Political Debates

So, having watched the political debates with Sabrina, I've noticed that most of the candidates say much of the same things over and over again:

Question: What would you do about ____?

John McCain: Well, I'm glad you asked that. Back in the day I worked with so and so on this problem and we came up with a great solution. If you really needed an answer, I'm sorry, I won't be giving you one. And now, so and so supports me and I'm so cool because I have all these people that I'll name off to you that support me.

Mike Huckabee: You know, I'm going to avoid the question because that doesn't really matter. This is a three conservative race, not a two person race. What matters is that I have consisitently voted for unborn rights and the marriage amendment and I work to support the Republican conservative values. Vote for me!

Ron Paul: Everyone is spending too much, we need to get away from foreign dependence on goods and services and quit being an empire, interfering with people around the world. P eople need to deal with the consequences of their decisions. Oh, wait, I'm not done yet... (as he gets cut off)

Mitt Romney: You need to remember that we need to be fiscally responsible. We need to get rid of excess spending. When I was governor of Massachusetts, I got health care for everyone in my state. I saved the bankrupt Salt Lake Olympics. Oh, and Senator McCain's facts are wrong.

Alright, so we're now back to Brett's take. I think that they should keep a running tally of points and any candidate who refuses to answer a question directly, especially a yes or no question with a yes or no answer, should lose points. If you answer the question with a reasonable answer (again, a yes or no answer to a yes or not question or something similar) you should get points. The person with the most points at the end of the night wins. I'm tired of people ignoring the question and giving a rote speech that they selected from the 50 or so they've already prepared. Be frank, be honest. Unfortunately enough voters are uniformed and apathetic enough to not even care about the evasiveness or unwillingness to say the truth, even if it might be politically compromising. A mute button for the candidates' microphones would be nice too.

A Momentous Occasion

Last night Adie took her first steps on her own! She took about 3 steps without anyone's help on 4 separate occasions, walking back and forth between me and Brett. We were so excited. After the fourth try I ran to get the camera to film it. However, by that point she was worn out and just kept falling, so our video isn't too impressive. She's just about there though. This is most exciting because it took her a really long time to get the crawling thing down. With walking, she's really about average. Go Ads!

My Greatest Fear

Ok, this really isn't my greatest fear, but it is one of my concerns currently. What if Clinton and McCain get the nominations? Who do you vote for there? There is always the adage about voting for the lesser of two evils, which is often the case when voting for the office of president. You kind of go to the polls and hold your nose while voting for someone you don't really support, but is at least an improvement upon the other choice(s). I don't know if I can decide though, if it were to come down to those two, if I could choose the lesser of the two "evils". I really can't stand the thought of either representing our nation as Commander-in-Chief. I would possibly have to vote for Nader. Is he even running this year? Can you tell I follow politics?

What a Day!

Yesterday really brought up a range of emotions for me, and I guess, being a girl, I need to express them. We started out the day kind of rocky. Adie woke me a up a number of times Saturday night, which always frustrates me, especially on Saturday night, because Sunday is a very busy day for me. I was finally fed up and recruited Brett to help get her back to sleep in the early morning, but his attempts were also futile and we all ended up being up earlier than we wanted to, tired and frustrated. This is not a great way to start what is meant to be a spiritual and rejuvenating day, and it took me the whole of the morning to get into a somewhat decent mood, even though at this point we knew the reason Adie wasn't sleeping very well was she had yet another cold (never stop nursing - they get sick every other week!). Once you discover your child has a decent reason for waking up in the middle of the night you inevitably feel guilty for being so frustrated at them.

We were concerned about bringing Adie to church because she hadn't slept well or taken a decent nap in the morning and we didn't want her getting all the other kids sick, so we stuck it out through sacrament meeting, sitting in the back. I can't say I got a whole lot out of it though. I was, of course, quite tired and I hadn't been able to eat lunch before going to church, so I basically napped through most of the meeting after unsuccessfully trying to put Adie to sleep in the hall. Brett and I knew the day would just get worse if we attempted to keep Adie at church, so I took her home during Sunday School, while Brett took care of his clerkly duties.

