Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Changing Light and Bad Business
I am writing this on what is officially the first day of fall – the autumnal equinox. Today, night-time and day-time are the same length. From here on out in the Northern hemisphere, the days will grow shorter and the nights longer until we work our way around to the winter solstice in late December. Fall is my favorite season here in
It was this light quality that inspired me to pick up painting again a few years back; it is undeniably inspiring. When we eventually get a little more moisture in the air, the fogs will settle into the valley, and with them another entirely unique quality of light will make its appearance.
The Black Cat Bazaar
Speaking of painting, arts, inspiration; the Black Cat Bazaar will be happening this Sunday October 4th from 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. The bazaar will feature a bevy of local artists, craftspeople, and performers selling their wares and sharing their talents. The event is being held in a newly refurbished adjunct of Mim’s Bakery on
“This event will promote creativity and fun! It is in celebration of our 20th year in business. The proceeds will go to the
In the interest of full disclosure, Yours Truly will be behind a booth there selling a variety of different metal-works, paintings, and unique plantings put together by the illustrious indie-rock icon turned horticulturalist, my lovely wife Trish Howard. Stop by and say hello.
Continuing Local Attacks on Small Business
In the
This sincerely gripes me.
I have long thought that
I want to believe that
There is a misguided way of thinking out there – the idea that regulations will help to rein in big business. Big business isn’t bothered by regulations. Big business has a whole floor of lawyers whose entire livelihood comes from filing injunctions and keeping regulators at bay. The regulations hurt the little guys – the business owners who are handling everything from taking orders, to making product, to making parole. They don’t have the time to also comb through the regulations.
It isn’t hard to understand why people have the impression that
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Fear Monger in Chief
“Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.”
I’m not trying to scare you or get too morbid here – the point of this rambling diatribe is to emphasize that we, as individuals, need to steer our attention away from the fear; there will be time enough to deal with that when it comes. In the mean-time, focus our energies and attentions on the positive energy and life that also surrounds us.
Things are Tough All Over
Well whatever, the world is a mess. There’s blood running through the streets of half the countries in the Middle East, Cabo San Lucas was just blasted by Hurricane Jimena, Indonesia is buried under landslides triggered by a massive earthquake, the Mid-Western United States are either out of water or under it, Southern California is burning away, and we live in a virtual paradise on Earth. Here in Chico we are just emerging from the oppressive heat of summer and gliding into the temperate beauty of fall. The leaves will start changing as the days grow shorter. Soon enough the rain will come and we’ll be having backyard fires again and drinking warmed drinks by the wood stove. We could be doing a whole lot worse.
madbob@madbob.com
John Adams - 2nd President of the United States
Dick Cheney wants you to be as scared as he is…
I’ve been looking through high resolution photographs of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and I have come to a realization which is this: when I look into Dick Cheney’s eyes I see fear. His face is generally a scowl, a look of scorn and utter contempt. Cheney has a complete inability to crack a genuine looking smile. He has the appearance of an impatient, annoyed, and angry man. But his eyes are intriguing. It is said that the eyes are the window into the soul, and if true, Cheney’s soul is a tormented, scared, cowering one. His world-view is constructed on a foundation of fear.
I came away from my impromptu study of the former VP, the head cheerleader for the most grotesque and gruesome practices being employed by the fringe elements of the U.S. military and intelligence services in the ubiquitous and ambiguous “War on Terror”, feeling a greater sympathy for this man. I am mad at myself for feeling this way, because it is my opinion that Cheney, specifically, has taken the U.S., with the world in tow, in such a dramatically skewed moral and ethical direction that it will take generations to recover from his paranoid, gun-barrel approach to leadership and foreign policy. Even George W. Bush eventually turned away from the ominous, doomsayer advice that Cheney was giving him.
Every decision Cheney makes comes from a position of fear. He sees danger lurking around every corner, behind every closed doorway. The assumption that everyone is out to get him fuels every action, and unfortunately for all of us, Cheney was in a position to do something about it. One of the basic tenets of negotiation is that you should never make your decisions based on fear – but we did just that for eight years, and Cheney is still at it, advocating for more fear-based policy, working double-time to instill in the rest of us Americans the very real terror he feels each and every minute of every day and night. From this point of view, any action is acceptable. It would be foolish not to act in whatever mode necessary, because we are all in eminent peril of losing our lives. This is Cheney’s opinion, or rather my opinion of Cheney’s opinion.
