Archive for February 16th, 2008
February 16th, 2008
While waiting Saturday for Hillary Clinton to speak in Kenosha’s Brat Stop night spot, I had a conversation with Betty Phillips of Racine, and we were talking about how times have changed.
For we have come very far as a nation, and it is historic, to have the Democratic race for president now down to two candidates — a black man and a woman. And BarackObama, the black man, carried the white vote in Virginia, the seat of the old Confederacy.
(As I write this I remember how ironic it is that the Democrats were the pro-slavery party before the Civil War, and the Southern Democrats, including Sen. Al Gore, Sr., and Sen. J. William Fulbright, Bill Clinton’s mentor, were segregationists as late as the 1960s.)
Mrs. Phillips’ husband, she said, played in the minor leagues in the old Milwaukee Braves organization, in the South, during the 1950s.
At the beginning of the games, she told me, the sound system did not play the National Anthem.
“They always played Dixie,” she said.
February 16th, 2008
OK, I know this is a Trivial Pursuit kind of item, but The Brat Stop in Kenosha, Wis., where Hillary Clinton spoke Saturday, is a popular nightclub that has featured some big rock acts, including Rockford’s own Cheap Trick.
By the way, in case you’re interested, the band for Feb. 23 is Radioactive Squirrels.
I don’t know if appearing at this venue makes Hillary a rock star or not.
She could front a band called Capitol Hillary and The Policy Wonks, I guess.
February 16th, 2008
Hillary Clinton’s visit to Kenosha nightspot “the Brat Stop”
showed just how close her platform is to Barack Obama’s — or as she’d put it, how close Obama’s platform is to hers.
Both promise to end George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — mainly the 1 percent who make more than $250,000 a year. Both promise to make health care affordable to all, but Hillary’s plan is mandatory, Barack’s is not.
Basically, Hillary said Saturday that Congress has a good health care plan, and every American ought to be able to buy into it.
Restoring Amercian manufacturing is central to both candidates’ plans. Hillary said that the government should provide subsidies to the US auto industry, as European and Japanese governments do to auto companies do. Government provided health care would assist companies by removing a tremendous burden on them, she said.
Kenosha once was home to a sprawling, lakefront American Motors factory that made Nashes, then Ramblers. The site is now been made over into condos, shops, a park and museum.
Both promsie to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.
After her speech and town hall meeting with about 400 supporters, she had a confab with reporters. She said that superdelegates, 796 big shots in the Democratic Party, should make up their own minds about whom to support at the Democratic Convention in Denver. And she said again that Michigan and Florida delegates should be seated. Clinton won both states, although she was the only candidate on the ballot in Michigan. Because those states moved up their primaries in violation of party rules, the DNC said their delegates wouldn’t count. So, no candidates campaigned there.
Obama says that for the states’ delegates to count, they should hold caucuses.
Clinton admitted that “this race is essentially tied” between her and Obama, but she insisted, as she has all along, that she’s the experienced candidate who can do battle effectively with Republicans.
Wisconsin votes Tuesday, and Clinton has, according to The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, scaled back her campainging in that state. The paper, Wisconsin’s largest, endorses Obama in Sunday’s editions.
February 16th, 2008
Many years ago, the Experimental Aircraft Association, a group of aviation enthusiasts who like to build and fly their own airplanes, had their annual event , the EAA Fly-In, at what was then the Greater Rockford Airport. My dad was an amateur radio operator, and his group used to operate a mobile message center at the fly-in, so I spent a lot of time out there as a kid. (There were no mobile phones back then.)
The event got so big that the airport leaders of that day believed they couldn’t handle it anymore. The fly-in moved to Wittman Field in Oshkosh. I’d never had occasion to go there until Friday when I had to cover John McCain’s Republican campaign for president. The EAA, I discovered, has its world headquarters and 200 employees in Oshkosh.
There are over 170,000 EAA members worldwide, about 150,000 in the U.S.
The EAA has a beautiful headquarters at the airport. They also have a spectacular tourist attraction, an aviation museum that has a civilian wing and a military wing that focuses on World War II aviation. There are interactive displays; it’s a lot more than just static displays of aircraft. I particularly enjoyed replicas of the Wright Brothers first airplane, a P-51 Mustang, a Spitfire, a Wright mail plane, and various experimental planes from decades past.
It’s definitely worth a visit, and it’s easy to find. Visit them at www.eaa.org
The EAA AirVenture, as the fly-in is now known, has 10,000 planes nowadays. This year, it’s from July 28 to August 3, featuring war-birds, ultralights, light-sport aircraft, float-planes, aerobatics, homebuilts and vintage airplanes.
