So here's the story.
Yes, I am still a journalist because once a journalist always a journalist. Most people in Naples, Bonita Springs and Estero Florida know me as a real estate agent (and a darned good one I might add), but I still keep my writing up to snuff and I use my journalistic research abilities as a way to predict the market the best I can.
So the truth is: No I'm not a senator or a representative or even an activist. There are things I wish I was more passionate about and though I am intelligent and worldly (did I mention beautiful in my own mind!) and witty, the fact is that I form opinions carefully. I get frustrated watching people go half-cocked with half-information and being passionate about something they don't really understand. It makes them feel good to feel like they have a voice, but in most cases it is counterproductive. Likewise they get upset when I don't jump onto the bandwagon with them; though they shouldn't because no matter my personal opinion (which changes based on what I consider credible information), I don't downplay their thoughts. Why? Because I'm just happy to see people who think, even if I perceive them as being slightly skewed in their thought processes.
Do I understand everything? Of course not.
Neither do the majority of the commentators on radio or television or the computer. Once we left the era of "broadcasting" (I was a television reporter back then) and went into "narrowcasting," and "personal-agenda casting", the bottom line is this: It does not really matter any more what the facts are. What matters is who agrees with you or who persuades you first with something that makes sense in your world or your agenda. And it doesn't matter what the "facts" are, there is a whole heck of a lot of airtime to fill up. And so came the era of speculation, valid or not.
My mom lives and breathes by Rush Limbaugh, but I know people who knew him back when he was a "ticket taker" at ballgames and a Royal Lancer. So he seems like a regular "Rush" to me. Now I may be a little confused on all this, so if Rush wants to set me straight and say he never had any connection with the Kansas City Royals or that I am totally off the mark on his past history, that is fine with me. I stand to be corrected since I am operating on the "hearsay" of a "publishing" business partner who was killed a few years back in a plane crash and so I may be remembering this incorrectly, and considering the preceding comment, I'm not really in a position to ask him if I am remembering all this correctly. However, if I am not corrected, I will let this stand until further substantiation. And if I am corrected, I am all about validity. And if he was a ticket taker and a "Lancer" that is great. The only reason I mention this is to point out he is not "God."
As for me, I'm kinda like "Joe the Plumber" in terms of being a "nobody", though I have accomplished a lot in my life and haven't taken my existence for granted as exemplified by my site www.mostinterestingwomanintheworld.com . I laugh that I am one of the few people who could run for president because in terms of my personal life, there are no skeletons in my closet, unless there is one left over from last Halloween, or someone makes something up about me, and at 51 years of age, I'm fairly innocent in so many personal ways, but worldly in many others. Actually I'd kinda like it if someone made something up about me! Might be exciting! And it seems as though these days you don't get any attention or notoriety unless you do something bad, then admit it while crying, or looking like you might cry if you are a guy. Afterward, you are rewarded more than the person who never did anything wrong to begin with.
To further understand who I am. I come from the Heartland -- Kansas and Missouri. Most of us from the Heartland totally "get" the concept of a good "work ethic", especially in my generation.
I have traveled all 50 states of America THREE times in my life, so I have a broad vision of America. On one of those trips our family did volunteer work around America and we were on the OPRAH show. On our previous trips, extolling the greatness of our country, we were on TODAY, THE VIEW, Donny and Marie, NPR, CNN, and tons more media outlets around the world.
My mother is from Colombia, South America, where she was the daughter of a peasant (a maid for a rich family), but who worked hard to earn her stripes as a good, honest American citizen. My dad, now retired and living with my mom on about $12,000 a year in Social Security, was the son of an Arkansas cottonpicker and an alcoholic mother. I sound pretty Americana, don't I. We are most definitely a "pull 'em up by the bootstraps" family. My parents have been married more than 50 years and I was married to my husband more than 20 before he died. Back then, most people toughed relationships out, good or bad, and were mostly rewarded for that in the end. The grass is not always greener, as we tend to believe these days.
I've never won the lottery, though I desperately need to. My daughter and son-in-law set off on their own in their early 20s to make it on their own in life as I taught my daughter to do, but they got caught up in the economy and came back to work with me. Now in their mid-20s, they work six days a week at my Downing-Frye office in Naples Florida, sometimes more, and rarely complain about working despite their ages. (Kids in their 20s these days think they are teenagers!) My son goes to high school in Naples. Being the parent of a high schooler, especially one who has a super high IQ but has ADHD, is a major challenge in itself!