I understand that there are reasons to be afraid – the world is based on a cycle of life and death, and death is a frightening concept. The idea that, someday not that far in the future, we will cease to exist as a living, breathing entity is a daunting one – one that humans have wrestled with since the genesis of consciousness, since we ate of the forbidden fruit and realized that we were naked; since we understood the fact of our own mortality. But death is also the inevitable conclusion to our brief time being alive, and death is all around us, all the time. 40,000 people die on America’s roads, highways, and freeways every year. That is nearly 15 times the amount of people killed in the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. On this note, I am approximately one million times more afraid of driving down highway 99 than I am afraid of being attacked and killed by a terrorist.
“Accentuate the Positive – Eliminate the Negative”
-Frankie Manning
I’ve been looking through high resolution photographs of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and I have come to a realization which is this: when I look into Dick Cheney’s eyes I see fear. His face is generally a scowl, a look of scorn and utter contempt. Cheney has a complete inability to crack a genuine looking smile. He has the appearance of an impatient, annoyed, and angry man. But his eyes are intriguing. It is said that the eyes are the window into the soul, and if true, Cheney’s soul is a tormented, scared, cowering one. His world-view is constructed on a foundation of fear.
I came away from my impromptu study of the former VP, the head cheerleader for the most grotesque and gruesome practices being employed by the fringe elements of the U.S. military and intelligence services in the ubiquitous and ambiguous “War on Terror”, feeling a greater sympathy for this man. I am mad at myself for feeling this way, because it is my opinion that Cheney, specifically, has taken the U.S., with the world in tow, in such a dramatically skewed moral and ethical direction that it will take generations to recover from his paranoid, gun-barrel approach to leadership and foreign policy. Even George W. Bush eventually turned away from the ominous, doomsayer advice that Cheney was giving him.
Every decision Cheney makes comes from a position of fear. He sees danger lurking around every corner, behind every closed doorway. The assumption that everyone is out to get him fuels every action, and unfortunately for all of us, Cheney was in a position to do something about it. One of the basic tenets of negotiation is that you should never make your decisions based on fear – but we did just that for eight years, and Cheney is still at it, advocating for more fear-based policy, working double-time to instill in the rest of us Americans the very real terror he feels each and every minute of every day and night. From this point of view, any action is acceptable. It would be foolish not to act in whatever mode necessary, because we are all in eminent peril of losing our lives. This is Cheney’s opinion, or rather my opinion of Cheney’s opinion.
I understand that there are reasons to be afraid – the world is based on a cycle of life and death, and death is a frightening concept. The idea that, someday not that far in the future, we will cease to exist as a living, breathing entity is a daunting one – one that humans have wrestled with since the genesis of consciousness, since we ate of the forbidden fruit and realized that we were naked; since we understood the fact of our own mortality. But death is also the inevitable conclusion to our brief time being alive, and death is all around us, all the time. 40,000 people die on America’s roads, highways, and freeways every year. That is nearly 15 times the amount of people killed in the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. On this note, I am approximately one million times more afraid of driving down highway 99 than I am afraid of being attacked and killed by a terrorist.
“Accentuate the Positive – Eliminate the Negative”
-Frankie Manning
I’m not trying to scare you or get too morbid here – the point of this rambling diatribe is to emphasize that we, as individuals, need to steer our attention away from the fear; there will be time enough to deal with that when it comes. In the mean-time, focus our energies and attentions on the positive energy and life that also surrounds us.
Things are Tough All Over
Well whatever, the world is a mess. There’s blood running through the streets of half the countries in the Middle East, Cabo San Lucas was just blasted by Hurricane Jimena, Indonesia is buried under landslides triggered by a massive earthquake, the Mid-Western United States are either out of water or under it, Southern California is burning away, and we live in a virtual paradise on Earth. Here in Chico we are just emerging from the oppressive heat of summer and gliding into the temperate beauty of fall. The leaves will start changing as the days grow shorter. Soon enough the rain will come and we’ll be having backyard fires again and drinking warmed drinks by the wood stove. We could be doing a whole lot worse.
