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Did you vote for Trump? Did you vote for Palin? Did you vote for Bush? I'll bet you did for a hat trick. Now maybe I'm misremembering that Palin astutely observed that some bits of Russia are visible from Alaska and thus proving her Foreign Policy credentials or that Trump.... Not enough time for his gaffs and lies for sure. Now sure, I'd rather have the likes of BillVon in the Whitehouse, if just to pay him back for being mean to me, but unfortunately he's too all there to stand for a sucker punch. So we get a choice. That choice, by each and every metric in my view, was rightly made in the last election. You, like many other on the right, must disagree or you wouldn't keep picking at him like an annoying scab. He's and old guy with a speech impediment who seems fond of falling on his ass while he's on 24/7 camera. He's also repaired NATO in wartime, keeps adding jobs to an inflationary economy that he was gifted on arrival, and has managed to snake Kevin McCarthy and the nihilists in the R controlled house to name just three things. No, he doesn't believe what you do but maybe you should take a page from John Waynes playbook and say: “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my President, and I hope he does a good job.” And do so if for no other reason that his Presidency is a fait accompli and we are actually all in this together.

If you expect perfection from Biden, but accept Trump’s faux pas as signs of being a human being (COVFEFE, “grab them by the pussy,” the hurricane map, “I don’t need security briefings because I’m a smart guy,”), then you’re not judging by the same standards. Frankly, there are plenty of Democrats and Republicans I’d seriously consider before Biden, simply because of the age. The minimum age for president is 35, not 75, for Pete’s sake. But not Trump, and probably not DeSantis. I don’t care for the “any disagreement is an attack on our values” approach. But the real point is hold any candidate up to the same judgment — if something similar were said about the other candidate, what would your reaction be? Wendy P.

It's just cruel to make us wait till then!

No you aren't. You pointed out how your side lied about a story and then got outraged about the story that was a lie to begin with.

I can't see the post, just the subject. Maybe someone could start a recap of failed BH predictions.

This is awesome! Trump is going back to "her emails! her emails!" It's oldies day on Truth Social where boomers recall their favorite hits.

David, Thanks for responding. I won't address each topic individually as they should all be discussed in their entirety. But I will say that I'm in favor of continuing to colocate with the PIA symposium. It's a great event and more skydivers should attend. I happen to be one of the minorities (literally and figuratively) that attends BOD meetings and pays attention to what they do. I think for the most part our BOD does an outstanding job. However, as has been noted by many, we have room for improvement. While I don't necessarily agree with everything you've stated I certainly appreciate your willingness to get into the fight. I will be sharing the link you provided and inviting other members to consider your candidacy. We can definitely use more folks like you in the room when decisions are being made. Louis

I think member engagement will be the biggest challenge. I started skydiving in 1981 and since then the attitude has been the same. Quite frankly, this activity is recreational for most people and their goals are to jump, have fun and socialize with like-minded skydivers. Not many want to get involved in bureaucratic, political or administrative issues of a recreational organization when they just want to focus on the next boogie. Many learned of French & Raven's Five Forms of Power in college; however, many never get exposed to each form's level of commitment, compliance or resistance. In the case of the USPA, the legitimate form of power will not illicit much more than compliance.

Louis: One of my favorite quotes in life is: “It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince I am quite aware of the previous attempts you have mentioned. I have 18 years experience working FOR an elected board. I know how to get things done. Regarding the meeting locations, the Board cannot leave this up to the administration. The Board needs to do a formal resolution, and perhaps a change to the Governance manual, that dictates that at least one day of multi-day board meetings will take place at an operating drop zone. Period. Nothing short of this is going to work. There will always be "oh, it's too late now" or " but we meet with PIA" or some other reason put forth. I believe that this is so important that it must be formalized by Board action. Next, somewhere in one of these threads I acknowledged that the recent rewrite to Section 4 of the SIM is a TREMENDOUS improvement over previous editions. It still falls short of the standard that I have come to expect from instructional material because it has stayed committed to the one bite-size idea to a letter-number-letter-indexing system. I have published textbooks, and scholarly papers, and many other documents. I have done research on how people learn mathematical concepts. In short, connections are as important as facts. This bite-size information piece ignores the important logical connectors. Besides that, some of the documents are just incomprehensible because of too many rewrites, or possibly (and I hope its not the case) that someone wants to obscure the truth. Take for example the IRM statement on converting a foreign rating to a USPA AFF rating. I have a Ph.D. and I cannot determine what it is saying. I will try to fix this, and I will try to engage others in this change. I am being supported by three other members of the Board of Directors. I think I can build a coalition of the willing. But I might fail. Especially because this election is only for a partial term. To be successful, I will have to build consensus, and get reelected. And I will have to build this consensus while pointing out problems. You are correct in identifying that this is a difficult task. I have talked to many, many members as part of my campaign. I can honestly say that I believe at least HALF of the 42 thousand USPA members would not pay the dues to belong if they didn't have to in order to jump. This is a real problem. We have to honestly address member engagement (much beyond the cursory overview that exists in this month's Parachutist) if we are going to improve. Although it's hard, I'm going to try. I hope you will be with me. Thanks David

Nah. He'll just be in favor of passing laws against teaching any history that 'makes straight people feel uncomfortable'. You know, kinda like Florida is passing laws about teaching history. There's a meme out there something like: The people that threw rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school are passing laws to prevent their grandchildren from learning about them throwing rocks at a little girl trying to go to school.

This one, yeah?