Mr. Powell, Will you be my President?

I think I've already commented on my general dissatisfaction with the current slate of '08 Presidential candidates. After seeing Colin Powell speak today (I'll explain at the end of the post) I really would like to see him run and I know from past media commentaries and other commentaries that I am not alone. With the general dissatisfaction shown by the electorate toward politics as they stand now, I feel the time is right for a person to run who is someone that the American public can trust, respect and hope with. Powell fits those with no doubt in my mind. His integrity is rock-solid, his life story is as American as apple pie--a poor kid from the Bronx who became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs AND Secretary of State, he's African-American and he understands the concept of service to his country more than any candidate running right now.

As he spoke today he talked a lot about being an American and about what America represents. He spoke of the hope of new immigrants, the spirit of generations who gave their lives to protect our freedom, the freedom to succeed and the guts to win. He didn't sugar coat the many challenges we face, but he pointed out our strengths and how we can overcome them. When topics that often come with political baggage he spoke of those vital challenges (security, education, energy, immigration) not the important challenges (abortion, alternate lifestyles, etc.) that are of interest as a society but not vital to the continued health of our nation. Realizing that he was supposed to be inspirational, he really was and the sense of his genuine belief in what he was saying was unsurpassed by any person I've seen speak before.

Alas, he has many times before explained that he is not interested in being President. I honestly can't blame him. The job is thankless, overridden by politics, high stress and the campaign to get there is a slog no matter how good of a candidate the person is. Given that he has given over 50 years of service, predominantly in the military and government, to our nation he deserves a break. Too bad that we can't call him back to service one last time as Marcus Aurelius attempts to do with Maximus in Gladiator when he wants him to succeed him as Emperor.

Powell was the last speaker at a Get Motivated conference I went to in Milwaukee today. It wasn't particularly motivating especially having to get up at 5:30am to get there. The other speakers were:

• Lovie Smith (not very interesting),
  
• Suze Orman (financial lady from CNBC, seemed very angry at people, mostly a common sense discussion),
  
• Phil Town (some millionaire author and online investor, good speaker but did the pitch),
• Ed McMahon (told random stories, some were rather racy...),
• Zig Ziglar (he's ancient and repeated himself a lot),
• Bill Cosby (told how he became a comedian, hilarious and well spoken, wore a t-shirt and sweats),
• Random Ziglar speakers (not worth discussing)
• Colin Powell (awesome, see above)

The tickets to the event were free which I realized meant there was a hook of some sort, like those timeshare meetings or a pyramid scheme. Yes sirree there were hooks, two in fact. The first was the online investing discussion which was interesting until the pitch of the "super offer" of a $13,000 course for just $995 if you registered today and so on for that. The second was another "super offer" for a Real Estate investment seminar usually $1,300 just $99 if you signed up today. I had a distinct feeling of nausea at the way the pitch was built up to especially with my cynical mind in full gear asking how it works since if it's really that easy more folks would have done it.

Despite this, I still think that seeing Powell was worth sitting through the rest of the event.

A Hat and some pictures

It's funny the small things that become icons. Apparently my wool rancher hat is one of those items. The hat I'm wearing here (minus the feathers) has become an icon to the Scouts in my district. While I was walking around our camporee this Friday without the hat on, several kids and leaders came up and asked why I wasn't wearing my hat. Honestly it was warm out and a wool hat didn't seem necessary. I went to my car and put it on to appease folks and had a leader I know well come up and tell me how it just looked odd that I not be wearing the hat at a camporee. Understand that I really only wear the hat at camping events and that most people see me without a hat on. Funny that the Scouts and Leaders fixated on that right off the bat.

The rest of the weekend went well. We had the "Crash and Burn" emergency services camporee in coordination with a local technical college with a lot of neat hands-on demos for the scouts to participate in. The only downer was the damp weather including some rain, storms and a lot of mist and fog.

On a separate note, I was coerced, once again by Jason who suggested I start this blog, to assemble a Facebook account. Here is the link to a photo album of me working, an album of my greatest hits photos, and of the camporee this weekend (cool mist picture and neat clouds).

I will also be home to MI from late on July 2nd to early on July 7th for my first visit back since Christmas.