madbob@madbob.com
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Dead Senators and Conditional Freedom
R.I.P. Ted Kennedy
Senator Ted Kennedy passed away early Wednesday morning. He had been suffering for over a year from the effects of brain cancer. Kennedy was a fixture in Congress, where he was known as the “Lion of the Senate.” He was a great champion for those causes he believed in. To me, Kennedy’s is a story of trial, struggle, and personal redemption. I cannot imagine the agony of losing two brothers, and that loss is made particularly bitter by the fact that Robert and John Kennedy were both taken by assassin’s bullets. Ted’s own career was not without its share of controversy; the low point coming when he drove a car off of a bridge in a stupor. That accident which took place in July of 1969 caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year old woman who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s Presidential campaign. Since that time, Ted Kennedy went on to be a prominent Senator. He took an ill-fated run at the Presidency in 1980 when he ran against the Incumbent Jimmy Carter. Carter won the Democratic nomination handily but went on to lose badly to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s Kennedy seemed to become embroiled in one embarrassing event after the next – all sexually tinged and apparently fueled by copious amounts of alcohol. Frankly, in reading through the litany of minor and major personal scandals Kennedy was involved in, I’m surprised he could have held a position as the local dog-catcher – much less serve in the Senate for 46 years! But I digress. Somehow, during the Clinton years, Kennedy managed to reform his image as a lecherous boozer and continued to be a prominent champion of the Democratic Party. Through it all Kennedy was vastly productive. His influence is imprinted on tomes of legislation. A few lasting pieces include Title 9, which granted women’s athletics in schools the same resources as their male equivalents, the vote being extended to 18 year olds, and an array of civil rights legislation. In recent years he stood against the Iraq War and was an ardent advocate for healthcare reform. Along with Eunice, Ted represents the passing of a generation of the Kennedy family.
Obama – Multi-Tasker in Chief
President Obama boasted during his campaign that he would be able to do more than one thing at a time, and to a degree I’d have to say he is keeping to that promise. In the midst of the raging health-care debate, the Obama administration decided to jump into the controversial torture debate. By releasing classified documents that detail the torture techniques employed, the administration has enflamed passions on both sides of the argument; the liberals are seething about the human rights abuses, and the right-wingers are pissed off about the release of materials that they feel compromises American security. The most prominent proponent of the harsh interrogation techniques, former Vice President Dick Cheney, went on a speaking tour before the release of the memos; stating his opinion that, from the interrogations, the Bush administration was able to glean actionable intelligence that saved lives.
Give Me Liberty, but not if it’s too Scary Out There!
Senator Ted Kennedy passed away early Wednesday morning. He had been suffering for over a year from the effects of brain cancer. Kennedy was a fixture in Congress, where he was known as the “Lion of the Senate.” He was a great champion for those causes he believed in. To me, Kennedy’s is a story of trial, struggle, and personal redemption. I cannot imagine the agony of losing two brothers, and that loss is made particularly bitter by the fact that Robert and John Kennedy were both taken by assassin’s bullets. Ted’s own career was not without its share of controversy; the low point coming when he drove a car off of a bridge in a stupor. That accident which took place in July of 1969 caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year old woman who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s Presidential campaign. Since that time, Ted Kennedy went on to be a prominent Senator. He took an ill-fated run at the Presidency in 1980 when he ran against the Incumbent Jimmy Carter. Carter won the Democratic nomination handily but went on to lose badly to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s Kennedy seemed to become embroiled in one embarrassing event after the next – all sexually tinged and apparently fueled by copious amounts of alcohol. Frankly, in reading through the litany of minor and major personal scandals Kennedy was involved in, I’m surprised he could have held a position as the local dog-catcher – much less serve in the Senate for 46 years! But I digress. Somehow, during the Clinton years, Kennedy managed to reform his image as a lecherous boozer and continued to be a prominent champion of the Democratic Party. Through it all Kennedy was vastly productive. His influence is imprinted on tomes of legislation. A few lasting pieces include Title 9, which granted women’s athletics in schools the same resources as their male equivalents, the vote being extended to 18 year olds, and an array of civil rights legislation. In recent years he stood against the Iraq War and was an ardent advocate for healthcare reform. Along with Eunice, Ted represents the passing of a generation of the Kennedy family.
Obama – Multi-Tasker in Chief
President Obama boasted during his campaign that he would be able to do more than one thing at a time, and to a degree I’d have to say he is keeping to that promise. In the midst of the raging health-care debate, the Obama administration decided to jump into the controversial torture debate. By releasing classified documents that detail the torture techniques employed, the administration has enflamed passions on both sides of the argument; the liberals are seething about the human rights abuses, and the right-wingers are pissed off about the release of materials that they feel compromises American security. The most prominent proponent of the harsh interrogation techniques, former Vice President Dick Cheney, went on a speaking tour before the release of the memos; stating his opinion that, from the interrogations, the Bush administration was able to glean actionable intelligence that saved lives.
