I’ve learned an important lesson while following the Democratic presidential nomination race. Apparently, you can say anything you want about a candidate as long as you follow it up the next day with an apology. Why didn’t I think of this strategy earlier in life?! I feel like I’ve missed so many opportunities to gain an advantage on others by spreading vicious lies about them!

Professor: “Dave, it seems you didn’t put a lot of effort into this paper… almost like you did it an hour before class…”
Me: “I heard you stuff apples with poisoned razor blades and hand them out to sick kids at the hospital.”

Then, of course, I would send a follow-up e-mail directly to the professor the next day with a pseudo-apology that somehow still supports my claim.

Or even better…

Cop: “Sir, it seems you were going about 20 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 30 in that school zone you just blew through.”
Me: “Officer, I heard you sold your own children to pay for your wife’s implants.”

Seriously though, isn’t this strategy of the Clinton campaign just becoming a bit old? Let’s see what has been brought up by Hillary and her supporters in the past couple of weeks, only to see an “apology” surface 24 hours later…

-Obama is still doing drugs;
-Obama’s ambition to become president started in kindergarten, which obviously means he’s unqualified (I mean, really? Does that work for all childhood ambitions? “Sorry John Glenn, we heard you once told your grammar school teacher you wanted to be an astronaut. We’re scrubbing your mission.”);
-Obama doesn’t have the experience to lead (apparently 6 years of elected public service is greater than 10? I should probably check my math skills.);
-And of course today, when a former senator who has endorsed Hillary has now apologized for pulling the Muslim card. Nevermind the Clinton staff members that forwarded e-mails claiming Obama is a Muslim who wants to bring jihad to the US. Fantastic, huh?

Oh, by the way, I heard you once robbed a Meals on Wheels truck and set it on fire in front of group of starving orphans.

Don’t worry – expect your apology in and e-mail tomorrow.

For two weeks, I’ve been mulling over what would be a good topic for this blog. How in the world do I follow up the last post about Kathy? It actually made me think of a Kathy story for some reason.

In the fall of my junior year, I had the first part of my Methods of Teaching class with Kathy. We met in a neat room in the basement of the library around two long tables that were pushed together. It just seemed like a fun set-up and our group of about 15 students all seemed to know each other. The class was early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, meeting for at least two hours.

One Tuesday morning on a beautiful fall day, our class discussion was interrupted by someone’s pager going off (I know, who has a pager that’s not working in a hospital, right?). He turned it off, only to get paged again. And again. Finally, Kathy told him he should probably check and see what was happening. He returned seconds later, telling us that something crazy was happening in New York. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and the news was reporting we were under attack.

Then there was just a long, awkward silence. You could tell Kathy’s mind was racing. It was the only time I had seen Kathy with an ounce of uncertainty. She took a few moments to collect her thoughts and tried to keep our class on track, but I think she knew she had lost us. She led us into the media room in the library where the student workers and staff members had the same look on their face that most had that day. By then, the second tower and the Pentagon had been hit and the CNN anchors were showing the same uncertainty we saw in Kathy moments earlier. Part of me is definitely comforted by the fact that one of the most vivid memories I will keep for the rest of my life involves Kathy Feather.

So yeah, that’s my follow-up to a pretty serious post… another… pretty serious post. I really just need to break the ice so I can get back to random, rambling posts.

Ummm…. here. Watch this.
(Jake – it’s especially for you!)