Another favorite disscusion

1.Michael Grunwald makes the case that Al Gore, our greenest vice president in history, blew the 2000 presidential election by 573 votes, in the south Florida, Miami voting area (p.88). What do you think about the scenario he paints? Do you agree or disagree with his analysis? Or do you have another theory as to why he lost?

That was the year that all those recounts occurred and that could have had something to do with Al Gore losing the presidential election. Grunwald's opinion was very white, not black and white. Most people that are arguing show both sides, they do not really back the apposing idea, they tell it and then refute it. He made it sound like Gore was getting beat up, which he might have but I though Grunwald might have embellished a little bit. There was something going on that Gore did not want to bring out that might have if he were to take a stand, but hey if Gore would have won he never would have received a Noble Peace Prize for giving a lunatics idea about global warming when Florida has had some of he coldest winters to date.

2. When you read this chapter of Grunwald’s book, what do you think about the role of local, state and Federal politics in the preservation effort to save the Everglades? Can you back up your opinion with an example from this chapter.

All I kept thinking of while reading this was the School House Rock song “I'm Just a Bill”, I know that is corny but I honestly was thinking of the rolled up paper sitting on Capital Hill. Obviously the ones that are going to have the strongest feelings and arguments are going to be Local Government, they not only live in the area the are governing but it is in the best interest for them to argue for only the best of the local area. We go to school on some Everglades reserves and that is why our school is not as big as other universities, the land we are building on is protected and it is slowly becoming unprotected. Is this a good thing or a bad thing that land that was once protected is becoming unprotected so we can have another parking garage.

Happy 4th of July

After my trip to downtown Fort Myers I decided the weather was not good enough for me to have really taken it all in. I heard about the fourth event that was going on in downtown. I decided to go with my girlfriend and enjoy the sights. We went window shopping and just walked around for hours. We went into this amazing art gallery and found out that the first Friday of every month there is a open art gallery in all of downtown, every shop opens their doors to show the art work.
There were moon bounces and carnival games all over the place and parking was near impossible to find. We had a lot of fun just walking around and looking around. We went into this pizza place for lunch and it was really good, they made it right there in front of you. The slices were huge and I of course tried to be a big shot and eat two. I got one and three fourths down.
Downtown Fort Myers really made me think of downtown Orlando, where I am from. There were not any tall buildings, but I liked it, I did not feel so overwhelmed.