Don Marsh, Gainesville, Florida, USA

So many of my friends are biting their nails over this year’s Presidential Election. I am not. Let me tell you why.

It is important to remember that Obama beat John McCain with 52.9% of the vote. This is not a landslide. In spite of the fact that Obama was totally inexperienced and had a host of communist fellow travelers and racists in his inner circle, many Americans voted for him because they wanted to think well of him. They also thought it wold be good to bury racism by electing a black man. John McCain was also a poor candidate and many Republicans sat out the election.

This time, people are not going to give Obama a pass. Regardless of what role George Bush did to the economy, it is obvious that Obama has multiplied the errors. Even if Obama gets every Democrat who voted for him last time, he has lost his lead among Independents, and Republicans will NOT sit this one out no matter who the nominee is.

Obama has gained no one and has lost many. The math is simple. If 2012 Democrats are as depressed as 2008 Republicans  were, this could be a rout. There is really NO HOPE for Obama this year, no matter what the mainstream new media does to make you believe otherwise.

Of course, this win will not be automatic. We will have to stay energized and we’ll have to stay mad. I have no doubt that this tone deaf administration will oblige us over and over again by using race and fear to the max.

Sayonara, Mr. President! You will lose to whoever the nominee is.

I was coming home from an errand this afternoon when I got stuck at a long traffic light and had a chance to see what Occupy Gainesville was up to. They were holding a banner in front of the CVS Drug Store at the corner of NW 13 St and 16 AVE, and some where passing out fliers to the waiting cars.

They were protesting, of course. They were urging CVS customers to move their prescriptions to a locally owned pharmacy, like Wise’s. In fact, the flyer I received listed 4 specific pharmacies:

• Wise’s 4th AVE Pharmacy at 708 SW 4 AVE
• Wise’s Parkwood Pharmacy at 3601 SW 3 AVE, Suite A
• West Lab 4410 W Newberry Rd. #A5
• Southeastern Community Pharmacy at 4343 Newberry Rd. #9

The flyer tells us that Wise’s historic downtown pharmacy with its lunch counter was forced out of business by large corporate competitors. It also says we will help stimulate a healthy economy by taking our business away from the big corporation and support these smaller local businesses.

It is a shame to watch such a colossal waste of time as this. Basically, Occupy Gainesville wants us to voluntarily redistribute our business to stores that are much further from us that the ones we are currently using. Here, in a city where we are encouraged to walk so we can save the planet, we are directed by the Occupiers to get in our cars and drive down to these 4 stores that are all on or just a few blocks off Route 26. Forget those several CVS and Walgreens you must pass on the way; let alone all the Publix Supermarkets with their in-store pharmacies!

Honestly, did anyone think this through down at Bo Diddly Plaza, where this was no doubt hatched during an all-night meeting of the jazz hands?

I admit that we do not get our prescriptions from Wise’s or any of the other beleaguered local pharmacies. Nor do I get them from CVS or the other evil corporate entities. We get ours from the ultimate evil corporation: the VA, a part of the Federal government. And why? Because they mail them to us! And, of course, they are heavily subsidized.

Perhaps the Occupiers might want to do a study of why big corporations with deep pockets can afford to expand in Gainesville and the mom and pops can’t. When CVS built the store on 13th and 16th, the city said they had to build it two stories high and have office rentals upstairs. If the Wise’s were told that, they might have blanched and said, “But we don’t want to be landlords! And the taxes on that building will be higher, let alone the cost of building it!”

Big corporations have the money to meet the life-sucking demands of dopey city commissioners with zero business sense. Family owned businesses are a different kind of animal. For instance, how many of the Wise’s children grew up to be pharmacists? I don’t know of any. A family business does not have the same vision for growth that a corporate owned store does. And what about the Greshams? That whole local chain disappeared a few years after Mr. Gresham retired. Did the Gresham kids become pharmacists? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think not.

In the meantime, CVS, Walgreens, Publix and Wal-Mart compete amongst themselves and serve us well with many convenient locations all over town. And they hire a lot of LOCAL people.

