Tuesday Wrap: West Baden Springs, Ralph Nader, etc.

Picture: Heron visiting with geese out at the lake yesterday.

Down to West Baden and French Lick today with Tom and Mary Holt. Lunch at the Grand Colonnade Buffet at the French Lick Resort, all you can eat with great variety served in elegant setting with equally elegant silver and china ware. And then over to the big domed building, the West Baden Springs Hotel, once called the eighth wonder of the world, for a tour of this renewed elegance. Impressive. If you haven't been down to this area since the renewal and renovation, take a day and head on down and just wander around. Of course, lots of different eating places along with the casino and golf as well. I would expect the little towns of French Lick and West Baden to go through a ten or twenty year renewal as well. Good deal though one wonders at the manner in which we are reconstituting our local economies - by the creation of gambling meccas.

On PBS right now: Independent Lens and the story of Ralph Nader, An Unreasonable Man. As a young man, maybe ten years old, he came home from school one day to be asked by his father: "Did you learn how to believe or did you learn how to think?" Good question, Dad Nader. He also gave his children problems at the breakfast table which they would discuss at dinner. Marvelous. The program started off with the idea that good old Ralphie would be remembered for his critical draining off of Democratic votes in the 2000 presidential election that resulted in the White House going to George W. Bush instead of Nobel Laureate Al Gore. And we all know the history of the past several years with George in charge.

Hey, I have another conjecture which I thought of as I was reading Boom! Ronnie Reagan was going for the presidency as early as 1968. Nixon beat him down but that leads to the question, what would it all be like if Reagan had become president then rather than twelve years later?

Here's something else from Boom! Jackie Kennedy Onassis commenting on the Vietnam War years after it was over - too bad we had three presidents who thought they had to prove their manhood down in that far off country.

One last comment: during our lunch today, we conducted a mini poll on our next president, or our preference for president at this time. Among the four of us, we had two dedicated Democrats, one long time Republican, and one non voter. Results of the poll: three for HRC with the non voter remaining a non voter. Go, Hillary.