Trying Again...

Yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the Virginia creeper in my sister and brother-in-law's back yard - it's spread on a fir tree on one side of the yard, along an elm on the other side, and covers three sides of the garden fence.  The bright red leaves look amazing against all the other green and gold leaves and needles.  Their raspberry bushes are still producing like mad, and I'm still filling my tummy with about a cup of berries right off the vine each day...  Yummy!  Rosie had an acupuncture treatment yesterday, so we walked an hour later than usual - but she was feeling quite spry, and was in a very good mood.
   I was surprised last night to read a story on the Google news Sports site that said there had been a shooting, or killing, on the Colorado University campus, a little over one mile away from my apartment.  Apparently a man with a long, sword-type knife (which was originally reported as a machete) first wrote something regarding the Ten Commandments on the window of a car in the Folsom Field football parking lot. He then entered the Champions Center, an area that holds football and athletic offices, as well as the Buffaloes locker room.  He was seen by several people, and the police had been called by a woman sitting in the car that the man had written on, earlier, in the parking lot.  During a search of the building, the man was trapped in a stairwell, refused to surrender, and was shot and killed.  This happened at 9:28 a.m.  Never heard a word about that shooting elsewhere.
   The local news headlines from the local paper said that (a) the City Council had an all day closed-door meeting regarding their try to make a city municipal power plant, (b) that the President of UCAR had won a prestigious award, (c) that the CU Buffs were back in the NCAA Top 25 list for the first time since 2005, and (d) there had been a hoax calling about an armed shooter at the CU Student Center that afternoon.   Apparently the death of an unknown man, via gun fire, on the CU campus was not a big news story.  Humpf.
   In watching the Vice Presidential debate again, I realized that the man I support, Tim Kaine, who is usually well-behaved and restrained during debates - was acting as if he'd had too much caffeine, or had a high bit of adrenaline pumping through his system.  Mike Pence, for all his austere looks, and head shakes, though, could not defend the things that Donald Trump has said.  He denied that they had been said, which is ridiculous, in this age of audio and visual recordings.  I have to agree that Pence's experience as a talk show host seemed to give him a good deal of poise - but he rarely answered any question put to him.  Kaine, I think, in retrospect, was trying a little too hard to make his points heard - and ended up appearing boorish instead.
   And I have to say that I love the new advertisement, or endorsement, that was released for the Clinton-Kaine ticket yesterday - by the cast of the Fox series Empire -   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLgsEMu1Y4
 

Vice-Presidential Talk-Over Debate

Both Vice-Presidential candidates talked over each other, and the moderator, tonight.  I think they interrupted each other about the same amount of times.  And it seemed, to me, that Senator Kaine became silent more times than Governor Pence, at the chiding of the moderator.  So the Democratic nominee, Senator (and former Governor) of Virginia Tim Kaine sat at a round table with Republican nominee Governor of Indiana Mike Pence, along with the moderator Elaine Quijano of CBS News.  I think that Ms. Quijano did as good a job as could be expected - and she did assert her control a few times, getting the two men back to the original question asked, and in changing questions.  However, I think that Trump, himself, would have crushed her like a steam roller.
  Once again, I wished there was someone in control of the audio board - a person who would keep microphones turned off when an opponent was speaking, and someone who could turn the microphone off when a speaker went over the designated time, or digressed from the subject of the question.  There are rules of debate - even though most politicians tend to forget them.  And the politicians and their respective parties agree to certain rules, which they then flagrantly break.
   I am now looking forward to seeing the Sunday debate, once again between Clinton and Trump - and hosted by Anderson Cooper...