Bush Visits Rochester, NY

Yesterday, Texas's most famous village idiot came to visit our fine city and gave a short speech at Greece Athena, a high school in one of Rochester's suburbs. For the most part, this speech focused on selling his plan for privatizing social security, which seems to be enjoying flagging support at best. His typically eloquent statement went something like this: "I fully recognize some in Washington, you know, don't particularly want to address this issue. . . . I recognize some of them say, 'Well, this is, this is a partisan thing. You know, we don't want to make one party look good at the expense of another." Needless to say, I think his plan is a ridiculous attempt to cater to the interests of big business, the wealthy, and Wall Street. Although some newspapers are reporting that Bush won over his [carefully selected] audience with his "geniality," many Rochesterians came out to protest against Bush's war, his privatization plan, and his attempts to stymie equal-rights legislation for gays and lesbians. I really wanted to be there but had committed to sitting on a panel for the pedagogy class being run by the College Writing Center. So, I experienced it vicariously by watching the news reports, reading local protesters' blogs, and reading online news coverage of the protest. About 750 people showed up for the protest, according to the Democrat and Chronicle, and a few people were arrested, including Sister Grace Miller, director of the House of Mercy homeless shelter, and Harry Murray, a Nazareth College professor. Perhaps it's best that I wasn't there as I would likely get into a shouting match with a police officer and find myself arrested, which might cause problems when I attempt to renew my visa next month!

P.S. I got bored with the idea of posting all my running information here. Perhaps I should make a seperate "blog" that functions solely as a running log. Mmm. My guess is I'll just forget to keep it up, but it might be worth a try.