| Beautiful Music, Much Needed - and Gained! |
[Apr. 18th, 2008|04:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
I am Totally Pleased As Can Be right now! Tomorrow, I get to go to the Symphony :) I soooooooooo needed this. It has been a heck - scratch that, a Hell of a month and a half, and I just Needed this. A friend couldn't go, and so I bought their tickets to the season finale - no markup, just ticket price. Excellent seats for myself and my partner!!!!!! Program: Ravel's Bolero, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (one of my absolute favorites) and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D, with very good guest violinist. YES!!!!!!!!!! Happiness. |
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| Elections and Wine |
[Feb. 21st, 2008|08:09 pm] |
My apologies to anyone who read this before I reformatted - I was editing, and it didn't work right.
I just watched the latest Clinton/Obama debate, and I loved Hilary. Now, I am someone who typically does NOT watch political stuff, as it upsets me, and life is already nauseatingly difficult, at least from where I live. My partner, on the other hand, at one time had political aspirations, and actually is fairly political (at least if the parties we get invited to are any indication).
I am glad I watched it - I like either of the two, but my concerns are thus:
Hillary has experience, and she is Very smart. She has a proven track record, plenty of powerful connections, and has shown her ability to deal with adversity both on personal and political levels, and continue to be effective. I believe she is the stronger candidate, the most likely to bring our country what it needs, both for our own people, and for our interactions with the rest of the world.
Obama has many good ideas, but his ideas are very similar to Clinton's.
If Obama wins, I am worried that he simply does not have the experience to deal with life in DC - the politics and the inherent nastiness. He does not have a long proven record, nor has he completed tenures at his elected positions, moving quickly from one to another, without building the network needed to make the deals to make the changes he wants.
Unfortunately, he is a black man, and she is a woman.
(and she is married to Bill, the source of some of her most difficult personal trials, though he was brilliant at economics - he did, after all, leave us with no national debt, and strengthened the middle class - all our debt can be attributed to the Bush mentality of 1) spend oodles of $$$ on war, and 2) tax the middle class and give the rich both exemptions and 'gift' money).
The American people, while claiming to value diversity, may not yet be ready to put either one into office - which leaves only the white man, who happens to be a Republican.... sigh. I hope I am utterly, completely wrong, but I am concerned.
On a cheerier note: Wine. I have recently discovered one of the few wines that have truly impressed me, and better yet, at a very reasonable cost: Domaine de l'Arnesque, Cotes du Rhone, 2004 (France). If you see it, get it. It is wonderful - so smooth, so fragrant, so tasty! It goes as brilliantly with steak & crab as with bar-b-q ribs, or even with a light snack of cheese and fruit. I have paid 3x as much for wines that didn't even come close in quality! |
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