was conservative Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois.

[edit]
Roots of the Southern Strategy
In the election of 1968, Richard Nixon saw the cracks in the Solid South as an opportunity to tap into a group of voters that had heretofore been beyond the reach of the Republican Party. The United States was undergoing a very turbulent period in 1968. The founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and most influential member of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. His death was followed by black rioting throughout the country. Martin Luther King’s policy of non-violence was being challenged by more radical blacks and by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. There were protests, often violent, against the Vietnam War. The drug subculture was causing alarm in many sectors. Nixon, with the aid of Harry Dent and then South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had switched to the Republican party in 1964, ran on a campaign of states' rights and "law and order". Many liberals accused Nixon of pandering to racist Southern whites, especially with regards to his "states' rights" stand.

As a result, every state that had been in the Confederacy, except Texas, voted for either Nixon or George Wallace (a Southern Democrat running as an independent), despite a strong tradition of supporting Democrats. Meanwhile, Nixon parlayed a wide perception as a moderate into wins in other states, taking a solid majority in the electoral college. Because of this result, the election of 1968 is sometimes cited as a realigning election, but such a belief also ignores the fact that the Democratic Party swept every Southern state except for Virginia in the Presidential election of 1976, after the last admitted advocates of the Southern Strategy had left positions of influence within the Republican Party. Others argue that the strong Democratic showing in the South in 1976 was the exception that proves the rule, and was directly influenced by the fallout of the Watergate scandal, in which Southerner Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Ford and a disgraced Republican Administration.

[edit]
Evolution of the Southern Strategy
As civil rights grew more accepted throughout the nation, basing a general election strategy on appeals to "states' rights" as a naked play against civil rights laws would have resulted in a national backlash. In addition, the idea of "states' rights" superficially took on the patina of a broader meaning than simply a reference to civil rights laws, eventually encompassing federalism as the means to forestall national intervention in the culture wars.

On August 4, 1980, Ronald Reagan, as a candidate, delivered a speech near Philadelphia, Mississippi at the annual Neshoba County Fair. Reagan excited the crowd wild when he announced, "I believe in states' rights. I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment." He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them." Philadelphia was the scene of the June 21, 1964 murder of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and this speech has used by critics to demonstrate Reagan’s alleged hidden racist message. However, it is difficult to argue that the choice of site in itself was inherently racist. The Neshoba County Fair has been a popular campaign stop for presidential candidates, and has also been visited by John Glenn, Jack Kemp and Michael Dukakis during their respective Presidential campaigns.

Charges of racism have been lodged in subsequent Republican races for the House and Senate in the South. The Willie Horton commercials used by supporters of George H.W. Bush in the election of 1988 were considered by many to be racist. Other examples include the 1990 re-election campaign of Jesse Helms, which attacked his opponent's alleged support of "racial quotas," most notably through an ad in which a white person's hands are seen crumpling a letter indicating that he was denied a job because of the color of his skin. Most professional academics–-historians, political scientists, sociologists, culture critics, etc.––as well as Democratic party supporters argue that support for what conservative acolytes depict as a new "Federalism" in the Republican party platform is, and always has been, nothing but a code word for the politics of resentment, of which racism provides the fuel.

Bob Herbert , a well known liberal op-ed columnist, reported in the October 6, 2005 edition of the New York Times of a 1981 interview with Lee Atwater, President George H.W. Bush's campaign manger, in which he discusses politics in the South

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say 'nigger'-- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me -- because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger." [1]
[edit]
Failure of the Southern Strategy
There are many people who challenge the opinion that the Southern Strategy was responsible for large GOP political gains in the South. There are several facts that appear to support this challenge, such as:

Democrat Jimmy Carter's victory in every Southern state except for Virginia in the 1976 Presidential election, years after the emergence of the Southern Strategy.
The first Southern state to give the GOP control of both its governorship and its legislature was Florida, and it did not do this until 1998 [2], long after the original architects of the Southern Strategy had left the GOP. However, it should be noted that the Southern Strategy was mainly targeted at electing presidential candidates, and that Democrats on state level were much more conservative than the likes of George McGovern, Michael Dukakis or John Kerry. (One of the originators of the Southern Strategy, Kevin Phillips, had even become openly supportive of Democratic political candidates by then.)
Georgia did not see its first post-Reconstruction GOP governor until 2002.
Louisiana had two Democratic US Senators as late as 2004. Arkansas still has two Democratic US Senators. However, all of these Democratic senators are routinely accused of being democrat in name only, opposed to abortion rights, and generally conservative-to-moderate.
Kentucky came close to civil war when it seemed a Republican had become governor in 1902. Subsequently, the election was overturned by the state legislature. The controversy resulted in the assassination of Governor William Goebel, the only governor assasinated in the history of the United States.
It is highly disputed that the Southern Strategy existed as an agreed upon strategy within the GOP after the early 1970s, when Kevin Phillips and Richard Nixon left positions of influence within the GOP.

Of course, some would argue that Carter's one-time victory in the South reflected more of a temporary reaction to the Watergate scandal than an end to this long-term strategy for realigning the South with the GOP. Overall, as of the early 21st century the South has gone overwhelmingly Republican. Opponents of the GOP point to occasional faux pas, such as that made on Dec. 5, 2002 by Mississippi Republican Trent Lott (See section Controversy and resignation) as evidence that the attitudes which spawned the Strategy are alive and well. After heavy criticism, including some criticism by prominent Republicans, Lott apologized repeatedly and was forced out of his Senate Majority Leader position. Defenders of the Republican Party suggest that this indicates that his views are not widely held within the Republican Party. Lott remains the junior Senator from Mississippi as of 2006, and the national Republican Party has not endorsed a primary challenger for his seat, which will be up for election in 2006, and he has wide approval ratings high above 60%, despite these remarks. Critics of the GOP also point out that the politics of white southerners are fiercely Republican and conservative on a national level, and that the contrast in Alabama during the 2004 presidential election served as a reminder, when 82% of white Alabama voters voted for George W. Bush and 91% of black Alabama voters voted for John Kerry.[3]

[edit]
Modern appraisal in the Republican party
Following the 2004 re-election of President George W. Bush, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee and Bush's campaign manager Ken Mehlman began an extensive tour to deliver speeches at meetings with African American business leaders, community and religious leaders, church meetings and some college students meets in states like Maryland and New Jersey. Mehlman apologized[4] for the Southern strategy, declaring that the Republican Party would never be complete or a majority party without receiving the support and confidence of the African American community. Mehlman is said to be building a cohensive effort to open the minds of African American voters to voting Republican, and working to combat stereotypes about the Republican Party that developed in the Civil Rights era and owing to the Southern strategy. Many prominent Republican and conservative commentators have denounced Mehlman for his apology, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity among them.[5]

References

The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South, by Joseph A. Aistrup.
The Rise of Southern Republicans, by Earl Black and Merle Black.
From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994, by Dan T. Carter.
A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, by David L. Chappell.
The Emerging Republican Majority, by Kevin Phillips.
RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes by Mike Allen of the Washington Post
Why The GOP's Southern Strategy Ended

letter to a black conservative...

good luck on shooting the film this weekend.

about your brother: I would love to get him involved in politics. unfortunately, I know mostly Democrats and Independents. My personal politics is probably a bit more progressive than yours, but I do believe there's more room in the Democratic party than in the Republican party for blacks. Why? Because Southern Democrats don't place dirty-race politics like Republicans do. It's also hard to really carve out an existence as a black Republican policy maker. Occasionally, they let a token in, and depending on how outspoken they are, they let them rise to a certain level.

