Student asks Beto if he is here to see Beto

[JI7]

On Sunday, minutes before being in front of more than 300 people, Beto O'Rourke took a moment for a requisite bathroom break. While washing his hands, O'Rourke got an unexpected question.

"I was in the bathroom, minding my own business and I was washing my hands," said Matthew Rowland, a University of Iowa student. "And this guy asked me how it was going, and I said good, 'How's it going,' going for some small talk.

Rowland asked, "Are you here to see Beto?"

He said Beto O'Rourke looked up at him with a grin and said, "That's me."

"I was in awe and shook his hand," Rowland said. "A super polite guy. I'm just glad I got a chance to meet him."

During his speech Sunday, O'Rourke said he thinks community college should be free to anyone who wants to pursue it. Four-year public universities should not require students to go into debt. And graduates of high schools should have not just a diploma but be career ready emphasizing a "path to apprenticeship."

https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/2019/04/07/university-of-iowa-student-meets-beto-orourke-bathroom/3395330002/

[applegrove]

1. I went to see a band led by a British musician in college. My friends and i were walking around the

arena trying to find a way in. Some guys got out of a van and stopped when they saw us. Long pause. We let them pass. I was thinking well that is odd. Then we went inside to our seats. The band came on stage and we were like "oh - I get it now".

[Indygram]

2. He also favors allowing high school students earning an Associates Degree in HS

For free, which is something they do here in Florida as part of the school choice program. He likes to talk about how some high school students in Texas graduate with specialized training to perform maintenance on wind turbines using drones.

[Hortensis]

6. I like that. I used to want all students to get all the

liberally rounded general education we could give them -- leave trade school for post high school.
But I've since realized that many have little intellectual curiosity, just are not interested and promptly forget almost all they have learned, and some even turn on and deny all they've been taught depending on personality.

Education isn't the answer I thought for decades that it had to be. We need to be more clever and focus more on what's right for the individual overall. Some adults may never really know or care what a liberal democratic republic is supposed to be, but those who can support themselves and are vested in the system and comfortable about the future will be far less likely to want to destroy what they have, regardless of what scoundrels tell them is wrong with it.

[Indygram]

7. A little tidbit about how less significant formal education is today...

My youngest son, now an adult, was a handful in school. Defiant, brilliant and an all around pain in the bootie. He got detentions, suspensions and at one point I used to have to get help from the police to drag his butt to school. I was exhausted by the time he was 16. I let him quit. He taught himself to program computers and eventually got a GED. Several years ago he was working as a Software Engineer for a major university. He was working at a prestigious university with a GED. So yeah...especially where programming is considered...self taught education can work just fine and save you tons of money, lol.

[Hortensis]

8. Our son scared us to death also, and also refused to attend

high school regularly, even though he was extremely intelligent and interested in learning, so we required him to drop out to go to work. What a difference! In short order he was very proud of how he maintained the salad bar at a fast-food joint, and a valued employee. He got his GED so he could join the Navy, then went to college after he got out.

A great change in our long, free lives today is that there is no one boat to miss that can't be caught later if desired.

The one thing I like about Bernie Sanders is how he illustrates that. He spent his first 20 years of adulthood as a sort of hippyish dilettante doing a little of various things and not much of anything. He always had that ego, though, and spent much of his 30s in political campaigning, writing and trying to persuade people he was special. After years of this he finally got elected to his first steady, paying job, at 40ish. And his next job move a decade or so later was to congress, before soon becoming a U.S. Senator and settling in for life. Until he decided in his 70s that America needed him to become president...!

[Indygram]

9. Sounds a lot like my son, lol

Not a fan of Bernie to be honest. I need some upbeat positivity. He's also too far left for me. I'm more of a moderate.

[Hortensis]

10. Yeah. Our is doing very well these days also.

His son so far also, we're very proud of him, but he's in puberty now, another grandson also, and I just took a little calming breath thinking of that. Parenting-related PTSD still flares now and then.

[jberryhill]

3. Okay, so he passed the crucial "nice guy to meet in the men's room" test

"I was in awe and shook his hand,"

If you are in the men’s room, and you meet someone and shake his hand after you wash your hands, do you wash your hands again?

[JI7]

4. in this case they were both washing their hands and shook hands afterwards

so no.

[Indygram]

5. Of all the videos I've been watching of him interacting with voters

He is genuinely a nice, upbeat and positive person. He met the mother of a girl killed in a school shooting and got her input on what she thinks should change with gun policy. He has been carrying a photo of that girl in his wallet since meeting her. He is out there really listening to people and letting that input guide him so he truly represents the people and not just what he thinks the people would want. I think that's really smart.