My Reagan Family

I wanted to take this time to write a special blog. I have spent the past 3 1/ 2 weeks with an amazing group of people. I’ll be saying goodbye Saturday night to most of these, never to see them again. My heart is both hurt and warmed thinking of this group. I want to share my Reagan family with you:

 

Brian Benjers

I met Brian the day I arrived, the airline had lost his luggage and he was searching all over for it. Brian served our country in Fallujah, Iraq. He is a very strong Christian and shares a lot of the same ideals I have. He also lived next door to me.

Michael Cartier

Michael and I share something in common, neither of us were born during the Reagan years. I was born before and he was born afterwards. Michael is a very sharp individual, he skipped two years of high school and attended Harvard. He will be returning to high school to enjoy a senior year this upcoming semester.

Jeremiah Diacogiannis

Jeremiah is from a family of 10 children. He loves the Lord with all his heart and it shows in his daily walk. He has held a morning bible study for the past couple of weeks that I have yet to make, but I hope to make it before the week is up. He also shared some commonality with me in how he was raised and some experiences of his.

Eric Farb

Eric is my fashion guru. He took me and Nate to Express and fancied us up. I walked out with 3 fitted shirts and Nate was looking quite metro in his new shades. I also found out that Eric was praying for each one of us.

Brianna Fredericks

Brianna just graduated college and is moving to DC for work. After surviving a car wreck on her way here, she headed up our activism challenge project. She did a fantastic job on this. She also has taken me on numerous runs to the grocery store … yah Brianna!!

Leslie Georgatos

I didn’t really get to know Leslie until I went to the beach with her, Jamie, and Henry one night. After that night I often find myself looking for her or Jamie in the crowd if I have to vent on some stress I may be experiencing that day. She did an outstanding job on her persuasive speech and will be one of our speakers on our graduation night.

Nate Griffith

I clicked with Nate from day one. He is a fellow southerner and shares many of the same political ideas that I have. I am sure I will be corresponding with him years after this academy. (Not that I wouldn’t with everyone else though) He will be rooming with me at the east coast conference in DC next week. He also was chosen as one of our speakers for graduation night. Go Nate!

Rebecca Kitchens

I flew into Santa Barbara on the same plane as Rebecca and didn’t know it. She was on my team for designing the totally awesome posters for our activism challenge, even though they changed our title from Tree Huggers vs. Corporate Lackeys to High Home Prices vs Development.

Maia Lazar

Maia thinks I am old. The reason I know this is that she told me in an email before I even came here, then she told me in person, then she even told the New York Times reporter we had here. Maia is a very eccentric person and has maintained her own blog since age 13. She is also the only Jewish student we had in attendance.

Ana Lightle

I knew Ana from the east coast conference of last year. She is one of my fellow students who have both Woo and Communication as her strengths … yes we rock. She also shares my love of country music and can be counted on to control the van’s CD player to the enjoyment of us enlightened ones. She is a huge activist on her campus and I would love to have her running my campaign in the future.

Joseph Lubas

Joseph is our dorm movie supplier. He has a vast collection of films he shares with us from time to time. He is an avid reader and can normally be found walking around with a book in hand. He is also a neighbor of mine.

 

Matthew McCorkle

Matthew is the person I would want preparing me for an appearance on Jeopardy. He has a great mind for detail. I am glad he is on our side of the fight. If I were president he is one of the few I would want on my staff.

Ashleigh Newton

Ashleigh is a Texan. She has an awesome sense of humor. She makes the most mundane quotes sound funny. She also shares my love of country music. She is one of the most easygoing persons I have ever met.

Christiana Pajak

Christina has a perpetual smile. She is a northerner, but we love her anyway. She had the opportunity to hear from her boyfriend as he called into the radio show that was broadcast here from the center, while we were in attendance.

Chelsea Phillips

Chelsea has a set of pipes on her. I love when she is around on karaoke nights. Her rendition of a Whole New World was beautiful. She like many others here, places a strong emphasis on her Christianity.

Melissa Richmond

Melissa snorts when she laughs, and I hope she never changes that. She has been spending a lot of time with my good buddy Nate. Her motivational speech on the ‘birds and the bees’ was one of the best I have heard. (Trust me, it is not what you think)

Steven Rudy

Steven is our mastermind. He found that to be one of his strengths on our personality test. He inspired me on his growth in his speaking skills. He also shares my love of online computer games and we’ll be playing games in the future.

