state of the union
Warning to Republicans/conservatives on my friends list: Some of the things said here may offend you - but please don't get offended. That's not my intent at all.
Watching the State of the Union at Dr. Rodriguez's house was fun - not what I expected, but fun.
I got there ten minutes before it came on. This is my fourth class with Dr. Rodriguez and I have yet to go to his house so I was rather excited. I came in and he showed me around. He has a cool house - very very cultural, which makes it awesome. He showed me into the living room - we bumped into Dr. Rosenfeld on the way - where there were a bunch of students, all of which I didn't know, sitting on the chairs and couches. I felt rather uncomfortable. So I just sat there and waited for it to come on. A few minutes later, it came on and Dr. Rodriguez joined us in the living room.
What I didn't except was Dr. Rodriguez being completely silent during the State of the Union. No dry sarcastic comments at all. So we just sat and listened. Thirty minutes into it, Mike, Amy and Camille from my class came in and I thought to myself "oh, thank God" because finally people I knew were there. So we continued to watch it. Afterwards, we discussed it - though a few students left before that.
About the actual State of the Union -
Latin America wasn't mentioned once in the speech. We weren't expecting him to mention it a lot but once he said "America is addicted to oil and we get it from unstable parts of the world", I was just waiting for him to mention Chavez or Venezuela (God, Chavez would have a field day with that)....but nada. We think maybe he was advised not to mention Venezuela since Chavez already thinks the US is planning a coup against him. He did mention immigrants. He said that they're good for the economy; yet he also said our borders need to be tougher.
There was one thing that Bush said that was kind of iffy for me. Talking to Congress, he said "In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet, there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy." It's hard to tell exactly what he means by this. Is he attacking those that criticize him about the war? Is he attacking Democrats?
There were other parts of the speech where Bush seemed to say "if you're not with us, you're against us" type of deal. This made Dr. Rodriguez pissed off. "Just because I'm against the war, I'm suddenly anti-military. Suddenly, I'm an anti-American. Hell, a year from now, my son is going to Baghdad and what are Bush's daughters going to be doing? Drinking Jack Daniels with their rich boyfriends."
And holy crap, I have never heard the Democrats so vocal. They didn't always applaud for Bush - sometimes they booed or yelled at him (especially when he mentioned renewing the Patriot Act). Finally it's sounding more like British Parliament than a large group of people that applaud at everything Bush says.
Notice how he only mentioned China as a "economic competitor", not as an example of a non-democracy government. Hmmm....I wonder why.
Other than what I disagree with, Bush's speech wasn't that bad compared to other speeches he's made.
---
Afterwards, it was just Mike, Camille, Amy, me and Dr. Rodriguez and Dr. Rosenfeld. We watched the Democratic Reponse to the speech by Virginia's new governor (who, holy crap, looks so weird). Then Doc turned off the TV. So we started talking about random stuff. We started talking about Chavez and since I've experienced him firsthand, I contributed a lot to the conversation. Dr. Rosenberg, talking to me, told me how he was friends with a Venezuelan and that he absolutely loves the arepas his wife made. So Dr. Rosenberg and I talked about that for awhile. After talking about Venezuela, we talked about all this random stuff - our class, Doc's cigars, etc. Doc turned the TV back on to see if the Daily Show was on (I thought it was amusing that Doc actually watches the Daily Show every night). It was just going off sadly, so we watched a little of Stephen Colbert and then Jay Leno's monologue. Afterwards, after I left the house, I felt rather embarrassed since I talked so much. That tends to happen when I'm around someone I really respect.
But overall, it was a good night. :)
But unfortunately, today's going to be one of those really busy days again. Argh.
Watching the State of the Union at Dr. Rodriguez's house was fun - not what I expected, but fun.
I got there ten minutes before it came on. This is my fourth class with Dr. Rodriguez and I have yet to go to his house so I was rather excited. I came in and he showed me around. He has a cool house - very very cultural, which makes it awesome. He showed me into the living room - we bumped into Dr. Rosenfeld on the way - where there were a bunch of students, all of which I didn't know, sitting on the chairs and couches. I felt rather uncomfortable. So I just sat there and waited for it to come on. A few minutes later, it came on and Dr. Rodriguez joined us in the living room.
What I didn't except was Dr. Rodriguez being completely silent during the State of the Union. No dry sarcastic comments at all. So we just sat and listened. Thirty minutes into it, Mike, Amy and Camille from my class came in and I thought to myself "oh, thank God" because finally people I knew were there. So we continued to watch it. Afterwards, we discussed it - though a few students left before that.
About the actual State of the Union -
Latin America wasn't mentioned once in the speech. We weren't expecting him to mention it a lot but once he said "America is addicted to oil and we get it from unstable parts of the world", I was just waiting for him to mention Chavez or Venezuela (God, Chavez would have a field day with that)....but nada. We think maybe he was advised not to mention Venezuela since Chavez already thinks the US is planning a coup against him. He did mention immigrants. He said that they're good for the economy; yet he also said our borders need to be tougher.
There was one thing that Bush said that was kind of iffy for me. Talking to Congress, he said "In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet, there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy." It's hard to tell exactly what he means by this. Is he attacking those that criticize him about the war? Is he attacking Democrats?
There were other parts of the speech where Bush seemed to say "if you're not with us, you're against us" type of deal. This made Dr. Rodriguez pissed off. "Just because I'm against the war, I'm suddenly anti-military. Suddenly, I'm an anti-American. Hell, a year from now, my son is going to Baghdad and what are Bush's daughters going to be doing? Drinking Jack Daniels with their rich boyfriends."
And holy crap, I have never heard the Democrats so vocal. They didn't always applaud for Bush - sometimes they booed or yelled at him (especially when he mentioned renewing the Patriot Act). Finally it's sounding more like British Parliament than a large group of people that applaud at everything Bush says.
Notice how he only mentioned China as a "economic competitor", not as an example of a non-democracy government. Hmmm....I wonder why.
Other than what I disagree with, Bush's speech wasn't that bad compared to other speeches he's made.
---
Afterwards, it was just Mike, Camille, Amy, me and Dr. Rodriguez and Dr. Rosenfeld. We watched the Democratic Reponse to the speech by Virginia's new governor (who, holy crap, looks so weird). Then Doc turned off the TV. So we started talking about random stuff. We started talking about Chavez and since I've experienced him firsthand, I contributed a lot to the conversation. Dr. Rosenberg, talking to me, told me how he was friends with a Venezuelan and that he absolutely loves the arepas his wife made. So Dr. Rosenberg and I talked about that for awhile. After talking about Venezuela, we talked about all this random stuff - our class, Doc's cigars, etc. Doc turned the TV back on to see if the Daily Show was on (I thought it was amusing that Doc actually watches the Daily Show every night). It was just going off sadly, so we watched a little of Stephen Colbert and then Jay Leno's monologue. Afterwards, after I left the house, I felt rather embarrassed since I talked so much. That tends to happen when I'm around someone I really respect.
But overall, it was a good night. :)
But unfortunately, today's going to be one of those really busy days again. Argh.