20

Giant Party at the Brandenburg Gate

20 year ago tomorrow, the Berlin Wall was breached.  The first East Berliner to make it across – legally – was a woman named Angelika Wachs (news to me…old hat to everyone over here).

Algelika Wachs

My favorite band of all time – U2 – performed a live show in Berlin this past Thursday to start the festivities, which will continue through this week.  We live 3 hours from Berlin, and may as well still be in Olympia, unfortunately.  The celebration isn’t history…but it will get close and I’d love to be there.

The U2 show was free.  All you had to do was get a ticket via the internet.  And you had to do it within a 3 hour time-span because that’s how long the 10,000 available tickets were available.  Being a free concert, you might find the need for tickets a bit ironic.

Even more ironic:  if you didn’t have a ticket, you couldn’t see the show.  Why?  Because MTV (the show’s producers) had erected – you guessed it – a WALL to obscure the performance.

Saturday Night Quotes I Like

A compendium of quotes I’ve noticed over the past week that were provocative, thoughtful, interesting, funny or patently absurd.  Sent out (‘Lord tarry and the creek don’t rise’) every Saturday:

“What Mrs. Clinton has that Mr. Obama does not have, Mr. Obama can get. What Mr. Obama has that Mrs. Clinton does not have, she can never get.” – Alec Baldwin

“I have much to thank God for this week. For one, I have so much support for all of my life’s struggles. Secondly, I’m not a patient in the hospital. For another, I’m not on trial for murder.” – Fat Doctor

“And let’s face it kids, despite the shows on the television, medicine is not sexy. Unless you are a pediatrician, the majority of your patients are going to be elderly and pushing their expiration date.” – Panda Bear, M.D.

“Welcome to America, where your government will pay for both your tracheostomy and your cigarettes.” – Happy Hospitalist

“Life can go by quickly, and if you’re not careful, it will be gone before you have a chance to enjoy diversifying your assets into stocks, stock mutual funds, corporate and municipal bonds, bond mutual funds, international funds, cash equities, exchange-traded funds, life-cycle funds, and U.S. Treasury securities.” Joseph Reed, The Onion

“Our message is clear. It is to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and to motivate the Arab, Islamic and International Community.” – Jamal al-Khudari, leader of the Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS)

Clinton Video

It has been said that people dislike HRC because she is a woman, etc.  I’ve always found this insulting, having been raised by a single mom who was smart, strong and capable of running a business quite well. I’m a fan of Margaret Thatcher. I would be happy to see a woman in the Oval Office.

Just not Hilary. 

I dislike her because I think she is deceptive. I also think she is short on true, creative ideas.  The “change” moniker, for example, showed up in New Hampshire after she was flattened by Obama who had been focusing on this theme from the beginning.  Furthermore, the “experience” thing is completely disingenuous.  White House furniture-picker is not experience.  Watching her husband weather Republican attacks is not “beating them”.  Nearly destroying American health care – her only real executive excperience – is rightfully quite distanced from her stump speech resume.

Ultimately, I believe Hilary Clinton is primarily motivated by power, and has been since before she married Bill.  I don’t want a control freak running the country, I want a public servant. Here’s a pretty good video that also makes my point:

Obama Bumper Sticker

I’ve hated watching politics as usual from the Clinton camp. In particular, her claim that she has experience because she nearly destroyed health care in America and chose the decor in the White House for 8 years. And anyway, some of the best presidents in history had little more experience than proverbially laying down their plow, serving their country for 4 or 8 years, and then going back to their simple life on the farm.

So, my response was to come up with a bumper sticker. You can buy one, here. They’re $3.50 (bulk pricing available). Here’s what it says: