Thoughts

I have been reading articles about the election.  I am not surprised - much - to see that Obama's campaign ran a well-oiled machine based on years of patient slogging, registration of minorities, and neighborhood door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor contact. I'm sure that explanations of their failures are coming.  Similarly, I'm not surprised to read that Romney's loss was due to arrogance in ORCA, which was never tested, his inability to convince voters about his core beliefs, and lower-than-expected turnout of white supporters. I'm sure we are going to hear of the things that they did well -- though we won't hear as often as the first.  But, you know, it depresses me:  neither side talk about the actual plans, and whether a vote was or wasn't a vote for them.  It's like we're all considered to be cogs, and the successful candidate is the one who best manipulates us.

Saw an article on the AARP site - which I don't normally frequent; perhaps when I get older - about average 401(k) levels rising; apparently, the average 401(k) now is about $75,000.  It went on to say that older participants had higher amounts, with the highest amounts going to those who had participared at least ten years (makes sense, right?).  Those people had, on average, about $220,000 in their 401(k).  I read this to my wife, and we both reflected on the value of our 401(k)s.  Which in turn made me think: why is it that my feeling on the adequacy of our financial bedrock is affected by these articles?  Either we have enough, or we don't: what others have should not affect our feelings about it.  It's the math, as someone recently said.  And yet - it does. Strange.

In a desperate attempt to crack the code of understanding French when it is spoken moderately fast, I bought a novel from World of Reading, in Georgia -- excellent company, by the way.  The novel is quite small - you could read it in a day - and it comes with a mini-CD of a person reading it.  So I can listen to the CD while looking at exactly the same words.  (Even then, I find that using the Audacity freeware to slow the speech down a bit more is helpful).   It seems to be working.  Slowly.

I get to have another implant put in -- a lower tooth had an infection.  I'm cool with that.  But why am I apprehensive that the dentist, who is the guy who did the upper implants, is going to judge me on whether I'm adequately taking care of those existing implants?  Shouldn't I think Good idea, get a professional's view -- if not, I can work harder, or, at least, prepare for problems. Yeah.  I should think that.  Don't, though.