“Not for myself I make this prayer
But for this race of mine
That stretches forth from shadowed places
Dark hands for bread and wine”

Countee Cullen

So I went to the Governors Grants Conference on Monday. First I have to say…can we all stop with the themes? Jerry Macquire was a few years back so making the them “Show Me The Money”, while appropriate just kinda grates on my nerves. What’s worse is that was a pretty mild one compared to some that I’ve been to.

Anyway so inbetween writing down websites, figuring out who I can target for funding and going outside to smoke cloves, I actually did get some good information to share with all of you.

You can’t work in my field without keeping an eye on politics. Regime changes and new policies have an impact on where we will get money from and if we will be able to…not to mention how much money will actually be around. In addition to people from the state government we had a lot of people from the federal government.

First thing you would be interested to know:

Marcia Howard is the Director of Federal Fund Information for States…if you want to know what federal money goes to what state and how much you should call her…reporters I’m talking to you as well. Anyway she let us know that Sarah Palin (despite the record profits I keep hearing about from oil) has gotten more money for Alaska in recent years then any other state as received…save for two states in one year…Mississippi and Louisiana…I’ll let you figure out which year that was.

During lunch the Keynote speech was given by Ray Scheppach, Executive Director of the National Governors Association. He was a kind enough gent, but we all wondered if he sat at home staring at a picture of his family while holding a gun in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. Dude basically has been interacting with every Governer in the country for the last 20 years. He spoke about what we could expect on state levels depending on who was elected President. I’ll spare you the details and just say you have a choice…bad or worse. The issue is that states aren’t going to feel what’s happening now until after the election. He basically said that going by the policies they have outlined things would be bad for us under Barack Obama…and even worse under McCain. We can’t avoid what’s coming and even with fairly responsible approach we’ll still feel the pinch.

Having said that I came up with an idea that, the longer I think about it, could potentially set my career…until I can get it moving I ask you all to send donations…not to me…but to my girl. That way she can be my sugar mama and I can catch Pardon the Interruption in the Afternoon. Thank you for your support.