POLITICS – OPEN LETTER TO CHRIS WALLACE AND MEDIA

GOOD MORNING WORLD

I have been asked a couple of times lately what I think of the primaries going on right now.  I told everyone I would be posting thoughts on cornersoapbox.wordpress.com.  I have yet to do that.  I will be posting this on that site as well to get a start on political conversations.

Today however I am writing another – yet another – open letter to the news media.  Sunday afternoon I was watching Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.  I like Chris Wallace.  I liked his father Mike Wallace.  I believe both of them men of integrity despite Mike’s occasional scrapes.  I believe they look for truth and report it.  Sunday I was very disappointed in Chris Wallace.  So perhaps this is an open letter to Chris Wallace.  I just re-titled this blog!

On Sunday Chris was interviewing John Kasich.  For those of you who asked he is my choice for the man to run for President of the Republican party.

During the interview Wallace quoted Rubio , showed a clip and made a judgment that was incorrect.  You can find all of this by looking at the transcripts. (1)

Chris Wallace said this:

WALLACE:  Governor Kasich, you’re on the show today.  We’re very happy to have you here.

I want to ask you — I want to ask you about Marco Rubio because he has suggested to his supporters that to try to stop Donald Trump, maybe his supporters in Ohio should actually vote for you.  Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO:  I have a voter in Ohio conclude that voting for John Kasich gives us the best chance to stop Donald Trump there.  I anticipate that’s what they’ll do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE:  Governor, following that same logic, should Kasich supporters in Florida support Rubio so he can beat Trump?  It’s winner-take-all, instead of splitting the anti-Trump vote?

You can see what Marco Rubio actually said by checking the video. (2)

Marco Rubio said:

“If a voter in Ohio is motivated by stopping Donald Trump and comes to the conclusion that John Kasich is the only one who can beat him there ten I expect that is the decision they’ll make.  I can tell you in Florida I am the only one that can beat Donald Trump.  If someone supports Ted Cruz or John Kasich if you vote for them in Florida you’re in essence voting for Donald Trump.  If a voter reaches the same conclusion in Ohio then I think that’s what they’re going to do as well.    (question by reporter) I’ve not talked to John Kasich about this – you asked me a question -I’m giving you my observation clearly John Kasich has a better chance of winning Ohio than I do.  If a voter in Ohio concludes that voting for John Kasich gives us the best chance of stopping Donald Trump there then I anticipate that is what they’ll do.”

As I read this nowhere in this statement did Marco Rubio say he wanted his supporters to vote for John Kasich.  Of course it can be taken or inferred that this is what he is saying.  In fact his campaign came out and said they urged voters to vote for Kasich.  Rubio did not say that in his statement.

This is the fine line of which I am speaking.  Even in the reporting and Wallace using the video clip from Rubio, Rubio did not suggest to his supporters to vote for Kasich.  He clearly stated that if voters made the assumptions and wanted to stop Trump they would vote for Kasich.  He did not release them to do so.

I hear you out there and yes I can see how this is a veiled release yet his words did not say that.  Chris Wallace came to that conclusion.  I must also add that Rubio’s campaign did come out and urge voters to vote for Kasich.  All that being said in this particular answer Rubio did not say those words.

The second media note I wish to make is from Breitbart.  Now again I like their news reporting and take umbrage with the headline that came up in a chat I had this morning.

The Headline was:

REPORT: Soros Money Funding John Kasich’s Presidential Bid

followed by:

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Soros Fund Management is one of John Kasich’s top financial contributors.

Interestingly, as Breitbart News has previously reported, John Kasich has made a series of extreme statements on immigration that place him to the furthest leftward reaches of not just the GOP Presidential field, but the Democratic Presidential field as well. For instance, Kasich has said that enforcing our immigration laws and deporting the illegal immigrants is not “humane.” Kasich likened deportations to the Japanese internment camps of World War II. Kasich has also pledged that he will enact amnesty within the first 100 days of his hoped-for Presidency– in effect, meaning that those who support John Kasich’s presidential campaign are voting to enact the largest amnesty in U.S. history by April 30, 2017.

Breitbart goes on to show George Soros, a noted donor to liberal causes, gave John Kasich’s campaign $202,700.(3)  The inference of the article was that since Soros is funding Kasich that Kasich will be a liberal President – at least not conservative.  Where is the truth?  The truth is Soros gave Kasich $202,700.  I wonder if that is enough to buy legislation.  We must remember that the President cannot enact nor pass any legislation.

The third piece of questionable reporting is last night in the reporting of the primaries.  The Drudge Report had a screen shot of Trump over Cruz by 13% in Missouri when in fact at the time Cruz was leading by .7%.  Big difference.

My conclusion is I make up my own mind when I hear the words from the candidate themselves.  Sadly Chris Wallace has now joined the ranks of all the other reporters in that my trust at least needs to be earned back.

