Alabama is all one color~ CAMOFLAGE UNDER RED WHITE AND BLUE

Still on track for the BLOG LIKE CRAZY CHALLENGE

This is my 6th day in a row to Blog!  

Tuesday, Nov. 6 -- Blog the Vote! Simply write a post explaining to your readers why you vote, or if for some reason you chose to sit out this election.

Somewhere along the process of child rearing I have failed. I have failed miserably. I have a son who just turned 19 years old. He was awarded scholarships in music as well as academics to Tulane, University of New Orleans, Berklee School of Music in Boston, Belmont, Middle Tennessee and The University of Alabama, I think he got some offer from all that he applied for. (Note I said “he applied for”, I had nothing to do with any of it, he did it all on his own, and all was based on his performance at an Alabama public school.) 

He had his first beer the week before college, at the advice of someone he took on “her” word and drank one so he wouldn’t be in her self-proclaimed wise words a “two beer queer”.  He plays in a rock band, a non- drinking, against drugs musician. Now that is something I haven’t known in my family line. My dad was a rocker, in all that entails. He still is.  My boy, values the quality of the sounds he creates with his voice and keyboard over the way he feels. I love that in the musician! 

My grades the first semester at Bama were more on the “social grading scale”, he looks like he is going to pull out straight A’s. Anyone who has karaoked as many know I love to do and thought the quality gets better with one more beer knows exactly what I am talking about!  Guess I have to admit there is NO failure there in his ethics as far as being socially responsible and professionally accountable.  

But somehow while I was sharing with him my “wisdom” that life was about more than just pursuing that one thing you THINK you want to do all of your life, that you want to find a place that nurtures your social development, that offers opportunities to expand your horizons, that stretches your boundaries (thus my encouragement through his Honor’s scholarship to spend some of that time abroad) I forgot to tell the boy the importance of REGISTERING TO VOTE.

So here it is, a year after he turned eighteen, and he is a non-registered voter American. Mr. Apple Pie, blonde hair, plays music by ear, drives an American made automobile and this year he will not be making a contribution to the country that provides him with the freedom to choose tomorrow to be a punk rocker, a rocket scientist, or a government recipient, should he elect to live either of those dreams.

We have hosted two year-long foreign exchange students (at different times), each of them patriotic about their own countries of Norway and Germany. Sometimes I wonder what my children would take to share about the USA if they studied abroad. 

I know he has been busy and all making straight A’s at his first semester of college, weathering freshman pledge activities and adjusting to being on his own, but if he doesn’t register in the next ten days (which would only make him ready to vote next go round), I have to say I will be THAT mom (the one my sixteen year old daughter begs me not to be, whatever THAT means) and drag him by the ear all the way to the court house. At least this time of year he can’t say the lines were too long.

I have told him there can be no excuses and no complaints if you don’t take the time to voice your opinion on the issues with your vote. Was the boy not listening?  We discussed this  more than once over our many around the table dinners before he left the nest. 

“It wouldn’t matter anyway, Mom,” he said.

This appears to be the opinion of a generation unwilling to vote. I guess they realize the power of their generation’s affect as shown on U-tube and Twitter, instantaneous should some crisis arise. They are a generation that thinks between the four years and expect that it will “all work out”. 

He is a prayerful boy too. Perhaps he knows something I do not know. 

Jim Rogers, is even saying this election means nothing. He sees things on a more global perspective, our little bow tied hot shot on Wall Street who is now moving from starting the stock exchange in Austria to transforming Russia's economy. 

Maybe I am making a big deal about nothing.  But just in case, I will be headed down to vote today. The amendments that I have to read and try to siphon through to their real meaning already make my head hurt.  (this link is to the conservative voting suggestions by the way.)  

Three days ago I would not have posted recommendations on my blog..would have "remained neutral, until I heard some of the most RACIST ads on the radio I have ever heard, calling Alabama Landowners "plantation owners trying to keep us down")  THAT is what is wrong with this country. I am a land owner and I take offense at that statement. Because I want to have a rural experience for my children I am categorized as something that happened almost a hundred and fifty years ago?

I will say I am more concerned over the voting for issues over banking changes and Forever Wild being given no restrictions that other government agencies are than the school language that has been so taken out of proportion in recent days.

You can also note that the recommendations for the Conservative voters attached to the link above leave some of the amendments up to the voter and is not a CHECKLIST~ but information stating both opinions. THIS is how the country should vote...based on their OWN ideas and knowledge. 

Jim Rogers is a small town boy from Demopolis, Alabama who attended one of those Marengo County public schools and got his start before becoming one of the "top experts on the American economy" collecting cans at the stadium to sell. He doesn't apologize and take handouts because off the state of his education, he did something about it!

We have a BLACK president. THAT school issue should have been handled during OBAMA's term!  HE had every chance to turn it around. They are in worse shape than when he started. He did NOTHING so now again they stir the pot and try to pit black and white against each other. The amendment isn't even worded to be affective as the commercial is stating. 

The people like Obama who say lets show THEM and that "VOTING IS THE BEST REVENGE" are NOT unifying this country! 

I watched a documentary on the Afghanistan WAR last night. There were soldiers, fighting together for this country, cold, scared, sometimes in the other extremes carrying hundreds of pounds through 110 degree heat to stake out Al Quada. Some had been there three and four times.

TOGETHER SIDE BY SIDE, BLACK, WHITE, HISPANIC, all in ONE COLOR~ camoflage fighting TOGETHER UNDER ONE FLAG, RED WHITE AND BLUE.

WE ARE THOSE SOLDIERS. We ALL have to fight TOGETHER for the future of AMERICA as a whole. 

I watched The Candidate last night with Will Ferrell.  Amazing, that a movie so stupid and so meaningless is a pretty true indicator of what our country has become. On a lighter note, in the movie, the good guy still won! 

Guess it is up to each of us to determine which guy that was (in the movie) and will be.