Condolezza Rice is a great example. She worked hard AND consistently backed the right horse. Colin Powell and J.C. Watts are also great example. Watts was a conservative who rose to fame because of his athletic career. Despite being a black face for the GOP, he left Congress after he was passed over for a key Chair position despite his seniority. There were some whispers about financial and personal problems Watts had, but his replacement on the committee had just as much. And, the GOP has never avoided putting a person onto a chair because of personal problems. Remember House Speaker Livingston? He led the charge of censure against Clinton, then quickly left his Speakership when it was proven he had committed adultery for a longer time period (during the time that Clinton was Censured.)

Powell, as it has been stated before, was a moderate conservative who owed much of his military career to a promotion he received during the Bush administration. It wasn't Bush Sr. who specifically promoted him, but that did not stop Bush Sr from capitalizing on his popularity. Anyways, I contend that he was forced out as soon as possible because his moderate viewpoint for Iraq and war conflicted with what Bush wanted to accomplish. Contrast this with the Clinton administration (and Carter's before it), where conservative dissent was welcomed and sought after. I think this is why Clinton was so effective in balancing the budget, fighting genocide in the Balkans -- and when he failed to get some sort of balancing opinion is why he failed in Somalia and on universal health care.

But, let me not forget prominent black democrats like Harold Ford and Barrack Obama. You might not know about Ford, because he tries to keep a low-profile, but he is a conservative and a great African-American legislator. He's young too! I got a chance to meet him, and was really thrilled. I've met tons of politicians (even shaking hands with Clinton and Gore), and never have I walked away quite as amazed as I was after I met him.

But that's besides the point. The problem isn't that there aren't enough conservative black Americans. The problem is that our internal political structure really makes it hard for younger politicians to break through. Obama did everything by himself. And then when his opponents dropped out, and he started to kick ass in debates did the national Democratic party come to his aid. First it was the white folks, THEN black party leaders got involved in a major way. But most of them are still wary of them. Harold Ford had the same problem. Even Jesse Jackson's son, I forget the one, but I think it was the one in Michigan. I remember he would have to say one thing in the press to not piss off his father and his father's contemporaries, but would say or legislate differently when behind closed doors.

However, the Democratic party apparatus invites more dissenting opinions and ideas than the Republicans do. The Republicans are less...risk-averse when it comes to seeking power. If there's a chance to grab executive-level power (gubernatorial, presidential), they will cherry-pick off any constituency they can by over-promising and under-delivering after the election. In congressional, off-term races they tend to play race and religious negative politics to discourage people to vote for the Democrats rather than vote for them. I would just rather support a party that allows for debate and doesn't over-promise, rather than support a party based on smoke screens and marionette strings.

By the way, your comment about black people being tied to Kennedy is a good one, but misinformed. By today's standards, JFK would be a conservative-Republican. He did not believe in the Civil Rights movement, nor did he think it should exist. He just thought that there would be a leveling-off over time or that blacks would accept their 2nd-class roles. MLK did not agree with him, but was not sure want to establish a government based programs either. It was RFK, who after visiting poor-white communities in Appalachia and poor-black communities in the South, saw that some cross-race coalition was needed to "save" America. Of course, that got him shot. And it was LBJ who was big enough to overcome his own bigotries (and believe me he had a LOT of them), to sign the Civil Rights act.

And let's not forget the "Southern Strategy"

Anyways, this is just a long of saying that I would love to help your brother get into politics and be president in 2040. I'm just not going to help him become a Republican because I think there's more room for a conservative black man to grow under Howard Dean's leadership than under Ken Mehlman's leadership --- without selling himself out and making a lot of enemies.

By the way, check this article out: http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=111
It says, in a more jocular tone, why JC Watts was forced out. If he was a Democrat, he still would have been supported. That's my opinion.

Wait!

Scene Int.

An audience member, YOU, is walking down the hall way, about to re-enter your cubicle. A man, RA, is running after You with his shirt un-tucked, and a panicked look on his face.

RA

Hey,

Did I catch you on your Lunch Break? Are you still free? Great. Hey, listen. I need you to do me a favor...

