TresSugar

Where Do You Stand? Wedding Roasts

DearSugar — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:00:00 -0700

The rehearsal dinner night has become much more than just practicing your place in the wedding processional. It's become an event all in its own and often ends up being the most fun part of the wedding weekend. Since only the maid of honor and best man are supposed to speak on the actual wedding night, the rehearsal dinner is where the bride and groom's friends can say a few words about the happy couple. I've been to my fair share of weddings so I've heard my share of speeches, and I must say, the heartwarming ones are by far my favorite. Of course, the roasting approach gets people laughing, but there's a thin line that can easily be crossed, especially when there's alcohol involved. I'm sure you've witnessed both variations so tell me, where do you stand on taking the roast approach to a wedding toast?

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Eat Your Heart Out, Andrew Lloyd Webber!

GiggleSugar — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:00:00 -0700

You know the scene in My Best Friend's Wedding when the dude pretending to be with Julia Roberts breaks into song while smack in the middle of a speech, and as Hollywood would have it, the whole table joins in? The peeps below made the scene a little less Hollywood and a little more Broadway. They had a fantastic performance, but I wanna know how everyone in attendance at this wedding (even the father of the groom!) had a voice fit for singing. Uh, Twilight Zone much? (Thanks, College Humor!)

McCain Sheds His "Green Speech" Skin, Shines Amid Protests

CitizenSugar — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:00:39 -0700

I might venture out on a limb and say McCain's speech in front of the National Federation of Independent Business yesterday helped to erase the mean, green debacle of a week ago. He was the old McCain again. Hey. You know what I mean.

He opened with a chuckler: "I have never run a small, struggling enterprise - unless you count my presidential campaign last year," but was soon interrupted by an anti-war protester who heckled him from the audience.

The woman burst out with "War is bad for small business!" McCain responded, "one of the things Americans are tired of, one of the things they're tired of is people yelling at each other in America, have you noticed that? They want us to respect each other's opinions. . . . Americans want a dialogue," to wild applause. After another protester jumped in and was lead away, McCain said, "now that we know, now that I know who I will be facing in the general election . . ."

To see my highlights, the parts that grabbed me - with a funny cherry on top at the end, read more.

Americans do not resent paying their fair share of taxes. What they do resent, and especially if they're trying to run a business, is being subjected to thousands of pages of needless and often irrational rules and demands from the IRS.
We need rules that assure fairness and punish wrongdoing in the market and hold every businessperson in America to the same fair standards.
In so many ways, we need to make a clean break from the worst excesses of both political parties. And for Republicans, it starts with reclaiming our good name as the party of spending restraint. Somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose. The only power of government that could stop them was the power of veto, and it was rarely used. If that authority is entrusted to me, I will use the veto as needed. I will veto every bill with earmarks. I will seek a constitutionally valid line-item veto to end pork-barrel spending once and for all.

The even-handed pragmatism - and what seemed like a conservative renaissance - sung to me. OK, he did have a funny slip of the tongue when he delivered the last part. Why is McCain so anti-brew?

Hee hee. And what was Cindy up to yesterday? A little shop-a-rama at Oscar de la Renta - a spree that went on a little longer than her poor Secret Service detail could bear, saying she'd been in the store "Waaayy too long" as he sweltered outside. Bah. Don't take a man shopping; they have no endurance for the important stuff.

What did you think of McCain's speech? Is he upping his economy cred?

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President Bush Announces New Policy on Cuba

CitizenSugar — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:00:23 -0700

Moments ago, President Bush announced a landmark policy change with regard to Cuba. Americans will now be able to send cell phones to Cubans. It's a change that Bush hopes will encourage the new regime of Raul Castro to increase freedom of expression for Cuban citizens

The announcement was made in a speech intended to mark Cuba's 106th anniversary of independence. I'm a political speech aficionado, and don't usually cotton to the simpler prose preferred by Bush - but this one had the prints of a new scribe all over it. To see what he said, read more.

Bush said (and I'm paraphrasing closely, the text isn't online yet):

Now that Cubans can have cell phones, let's make sure they have the freedom to express themselves. Now that Cubans can buy DVD players, let's make sure they can watch movies made by Cuban artists who are allowed to speak freely. Now that Cubans can buy computers, let's give them unrestricted access to the Internet. Now that they can buy toasters, let's make sure they don't have to worry about being able to afford bread to put in it.

