{"id":3030,"date":"2012-03-22T21:58:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T02:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=3030"},"modified":"2012-03-22T21:58:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T02:58:19","slug":"the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2012\/03\/the-left\/","title":{"rendered":"The Left"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Tuesday, 20 March 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Today I toured <a href=\"http:\/\/imagineps.com\/\">Imagine! Print Solutions<\/a> in Shakopee. Here&#8217;s a video about the place (watch the first three or four minutes at least, there&#8217;s some unexpected, quiky humor in there):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DI51AVH7DEg\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, after the tour, a co-worker and I stopped for lunch. The restaurant had TVs suspended from the ceiling and CNN was playing (I <em>hate<\/em> restaurants with TVs!).<\/p>\n<p>When I glanced at the screen, I saw some footage of <a href=\"http:\/\/spreadingsantorum.com\/\">Rick Santorum<\/a>. Suppressing the urge to vomit, I asked my co-worker if he had yet decided on how he planned to cast his vote for president this fall.<\/p>\n<p>He repeated something he&#8217;d said to me once before: though he&#8217;s a lifelong Republican, he&#8217;s probably gonna vote for Obama.<\/p>\n<p>Last time he said this, we were moments away from commencing a meeting a work. But this afternoon, there was no such event to get in our way. So I dug a little deeper.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out, my co-worker is unimpressed with any of the main contenders for the Republican nomination. That&#8217;s no shock&#8230;but it also doesn&#8217;t mean that he has to vote for Obama. He could choose not to vote. Or he could vote a candidate who is affiliated with neither the Republican nor the Democratic party.<\/p>\n<p>My co-worker explained that, though he did not vote for Obama in 2008, he has been impressed with the fact that Obama openly changes his mind.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in today&#8217;s political climate, I think that&#8217;s really saying something. Most candidates continually <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bloviation\">bloviate\u00a0 <\/a>about how wonderful they are for not changing their mind. Ever. The example that came to my mind while speaking with my co-worker was <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grover_Norquist#Taxpayer_Protection_Pledge\">the Grover Norquist Pledge<\/a>. My co-worker noted that, conversely, Obama stated during his campaign that he intended to close Guantanamo Bay but has since revised his stance.<\/p>\n<p>He said his biggest issue with Obama is his healthcare reform. Two things in particular that he did not like:<\/p>\n<p>1) The Democratic-controlled Congress rammed it through. My co-worker admitted that Republicans would &#8211; and have &#8211; done the same thing with their pet projects. But regardless of the party&#8230;he doesn&#8217;t like that behavior.<\/p>\n<p>2) It&#8217;s just not the right time. Overall, he likes the reform per se, but felt giving it a priority during a sagging economy was not the most prudent course of action.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, I found it a fascinating conversation. I am not engaged or well-read enough in the political field to analyze this fully, but in my limited time taking an interest in the government, I just couldn&#8217;t find anything to argue about here. And that&#8217;s great. I also think it speaks to the lack of viable options that someone who voted for Bush\/Cheney in 2004 and Palin\/McCain in 2008is now throwing his hat in the Obama ring.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wednesday, 21 March 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, while waiting for the above-mentioned tour to begin, I mentioned to this lady from my job (for some reason &#8211; I think I was trying to make a joke &#8211; I know, why else?) that I am left-handed. The co-worker standing to my left (how appropriate) said the he, likewise, was a lefty. Meanwhile, the co-worker I had originally been joking with, said she was glad to have a couple of lefties to talk to. As she said this, another guy got into our conversation and said that he, also, is left-handed. This made the lady positively beam with delight that she had the attention of three left-handed people.<\/p>\n<p>She explained that she is not left-handed. We offered our condolences.<\/p>\n<p>She next said that her young daughter <em>is<\/em> left-handed and that she&#8217;s worried that her child writes from right to left. &#8220;Is that a problem?&#8221; she asked.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, being a group of smart-asses, we noted that it&#8217;s not a problem assuming her daughter is Chinese or Jewish. But then we gave some light-hearted examples of doing things &#8220;backwards&#8221; so that they work for us. One of the guys suggested the girl is simply trying to mirror her right-handed mom.<\/p>\n<p>I asked how old her daughter was. Hearing the reply, I asked if she started Kindergarten yet. &#8220;No,&#8221; my north-pawed co-worker said, &#8220;not yet.&#8221; I then, with no qualifications whatsoever, bestowed upon her daughter a clean bill of mental and motor-skills health.<\/p>\n<p>But later, I felt bad we hadn&#8217;t offered her more help, or at least been more serious. So this morning, I sent her an email saying, in part:<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t worry about your daughter writing right-to-left: <a href=\"http:\/\/life.familyeducation.com\/cognitive-development\/early-learning\/42297.html\"> CLICK HERE!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This, at least, gave a serious response from someone who&#8217;s thought about the matter for more than 30 seconds while waiting in the lobby of a printing firm in Scott County.<\/p>\n<p>My co-worker responded with gratitude and we exchanged some more emails on the topic.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it appears her daughter will, in fact, be just fine. Meanwhile, maybe I should bone up on my sinister qualities. I am asked about them frequently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday, 20 March 2012 Today I toured Imagine! Print Solutions in Shakopee. Here&#8217;s a video about the place (watch the first three or four minutes at least, there&#8217;s some unexpected, quiky humor in there): Anyway, after the tour, a co-worker and I stopped for lunch. The restaurant had TVs suspended from the ceiling and CNN [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3030"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3039,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions\/3039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}