Alina Sana

Alina is the friendliest, bubbly person I have ever met. She was born in Transylvania and moved with her family here when she was 3. When giving a speech I look for her in the audience to give me strength to carry through. I have learned to always look for my ‘Alina’ in the audience whenever I am speaking.

Darin Schemmer

Darin actually contributed financially to me being here. I got to know Darin a year ago at the east coast conference. I had no idea he was such a funny guy. His quotes have filled our quote wall on our facebook group.

Shane Soderland

This is our ‘rainman’ of nutrition. If you want to know anything about nutrition ask him. He has a very strong outgoing personality. I found out just a few days ago that he shares the same views as I as a young earth conservative.

Henry Teichert

Henry one of the most giving people I met here. He was always offering to take groups of us down to the beach with his car. I don’t think I have ever seen Henry get mad at anyone.

Jamie Ucuzoglu

Jamie was a sweetheart. She took the cutest pictures. She shared some funny date stories with us one including a guy who claimed he had a high position at a prestigious bank when in reality he was a teller. I expect Jamie to do big things in her life.

Seyitbek Usmanov

The day I arrived in Santa Barbara I was standing with Seyitbek and we both saw an attractive girl walk by and loud enough that everyone around us could hear he says “Whoa!” He is originally from Kyrgyzstan and is going to school in Toronto. He is Mr. Karaoke and sings his heart out every time we get together.

Lauren Wilson

Bivins, Lauren, Nashville … she has many names. She is one of the few southerners here. She was on my side when we were debating the reasons behind the War of Northern Aggression. (The Civil War) She lives the closest to me and I’ll probably run into her in the future.

Christine Zoldos

Christine doesn’t like country music but we are still working on her. She shares both my desire and slight apprehension with public speaking. I loved having her in my group when we broke off to video tape our speeches. She has an engaging personality that attracts others to her.

A day of ups and downs

Today was a character building day, morale is low. I won’t air dirty laundry on a blog that has some of my fellow students reading. But I do like to detail what goes on here be it good or bad.

· Last night I found out that Sydney, my baby niece is sick and may need to go to the emergency room for dehydration.

· We just found out that for the third time our weekly trip to the Reagan Ranch was cancelled.

· We had planned to make tonight a movie night since we had finished our activism challenge this past weekend along with our 3^rd presentation of our persuasive speech today only to be given an essay we had to write for tomorrow.

· We are in southern California in July and there is no air conditioning here nor any fans. I sit around pouring the sweat. I go to bed pouring the sweat. I wake up pouring the sweat.

· We have went 3 weeks eating the same breakfast everyday, sandwiches almost every day, and almost the same supper everyday

· I bombed my speech today. I really wanted to give it my all and I spoke using a new format. My other two speeches were given using my laptop as my notes, today I used printed notes. I got lost on page one and didn’t find my place till page six.

· We need a break, working 13 hour days 6 days a week is starting to take its toll on us.

I could go on but I won’t. We all are going through this. We all are experiencing the overload and stress.

Thankfully this isn’t how our day ended. After compiling this list we had a meeting to discuss the success of our activism challenge. We were awarded enough points to win the secret special prize they have been enticing us with. The prize is a completely free day on the Reagan ranch our last day here. We will have no classes there, no responsibilities, and won’t be rushed. We are going to have another barbeque there. We also are going to see all the parts of the ranch we didn’t get to see last time we were there. And the best part is we get to go horseback riding for an hour and a half along the trails that Reagan used to ride!!

After this debriefing we loaded up the vans and headed over to the Svabodas’ house for a dinner party. Bob and Jean Svaboda were the ones who put this academy together. Bob had a vision of this over a decade ago. They are not only financial contributors but have been with us for all our activities. After walking through the big private gardens we sat down to a meal. (It wasn’t sandwiches!!!!!) I got to spend some one on one time with another colleague and found out he and I had a lot in common. In fact I have a lot in common with many here. After supper Bob and Jean sat down for an interview to explain why they started this academy and how they arrived at their station in life. Their main theme was their reliance on God. I had no idea how much thought and prayer they put into this academy and each one of us until tonight. They made the clear case that they considered us to be their legacy. They felt we were the best investment they could have made with their money. We also took pictures with them they are going to put on their “prayer wall.” They intend to regularly pray for each of us individually. I intend on keeping in touch with the Svabodas over the years and will send letters a couple times a year.

After such an uplifting meal I got the chance to call my sister and check on Sydney. She was doing much better this evening and was even up for being in our county fair beauty pageant tonight. Apparently she stole the show by doing the motions for head, shoulders, knees, and toes on stage, along with covering her mouth and giggling. However I am currently compiling the names and addresses of the judges for retribution since they failed to choose the obvious winner in this competition, Sydney.

