Just a daily wrap.
I’ve been using some of my time lately to stretch my mind instead of campaign. Last night Claudia and I watched “The lives of Others.” It was a superlative German film about the Stasi in the former East Germany. It was however subtitled and very long. It was the serious side of Cold War end and polar opposite of the the very humorous Good bye Lenin also a German film.
Last week I watched To Kill a Mockingbird again. I hadn’t watched it in fifteen or twenty years. Brought me to tears again. I also watched a long documentary on the making of the movie that accompanied the CD. I read little fiction but this is one novel I have written. Its a rare case of a movie being as good as the book. Over the weekend we took the Tan Man to Toy Story III. That’s a lot of movies for me. All thought provoking. All excellent. Got teary over each of them.
Tonight I transferred four raspberry canes from my daughter’s home to ours. Her’s were actually escapees from her plot that had sprouted in an inaccessible portion of her neighbor’s yard. I’d gotten permission to pull them out. The first raspberries have turned red already.
I’d like to share some raspberries with you.
I’ve been struggling with a new website. I may go to a plan B not that my population of voters will pay any online site much mind. I’ve been thinking about printing a quicky book consisting of some of my favorite blog posts for seniors who don’t have any idea what a blog is all about.
Folks are already beginning to respond to my mailing. I got my first four donations today. Not bad for the day after the solicitations hit the mail boxes. If I don’t get enough to qualify for state funding I might simply return them. If you didn’t get a solicitation and would like to contribute send a check to “WeltyforSenate” at 2101 E forth Street, Duluth, MN 55812.
I got pressed for the second time to attend a campaign forum with Roger at the Chamber of Commerce a couple days before the primary. I expect the Pro Red Plan folks to crowd the chamber as they have every time the subject has come up before. The Chamber and the Red Planners are sympatico. I know them all by now and whether they are benefiting from the Plan or have written letters or online comments to the Trib concerning Red Plan Stories. Its a crowd I’m looking forward to appearing before in person. There’s a good chance that once again the Trib will be primed to find demeaning things to say about anyone deigning to find fault with the boondoggle. (that would be me) Whiners is one of their favorite put downs but in my case they revel in the “perennial candidate” tripe like hogs in a wallow.
Politicians are supposed to be politic as in polite or inoffensive or docile or brain dead. I’ve been politic most of my life and Minnesota Nice comes easy to me. I’m forgiving and I look at issues academically so that when I lose I don’t take it to heart.
On the other hand, I have found that I’m quite adept at expressing scorn for the powerful, clueless and slippery who have become a big part of my life for the past couple years. If anything has eaten away at my heart its the unfulfilled hope many placed in me to secure them justice and a vote on the Red Plan. For the first time in my life the slogan, “Don’t get mad, get even,” seems to have some application to me.
For eight months or so I put the personal pleas that I received to stop the Red Plan on the Let Duluth Vote website. I’ve carried the burden of unmet expectations from thousands of my neighbors for two years. I can’t wait to attend the Chamber of Commerce Forum. I can’t wait to be a Minnesota State Senator.
I’ve also continued reading my latest Lincoln book on his life as a writer. Its encouraging to read about how he matured by the time he was a forlorn one-term Congressman into a man intent on writing the truth without sugarcoating it. He resented the lies used by Polk to justify war with Mexico. It didn’t make him popular back home. I could relate.
Tomorrow I visit my Mother in the Twin Cities to sing to her. I’ll take my packet of lyrics. I’m as popular for my singing at her Alzheimer’s unit as I am unpopular in some Duluth quarters among those afflicted with Red Plan dementia.