I thought it summed up the dichotomy of the advancing freedoms and the work left nicely. Now that the change has been announced, the administration is waiting to see if Cuba will allow the phones to enter. The White House was careful to say that the change is not a loosening of the US economic embargo against Cuba, but a change in regulations. Is this a step in the right direction? Are cell phones the answer to building a new relationship with Cuba?

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2-For-1 Deal - Obama, Clinton Double-Header on the Economy

CitizenSugar — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:39:03 -0700

It's a cavalcade of speechifying this morning! Obama! Clinton! Bush on the war! Here's the update:

Hillary just started her economic speech in North Carolina with a laugh saying, "If you want to go forward you put it in D, if you want to backward you put it in R."

She then went on to make her speech local, by drawing in the challenges and innovation of the Wright brothers (different Wright this time!) at Kitty Hawk.

Hillary focused on the workforce end of the economy, proposing a $12.5 billion, five-year initiative to rebuild the middle class by helping laid-off workers and boosting job training. The program includes about $2 billion a year for worker retraining and $500 million a year in grants for on-the-job training. To see good excerpts of both, as well as full coverage of Obama's speech from earlier this morning, read more.

Hillary said,

We are competing in a new global economy, but our policies to equip American worker for the twenty-first century are stuck back in the twentieth. When it comes to retraining assistance, our government is more focused on how you lost your job than how you can find a new one. And while we have been rightly focused on trying to help people who are out of work, there’s been too little thought and effort to help people gain new skills while they still have their existing jobs – so they can move up or move on to higher-wage positions.

She also took aim at McCain's plan:

Sometimes the phone rings at 3 a.m. in the White House and it’s an economic crisis. And we need a president who is ready and willing to answer that call. But I read Senator McCain's plan which does virtually nothing to ease the credit crisis or the housing crisis. The phone is ringing and he would just let it ring and ring.

Her speech was markedly different than Obama's even though they were on the same subject. She spoke quietly and aimed her populist-seeming remarks from the ground up, while it seems Obama took the opposite strategy.

Here's Obama's take. His speech started with a gulp of realization, "now, as most experts agree, our economy is in a recession. "

Obama then laid out economic policy mostly geared toward the upper reaches of the financial world, including six steps to reform the regulatory system.

You can find the full text of Obama's speech here. Here are a couple of passages that struck me.

Today, those consequences are clear. I see them in every corner of our great country, as families face foreclosure and rising costs. I seem them in towns across America, where a credit crisis threatens the ability of students to get loans, and states can't finance infrastructure projects. I see them here in Manhattan, where one of our biggest investment banks had to be bailed out, and the Fed opened its discount window to a host of new institutions with unprecedented implications we have yet to appreciate. When all is said and done, losses will be in the many hundreds of billions. What was bad for Main Street was bad for Wall Street. Pain trickled up.

And:

Senator McCain argues that government should do nothing to protect borrowers and lenders who've made bad decisions, or taken on excessive risk. On this point, I agree. But the Dodd-Frank package is not a bailout for lenders or investors who gambled recklessly, as they will take losses. It is not a windfall for borrowers, as they will have to share any capital gain. Instead, it offers a responsible and fair way to help bring an end to the foreclosure crisis. It asks both sides to sacrifice, while preventing a long-term collapse that could have enormous ramifications for the most responsible lenders and borrowers, as well as the American people as a whole. That is what Senator McCain ignores.

Do you think he effectively answered McCain's statement against the "irresponsible" from two days ago? Are you confident Obama's call for sacrifices on all sides of the crisis will help heal the economy? Which speech spoke more to you? Hillary's job training, or Obama's regulations? Are either of these the answer?

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Hillary Clinton Pays Bush Criticism in Speech on the Economy

CitizenSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:00:39 -0700

In Pennsylvania this morning, Hillary Clinton delivered what her campaign is calling "a major policy speech" on the economy. Sharpening her focus on the housing crisis as the crux of the trouble, she aimed her criticism at the current administration's handling of the situation. Clinton said, "we need a president who is ready on Day One to become commander in chief of our economy . . . that means acknowledging that our economic crisis is, at its core, a housing crisis."

Touching on the broad reach of the financial slump, Clinton said, "Abandoned houses and boarded up homes mean higher crime rates." The speech lands amid stark assessments of the country's economic state, with weekend reports showing signs that payday loans are the latest indicator of housing distress. In her economic plan unveiled this morning, Clinton called for "unscrupulous mortgages lenders to establishing a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a five-year interest rate freeze on subprime mortgages."