Give Me Liberty, but not if it’s too Scary Out There!
This kind of gets under my skin; what Cheney and company are proposing is a sort of “smoking gun” scenario. The example I hear time and again is this: “what if your mother or sister were kidnapped, and you were able to grab one of the kidnappers? If the lives of your relatives hung in the balance, would you torture the kidnapper to get information?” It is such a disingenuous argument on so many levels. By claiming we are at war with this amorphous group of people called “terrorists” who are purported to be always plotting the death and destruction of Americans and America, the right-wingers have essentially declared that there is a constantly smoking gun, and that the kidnapped sibling scenario is always in play. Following that logic through to its conclusion, there is no reason for them to draw a line anywhere. They are suggesting that they have the right, no, the obligation, to stop at nothing to insure the security of Americans from an eminent threat of attack. It is a stunningly dubious proposition.
The torture of foreign “enemies” is one thing; the abridgement of our fundamental rights here in the U.S. another. Our founding fathers were not interested in limited freedom depending on the circumstances of the time. The founding fathers knew that there was a risk that came with being a free people – and that risk was so great that it often involved death. But they were willing to die for the cause they believed in.
Don’t let the bastards scare you.
madbob@madbob.com
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Be Good To Yourselves, and Each Other
Here We Go Again
Well it has to be said, so we may as well get it out of the way right off the bat. Welcome back returning students, and welcome to those of you first year students who have just been dropped into our cozy little berg here in the Northern California valley. You may not realize it yet, but you’ve done well for yourselves already. Chico can be many things for you, it’s up to you to get out there and figure out just what those will be. There aren’t too many places I know of where you can spend the day by the river, the evening in a pub, and the nights soaking in a rich, rocking local music scene. Take advantage of everything Chico has to offer.
Well it has to be said, so we may as well get it out of the way right off the bat. Welcome back returning students, and welcome to those of you first year students who have just been dropped into our cozy little berg here in the Northern California valley. You may not realize it yet, but you’ve done well for yourselves already. Chico can be many things for you, it’s up to you to get out there and figure out just what those will be. There aren’t too many places I know of where you can spend the day by the river, the evening in a pub, and the nights soaking in a rich, rocking local music scene. Take advantage of everything Chico has to offer.
The Sad Saga of Jerry Springer
Most of you are probably familiar with late-night talk television show host Jerry Springer. Some of you may be aware that Springer was once the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio; and those of you familiar with this detail of his political past may also know that he was discovered to have been frequenting a brothel in Kentucky. What facilitated this dubious discovery was to the fact that he’d paid for the services offered therein with a personal check. The popular sentiment is that, this personal check, and the fact that Springer was busted visiting a house of ill repute, ended Springer’s political career.
This is erroneous. In fact, Springer’s prostitution/personal check episode took place well before he was actually elected to the office of mayor; it happened when he was a member of the Cincinnati city council. Springer actually managed to rehabilitate his image after the prostitution scandal, and did it so well that he was elected mayor a few years later. After serving effectively as the mayor, Springer moved into a role as a local newscaster. He was extremely popular and drove the ratings of the newscast he joined from worst to first. It was in his role as newscaster that Springer coined the catch-phrase that ends each episode of the Jerry Springer Show: “Be good to yourselves, and each other.”
Political insiders will tell you that Jerry Springer was one of the very best natural politicians they’ve ever seen – right up there with Bill Clinton. He had that innate ability to get people to support him, even when they didn’t agree with him. He has a personality that builds bridges. Springer is still active in Democratic politics and will make occasional appearances at fund-raisers and conventions. He has never lost his desire to play the politics game.
When Springer started his talk show, he envisioned it as another “Phil Donahue” type show – a biting show that would delve into the pertinent issues of the day. Early guests included Oliver North and Jesse Jackson. Unfortunately, the ratings were low. A new producer came in and decided to turn things around, and the modern incarnation of the Jerry Springer Show, complete with shoe-throwing and a regular parade of freaks, was born.
