You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Too Happy at Oktoberfest’ category.
Thursday, August 11, 2011…… Tommywonk, posted his last post… number 1850.
His six years, five months, nineteen days, … started out with this……
"Conceptualized Art" by Tommywonk.
That length of time, is a remarkable achievement. One that took, I’m sure, a big bite out of his life… as well as, offered us glimpses into the mechanizations that were constantly going on, in his…
(We always had a heads up when the Arden Fair was coming, as well as the Philadelphia Folk Festival…. )
Not to mention the giant collective gasp breathed by all of us, when a van didn’t see him bicycling across the exit ramp where 52 E crosses 141 S….
But last August when he hung his posts up for the last time, I a relative latecomer, had a little over 200 posts to go in order to catch up to him….
Today, with this post, I have reached his milestone.
Since Tommy has passed on/off Delaware’s blog scene, we have lost the scientific approach he provided, in his writing style, his WDEL on-air conversations, and any testamony he gave live, if you were ever lucky enough to hear him…. As a group, those persisting in this local blogging enterprises, tend to be more emotional spun than logically woven. Tommy provided a balance for all of us to be compared, and tended to keep the whole blog-dom neighborhood on an even keel….
Tommywonk was invaluable in providing information about what could have been Delaware’s crowning achievement: an offshore wind farm that would have dropped rural Delaware’s electrical rates below the floor.
When the flow of information became monopolized by both Delmarva Power and the “Four Horsemen” who controlled the General Assembly during the power vacuum of the Minner adminstration, Tommy dug, and provided an outlet that could not be silenced, allowing beneficial factual information to get out… and into the right hands.
Tommy style was one of “chuckling” … His sense of humor was mild but quick, and anyone who pompously had stuck out their neck to speak an energy- untruth, soon had the floor cut out from under him in such a way, the the audience or readers, were STILL chuckling everytime they saw that person in the flesh…. Instead of being forced to listen to screaming micro-brains who had no idea of what they were saying… Tommy’s readers were usually rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically, and those who were the brunt of his epistles, didn’t dare show their faces again in the General Assembly, …. for months…
Looking over Tommy’s works one can see its growth and development. The early posts were fresh items about random events, that were apolitical in nature. Sort of along the spirit of Mike’s Musing now…
Then a political bent began to surface and a community was formed… The Colossus of Rhody, First State Politics, Pencader Days, carried the message from the right. These blogs were at one time, run by real people. You knew their heartaches, their musical tastes, their huge events taken place in their lives. In the early days, there was a lot of junk… which if not important in the grand scale of things today, was a hell of a lot more interesting….
Back then, if we found something that cracked us up, we shared it. We never had a second thought. EMI’s copyright laws were not even considered back then.
In between the Dem’s and Repug’s, we had the Delaware Libertarian, featuring Steve Newton & Tyler Nixon, who used to roll us on the floor laughing. And Tyler Nixon, way back when he ran as a Republican against McDowell in 06, had ALL the support of blogdom, both the right and left… (no one liked McDowell….) Mike’s Down With Absolutes also fit in here within the political spectrum…
And then, we had Delaware Liberal, which in the beginning was run by one man, who still shows himself there (congratulations old man)… But he had moments where he left blogging forever, to return, then leave again, and return… So the Delaware Liberal of today, has gone through some metamorphisms…. Most of the little blogs melded into Delaware Liberal, before siphoning off again. (Donviti comes to mind). The old days featured daily contributions by the likes of Pandora, Cassandra, Liberal Geek, others, and Jason. It was later that Deldem and El Som moved over bringing with them some serious analytical skills; more have joined since. Also we had Dana’s Delaware Watch, and Nancy’s Delaware Way…. and from the south…. Mike’s Musing, from Lewes town…. .
Mike’s Musing gave us lots of pictures from his Flicker account. In a way, Mike was a lot like Tommywonk. Especially when it came to numbers.. We were often treated to pics of odometers at various point in his Prius’s history.
But the life that surged throught the old blog world was awesome. On final General Assembly night, all the bloggers would descend on Legislative Hall, and Dave Burris and Dana Garrett would be seen working in cahoots… It was a beautiful thing to witness, and was probably the single one thing that broke the ground and later eased FOIA’s entrance into the General Assembly. If two bloggers on opposite extremes could collaborate with inside info from each caucus, why was so much fuss being made to keep everything secret? It took the passing of some old guards to finally clear the way for open government to surface in Delaware, but eventually, the old guard parted, and that did come about.
Today, all those blogs still standing all have a tone of a more serious nature. They are less spontaneous and fun, primarily because they are a lot less personable.
But I would guess, that is to be expected over the course of a long haul…. At first the journey is fresh, but after enough time slips past, one’s focus narrows to just getting to that destination…..
