56

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me….

Oh, good morning!  Caught me in a little self-celebration, as I turn 56 years old today!  And lest we forget, on this date in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to have walked on the moon!

I have been showered with birthday greetings from friends today and that always feels good.  My wife is going all out to celebrate my birthday (and it’s not even what I would consider a “milestone’) and it should be a good day!

With all of that in mind, I thought I’d never live long enough to see the chaos and hysteria that is coming from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week.  I know partisan politics is exactly that—partisan.  But all of the comments about how the opposition candidate should treated for her various sins are very much over the top!

So are the appearances of all of the Republican candidate’s family members.  I won’t spend time or space dissecting his wife’s address on Monday night that apparently contained some plagiarized passages from our current First Lady’s address in a similar situation.  Two of the nominee’s adult children spoke last night, and the world and the convention hall yawned.  I assume there’s more of this family affair coming, plus the dull VP nominee will speak at some point.  Unless he’s upstaged by the nominee—that appears to be a trend in this campaign!

I honestly think it’s very funny that so many of the speakers will not mention the nominee by name, or will only do so in passing or a limited way.  This is how thrilled the GOP is with their nominee.  We may well see some of the same next week in the Democratic convention, but I would bet that it will at least be better orchestrated than this fiasco.

So the world goes on in spite of this event.  I read that another police officer, this time a captain, was killed in the line of duty in Kansas City yesterday.  It just goes on and on.

I actually wrote to my Congressman, a Republican, after the Orlando mass shooting, asking what he was prepared to do to prevent further such events.  While I was heartened to have received a response (he is, after all, running for reelection), I was disappointed that it was the same old National Rifle Association line that we so often see, referring to protecting the rights of responsible gun owners, etc.

Suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.