Close up. Ra is peering directly into You's face.

RA
I'm hosting tonight (4/4) at An Tua Nua, 835 Beacon St in Boston. Show starts at 8:30 PM. I need people to come out and laugh. Just come out and laugh it up for me. If you don't enjoy the show, I'll gladly personally refund you the $7. (In post-dated checks.) Alright? Can you do that for me? Thanks!

Ra kisses You on the cheek. Ra then runs away with a satisfied look on his face -- off to find his next audience member. Camera lingers while You looks away in confusion.

Clarification

It was me, not my girlfriend, who wanted to sell my video games. Well, she wanted me to sell them, but it was my own decision. She is a really great gal. And the couch is perfectly comfortable.

Please put the knife away.

I don't care...Video Games

Let's get to the real reason why I haven't felt energized enough to write a blog entry: I went ahead and sold off all my video games. See, I had 39 games that are "mine". Two others I borrowed, and 4 more are games that the lady-bug likes that I don't like so much...I'm shipping the games I borrowed, and I'm keeping the games she likes, which aren't quite as engaging as the games I like to play. You know, it's basically karaoke or dancing games that get tired pretty quick. So, I'm out video games.

I did it because even though I rarely touch all but 2 of those 39 games, just the mere fact that I had all those games were pissing people (re: her) off. Just the thought that I would have so many games, must mean that I'm a big video game player.

I should have just sold the games when I finished them, but I did have a bit of an attachment to them. I just figured that I might play them again, and some of the sports games lose value tremendously so I wasn't going to get much for them since once the new year hits and a new sequel reaches stores, older sports games go out of demand. So, I should have sold them while their value was high, even if I wasn't done playing them.

But like the idiot pack-rat I am ("always in case of an emergency..."), I kept them only to wait until their value was...

...

Roughly $1.75 per game.

Yep that's right folks. A game that cost $50, sometimes $30 or $40 new or slightly used, I sold for $1.75. For 39 games that probably cost me almost $1000 total, I sold for roughly $90 in-store credit or $70 in cash. But to prove a point that I wasn't beholden to the modern Mammon, the video game.

I made two trips. Monday, I sold 37 for about $67 cash and kept 2 that I played. But, I was honestly just fed up of feeling judged because I like to indulge in a video game than reading whatever crap passes as literature, or watching whatever crud passes as television. I figured, "I can't go half way." So, I sold the other 2 games for around $14 (one was still pretty new).

I am still debating whether or not to get a new game this week and leave it at that, but friends I must relate the strangest thing that happened to me as I walked out of the video game store. Remember that commercial where the Native American man sheds a single-tear as he sees the garbage? It's a VERY patronizing commercial, but I bring it up because as I left the store, a single-tear dribbled down my cheek. I wiped it on my finger and brought it to my eye to inspect it. "You got to be kidding me," I whispered to myself as I walked down.

I guess the tear was for a childhood I was reluctant to leave behind. STILL reluctant, because TV really sucks, and there's nothing fun about studying or readying.

Oh well. That's what I get for dating someone who ancestors were puritans and believe that "idle hands are the devils work and that toil leads to freedom. But then again, to say more would be to break the carnal rule of blogging which is to say no ill of work or a spouse (or a work-related spouse)...Especially if they read this blog. So I love you honey. I just wish your name was Princess Peach.

Screw it, I'm going to go and stare at my X-Box. Luckily for me, we have to keep it since it's our only DVD player.

I don't care...Skits

Last tuesday I wrote a skit and it just...well, I think died wouldn't be the appropiate word for it. More like, the audience tried as hard as they could to forget it ever happened...AS IT WAS GOING ON. Never had that reaction before and don't want to have it again.

I don't care...Prince

What you think about my love for Prince. All I can say, is that you can't do this. Woot! Put your hand down Keane, I'm not kidding! I mean, this is just amazing! Woo...