TFP Column: SOTU - SSDD

I had already written a piece for this week's TFP when I suggested to Editor-in-Chief Michael Miller that I might be able to do a State Of The Union (SOTU) piece given a bit of time.  His suggestion was pretty much to the effect that I would get 24 hours to do so if I wanted to make it timely.  


I was reminded of the famous quote by 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' author Douglas Adams, when he said: "I love deadlines.  I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."


Ever-willing to take on a challenge however, I sat down and wrote another piece, "SOTU: SSDD".  In listening to both the speech itself and the Republican response, I found myself taken with how much I had heard from preceding residents of the White House, regardless of the political party that they came from, mixed with some new material that struck me as either annoying or amusing.  (I also found myself wishing that I could get back the 90 minutes of my life that I lost to the effort of watching well-rehearsed political rhetoric.)  


While it's impossible to capture the everything from a speech that lasts over an hour, I think that I hit most of the highlights within the restrictions of an 800 word column.  To capture the true feeling of the event however, one would have to combine the experiences being beaten for an hour with a Nerf bat, having a heart attack, banging your head against the wall (cause it feels good when you stop) and being bitten to death by ducks. 


If however, you would prefer to instead capture some of the feeling of what is happening in Toledo and NW Ohio, you are going to have to read this weekend's addition of Toledo's largest circulation Sunday and best weekly newspaper, the Toledo Free Press.




(I am waiting to hear back from Michael Miller now to see if I will be using the original effort I produced as a replacement for the mid-week blog effort that I failed to.)