VA Boys State Day 5, Washington Citizen Sahil Patel: “Ask what brown can do for you.”
Update: 2nd in Ping Pong, 3rd in Soccer and Basketball, 4th in Volleyball. Wash city is disappointed, but we should still be okay. Our room results from inspection is MIA, hopefully find out at dinner.
Another great 24 hours for my boys. LOTS of updates, so I am going to put the bulk of this after the jump.
NOt sure where I left off to be honest, but yesterday the Lt Gov of VA, Bill Bolling spoke to the citizens, and today it was Governor Kaine. Somehow I ended up first in the receiving line and got to shake the Gov’s hand. Not a big fan of his politics by any stretch, but he is a very impressive speaker and is very affable. The boys enjoyed his discussion immensely, and cut him no slack on questions. Some dealt with tax issues, the Gov’s support for coal electrical plants, his dual role as Chairman of the DNC, and a host of questions about his vetting process for VP. Last night the citizens also had a display by the state police of their working dogs, and then a VERY inspirational speech by a young man who’s life had been affected by drunk driving. I missed that address, but the citizens came back and said it was very moving, very inspirational, and they quite clearly were deeply moved by what they heard.
On the sports front, we won in Football to end 1-1. Our ping pong player has advanced to the finals and will hopefully win today. Also today we have our basketball team, our soccer team, and our volleyball teams all in the semi-finals. Alas, we lost at moot court, on a very very close decision. One of our guys went down a path that he couldn’t back out of, and ended up arguing against case law. He felt horrible about it, but the guys all supported him. Nonetheless, our moot court leader was elected today by a joint session of the Boys State Legislature to be one of the 7 Supreme Court Justices for Virginia. Adding to our already having the Senate Majority Leader position, State Party Chairman, and candidate for Lt Gov.
Today we had elections. It started with speeches from the Nationalist and Federalist party chairs. Our state party chair had an EXCELLENT speech. A weird phenomena is going on with the other Party Chair, a guy named “Wong.” He’s become a bit of a cult of personality, with everyone displaying a hand signal which forms a “W” and chanting Wongs name. It is rather funny. The State Police even ended their demonstration last night by making the W and chanting Wong as they walked off. Nonetheless, our party chair’s speech was much better, and I was quite proud of him.
After that we heard from the AG, LT Gov and Gov nominees. Our Lt Gov nominee was Sahil Patel, and he was absolutely hilarious. In a thick Indian accent he talked about his history of working customer service, of working at the quik-e-mart etc. Then he switched to a serious speech before ending his speech with “ask not what you can do for me, but rather what Brown can do for you.” It pretty much brought the house down, and I am happy to say he locked up the race right there. I think he won roughly 70% of the vote, either way, Washington City now has the Lt Gov elect. We’ve been promised by the Boys State Governor that he will be assigning 2 members of our city to his Cabinet.
This afternoon we have more sports, CPR class, Public Speaking, Parliamentary Procedure class, and some other activities. If we don’t fall apart, we should win “Best City” although Lee City and James City are nipping at our heels. I think my boys will pull it out, but I haven’t seen the results of our city inspection this morning. So, we will see.
Last thing…Last night I gave some of the Citizens a test, to see which of them would represent the city in the nominations for 2 Citizens to attend Boys Nation, which replicates the Federal Gov’t, as Boys State does for thee states. What follows is the test I gave them. One oustanding citizen, Jeremy Sunshine answered nearly all of the questions correctly, missing only the name of the AG, and one Cabinet Secretaries name.
1) Name 4 cabinet level departments on the National Gov’t. (Can you name any 2 of the secretaries)
2) What is the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
3) Who normally presides officially over the Senate?
4) How many members in the House of Representatives.
5) What does the 7th Amendment cover?
6) Who are your Senators, and Congressman?
7) What is the name of the Attorney General of VA?
8 ) What are the names of the Dem and GOP candidate for Governor of VA?
9) How many members are there of the VA Senate?
10) What is the intermediate appellate court in Virginia?
Category: Politics