I keep waiting for the Occupiers to wake up to the idea that the real blood suckers are our governing bodies.

I would like to give you all a pedestrian’s perspective on a recurring problem. Since it happens often in my life, I am sure other pedestrians are also exasperated with this problem.

Sometimes, while I am crossing 39th Ave, I will get as far as the MEDIAN just as some well-meaning person decides to stop for me. This person, no doubt, feels good about her “random act of kindness,” (it is always a woman), and she comes to a standstill in what is, for her, the left lane. This is a lane for cars that are usually traveling at 50 mph, and I was hoping she would do the same thing so I could keep walking and get on my way.

This creates a problem for me, the pedestrian. As I am crossing in front of her vehicle, another vehicle may speed past her before I can see it. I do not like to cross those last two lanes until there is NO oncoming traffic. I JUST NEED YOU TO GO!! Then I can see and walk the rest of the way. Another thing that can happen is that while I am trying to wave you by, and you are adorably waving ME to keep walkiing, and I am insisting that you GET OUT OF THE WAY, another car will come up your butt at 50 mph and have to slam on the brakes.

Fortunately, the vast majority of drivers are in touch with the fact that they will be GONE before they can give me a little wave, and they just drive by. I am grateful for this. I count on drivers being intelligent and competent. Surrendering your intelligence and competence to a fleeting idea that you could be nice to me could get one of us killed.

NOW WILL YOU JUST GO, PLEASE!!!

I watched this and couldn’t stop. This interviewer starts by asking students if they know who Adolf Hitler, the iconic symbol of evil in the 20th century, was and many do not know. After filling them in with some of the facts, he asks them how they wold have reacted as citizens in Hitler’s Germany. This video will take you places you don’t want to go!

I await your comments!

I have been following the Republican Presidential candidates debates with a great deal of interest. I have been charmed and disappointed a few times and I was beginning to think that Mitt Romney was Mr Inevitable. I actually voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 Florida Primary, so I was thinking it was something I could live with. He’s not everything I hope for, but he seems very smart, prepared, and he’s NOT Barack Obama. Yet, there are things that bother me, and I would get off the Romney bus if I found a more compelling candidate who could also WIN.

I am familiar with Herman Cain. I like him a lot, but I did not consider him early in the process because of the win-ability issue. I did not take him seriously. But, with each new poll, it seems that he is getting a response from potential voters that now makes him a real contender. Of course, other contenders have been abandoned by the likely voters who have answered these polls. What would it take to give him the staying power he would need to be the eventual nominee?

Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney have all failed the smell test with conservatives. Bachmann seemed like a lightweight. Perry seemed soft on illegal immigration. Paul seems like a flake on foreign policy. Romney has a record of supporting big government health care and Global Warming initiatives. Can Herman Cain maintain his high approval with an electorate that wants a winner that they can believe in?

Cain is getting a close look from more people than ever. The key for him will be how Independents warm up to him. A recent Rasmussen poll showed him as a 2 point winner over Obama. If he keeps making the sale to more an more Americans, then win-ability will no longer be a problem.

I am going to keep watching, and right now I am more open minded about the real possibility of a President Cain.

Occupy Gainesville has been going on for over a week, and it’s of little consequence here. But it is pretty much a clone of the Wall Street version that is scape-goating the 1% richest Americans as the cause of all our troubles. This is not only infantile. It is incorrect.

I believe the errors of the Occupy movement begin with the government propaganda coming from Washington that tells us we need more money to solve the current economic crisis. Actually, it has been the rampant creation of money that has gotten us here, and government spending is only a part of it. Private credit, which many Americans have abused, is the rest of it.

Easy credit has increased the money supply far and above everything we need, so that it has inflated the price of everything. Most Americans have credit card debt. Many Americans bought overpriced homes before 2008. And many Americans have student loans in excess of a year’s salary, and sometimes 2 or 3 years’ salary. And we have not even touched car loans.