When I took her home I thought she would finally be tired enough to go down for a nap. It took me a half an hour to get her down, so I had about 20 minutes to take care of a couple of things before Relief Society and finally eat something (hungry, tired Sabrina = very cranky). When I finally sat down with 10 minutes left to eat my lunch, I hear a cry from the back room - NOOOOO! I just hoped Adie would put herself back to sleep, but that is not her specialty these days, and with her being sick, there was even less of a chance. Needless to say, I became more cranky and was not feeling especially ready to go conduct the Relief Society meeting. I was able to shove down a bit of food while holding Adie on my lap and bouncing her to keep her calm. Brett came to relieve me and I walked back to the church building (for those of you who don't know, we live like 30 yards or so from the building) taking deep breaths to calm myself down. No one wants to see a cranky person up at the pulpit, but it is sometimes hard to get up in front of people and pretend everything is hunky dory, ya know?

However, Relief Society didn't disappoint. It never does. It is always so uplifting and it was exactly what I needed, which is where things started to take a turn for the better. I got home to Brett having made me some cheese toast and he was in the process of making me Jell-o jigglers. Who doesn't get happy about the prospect of jigglers?! He also had taken Adie on a little car ride so she'd take a nap and she was in good spirits when I arrived home. Needless to say, Brett is awesome. He knows how to ground me when I just feel like being mad. That afternoon I also visited with a friend for a while, and that is always very therapeutic.

We also had an awesome Relief Society fireside last night, where the Spirit was so strong. The topic was balancing your life, with all the demands of children, school, work, etc. Our bishop's wife gave the message and was the perfect person to do so. She raised 5 children while being a dance teacher on and off. She is now a dean at BYU and is just an exceptional example. There were also a lot of great comments made by the sisters there that really helped give me some insight and perspective I needed. Have I mentioned how much I love Relief Society? Women have so much strength when they unite.

At the end of the fireside, we received word about President Hinckley's passing. I am sure I am not the first or last to blog about this, but it was such bittersweet news to hear. My emotions were already really close to the surface from the fireside, so when I heard that, I couldn't help but cry. I probably would have anyway, but maybe not quite as much, because honestly, I am so happy for him. I will miss him, which is what makes his death sad. However, he was an amazing man, who accomplished so much and was such a rock and example to the people in the LDS church, and even many people who are not LDS, which is part of what makes it happy. He lived a full life and now gets to be with his wife and his loved ones once again, and he gets to rest. I can't imagine how tiring being the prophet must be. I have no doubt he had quite the reception on the other side.

So, I guess the point of this very verbose post was just to say that yesterday was a rollercoaster, but it makes me appreciate life even more. How amazing it is that we get to experience all the ups and downs, tos and fros, and even occasional loops. It's not often easy, but it is so incredible to have so much to learn from, and at the same time, to have so many people to learn from. People are most often what allow you to learn and experience so much. I am so glad no man is an island. We really do need each other, and I am so grateful for all the people in my life.

Adie's 1 year

Well, being one year old only happens once. (So does being 27, but don't tell Sabrina that.) Anyway, so after running around this evening tracking down supplies, we took Adie's one year old pictures. (This apparently is a bigger deal than any pictures taken when she was 10 months and 17 days old.) We thought we'd share some of our favorites. Feel free to click on them to see bigger versions.

Ron Paul for President!

I've been meaning to post something on here for a few weeks about the presidential elections. I actually love following politics these days so I have read a lot of things and have formed some strong opinions. I guess I'd better follow suit of some of my fellow bloggers and get my opinion on this issue out into the blogosphere.

I don't hide the fact I support Ron Paul. Probably many of your first reactions to this statement though are "who is he?" or "are you crazy?" In fact, when I first started following Paul about 6 months ago I thought he was a little crazy myself, but I loved how consistent and honest he was. He's never cared what the current direction of the Republican party is, or how he can get more votes, he just votes in favor of a strict interpretation of the constitution. I liked this characteristic despite the fact he has some pretty radical ideas given our current political climate. 