So even though my niece was robbed of her trophy and I still had to write a paper tonight, it seems that everything turned out pretty good. God is good.

Get your elbows off the table

Last night was some night. They tried to teach this Kentucky boy some etiquette at a dinner we had at a private club. I was originally told I would be giving my motivational after dinner speech, but we ran out of time. Earlier this week we were coached on introductions, toasts, handshakes, and general business etiquette, and tonight was focused on the hardest one of all, dining skills. We arrived 30 minutes before dinner and mingled around making our introductions to the guests. We then made our way into the dining room. Each table was assigned a host and a guest of honor. A general rule of thumb is to wait till your host does something before you do it. Once our host was seated we did the same, of course entering our chair from the right side as all cultured people do. Dr. Folsom, our history professor for the week, was seated at our table as well, so it was a treat to be able to sit and talk history with him. Our meal was a five course meal. The soup was the hardest to eat. You start with the spoon close to your body and scoop away from your body. When you reach the bottom you tilt the bowl away from yourself and scoop the remaining soup out. Midway through the meal we were given some sorbet to clean our pallet between courses. Apparently cultured people eat a desert halfway through their meal. It seems the advice from the movie “Titanic” was correct, when you are faced with a massive amount of silverware you should start from the outside and work your way in. We also learned the mnemonic device BMW. Besides being an overpriced car BMW also stands for Bread, Meal, Water, and this is the order of your place setting from left to right. Never again will I worry about picking someone else’s drink up; mine will always be to the right. The main course was one of the best meals I have had here, it was a grilled chicken on a portabella mushroom. It was so good in fact, I would have loved to have finished it, however my waiter had different plans. Depending on where you place your silverware it sends a message to your waiter whether you are simply resting or you are done eating. Clearly my waiter didn’t know these rules. Secondly he didn’t understand the words “I’m not finished,” said 3 times in a row. Figuring flinging my salad fork at his back while he ran off with my meal to be bad form, I decided to see what the next course was. It was probably one of the best desserts I have ever ate. We had a ‘lava’ chocolate cake. It was a chocolate cake with a hot chocolate pudding in the middle. I almost forgot one of the more useful techniques I learned … what do you do when you have something in your mouth you can’t manage to swallow? You simply hold your napkin in front of your mouth with your right hand and then with your left hand remove the offending piece of food. Our host later toasted our guest in a formal toast and in return our guest toasted our host. We were served nonalcoholic red wine, white wine, and champagne, for our toasts. I like nights like this when we get off campus and get dressed up.

Folsom Prison Blues

Today was a day of extremes. We visited both an air force base and a federal penitentiary. I was awakened at 6:30 am by a group of 25 Japanese doing traditional exercises in our parking lot to some traditional music. By the time I showered and walked to breakfast they had finished. We later made our way to Vandenberg Air Force base. This place was huge. So large, in fact, that our driver provided by the base got lost a few times. We spent a good hour or so in a small museum in the middle of the base. Our guide likened a missile to a UPS truck that had a package (nuclear warhead) that you send from point A to point B on the other side of the marble we live on. This truck was mostly hollow and filled with rocket fuel to facilitate the trip. He only shared declassified information with us, therefore our military has far more capability than what any of us will ever know of. One of the bombs he discussed had more firepower than all of World War II combined. That includes all bullets, missiles, explosives, and the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. Originally these missiles took 30 minutes to fire. We now have 20 story buildings built underground storing missiles we can fire within 60 seconds. We maintain the peace through our superior firepower and this is only one example of that power. The military was able to build this base in 6 months: 6 months from sand dunes to operational air force base. They routinely test missiles throughout the year to hone their skills and to show our enemies we still have nuclear capability. This tends to be a great deterrent. There was a scheduled missile launch for that evening but sadly our schedule didn’t allow time for that.