Will these ideas help? Do you think the economy is getting the attention it deserves? Do you think its strength will have an impact on the outcome of the election?

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President Bush Speaks on 5th Anniversary of Iraq War

CitizenSugar — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:48:58 -0700

President Bush just spoke at the Department of Defense this morning, marking five years since the beginning of the Iraq war. He thanked the troops and summed up the mission thusfar saying, "because we acted the world is better and the United States is safer."

President Bush spoke around recent official reports that show no link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein saying that the reduction in violence in Iraq and the alliance of some local groups with American forces is “the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network.” He remained firm and optimistic in the mission saying, “by spreading the hope of liberty in the Middle East, we will help free societies to take root - and when they do, freedom will yield the peace we all desire.”

The speech happens amid protests, like the one above held yesterday in Washington DC. Reports out today also show that 71 percent of Americans think that the Iraq war is hurting the economy. President Bush responded to this saying today acknowledging the high cost of the war in "lives and treasure." To see his response, read more.

He rebutted saying that without those expenditures Iraq would devolve into chaos, al-Qaeda would move back into its hideouts and have access to oil revenues, which would foment violence and harm the world's economy.

For a historical context of President Bush's speech today, here is audio of President Bush's speech from the beginning of the war, five years ago.

President Bush's theme today was unequivocal: "We will fight the enemy whereever it makes its stand. We will stay on the offense."

Hearing the phrase "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in his speech made the last five years flash through my head. This morning, what do you think? Will you be protesting the war? Did you get teary when President Bush thanked the troops and a chill thinking of the great task our troops are facing? What should happen now?

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Barack Obama Speaks on Black and Wright Issues

CitizenSugar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:38:30 -0700

Barack Obama has just delivered a speech addressing the spiraling recurrence of questions and debate surrounding remarks made by Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright. The inflammatory statement made by Obama's spiritual adviser led to poll results released yesterday showing that 56 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for Obama given the remarks. Acknowledging that the subject of race has also become unavoidably prominent, Obama boldly and powerfully addressed the effect of both on his candidacy saying,

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

He then unflinchingly tackled the issue of race, acknowledging that "anger" and "resentment" have built over time on all sides of racial divides. He said by addressing the issue honestly, therein lies the only path to growth.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day, and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

Did these words move you? Is this the path to change? Do you think that a bold and inclusive statement like this speech will satisfy those who disagree with Obama's relationship to Wright, or who may be considering the issue of race? Did he succeed in both silencing the Wright controversy, and addressing the broader issue of race in this country? Is this the appropriate time to make this statement?

Did he sound presidential to you?

To read the most personal explanation of both his relationship to Wright and his race, read more.

I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Yes We Can?

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Detroit's State of the City Includes N-Word and Wild Applause

CitizenSugar — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:00:41 -0700

Kwame Kilpatrick. Tell it. I've loved this mayor since I first saw him and his aggressive pinstripes on Real Time with Bill Maher. His State of the City address slammed into my radar given that it hooks into both of the current huge controversies: the Spitzer sex-scandal and the Ferraro race-issue. I daresay I've found the absolute appropriate response to both - and best of all, it's a political figure speaking powerfully "off-teleprompter." This is the goods.

He speech addressed responses he's gotten to his own scandal. He knew he was going for it too, given the preface, "And finally tonight, and this may be the most talked about part of the speech after laying out all of that. But I feel that I cannot leave this auditorium with my wife and my sons sitting there without addressing this issue."

In the past 30 days, I've been called a n----- more than any time in my entire life. . . This unethical, illegal lynch-mob mentality has to stop.

Judging from the forte reaction to his, off-the-cuff passionate riff of rhetoric, he hit the exact right chord. Detroit still loves him.

Are Women Actually Better Communicators?

DearSugar — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:00:00 -0800

It's long been assumed that women are more inclined towards language and communication, and now they finally have the research to prove it. Scientific American has published new findings that show that females have higher levels of activity in the language center of their brains than males. The article states:

In a classroom setting, it implies that boys need to be taught language both visually (with a textbook) and orally (through a lecture) to get a full grasp of the subject, whereas a girl may be able to pick up the concepts by either method.

While this study shows that women do have a greater understanding of language, it doesn't actually prove that they're better communicators. Unfortunately, when it comes to relationships, talking and communicating are two different things, so perhaps we're wrong in assuming that having stronger language skills makes women better at communicating. Weigh in and tell me what you think - science aside, are women really better at communication than men?

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