I believe in the internet as the future of the world, as exemplified by another of my sites www.domainingindustry.com, (Yikes, I've used "exemplified" twice in a few minutes and probably have not done that in two years). I rarely grab the Yellow Pages to look up information (mostly because my eyesight is so bad), and I think others around me are learning to "follow suit."
And as with all of you, I am feeling the pain of the downturn in the economy by owning multiple properties upon the sudden death of my husband four years ago. Even after he died, I could have sold our properties and been one of those genuises who made money, lots of it; but I was so shocked by Craig's death and so obviously obligated first and foremost to the mental stability of my two chidren (then 12 and 20) that I didn't do enough to protect my financial situation, and so now I am paying the price by being majorly underwater and facing the prospect of losing my status of being that good girl who paid her bills on time, always with a great credit score ... and now, who knows. Depends on whether the banks will work with me or not. (My husband and I didn't have much life insurance either because we used to kid around about never being having enough to look forward to the other's demise!)
Despite it all, though, I am staying strong, as frustrating as this all is. Add onto all this that I am a real estate agent who owns my own locations and I am likewise paying the price of refusing to lay off my two employees throughout this crises, though it would have made financial sense for me personally.
I always said I was determined to stimulate the economy, and so I tried opening up multiple locations in a down economy thinking I might be rewarded for my efforts, and then I looked around and realized, darn it, that I was going into battle alone. Since I live in Florida, everyone else it seemed to me -- including those with lots of money -- were hiding behind a palm tree waiting to see if I would be annihilated. (Get it? Florida, palm tree?) And when things didn't go as I hoped, they knew they would have the opportunity to say I told you so. And they did. Yeah me too. I could have told MYSELF "I told you so." I just didn't want to take the safe path which was stalemating our economy. If everyone else had thought as I did, we wouldn't be in such a fix. But I didn't take the safe path and soon realized there was a reason there was no traffic jam on my road of life. I was trying to be Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life," but this was a case of Jimmy losing out and Mr. Potter pulling ahead.
Thankfully, for me anyway, people have respected and appreciated my real estate tenacity and knowledge and so things are turning around, and I will hopefully rebuild what I have lost over the past five years. Though I may be considered a "knucklehead", no one can ever say I didn't do the best for them that the market dictated. For that I am grateful and for that I am respected. But anyway I digress, though you can see my Florida Real Estate sites at www.napleshomefinders.com and www.naplesagents.com
Back to my non-digression, the fact of the matter is, I really understand more than the "average bear." But because there are lots of "ifs, ands or buts" in most political issues, sending what we think we so intimately understand into the stratosphere in a second, I don't pretend that I am the "end all" for all things.
I like to say I am not for the "right" and I am not for the "left," because there is good in both and bad in both, as well as confusion in both. I admit I did not vote for our President because I tend to be Republican, but only because my desire to be non-partisan and to pick who and what I believe is right for the country at a given time has been stalwarted by the fact that when I go to the polls I have to pick a party. And when I say independent, well it turns out the INDEPENDENT PARTY is ANOTHER party, usually with a bit of a renegade at the helm. Yikes. Where is that non-partisan party where the people think for themselves and then decide whether to go Democrat or Republican or Independent, or whatever party someone comes up with in a particular election year.
So anyway as much as I don't like triteness as a journalist and a writer and an author, I have to say: "That is my story and I'm sticking to it."
The purpose of this site is to entertain all comments, particularly those of the voiceless. That's me. And that's those of you who watch the news and have opinions. But now that I bought this domain name for more than I should have, I am not going to be voiceless much longer. And neither will you be. Even if I personally think you are nuts, I won't say anything in that regard. And if you think I'm nuts, that's okay because you are entitled to your opinion. Just let me know what you think and I will let you know what I think for what it is worth!
Isn't the internet a great thing.
Suddenly this voiceless girl is going to be giving the world her opinions for better or for worse. By virtue of my love of domain names and my penchant for watching domain name auctions, I am now the Capitol Hill Voice, which I like to call the Voice of Capitol Hill, though someone else has that domain name. And with such a great name under my belt with the potential that someone who has some real power will see this, and understand where I am coming from, I promise I will try not to go off half-cocked, even if I don't agree with him or her, or in this day and age, possibly "it."
My goal is to be "every people," just like the rest of those who have not won an election!
I would like to get reprints of the article "May the best man win." Please advise.
Thank you.
Posted by: James Doherty | 06/03/2012 at 04:31 PM