The second part of the trip was the Lompoc Penitentiary. Being a rational person I naturally assumed there would be bars separating us from the inmates, I was wrong. No photography was allowed inside so I will rely on the only picture I took while standing outside the gates. Notice the three rows of ‘razor wire’ that separates the inmates from freedom. If any inmate makes it through this wire they are normally found within 50 feet of the fence lying down, bleeding. We were prohibited from wearing khakis on our visit since this is what the inmates wore. Apparently Gap was the official sponsor of this facility. After being screened through and removing my belt, shoes and all personal effects to be scanned, we were split into smaller groups and made our way into the prison. And I do mean into the prison. We were standing mere feet away from groups of over 60 inmates that included murders, rapists, and almost every type of criminal you could imagine. We were led across their grounds and into their living ‘barracks.’ They didn’t have individual cells, instead they had barracks that housed a few hundred together. Did I mention that our guide had no gun? For discipline they rely on their ‘call button,’ to call for assistance if there is a disturbance. The barracks were full when we came by and many inmates were mingling about around us. We then were led into their sign factory. The inmates made signs in this facility and were paid $1 a day for work. This was normally split each day to pay down any fees the inmates were still subject to from the result of their trials. Upon entering this building every eye was on us, or at least the ladies of our group. Along with the stares we received several cat calls as well. In normal day to day life our group of guys would have questioned and possibly corrected anyone who treated the ladies we were with like this, but not so inside the prison walls. A couple of us tried to position ourselves between the ladies and the closest inmates and didn’t really exchange eye contact. We were moved from this building to the cafeteria and received several tame jeers from the inmates standing around the yard. Our guide described some recent changes where several ‘amenities’ were removed from prisons due to public pressure that prisons shouldn’t be treated as ‘day spas.’ The guide described the problems this brought and the increased problems in maintaining order. More than one in our group appeared ready to argue against having any comforts at all for the inmates, while still in ear shot of said inmates. Knowing I didn’t have to outrun the inmates and simply the poor soul who opened their mouth, I wasn’t as concerned at this time.

I don’t think many of our group understood the reason for visiting a federal penitentiary and quite honestly I didn’t either until hearing the dialogue after leaving the facility. I heard protests of only allowing the inmates access to a 5 foot square cell for 23 hours of the day. And although I do believe we should be very tough on crime not only as a punishment and deterrent, but a means of rehabilitation due to a desire of never being locked up again, I do realize these are human beings. Our unpleasant experience only lasted a couple of hours, and we were then allowed to leave that place. I looked into the faces of some men who would never be leaving that facility, ever. I think this was a very valuable experience for those of us who have the possibility of becoming lawmakers in the future. Although I am the last person to say we should be soft on crime, I do believe it is important to put a face to those whose futures we can affect.

This isn’t the first time on this trip that I had a differing opinion than a few around me. (And I apologize to those from my group who are reading this now. This is one of the finest groups of individuals I have ever been assembled with. I simply have a slightly different opinion from a couple of you at times.) The day before I was chastised for giving a homeless man a dollar. He asked me if I had a quarter and although many times I pass these people up not knowing what they would use my money for, I felt the need to give this man a dollar. He stood there with a black eye and real grubby hands. I had a small few yell out as I was doing this and while the man was walking away one very loudly said “Chris! Why did you do that?” I looked at them and said “Because I wanted to.” When I got in the car and was questioned about it I was told you aren’t supposed to cast your pearls before swine. I explained to them that was an example of grossly taking a verse out of context.

Santa Barbara vs. The American Flag

Apparently the American flag is viewed as offensive to some residents of Santa Barbara. This Monday we arrived at the Reagan Ranch Center at our usual time of 8:30 am. Immediately after stepping off the van Adam and I were accosted by a woman holding a camera. Our dialogue, verbatim, follows:

Woman: “So tell me, when is the banner coming down?”

Me: "I'm sorry?"

Woman: "I need to know what time they are taking that banner down, today."

Me: "Oh, I didn't know they were taking it down." (I am thinking she simply wanted a picture of the building and the taking down of the banner was something the Ranch Center planned on doing after our grand opening was over)

Woman: "Oh yes, it has to come down today."

Adam then begins to talk to the woman a bit and I missed his conversation as I settled my mind on what this woman was telling me.

I then turned to walk into the building when I heard the rest of the conversation.

Woman: "And oh yeah, the flag has to come down as well."

I spin around at this moment.

Me: "Excuse me?" "The flag?"

Woman: "Yes, the flag."

Me: "The American flag?!?"

Woman: "Yes."

Me: "You are telling me we have to take down the American flag?"

Woman: "Yes! It’s too big."

The above few comments were said while Adam was trying to explain something to the woman. Clearly this woman was a trouble maker and thus not worthy of my time, so I spun around and walked back into the building.

Apparently the city deemed the flag was an eye sore and must be removed. The official reason was the flag didn’t meet city code. So on a privately owned building dedicated to a man who epitomized freedom to the world we are told we can’t fly the flag of our country. This transpires while we are spending a month studying the tenants of conservatism and the importance of freedom. Strangely the city has no trouble with flying other flags with less offensive symbols on it such as palm trees. I was also told that the art museum had flown banners the same size as ours. The next day we arrived to a naked building where once stood such a proud display for our country and the man who brought down communism.