Tommy fought that to the end. He never tunneled into the mountain. His posts were always a breath of fresh air, of originality, of true life in printed form…..
Alas, things are not the same without him…. He was the seed of many, many of my writings.
I hope he is doing well in his new life….. Hmmm, he must be getting up there by now… I wonder … if he still rides, bicycles?
This was uttered in response to calls from Republicans that the call for a tax on millionaires was the initiation of class warfare.
Funny.
It’s like Republicans shot their own children, and when the police came with guns drawn, started taunting them as murderers.
Republicans only, only, and only Republicans are guilty of class warfare.
This is not conjecture. There is proof……
Truth is, since Republicans came to power, the rich have done better… Better at the expense of the upper middle class, the middle class, the lower middle class, and those below the middle class.
Four classes of people have had their lives go from better to worst under Republican policies….
But, during the Clinton years… every class of people got better off, as each year under a democratic administration passed by….
The bottom layer was better off at each years end, than when that year first began.
The lower middle class was better off at each years end, than when that year first began.
The middle class was better off at each years end, than when that year first began.
The upper middle class was better off at each years end, than when that year first began.
And the upper crust, the upper class, the top group of people including millionaires, billionaires, and trillionaires, were all better off at each years end, than when that year first began.
There you have it. Proof that Republicans practiced class warfare; Proof that the Democrats don’t..
You can lie, cheat, scream, scold, squeal, rant, gnash your teeth, rent your clothing, prostrate yourself before your lover, and drink lots of beer. It still won’t change the math…
Americans do much better when taxes are higher on millionaires and on capital gains…. The higher the taxes, the better off are all…….
Always have; always will. Now is the time to push tax rates up to where they were in Ronald Reagan’s era. 50%. Republicans seemed to like the math… then….
Ryan, leading Republican, said Republicans would vote against rescinding the Payroll tax credit currently in place that reduces the amount each worker pays into his Social Security Fund. That amounts to between $12 and $22 dollars a week for the average worker. Or a family savings of $1248 to $2288 for the average family of two income earners…
Republicans want to increase families taxes up to $2288… But they lined up and said that millionaires would not pay one penny more in taxes as long as Republicans have voting power in the US Congress.
Democrats on the other hand, want to keep these tax cuts in place. arguing most families right now cannot afford an extra $1248 to $2288 dollars a year…. The say increase the tax on millionaires by the amount to balance the budget these tax breaks are growing the deficit.
Question is: who do you think should pay more in taxes… You? or millionaires…..
Are you beginning to feel buyer’s remorse for that Republican donation you once made way back when?
It is that time again. Everywhere one turns one sees someone’s sign… Candidates are hoping we will remember their name just long enough to push the “x” for them when we step into the voting booth… Most of us, however, see the signs as clutter….” Oh, I hate those things” we’ll hear our friends say if we driving in their company …. By the time November rolls around, there will be several letters in the News Journal, complaining about excessive signage. Again before November rolls around, there will be finger pointing among several candidates playing with each others signs……
It happens every season… But if one knows how to read them, they can be quite fascinating…sort of like going on a date with Paris Hilton, or Brittney Spears. For signs, if you really look at them, can tell us a lot about a candidate…
I know… you are thinking “that is silly”.. But it is not if you think about it, …. . For how many of you choose to wear a certain “look”? We all know that what type of dog a person has, tells us much about them…..
Why? Because the person putting his name out there, chooses the sign…. Each sign represents the candidate, and much fussing is spent over how to make it appear… What colors, what style, what background, etc… Each of those choices symbolizes something for the candidate… Campaigns can be won or lost, because voters love, or hate, a sign…. For small time candidates, they are the first wave of getting ones name out. Only later, when calling on social clubs to speak at, will you get in, once they recognize your name….. that is of course, provided the candidate has a good sign…..