Don’t be Hard
My advice, for what it’s worth, to those of you starting out in school and figuring out who you are is this: Be kind. Don’t screw the next guy over, don’t act hard. It seems like there is a lot of pressure these days to act tough, hard, gangster. Forget that noise. There are people who have to be hard, because life has been cruel to them; and life has a tendency to harden us all over time. Eventually, no matter whom you are or where you come from, life will deal you a vicious blow, and it will be difficult to get through. You will become hardened by events that befall yourself and others. The battle at that point will become fighting to stay supple, un-cynical and kind. In the mean-time, don’t pretend to be hard. Be careful with the people around you. Understand that relationships you form, with friends and lovers, family; they are precious, and they can be damaged irreparably.
As you go through this world understand that your actions, and your inactions, affect those around you.
Keep in mind that when something needs to be done, and you don’t do it, someone else will – because someone else has to. Be the one that acts consciously and with compassion.
I cannot guarantee that by living this way your life will be made any easier. More likely, if you choose to be the one who acts with consciousness and compassion, your life will be that much more difficult than the life of the next person. But hell, if you wanted an easy life you picked the wrong planet to be born on.
madbob@madbob.com
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
A Funny Story about Para-Gliding
I was just remembering this time when I lived in North Lake Tahoe and this friend of mine convinced me to help him go para-gliding off of a mountain-side. He totally looked pro - he had a jump-suit and a helmet, and the parachute and everything, and he needed me to help him keep the parachute unfurled while he ran down the mountain-side and theoretically caught air, then updrafts, and floated around for awhile.
I couldn't manage to keep the parachute spread out and unfurled very well on my own, so we flagged down these two passing tourists who were heading up the road to Reno. They were curious and sort of amazed by the whole process, and more than willing to help. With the three of us it was no problem to keep the parachute spread out and unfurled.
My friend gave us the signal and went running down the mountain side and we let go of the parachute. It filled with air and he managed to get off the ground; but he didn't get very far off the ground. Instead he floated along about five or ten feet off of the ground until he got hung up in some trees about 30 or 40 yards down the mountain.
Well the tourists high-tailed it out of there pretty quick, maybe sensing some kind of pending litigation or something, and I was left to help fish my friend out of the tree.
That was funny.
I couldn't manage to keep the parachute spread out and unfurled very well on my own, so we flagged down these two passing tourists who were heading up the road to Reno. They were curious and sort of amazed by the whole process, and more than willing to help. With the three of us it was no problem to keep the parachute spread out and unfurled.
My friend gave us the signal and went running down the mountain side and we let go of the parachute. It filled with air and he managed to get off the ground; but he didn't get very far off the ground. Instead he floated along about five or ten feet off of the ground until he got hung up in some trees about 30 or 40 yards down the mountain.
Well the tourists high-tailed it out of there pretty quick, maybe sensing some kind of pending litigation or something, and I was left to help fish my friend out of the tree.
That was funny.
Media Distortion and Misogynistic Tendencies
I listen to news on the radio for the better part of my workday. Then when I go home I tune into the network newscasts, and I sometimes catch the morning talk/news programs before I head out the door. I primarily tune into those television programs in order to see how they are distorting the news of the hour.
Every piece of media news is a distortion; but the television programs really have to twist and compact a given story in order first to fit it into an allotted 3-5 minute segment, and second to lend the story a sense of drama and entertainment value.
Two stories cycling through the media have caught my eye recently, and I’d like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on them.
The first is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “outburst.” Clinton is in the middle of a massive tour of Africa. This is a historic venture, and she is traveling to some of the most war-torn and dangerous regions in the world. While she was fielding questions in East Congo, a question was mistranslated but essentially it seemed that Clinton was being asked how her husband, Bill Clinton, felt about a certain issue. Clinton was visibly perturbed by the question and responded that she was the Secretary of State, not her husband, and that she would give her opinion and not his.
That’s it – this is the “story” that has been run on every major, and many of the smaller internet and independent radio, news program. Now I don’t know about you, but it isn’t news to me that Hillary Clinton is a tough person who can occasionally have a temper. She is a politician at the highest level of the game – is she supposed to play nice all the time? I get sick of this nonsense. Not withstanding the fact that the question was apparently mistranslated, it is fundamentally misogynistic, and Clinton had every right to be angered by it.
But aside from all that – is this really a story worthy of major media attention? It is over-shadowing the whole reason Clinton was even in the region, and that is to highlight the rampant sexual violence being perpetrated against women and children in the Congo – sometimes this despicable behavior is being carried out by government forces.