It is going to be a long campaign year I am afraid if the two winners now end up there in September.  It also will be very interesting and wild I believe.

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/03/13/can-donald-trump-unify-republican-party-fractured/

(2) http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/03/11/marco-rubio-ohio-voters-sot.cnn

(3) http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/us/politics/george-soros-and-other-liberal-donors-to-fund-bid-to-spur-latino-voters.html?_r=0

REAL ESTATE – NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL

GOOD MORNING WORLD

This morning I had to go out for an appointment.  On my way back I saw a lady, on this drizzly day, carefully raking the small garden in front of her home.  I am betting it was no more than a foot or maybe 2 by 10 feet.  Her care reminded me of the care “Grampa Smith”, our neighbor in one of our homes gave to his @20 X 40 garden.  As I drove home and thought of these two examples of care, it fit right into my theme that has been running through my mind this last few days.

There is no one size fits all in anything.

The beginning this thought came when I was told to ‘stage’ my house for selling it.  We are downsizing some since there are only two of us living here.  I was offended by some of the advice I was being given.  Having bought and sold over 10 homes in the last couple of decades, I am not new at this buying/selling thing.  The current thought in real estate is to strip your house of any presence of you living there.  De-clutter, unclutter, stage the house – the words that are used to tell you to get out of your home before you sell it.

I hope you noticed the two words used.  The realtors are selling a house.  I am selling a home.  There has to be a happy medium here.

As I thought about the sale of this house – our home – it came to me there is no one size fits all for realtors and staging either.  I thought more about ONE SIZE FITS ALL.  Does It?  I do not think so!

I back this answer up with a couple of current facts – statistics if you will of another product.  If there was a one size fits all philosophy out there we would not have 50 different brands of toothpaste according to Wikipedia.  Two countries seem to be the major manufacturers.  Japan and the US currently have the market.   The Japanese even have a brand called ‘”Etiquette Toothpaste”.  I wonder what it is like.

A great story in the research was “Tom’s of Maine”.  I remember when this brand was started in 1970 and trying to break through to the market.  The Chappell’s, Tom and Kate, were big into natural ingredients and wanted that in their toothpaste.  They began the business with $5000.  They sold it for $100,000,000. to Colgate-Palmolive in 2006 retaining a 16% share.  Congrats to them!

Backing up even more with another product we all use – toilet paper.  I could not find the exact number of brands that are out there.  I did find there are 6 manufacturers and Good Housekeeping has tested 20.  Imagining there are more than 50 brands with worldwide usage.  I did find a website that calls itself “The Encyclopedia of Toilet Paper”.  (1) It claims to have the history of toilet paper from 50BC to the present day.  It has much else including the fun fact that 72% of people first start their roll with the paper coming OVER the roll.  A question that is ageless – right?  Now you have an answer.

If there were a one size fits all we would have only one brand of toothpaste, one brand of toilet paper, one brand of coffee and I could go on.  The fact is we do not.  We have choices.

The question then becomes,  as I return to the premise of this blog about real estate,  “Why would we all want to look at sterile homes devoid of all the warmth that a families existence has brought to the dwelling?”  I would answer that with: “Take them to a model house”.  This house will have no knicks or dings anywhere.  A home on the market has had life in it.

There are many different kind of real estate buyers.  I have purchased houses to live in myself and create a home and I have purchased houses for rental.  I still try to find good bones in a building and obviously want it to be structurally solid with utilities in good working order.  My choices for either depended upon their use.

Decor means nothing to me as I see beyond it to what I can place in the house.  Our most recent purchase was an empty house, painted in a color I do not like and can live with.  It is carpeted throughout the living area and has oak kitchen cabinets.  I have no problem envisioning hardwood floors throughout with a white kitchen.  Anything and everything can be changed if the structure suits you.

Supposedly it is easier to sell a furnished house then an empty one.  Thus builders will put furniture into their model houses to help the buyer see themselves in this building.  While most model houses are lovely they seldom reflect my eclectic way of decorating so I have to look beyond their tastes.

That is my point.  As long as the house is clean, picked up and neat then decor should not matter.  The photographer that came to take the pictures of our home told me that she made her father put away all his reminders of his many travels to sell his house.   I wondered how he enjoyed living in his home from then to sale with no reminders of the joy of his life.  Did it sell his house any quicker?

Since 1990 we have sold 6 homes and 3 rental houses.  The homes were in various stages of furnishings .  Some had furniture others did not. Some were on sale in slack real estate markets, other not.  The favorite was the TN home that sold in 20 days for full price while we were on a business trip in Paris.  We did not stage a thing nor put away personal items.  The home was tastefully decorated and had our familiars throughout it.  We decided if we sell another home we simply have to put it on the market and go to Paris.  Sadly this trip has not yet happened again.

