The News
I've been overwhelmed with the urge to comment on everything in the news
recently. Not wanting to irritate all my facebook friends with the more serious
and opinionated fare, I have turned to the enduring form of blogging. I suspect
nobody will read this, which is just as well.
Some thoughts and questions.
1. Let's not
bomb Syria.
o
What Assad did was horrific, but a US-led bombing isn't going to
help anyone or solve anything.
o
Why does it have to be the US anyway?
o
I don't see a bomb run going well for US PR in the region or for
Israel, so, what's the long game here?
o
If Cheney were still President I'd wonder if it was a ploy to sell
more military contracts.
2. I love
that an African American sits as President as we celebrate the 50-year
anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech.
o
A concept lost on no one, but worthy of mention and celebration
just the same.
3. Can we
stop this talk of impeaching Obama and repealing the Affordable Care Act?
o
Honestly, it's playground politics. Knock it off. Stop playing to
the basest of ego-driven emotions. You lost. Wait 4 years and try again.
o
Are people actually getting votes by standing on a platform of
reverting to 40 million uninsured Americans?
§ Do people
really believe the argument that it costs more to insure those 40 million than
it does to pay for their emergency healthcare when they show up at the hospital
with no insurance?
§ I assure
you the hospitals and insurance companies maintain the exact same profits
either way, so the money is coming from somewhere -- either from each of us in
higher premiums or from each of us in higher taxes. Zero sum, kids. Move on.
o
I'm quite sure there will be much more on this topic in future
posts
4. Please
stop it with support for Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
o
I often advocate nuanced interpretation over polarizing black and
white, but I do believe some things are sacred and the end cannot justify the
means in such cases:
§ Torture
is bad, and people who do it should go to jail
§ All
people are equal, and people who violate that should go to jail
§ Government
Secrets should be secret, and people who violate that should go to jail
o
I heard people calling in to NPR and lamenting the 35 year (8
until parole) sentence for Manning as too long.
§ The man
released Secret material to parties not cleared to see it.
§ That's
illegal.
§ That's
not negotiable.
§ Why is
this a discussion?
§ He is not
a "whistleblower."
§ He is a
criminal and arguably a traitor.
5. I think
there should be a FCC mandate on grammatical correctness during TV commercials
and newscasts as well as any article associated with a reputable news
source.
o
If our children are going to learn from TVs, the folks on TV have
certain moral obligations.
§ I just
challenged myself to prove my point, I clicked on the main headline from
cnn.com, and I didn't read past the first sentence before finding a grammatical
error
§ (CNN) – The international
effort to respond to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria begs the
question: Why intervene now, and not earlier in the civil war?
1. Did we
really need that extra comma?
§ Fox News
offered a slightly less problematic first sentence in its top headline story
with the run-on
§ The
rumblings on Capitol Hill are starting to get louder as to whether the Obama
administration has a clear endgame for a military strike on Syria, as the
likelihood increases of such a strike in response to last week’s alleged
chemical weapons attack.
§ Washingtonpost.com
apparently has proofreaders
Next time: More stuff.