The key elements to look for are clutter, style, color, and symbolism… Between all four, one can grasp much from a simple sign as he is passing…
So let’s begin…. For starters we will take a tour through Chateau country, which is the Senate 4th District, highly favored by Republicans… (apologies to Dr. Katz, his did not survive) As you may notice, the formatting does not fit on the page…I left it that way on purpose. To access the picture, right click on the picture, then click View Picture.. You will be able to zoom it at that point… On some the zoom will be needed to demonstrate some features, and that is why the initial format looks kind of odd… Now you know…
First off, Rich Abbot. We see he has done this before. We have his name, his expected office, and he is advertising that he is a Republican..Probably a good idea in a district that is mostly Republicans. His colors, green and black, are the color of money, which is not a bad choice up in Chateau Country…
Next we see Dee Durham. She is new, and tried the rookie approach of putting everything she could need on her sign. We see this and say, oh first time politician.. Secondly, her sign is hard to read… The message is hard to follow… The colors, lime green and lapis blue, show us she wants to be jarringly different, and wants to stand out as such in a crowd… No party affiliation is on her sign; she’s a Democrat in a Republican district. Her strategy is getting you to know her first, liking her, then finding out too late that she’s a democrat…. She may be a clear thinker, but one would never know it from her sign. Someone should have told her that when judging a design, she should close her eyes, open and shut them as fast as she can, then go only with what she can remember… The is the amount of time a motorist will have to view your sign…
Fleming has a clear theme. White is his principal color. Like a bride wearing white, he see’s himself as pure. He is saying I’m not a “red” Republican.. (They seem to be out of style this year…for some reason..) His sign is crisp and clean, with only his name, aspirant office, and a slogan he want you to remember… “New Republican Leadership…” He is going with the bride’s tabla rasa theme, hoping this district will jump to the idea of a fresh start…
Clatworthy is putting his family out there, literally… We see it here, blown up, and it looks good. The sign has the party emblem, his name, and his aspirant office. The main feature is his family… This is quite appropriate, for if it were not for his family name… he would not be running. But when driving by, the details are lost…Perform the rapid blink test and you will see what I mean… No one says “ah, how cute” when driving by; more like “oh”… Nothing against the family. It IS a beautiful picture… but since all one will see is a blurry group when driving by, (it could be anyone’s family) the picture is a waste of money and detracts from the message… It’s a common mistake made by new candidates… They try too hard to design the perfect sign in a static environment, without realizing most people are traveling 35 mph or faster…and will see none of the details at all… Such a mistake can be construed by motorists as unclear thinking. Again, its his first time in office.
So based on the signage, Rich Abbot, with his color of money signs, will probably pull the district. Up there they put money first, country second….. And Rich knows it, too. After all, he’s Rich.
That in a handy guide form, is why signs are fun…. True, they are a diversion, but like guessing a horse’s handicap by a previous race, you can often base a candidate’s chances, by just how well their sign is likely to go over…..
Ok, now its your turn…. We’ll jump to Newark…. 6th Senate District.
Again we have a first timer….notice the odd Netherlands flag color arrangement, What else is seen? Is it clear, concise? Is there too much information? Why is it necessary to put which district one is running for? When one votes, only those in that district, are on the ballot….Try the blink test, can you read the slogan? Again, being new, planning and staring at the sign, he forgot that only a hundredth of a second, was all anyone would ever see of it…..
This sign stresses classical elegance all the way. The white backdrop, again like a brides gown, symbolizes a fresh start. Notice the font chosen was Roman… The sign is crisp, clean, with only the name, aspirant office, and party affiliation… Only those extremely proud of their party, ever put their party on their signs… This sign shows a classic clear thinker, one who has his act together.
So who is your prediction in the 6th Senate Race on Tuesday? Make a prediction and see how you do…
If you look at signs a lot, you can see trends that stretch from district to district. candidate to candidate… The next batch or grouping can be themed…. as the outsider trying to break in……
The last one is trying to open the door with her pretty face…
The next grouping all have the state colors as their motif… One can interpret that these are local minded individuals. There are those that aspire to go to Washington and change the world… Red, White, and Blue are their colors. There are others, who are content to stay home, and change the world they live in, day by day…making their world, and their neighbors, a little bit better… These are the workhorses…
Then there is this odd color combination that was started by Mike Castle.. I always interpreted it as a symbol of Delaware, in two parts divided by the Canal. With the colors of Grass and Water, these signe have ironically taken on a new meaning this year… More like “Oh, S$%, I’m in F@@$%^% Trouble”!
And this color combination seems to run with the “entitlement crowd.” You will recognize them also as Hillary’s colors…..
And then there are the exceptions which as they say…..prove the rule….
Notice the sky blue background, and puffy cloud white, obviously inspired by a pilot…. Notice the confidence in the rather large name, with the aspirant position being the only other thing to catch the eye.. This is a very effective sign, standing out from the rest, mostly from its difference in color. It passes the blink test very well. This result will surprise people.
For the most unusual sign, within an unusual category, the exception that proves the rule… I have not idea what this is about….
Perhaps he likes the Minnesota Vikings? No, actually, he is a member of the Lions Club.. those are his lion’s club colors…. It is…quite different…
Finally, a picture that I love and cherish…. I’ve laughed out loud for weeks as I drove by… but taking the picture to get the perfect angle, required standing in the road way…. a little too dangerous in this location…. To have serendipity put all these pieces together, it must be an omen of great importance…. Without further ado….
Exit ’08…. Copeland, Lee, and Castle……
It can only be a sign unto us……..
photo courtsey of Mousey Tongue, courtesy of The People’s Cube
For Al Mascitti of WDEL:
In honor of this morning’s coverage of Last Night’s Debate.
Of course these type of stories occur…….It is the decision to use these tidbits that comes into question.
lol