We have friends who are selling their home as well. They were told by their realtor to go through it and make it impersonal, to start packing their belongings and paint the walls a neutral color.  They did all of it as the marketing agents said it would sell better and quicker.  They worked extremely hard.  There were many showings in the beginning.  Their house is on the market still while they are contemplating lowering the price.  I hope they do not as their house is worth the price though the marketing people are now telling them differently.  It is a lovely home and will sell.  They are being told their drawback is that the lot slopes back.  Really – they liked it and bought it!  Someone else will as well.  How is staging going to change the shape of a lot?

Here we are being told to start packing our own things as well.  There are those who might say I am a wee bit stubborn as I refuse to live in a house that is not a home.  I have given in some by taking down most of our family pictures that filled our bookshelves.  I have removed any clutter from our closets.  All the clothes are hung up not on the floor.  We are going through our storage and tossing so those areas will look neater.  We are going through the office and disposing of books.  We close up the roll top desk to hide the real clutter.  In the meantime I am still comfortable here at home as I was in all the homes that sold furnished – there were 5 I believe.  This house will sell when our buyer is ready to buy.

It is my job to keep our home clean.  It is the realtors job to sell the clean home.  They hopefully will be savvy enough not to bring someone here who wants a ranch – we are a 2 story.  Hopefully if a person wants a first floor master they will pass us by as we do not have one.  If they want a completely finished basement they must move to something else as we have a craft room, bathroom, a storage room and a workshop in our basement.  Just as I am keeping up my end hopefully realtors do their homework as well.  Tell me they do not like my deck or do not like our craft room.  Solid comments.   To hear that the decor got in the way says the people did not want this house at all or had no imagination thus decor is an easy excuse.

Blessedly our realtor is understanding and supportive of my position on staging.  She believes she can sell our home furnished or not.  Some of the realtors she had at her open house seemed to agree.  My favorite comment was “Lovely home – I have someone I want to bring by when they are in town.”

I leave you with another thought.  There is no one size fits all being the first.  I believe this with all of my being.  No one size in anything!

The second thought is that your perspective is your reality.  I believe our buyer is coming.  I believe they will be here in God’s time not mine.  Our prayer was that the first person who sees this house buys it.  That prayer was not answered.  Now we are praying the buyer comes soon.  They will in God’s time not ours.  It is our job to take care of this home until they arrive.

A sweet friend of mine who lives with MS said this today as she was headed for a treatment…..

“When you have an eternal perspective, and your eyes are on the prize, the little things that can bring you down don’t seem so bad.”  Wisdom from a 30 year old!  Thanks Jenni. Making this my perspective my reality – I am not in control!

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…

(1)http://encyclopedia.toiletpaperworld.com/surveys-stories/toilet-paper-statistics

I FOUND YOU!!!

GOOD MORNING WORLD

In the early afternoon.

I received a letter from a friend of mine recently asking why I had not blogged on the most recent political situations.  Those that have read this blog for awhile know that I was very opinionated in 2012.  After that for that matter as the changes taking place in our government were not met with much enthusiasm by some.

Today I have chosen to answer this one terrific fan with a blog.

I did not blog the whole month of February.  This was not from not having anything to say.  It was from my own lack of organization and not keeping passwords in one place.  I had forgotten my password to this blog and could not get into it to post.  I have spent the better part of an hour now trying to figure out how to get back here.  I had to come a back way through my other blog that I set up specifically for political posts.  The lesson here Dear Readers is to have all your passwords be the same or to keep them all in a convenient place.

This brought back to mine a dear friend who passed away all too early.  I remember her daughter telling me that they went in to take care of her business and found a little piece of paper that had all her user names and coordinating passwords written down.  She said it was easy to get things completed with this one piece of paper.  You have to know that I have now my own ‘one piece of paper’ with all my passwords to gmail and yahoo and aol and comcast and our banks and credit cards all written down.  The banks are in a bit of a code so hoping whoever is left can figure them out.

The title above is a reference to our #1 grandson who used to run into our house with his arms open wide and say “Grandmama I found you!” complete with the big hug.  That feeling of joy and happiness was exactly what I felt when I got into my blog.  It was a coming home for which I was very grateful.

To answer my fan, I have not blogged about the political agenda as the last time I was cast out by too many friends and relatives.   I am getting too old and cannot afford to offend many other people if I still want to have friends.

To my fan – In addition, I believe I am going to have my say. When I do it will be on my other blog so people not of my political persuasion and not caring about what I think or hearing any opposing views to their own need not view it.   My other blog is cornersoapbox.wordpress.com.

I am now off to lunch feeling very accomplished and satisfied with the toils of this mornings adventures and writing.  I leave a quote………”I’ll be back.”

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…