I guess the point I am making is that the vast majority of us can trace our own troubles back to decisions we have made about how we live our lives. I know that my own financial well-being, or lack thereof, is much more a result of choices I have made. You don’t have to be rich to be greedy. All you have to do is charge something you cannot really afford to join that club. What makes you both greedy and ignorant is to think that someone else should bail you out.

So, be angry if you want to. Shake your fist at the big pigs at the top who were too big to fail. (Actually, we should have let them fail, and then jailed the CEOs for malfeasance, and impeached every politician who enabled them.) Or, you can shake your fist at the millions of little piggies who demand that the wise and prudent bail them out. (I don’t think there are enough wise and prudent Americans to pull this off.) At any rate, it would be good for yourself and America if you would start by changing your own evil ways and consider meeting your own obligations.

This past month I flew from Orlando to Newark, NJ. Then I rented a Ford Focus and drove it 170 miles North to Scotia, NY to visit my Dad. I also took some time to drive around my old haunts in Tory, NY. Troy is a pretty old city that dates back to a Dutch settlement in the late 1600s, and was later incorporated as a town in 1791 and named Troy. Later it was elevated to a city in 1816. But my own family didn’t arrive here until my grandparents did in the early 20th century.

Troy is called “The Home of Uncle Sam” because the Uncle Sam character is a derivative of a local war profiteer named Sam Wilson, who sold meat to the Continental Army.

Troy has a somewhat glorious past as an industrial center. It was once known for its ironworks and shirt factories. Troy was the home of Arrow shirts for many years, as well as Troy-bilt Rototillers and other yard equipment. It also had one of the first major league baseball teams back in the 1880s, then called the Haymakers. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Russell Sage College, Hudson Valley Community College, and Emma Willard School all make their homes in Troy.

I went to Catholic Central High School and HVCC back in the 70s. I wasn’t able to find time to visit either places with more than a drive-by.

I walked downtown quite a bit for a day and went to the Troy Public Library, where I got my first library card back in the 60s. The building has no air conditioning, and it was stifling hot the day I went there. I also ate at one of Troy’s landmark fast food establishments, Famous Lunch. They serve these little hot dogs with mustard, onions and chili sauce that I make a point of having every time I go home. They were a nickel a piece when I was little; then 22 cents each when I moved away in 1978; and now they are 81 cents each!

I’ll write more about my trip later.

It’s been two and a half months since the election ended, and this domain WAS redirected to my window cleaning business web site for a while, but I have decided to reclaim my personal domain for personal business. And when I say personal business, I mean the ordinary interests in my life. That will mean I will use this as a place to write about:

• Books I am reading
• Technology I am using
• Trips I am taking
• Events in my family

I have other sites to write about my business and local politics. I will keep those things there.

I think it’s important to have my own domains and pay for my own hosting for information I create because I don’t just want to give it all to Facebook. Sure, I will share links from my sites on Facebook, but I can have control over my own information if I store it on servers I am paying for.

So, stay tuned, because I am writing again!

Since so many of my business cards have donaldmarsh.com as the site for my business, I will be redirecting that domain to the Marsh Window Cleaning site. I will leave this blog here as an archive, but I won’t be adding new posts to it.

It’s after 10 o’clock at night and I didn’t remember to call Tom Hawkins to congratulate him on his victory, so I will do it here. He was a congenial and likable opponent who was never rude, condescending or libelous. He ran a good race and won the old fashioned way: getting out more of his supporters than I did mine. There was no controversy and I have no regrets.

I greatly appreciate the hard work of Kathy Benton, Keith Hazouri, Herb Cooke, Mary Bird, and a large company of other people who put in their time and gave their money in this effort. I am sorry our efforts did not result in a different end, but none of them caused this failure.

I thank all of those who cast their vote for me in this election. This is the third time I have run, and it is time for someone else to step up to make this effort the next time. I am now retired from being a candidate for public office. I will be happy to help others and participate as a role player in other political efforts, but we need better leaders, even in the role of contender.

For now, I need to get back to my business and make some money. Next weekend I will be going to the beach.

Later,

Don Marsh