The second story is the anger and outrage boiling to the surface at various town hall meetings throughout the United States. Of course, as far as I can tell this outrage consists of about a half-dozen episodes caught on video that are being played on endless loop. Even in a 3 minute news story, the networks are running footage of the same episode 2 or 3 times.
Don’t get me wrong, there definitely is outrage out there – people are scared and confused. The government has had to act fast, and that naturally scares people. It scares me. The last time the government acted this fast was after 911 when the Patriot Act was rammed through – of course no one made a peep back then because we were all cowed by the fear of terrorists. But the media is latched onto these handful of outburst and are trying desperately to turn them into a real story. Senator Clare McCaskill of Missouri was on the Today Show this morning being interviewed by Ann Curry. McCaskill astutely pointed out that the one violent outburst that occurred during her recent town-hall meeting overshadowed the other 2 hours of healthy, rigorous debate that went on – that questions were asked and answered and that the meeting was actually, in her opinion, very productive. That didn’t satisfy Curry, who brusquely moved past McCaskill’s optimistic statement and ended the interview saying “that must have been very hard for you” in reference to people booing and being rude to the Senator.
Once again, I think Senator Claire McCaskill can take it. She is a powerful politician who has fought tooth and nail to attain the position she has. Curry’s “poor little woman” tone offended me. She didn’t ask a single question about the health-care plan being debated – the story has just become about a bunch of misinformed, talk-show driven yokels who think that by yelling at the top of their lungs they can obfuscate the issues and steer the train off the rails.
And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t seem like the bastards might be right.
madbob@madbob.com
Every piece of media news is a distortion; but the television programs really have to twist and compact a given story in order first to fit it into an allotted 3-5 minute segment, and second to lend the story a sense of drama and entertainment value.
Two stories cycling through the media have caught my eye recently, and I’d like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on them.
The first is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “outburst.” Clinton is in the middle of a massive tour of Africa. This is a historic venture, and she is traveling to some of the most war-torn and dangerous regions in the world. While she was fielding questions in East Congo, a question was mistranslated but essentially it seemed that Clinton was being asked how her husband, Bill Clinton, felt about a certain issue. Clinton was visibly perturbed by the question and responded that she was the Secretary of State, not her husband, and that she would give her opinion and not his.
That’s it – this is the “story” that has been run on every major, and many of the smaller internet and independent radio, news program. Now I don’t know about you, but it isn’t news to me that Hillary Clinton is a tough person who can occasionally have a temper. She is a politician at the highest level of the game – is she supposed to play nice all the time? I get sick of this nonsense. Not withstanding the fact that the question was apparently mistranslated, it is fundamentally misogynistic, and Clinton had every right to be angered by it.
But aside from all that – is this really a story worthy of major media attention? It is over-shadowing the whole reason Clinton was even in the region, and that is to highlight the rampant sexual violence being perpetrated against women and children in the Congo – sometimes this despicable behavior is being carried out by government forces.
The second story is the anger and outrage boiling to the surface at various town hall meetings throughout the United States. Of course, as far as I can tell this outrage consists of about a half-dozen episodes caught on video that are being played on endless loop. Even in a 3 minute news story, the networks are running footage of the same episode 2 or 3 times.
Don’t get me wrong, there definitely is outrage out there – people are scared and confused. The government has had to act fast, and that naturally scares people. It scares me. The last time the government acted this fast was after 911 when the Patriot Act was rammed through – of course no one made a peep back then because we were all cowed by the fear of terrorists. But the media is latched onto these handful of outburst and are trying desperately to turn them into a real story. Senator Clare McCaskill of Missouri was on the Today Show this morning being interviewed by Ann Curry. McCaskill astutely pointed out that the one violent outburst that occurred during her recent town-hall meeting overshadowed the other 2 hours of healthy, rigorous debate that went on – that questions were asked and answered and that the meeting was actually, in her opinion, very productive. That didn’t satisfy Curry, who brusquely moved past McCaskill’s optimistic statement and ended the interview saying “that must have been very hard for you” in reference to people booing and being rude to the Senator.
Once again, I think Senator Claire McCaskill can take it. She is a powerful politician who has fought tooth and nail to attain the position she has. Curry’s “poor little woman” tone offended me. She didn’t ask a single question about the health-care plan being debated – the story has just become about a bunch of misinformed, talk-show driven yokels who think that by yelling at the top of their lungs they can obfuscate the issues and steer the train off the rails.
And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t seem like the bastards might be right.
madbob@madbob.com
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