Heritage Action is a Defund Obamacare tour and the second stop was Dallas on Tuesday night. The event features Sen. Ted Cruz, Cruz’s father Rafael Cruz and former former Sen. and head of Heritage Jim DeMint. I discuss the Defund Obamacare event on Radio Stranahan, too.
The Dallas Morning News dishonestly reported the turnout for the Heritage Action event to Defund Obamacare that happened at the Hilton Anatole hotel in Dallas, Texas Tuesday night. Not only does their headline Hundreds in Dallas join Sen. Ted Cruz to urge Congress to stop Affordable Care Act suggest the event was attended by a few hundred people, but newspaper’s website included a slide show of 11 photos; not a single one was a wide shot that actually showed the whole crowd. I was there; it was about 2,000 people, not hundreds.0
Here’s the complete audio of Senator Ted Cruz’s press conference before the event, discussing how and why he wants to defund Obamacare.
Rafael Cruz introduced Ted Cruz to a standing ovation.
Here’s the first woman who disrupted the event:
Then, another man disrupted the event so I knew it was a trend. Security asked him to leave and I followed and then interviewed him in the parking lot. No other reporters even followed. Turns out he was with Texas Organizing Project, which is the group Texas ACORN reformed — a lot of conservative sites covered this transformation but in case you want balance, here’s a left wing site talking about ACORN and their ‘rebirth.’
For years, baby dolls came with a bottle as standard equipment…sending a non-so-subtle signal about how babies are ‘supposed’ to be fed to little girls who wanted to pretend they were Mommies.
Now that more and more real mommies have shaken off the formula industry marketing and realized the health and bonding benefits of breast feeding, there’s a doll coming to market that shows a baby nursing.
And cue the freak out in….3…2….
My favorite comment? The one about making a toy that simulates labor pains — because who would think of that? And…why would they think of that?
And yes, my wife chose to breastfeed and people who freak about it drive her up the wall.
I’ve hinted a bit at parts of what I’m about to write but I realized that I haven’t actually laid out the whole thing that’s going on in my life all in one place – so here goes.
September has been a rough month. Three major things have happened to me and my family, any one of which would be stressful all on its own. I’ll use the popular numerical checklist format to add a little emotional distance…
About three weeks ago, we found out that we have to move. The house we’ve rented for nearly a year in New Mexico needs major construction that will be very disruptive and last months. I work at home, we have kids, and the owner of the house never made any offer about how to resolve that.
The filmmaking seminar business has been really weak and the last two events I did have lost money. I’ve made sure the events have been great and the show must go on but it’s been a big financial hit.
I talked a bit about the problems with my eyesight due to diabetes but it’s worse than I said, really. I need medical treatment at this point and I probably need to get back on some medication.
So – health problems, financial problems and we have to move. That’s been September so far.
But I’m an optimist and a realist. Things could be a lot worse. The kids are good, we’re not starving and Lauren is the love of my life. We’ve adjusting and the adjusting contines.
My experience is that things in my life seem to happen for a reason and it’s a growth process. Our time in New Mexico has been great and we learned something about suburban living; we like some parts of it and other parts we could do without.
I’m a fan of simple philosophy that people like Leo Babauta write about in his great blog Zen Habits. I’m a fan, not an example…but I’m trying. I’m trying to regroup and really hone in on what’s important.
In screenplays, the hero often doesn’t choose to embark on their journey but instead they are forced to by forces beyond their control. That’s a lesson that’s shown up a couple of times for me lately. It came up in the Donald Miller book A Million Miles In A Thousand Years and it came up a few days ago in a conversation with screenwriting expert Derek Rydall. If you believe the universe is rather barren and mathematical, you can call it a coincidence even though that doesn’t explain a damn thing. What I’ve noticed in my life is that sometimes the universe seems to toss out messages to me and I’ve learned to try and listen.
Whatever prevents you from doing your work has become your work. - Albert Camus
The journey I’m being forced into is one where I’m a writer. I loved to California over twenty-five years ago to write and I just haven’t.
I’ve done other stuff. I’ve done things that I loved doing including photography and visual effects and other things that blind people don’t do all that well. So now while I’m at a fork in the road where I may actually go blind, I’m getting the message that maybe I should write. I can do that, so I’m going to do a lot of that.
I’ll probably do some other stuff because I do but I’m trying to reboot my life yet again and focus on writing and my health and actually walking the simplicity walk. I want to stabilize my businesses, too and of course, my family is all wrapped up in everything I do.
I feel very lucky. I’ve had so many things happen in my life that went far beyond my wildest dreams and excited to see where this next phase of my life leads. Thank you for being part of it, just by being here.
Yesterday, I found out that my eyesight has degenerated to the point that I can’t drive a car anymore.
I went to renew my driver’s license and I had hoped that I’d be able to squeak by without my eyeglasses. That was my hope but when I stuck my forehead on the eye test machine I knew there was no possible way. Every line was a total blur. I couldn’t make out anything.
I’d lost my glasses at some point so I left the driver’s license place and went home to look for them. After they didn’t turn up, I decided to just bite the bullet and get a new pair. I went over to the optical center at Walmart to get an eye exam and a perscription, thinking I’d go to a one hour glasses place after that.
The eye exam didn’t go well.
My current normal video is 20/100, which means not good. How not good? It’s not legally blind but apparently I don’t have good enough vision to get a job doing government work. Ponder that.
In order to get a driver’s license, I’d need 20/40 and even with glasses, the best I was going to do was 20/50. This is all related to my diabetes and it’s gotten worse in the year since my last eye exam.
Worse, though, was the eye doctor saying, “You need medical help, not an eye exam at Walmart.” That little bit of concise brutality came from the eye doctor whose office was Walmart, remember.
This all has big implications, of course. I’m sorting those out now. I did 100% of the driving before for the family; Lauren never drove. When we went out yesterday, the kids expressed much confusion. “Ummmm — why is Mom driving?” I could also go into the ironies feeling like I’m going blind two of the most important things I do are photography and filmmaking.
But it seems like I have is diabetic retinopathy and that is treatable. I haven’t been getting treatment and with our health care system being what it is, now I have to figure out how I’m going to get that treatment.
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