Here once again is a photo of the building before its forced defacing:

Communism

We have had an amazing week studying the historical effects of communism on the world. This section was taught by Dr. Paul Kengor author of God and Reagan and God and George W. Bush It would be impossible to recount everything he taught, but clearly if anyone in our class was wishy washy about the evils of communism before, by the end of week they would rival Joe McCarthy in their loathing and fear of it. I will post a few key points from my notes here. My apologies for not adding details to these notes. I fear I won’t have time to write full blogs until my small amount of free time on Sunday.

• 1848 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Engels
  
• October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution brought in Vladimir Lenin
  
• Joseph Stalin 1924 - 1959
  
• Lenin would write letters telling people to go to a certain town and kill no less that 200 Cossacks
  
• Wanted to shoot people who didn't show up to work on Christmas day
  
• 20 - 40 million killed under Stalin's reign
  
• 1920 abortion legalized in Russia .. These numbers don't count this (8 million a year)
  
• Religion was outlawed
  
• 8000 abortion doctors working around the clock
  
• Russia's population would be 500 million if all this killing hadn't happened
  
• Professors hate communist bashers more than communists
  
• These guys made Hitler look like Mr. Rogers
  
• The communists killed more in the first year than the previous 5 tsars combined
  
• 1945 - 1949 Eastern Europe
  
• Communist bloc
  
• Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and - until the early 1960s - Albania
  
• The "Soviet Empire"
  
• 1949 China becomes communist killed 70 million
  
• 1949 Soviets get atomic bomb
  
• 1950 - 1953 Korea
  
• 1960s -1970s hits parts of Asia, Latin America, Africa
  
• 1958 - 1961 Cuba
  
• This is essentially what elects Reagan in the 1970s
  
• 1989 Communist bloc goes, fall of the Berlin Wall
  
• 1991 December 25 Gorbachev resigns
  

 

• Castro and Che Guevara supported using nukes on us
  
• 30 years later we find out there were 162 warheads there
  
• Would have killed 80 million Americans
  
• Then we fire on the USSR and then they fire on us
  
• Even Hilter favored not using WMDs
  

 

• Cuba takes out $9,784 out of $10,000 the workers make per year, this is 97.84% tax rate of total income
  
• Doctors quitting their jobs and running houses of prostitution
  
• Shortage of hygiene products
  
• You need food first
  
• Elian Gonzalez
  was the only one to survive with his group, then Janet Reno sent him back to Cuba
  
• 100,000 people have drown swimming to Cuba, 0 people have drowned swimming from the US to Cuba
  

 

 

• Communism has killed over 1,000,000 people
  
• If you prevent outsourcing that would mean we aren't in a free economy, and prices will stay high and eventually we will be beat out by other countries
  
• In the US if you don't have the money to afford health care insurance then you are technically eligible for Medicaid
  
• Also hospitals are not allowed to turn people away in emergency rooms
  
• Stalin said "All worship of God is a type of necrophilia"
  
• In North Korea disloyalty is viewed as allowing pictures of their leader to gather dust or to get folded or torn is punished
  
• Our revolution was in 1776 and our constitution written in 1789 … 13 years, and yet liberals are saying the progress in Iraq in taking too long
  
• 1995 - 1998 2,000,000 + starved to death in North Korea
  
• Out of a population of 22 million
  
• In the US that would be like losing 35 - 40 million
  
• SK sends food there … air drop
  
• NK removes any indication of where the food came from
  
• Therefore SK started sending the food in packages marked with its origin
  
• NK were eating bark
  
• No nutritional value at all
  
• NK tried to start a 'rabbit campaign'
  
• That would produce 6 pounds of meat a month per family
  
• Widespread reports of cannibalism
  
• The animals are migrating south due to the lack of food there
  
• Our DOD (Department of Defense) has a "two-war posture" defense budget
  
• So we can simultaneously fight 2 wars at once
  
• They were going to scrap this in the 1990s
  
• With a 13.1 trillion GNP we can definitely afford this
  

 

Yawn

Classes .. speeches … more speeches .. revising speeches … more classes …. leadership sessions .. 2 out of 3 meals every day being working meals .. meaning we had lectures during them and had to take notes …. All our study time /free time erased… chicken for almost every meal of the day … coming home to blog but only wanting to sleep .. working on our activism challenge in between all the classes … Sleep …must sleep!!

More later.

I leave you with three hot guys.