However, the more I research him and other candidates, and the more I think about the issues facing our nation, the more and more I like him. I really, really want him to win the nomination, and the presidency for that matter. I don't trust anyone else running. All the other Republican candidates seem to be pretty much a continuation of the current administration. Sure, they may change a few things here or there, but there is no honest to goodness indication they will change how Iraq is being handled or how to spur the economy (although Mitt may have a little sway in that regard, but I don't know how he'll accomplish that if he continues to support the war). 

I want to like Obama on the Democrat side, but I really can't support any of the Demo candidates. It scares me to death to give the government any more control, and with the economic plans, universal health care ideas and gun control (to name a few) that all the Demo candidates are proposing, we would be giving the government far too much control. In fact, the government already has too much control! That is why I like Ron Paul so much. He would really work to get the government out of our lives as much as he possibly could. It will always be harder to get back any control we give to our government, so let's not exacerbate the problem.

At this point, I'd like to make a disclaimer. I'm neither Republican, nor Democrat. I actually despise the fact that there are many who identify with either party based solely on two issues: gay rights and abortion. While they are important issues, they are not the only issues we should consider, but I digress. I wish there were more parties to choose from. I can't identify myself with either very well. I am most closely aligned with the Libertarians, but even they can be a bit extreme for my beliefs. So, I guess I am forced to choose a fringe candidate who hangs with neither the mainstream GOP or the Demo's. Actually though, I don't feel forced to follow him. What he says really resonates with me. He wants to change the economy - that's kind of his obsession, but he's very brilliant in economics. If he could implement the changes he's proposing our country would be in a lot better shape. 

One things about his platform that I don't entirely agree with is his foreign policy. He is basically an isolationist. He wants to remove all our troops off of foreign soil. I think he's right to some extent. We have too much presence, but we need to consider carefully who we move and why. He's probably right in that we shouldn't have put our noses into other countries' affairs and we should just try to be friends and leave them to do their thing. However, we didn't and we can't just burn the bridges we built, so I think we'd need to have some more strategy in regards to how we deal with foreign relations.

An extension of his foreign policy is his opposition to the war in Iraq and his desire to bring the troops home immediately. Of course, this is a far cry from any of the other Republican candidates and he has some good points for believing the way he does, but I don't believe we should have an immediate pull-out in Iraq. I am not going to pretend I know much about military strategy or foreign relations, but it doesn't seem like an immediate pull-out would do any of us a favor. I was on my mission when we first went to Iraq, so I didn't really get the war sold to me, and really didn't pay much attention to it until I got home. The first few years I was home I even supported the war, thinking it was wise for us to spread democracy. However, as I have researched and thought about it further, from my very limited understanding and perspective, it was pre-emptive and we should have never gone in (however, I do recognize a lot of good things have come into Iraq as a result of the war, like schools and infrastructure, etc.). That being said, we are there, and we can't just leave it in a quagmire. I don't know what we should do necessarily. I don't like McCain's plan of being there indefinitely, but I don't think we should leave right away. My personal opinion is we should let the Iraqis vote on whether or not they want us there and then do what they ask us to do. It's their country after all and we all over here speculating about what they want. Why don't we let them tell us, but again, I digress. Anyway, that's my main concern with Ron Paul, but the good part about us bringing home our troops would be more money because it wouldn't all be thrown at the military in foreign countries. 

So, there you go...I support Ron Paul. He's a long shot candidate, but oh the things he could do! I hope if you don't know much about him, you will at least do a little digging to find out more. However, I am not here to convince, just state my opinion. In fact, I'd love to hear who you are supporting and why. It's good to get others' opinions, especially about important issues, such as presidential elections, so please comment away. Educate me because, in November, Brett and I just may be living in state where our vote actually counts. 

U23D