Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Gone so long...

What to write...hmm. There's been so much and so little. Let's see, how about a quick race update:

I did well at Helen though a little mechanical mishap cost me a couple of places. I finished 11th on two broken spokes caused by another rider crashing into me. I had a good shot at the podium until that happened but that's racing. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes not so much.

Following Helen I took a couple of weeks to do some time trial training and then went down and raced at the South Carolina State TT Championships. Somewhat surprisingly I won the Masters 35-39 age group and had the third best time. Big shock for me. Since I'm not an SC resident I don't get a medal or a jersey but the win does mean I get to go to the US Master's National Championship in Salt Lake this August. I'm pretty jazzed about that.

The big news is that of Ronald Reagan's passage. I grew up with Preseident Reagan and he was the first President I ever voted for. I served on the color gaurd for his vist to Medford when I was 17 which was a huge honor. I remember all the back and forth between he and the liberals led by Tip O'Neil. The media really didn't like Reagan much as I guess they thought he'd be a lot like Nixon. They were really wrong about that. He didn't have "hit lists" and while he might disagree with you he was never mean of ill-spirited towards someone. He was a leader with vision and purpose that served him well, though at times it seemed to blind him to doing the right thing. I didn't agree with Reagan on everything and there were times when I really questioned whether he was the right guy to lead our nation but looking back I wish we had him that any of the past couple of President who don't seem to be able to get beyond partisanship.

I think that's the thing that has me down about politics now. Everyone is so divided. Bush is the anti-Christ or he's the new Messiah. Clinton was JFK all over again or he was...well...JFK all over again if you get my point. Both men are just that, men. They do things right and they do things wrong. I'm so glad I don't have a media looking at everything I do with the hope of selling more newspapers. Every curricular decision would be analyzed. Every disaffected student's comment would end up a headline in some papers and every student who felt like they had learned some deep insight would be featured in some different papers. I would be a characiture of myself int he eyes of all those who never saw me but did. I think this whole thing, at least in modern times, started with the conservatives out to get Clinton who certainly did little to offer a better personal side to himself. The liberal media tried to do the same thing to Reagan but for some reason it never stuck. Maybe Sam Donaldson was too nice a guy. Maybe Reagan was too well liked by too many people. Whatever the reason, he did what his successors have since been unable to do and that is to rise above the ugliness of partisanship and muckraking. I can't honestly see either Bush or Kerry ever doing that.

Sigh.

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