Three Day Weekend
I love a three day weekend! It is a great time for me and Mrs. IWG to spend some time together. Originally we were planning on returning to my hometown, D-Town. However, we decided all we would do is sit around down there, so we stayed here to get some things done! Since I don't want to blog anything serious, here is what we did!
Friday:
Usually on Fridays we head out at about 4pm for drinks with friends. Most of our friends were busy for the weekend, so we decided that dinner at the Olive Garden was a good idea for the evening. It was a good idea...Never Ending Pasta Bowl, what a great invention.
We spent some time after dinner at Barnes and Noble reading books...look out, we tear it up on Friday nights. Mrs. IWG recommends "Belly Laughs", by Jenny McCarthy. I spent some time reading a book that my friend Spoonchamp had pointed out. It is called "What's The Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank. I only got time to read about 20 pages, but it was fascinating the whole book talks about how the Republicans and right-wing conservatives have managed to get rural farmers and lower-class Americans to vote for the Republican party, even though the financial policies enacted by Repubs actually hurt those voters. It seems great, talking about how life long Dems left the party starting in the 60's because of perceived social chaos in the party. Now they vote for Republicans because of their conservative social values. However, Frank points out that once they have the vote, the Repubs usually don't do anything about social issues, but do change economic code aimed at helping the rich. Frank says that the Repubs are attacking all of the social programs developed during the last 100 years...programs designed to help farmers compete against corporate farmers, social welfare programs, and pretty much the entire New Deal. Okay, I want the book! My birthday is coming up, here is where you can order it! We came home and watched the movie Big Fish, which we both enjoyed.
Saturday:
We decided to visit an Iowa tradition we had yet to discover, The Amana Colonies. It was a great day! It is an old German settlement that has lots of cool shops, places to eat, and wineries and breweries. First things first, most of the wine is crap, unless you like rhubarb wine or cherry wine. The brewery was great though and I came back with a six pack of beer. We also visited a smokehouse where we got some cheese, brats, and summer sausage that is all very good. The great thing about Amana are the restaurants. They are all family style, which means whatever you order comes with heaping bowls of mashed potatos, gravy, veggies, rolls, etc. to pass around the table. It is not the healthiest eating in the world, but boy is it good.
Amana took up most of the day, but we came home, grabbed some Arby's, and watched Intolerable Cruelty on HBO (the only TV worth watching). We had seen it already, but it is a great film!
Sunday:
Big fun on Sunday! We lounged around and ate our coffee cake from Amana. We seriously contemplated attending a church in the area we are interested in learning more about. However, we buckled and decided to go to Target and register for our baby instead. I have to tell you it was a lot of fun going and scanning all of this baby stuff. I also have to tell you that having a baby costs a fortune! We were there for 2 hours and only managed to register for about half the stuff we had on our list. Of course we spent quite a bit of time trying our the strollers, cribs, and walkers! At any rate, we now have a large registry at Target that I am sure we will keep adding to until March 10.
Today is Monday and we have just been chilling today! Nothing too exciting to report! Hopefully I will get to write some this week on crazy topics that I love...fantasy football, UNI football (which took a loss to Iowa St. this weekend), and other things.
Friday:
Usually on Fridays we head out at about 4pm for drinks with friends. Most of our friends were busy for the weekend, so we decided that dinner at the Olive Garden was a good idea for the evening. It was a good idea...Never Ending Pasta Bowl, what a great invention.
We spent some time after dinner at Barnes and Noble reading books...look out, we tear it up on Friday nights. Mrs. IWG recommends "Belly Laughs", by Jenny McCarthy. I spent some time reading a book that my friend Spoonchamp had pointed out. It is called "What's The Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank. I only got time to read about 20 pages, but it was fascinating the whole book talks about how the Republicans and right-wing conservatives have managed to get rural farmers and lower-class Americans to vote for the Republican party, even though the financial policies enacted by Repubs actually hurt those voters. It seems great, talking about how life long Dems left the party starting in the 60's because of perceived social chaos in the party. Now they vote for Republicans because of their conservative social values. However, Frank points out that once they have the vote, the Repubs usually don't do anything about social issues, but do change economic code aimed at helping the rich. Frank says that the Repubs are attacking all of the social programs developed during the last 100 years...programs designed to help farmers compete against corporate farmers, social welfare programs, and pretty much the entire New Deal. Okay, I want the book! My birthday is coming up, here is where you can order it! We came home and watched the movie Big Fish, which we both enjoyed.
Saturday:
We decided to visit an Iowa tradition we had yet to discover, The Amana Colonies. It was a great day! It is an old German settlement that has lots of cool shops, places to eat, and wineries and breweries. First things first, most of the wine is crap, unless you like rhubarb wine or cherry wine. The brewery was great though and I came back with a six pack of beer. We also visited a smokehouse where we got some cheese, brats, and summer sausage that is all very good. The great thing about Amana are the restaurants. They are all family style, which means whatever you order comes with heaping bowls of mashed potatos, gravy, veggies, rolls, etc. to pass around the table. It is not the healthiest eating in the world, but boy is it good.
Amana took up most of the day, but we came home, grabbed some Arby's, and watched Intolerable Cruelty on HBO (the only TV worth watching). We had seen it already, but it is a great film!
Sunday:
Big fun on Sunday! We lounged around and ate our coffee cake from Amana. We seriously contemplated attending a church in the area we are interested in learning more about. However, we buckled and decided to go to Target and register for our baby instead. I have to tell you it was a lot of fun going and scanning all of this baby stuff. I also have to tell you that having a baby costs a fortune! We were there for 2 hours and only managed to register for about half the stuff we had on our list. Of course we spent quite a bit of time trying our the strollers, cribs, and walkers! At any rate, we now have a large registry at Target that I am sure we will keep adding to until March 10.
Today is Monday and we have just been chilling today! Nothing too exciting to report! Hopefully I will get to write some this week on crazy topics that I love...fantasy football, UNI football (which took a loss to Iowa St. this weekend), and other things.
posted by GT at 1:23 PM
1 Comments:
Found your points interesting as I'm sort of interested in the book's main argument. Because it seems sort of obvious that appeals from conservatives/libertarians such as myself vote on principle rather than enlarging government programs/handouts, since we're against bigger government in general. Jonah Goldberg elaborates it well in a piece this week. ( http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200409091205.asp). Small excerpt follows:
"The most comprehensive presentation of this thesis comes from Thomas Frank, a left-wing journalist and author of the bestseller What's the Matter with Kansas? Frank argues that conservatives have been duping lower- and middle-class voters into voting Republican, when any moron can see that these people should vote their class interests — that is, vote Democrat. "The preeminent issue of our day," Frank writes, is "people getting their interests wrong."
He cites, for example, the Piss Christ controversy, which, well, I'll let him describe it: "Because some artist decides to shock the hicks by dunking Jesus in urine, the entire planet must remake itself along the lines preferred by the Republican Party, U.S.A."
If the word "hick" didn't clue you in, Frank is very condescending to those who vote on that broad array of issues we generally put under the rubric 'values.'"
I decided to reply to this post because there was nothing in it to really get my blood pressure up. If I started commenting about everything I disagreed with politically on your blog, I'd never write on my own blog or go to work or school for that matter! So I'll try to rebut on my blog sometimes, all for discourse on the events when the tone is civil and not bile-laden.
BTW, congrats on the baby. Didn't know until recently -- how exciting! Glad to hear things are looking okay.
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