Desultory Thoughts

Let’s be honest, this presidential election is nothing but an image war.  The new, sleek and beautiful vs. the old, gruff and ugly.  Of all the people out there who tell polsters they’re votiing for Obama, how many actually know anything about his past?  Sure, there’ve been the laughable, easily snopes-debunked anti-Obama emails started by Hillary staffers and forwarded like a virus by baby boomers.

But there’s also the whitewashed, “nothing to see here” image portrayed by the Obama campaign and his foot soldiers, the mainstream media.

One thing that’s bugged me ever since I read about it during the ‘04 Democratic Convention is Obama’s “friendly” (that word comes from the Obama campaign, not me) relationship with unapologetic homegrown terrorist William Ayers.

The following is an ad produced by the American Issues Project, which Obama’s lawyers are hastily attempting to silence.  Check it out.  Do some googling.  Be careful, though.  Stories at left-wing blogs, the Washington Post, and New York Times conveniently leave out the little part about Obama’s pilgrimage to Ayers’ house.  Make sure you include that in your google search.

What I don’t like about this ad:  It’s a classic negative political ad, complete with spooky music and the familiar political ad voice.  Still, the ad’s claims are valid and the ad itself is effective.

What I like about this ad:  References to each claim made are listed below the claims, so you can check them out yourself.  Nice.

Do you know enough?

My wife and I enjoy watching “So You Think You Can Dance” and were excited to see that they were coming to Salt Lake City to search for talent this year.  The Salt Lake City episode aired tonight and it wasn’t long before I saw a familiar sight.  Anyone involved in the Special Olympics Utah program would recognize it in a heartbeat, it was none other then Brett Banford rippin’ it up out in the snow on the street in his ski jacket as he often does.  In fact, if you ever decide to volunteer for a Special Olympics event be sure to stick around for the dance that takes place after the first day of events.  You’ll have so much fun!

Brett is a very outspoken and charismatic athlete and he loves everyone he meets.  He told Kat he loved her on the show, but he told me that before, too.  He represented Special Olympics and people with disabilities so well tonight; we can all be proud.  I’ll upload his highlights and post it soon so you can all enjoy his performance and words of inspiration if you missed tonight’s episode.  His personality is addictive!

Way to go, Brett!

UPDATE: You can also see him in an interview on Fox 13 News.

I think my family is pretty cool - of course I’m biased. Heather gave a wonderful talk in church today on Easter Sunday. She’s a spiritual woman and I’m very proud of her. My kids sang with the primary and they both did so well, especially my mischievous Griff. Last week when they were practicing for the performance he was just clowning it up and making everyone laugh. Luckily today he just sang nice and loud like you would expect a cute 4-year-old to do. His favorite song is “I Am a Child of God” and he sang especially well during that song.

I also have a cousin (Kerstin Tenney) that recently made it into the Orchestra at Temple Square. She plays the violin. They recently performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the rededication of the Utah State Capitol building and Kerstin is featured at the 4:10 mark and the 7:00 mark. It was written by Kurt Bestor, a composer I’ve loved ever since the “Innovators” release.

As promised, here is some old video of another trip we took to Gooseberry Mesa, this time mostly shot and edited by me. It was really hard not to edit further as I was prepping it for upload to YouTube, since after so long I started to be overly critical of my work. And, since YouTube only allows submissions of 10 minutes or less, I had to break this into four parts. Don’t feel obligated to watch it all; the good stuff is in parts three and four. The first two videos will be good if you are curious about what we do when we’re not biking on our mountain bike trips.

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure - Part I

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure - Part II

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure - Part III

The Gooseberry Mesa Adventure - Part IV

Another wonderful spring day makes me want it to be spring for real, all the more! Good news is that Matt called me today and told me we’re going biking this Saturday. Bad news is, the weather forecast for this weekend is predicting rain! Dang it! At least it’s not snow.

A few years ago my friends (John, Matt and Chan) went biking at Gooseberry Mesa in Southern Utah. John and I filmed the whole thing and John made this video that makes me wish it were spring already! I love this video! I’ll upload another Gooseberry trip video that I edited and share it, too.