The Caucus

Today is the day Robyn is flying to Gunnison for her final
job interview. She is pretty sure she has the job, but
no written work. The Lab does advertise itself as EOE and
in Colorado Trans-gender comes under that roof.

She just called from DIA. She has already flown to Gunnison
and there they tried and failed to land. The plane flew low
over the field, but the runway was no where in sight. They
flew back and the plane is refueling. The airline has
promised an update soon? Sigh...she may not make it to
her interview after all.

Last night was Caucus night. Our Democratic Caucus was
held in the Gold Hill School. Robert wasn't feeling
well, but was curious to see what a Caucus was like and
I think, reluctant to have me drive to Gold Hill by
myself at night. It snowed hard in the morning, but
the plows had been by so I figured even the Saturn
could make it since it has studded snow tires. I was
happy to have him go with me. It's always more fun when
we do things together. The book club was well represented!
Melissa wasn't there, but her husband Burton was there.
Heather, Allison and Julie were there, too.

We had 70 people there and the Precinct chair was
overwhelmed. She had never run a caucus of more than
3 or 4 people and didn't have a clue how it was supposed
to be run. She did have instructions, but clearly had
not bothered to read them ahead of time. She was very
nervous. I would have been, too, if I had 70 people
expecting me to know what I was doing. As it turned out
I knew a heck of a lot more about how a caucus was to
be run, at least a Boulder Democrat Caucus, than she.
She started off having skipped the first half of the
caucus. I did blurt out that we should be doing the
Convention and straw vote for the presidential candidates
before we do the Assembly which is where we vote on
the Congressional candidates. But, all-in-all she did
an adequate job and we did get done by 9 PM. Jared
beat Joan Fitz-Gerald by 3 votes; 26-23 with one abstention.
Unfortunately that gives Jared 3.1 = 3 votes and Joan 2.9=3
votes since the votes can't be fractions. Obama beat
Clinton by an overwhelming majority. I think it was 10 to 60!
We have six delegates and all but one should vote for Obama;
in the Senate race all the votes go for Udall.

E-mail from Chris Wenrich saying that Jack was probably
being moved to a re-hab center where he can get some
therapy, but that he'll probably have to return to the
assisted living part of Brookwood rather than to his
spacious two-bedroom apartment. He was depressed
enough in that, I don't know what he'll do in the assisted
living area. Those places are much smaller.

I called him, but he was no longer in the hospital so I
called his granddaughter, Katy, to find out were he is.
He is in the Friendly Home where his mother and mother-in-law
both lived for many years. He's in the re-hab part, but
Katy did not yet have the phone number. She'll call me
back when she gets it.

Sunday evening we went to Gordon Gamm's home for a book
discussion. The book is "The Squandering of America; How
the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity" by
Robert Kuttner. It is a depressing book on the economics
of now and into the future as Kuttner sees it. He describes
how the failure of our politics undermined our prosperity
and he shows how we are already into a hidden depression.
How the "Good Society" started in the Johnson era
has been assaulted and how we now play by Wall Street
Rules. He describes the fallacy of globalization being
good for our economy. It may be good for developing nations,
but not for ours.

I think the book is excellent. The discussion was
disappointing. The leaders are both Economics Professors
at CU and the problem with professors is that they love
to talk. In any case it was less a discussion and more a
lecture with an occasional question allowed to interrupt.
That made it a bit frustrating. The earlier part of the
evening is always fun. He has an excellent caterer and
serves a light supper which is always delicious and there
are many choices of beverages. About 20 people there and
with 4 exceptions, all new faces to us. I had quite a
discussion with a woman who is just starting a women's
magazine aimed at the over 60 crowd. It sounded like it
might be fun to read. The slant certainly would be
different from the women's magazines I have seen of late.

Connie and Meara having been looking at Realestate online
and have come up with some really exciting properties to
look at. They'll be going to Wichita this coming weekend.
The one I like the best, so far, has an RV pad with full
hook-ups, YES!

Saturday night there was a blue grass concert at the Salina
Schoolhouse. The group playing was the Whippersnappers and
they were very good. I am stuck in the old Bluegrass
mold; they played two of those, one was a Bill Monroe
tune and the other an Earl Scruggs tune. I LOVED them.
If the rest of the concert were a dud it would have been
worth it just to hear those two. The rest were, what I
consider experimental tunes and thoroughly appreciated by
the standing-room crowd. I think there were close to
100 people crammed into the schoolhouse and they loved it!
Lots of hootin' and hollerin'. The children get the front
row seats and the Salina kids are amazing. They sit
quietly though the whole thing, sometimes falling asleep,
but never rowdy. We have 5 new ones in the neighborhood
and at the previous concert they too sat in the front row
and were very disruptive. Allison said she was going to
speak to the parents and ask them to either keep the kids
at home or keep them under control. (Allison runs the
concerts) They were sitting with their parents at this
concert and quiet as mice. It is fun to have a concert
at a location where you can reach it by walking! Amazingly,
of the 100 people I would guess that less than 15 were local.
The rest come from as far away as Lyons, Colorado although
most are from Boulderor Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, and Erie.