Sitting here, listening to the Doobies on Sirius XM and
reflecting on the funny, odd and downright stupid from the daily rag.
The Tour de France
is underway. Who cares?
In what might best be termed as a bad retail decision, a young local man advertised several used Jet Skis for sale at a good price. When two prospective purchasers showed up to inspect the merch, they were presented, not with watercraft, but with an automatic pistol. He ordered the two men to the ground preparatory, one assumes, to robbing them, while failing to realize that they were off duty sheriff’s deputies. Both drew their concealed weapons and shots ensued. The felonious vendor was non fatally wounded and currently resides, sans bail, in the county lockup on multiple charges. Karma’s a bitch, huh?
In a shout out to the persistence of age and conditioning, a local man age 69, competing in an International Powerlifting Federation World Classic competition in Sweden, won his age bracket with a dead lift of 529 pounds. That’s no typo, 529 pounds! This ordinary looking guy picked up the equivalent of several large NFL lineman. Holy crap!
Most newspapers have advice (agony) columns, some of which tend to the maudlin, and some of which provide downright bad advice, but we seem to have an exception. Today’s long letter was from an individual (male) who cites all the reasons he has to be content with his life as he nears retirement age. Happily married, their daughter completing college this year and financially secure, his complaint is that he heard, from friends, some news regarding another friend and fraternity brother, with whom he lost touch after college.
Apparently, the friend had become successful, starting an electronics company, which he recently sold for $15 million. He also has six children and a nice house, a mansion, the writer says, and seems to have accomplished a dream career. So? So, the writer is envious and almost angry at his successful friend, not for any real slight, but simply for his success.
There are many
ways the response could have gone, from “quit complaining” to “What a whiner
you are.” The advice columnist chose
instead to lead her response with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt - “Comparison
is the thief of joy.”
I was struck,
as I reflected on this simple thought, by the incredible scope of applicability
inherent therein. All advertising seems to be aimed at creating emotional response somewhat akin
to this same sentiment. “Here it is, some have it and, if you don’t, you’ve
been societally disadvantaged.” $60,000 cars, $150 sneakers, $700 phones, $100,000
college educations, etc., all “deserved” but missing the other variables,
personal responsibility, effort, and ability. The first two require individual
effort and character while the last sadly, as humans, is beyond our control for the most part.
We all "deserve," until we prove differently by bad actions, the basic benefits of life in
our society - healthcare, affordable medications, enough to eat, adequate
housing, etc. The first two are in dire need of remediation by federal action, but
the last two, the basic creature comforts, are within the grasp of the vast
majority of us – should we choose to use whatever talents we have in whatever
manner is best suited to them. Advertising, however, and as in the letter
referred to above, envy, are aimed at feeding the green-eyed monster within by convincing
us that simply being happy, secure and comfortable isn’t enough, if someone else is better off.
Living in Florida carries with it the sad fact that one will periodically see the state legislature, controlled by Republicans debate and, sadly from time to time, enact legislation which seems so wrong headed it makes one wonder as to the sense of reason. This, too frequently revolves around the twin Florida Republican concepts that “All development is good” and “It’s not an issue until it becomes a problem.” (there are others, like legislated voter suppression, but today we’ll deal with these two.)
The article in
question is headlined “Activists (a curse word in Tallahassee) and State (as if
activists aren’t part of the “state”) Differ on How to Fight Algae.” This makes
it sound as if there are two methods and there are simply some scientific differences
of opinion on which works best.
It is worthy of note that this is a “State”
concern only because of its potential impact on tourism, the Holy Grail of all
things Florida, since red tide and blue-green algae blooms fouled beaches
across the state and resulted in a spate of marine animal deaths as a result. For
detailed analysis of how we got here (algae blooms) and what might be done, see
my two blog entries below from two years ago.
Regarding today’s
column, however, the dreaded environmental activists’ position is that the
levels of allowable pollutants should be set by law to prevent
recurrence of the incredible blooms spurred by nutrients and warm weather, one
controllable, one not so much. The state legislature, however, instead seems to
feel that instead of limiting what contributors (like Big Sugar, etc.) can puke
into our waters, new limits should simply be used as guidelines for declaring a
public health emergency, rather than a tool to prevent such disasters. This is
analogous to choosing to allow the gas leak if it hasn’t yet caused an
explosion. Wow! And we pay these guys.
Finally, we
have the incredible spectacle of a high school Principal who has been “reassigned.”
This is “Edu babble” for “Relegated to an admin position outside the school setting
because he fucked up, but, while we throw teachers under the bus daily, we rarely
fire an administrator, since that would admit we erred in his appointment.”
Seen it numerous times.
This guy in Palm Beach County actually said, in response to a parent’s query regarding teaching the Holocaust, that he “couldn’t acknowledge the Holocaust as a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee.” By this bastardized illogic, I was out of line to discuss it in AP US history, I guess. He added the real clincher, that, “not all students' parents believe that the Holocaust happened!”
I am reminded
of the following: "When I found the first camp like that, I think
I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not merely
piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road
and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could
see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see
horrors that really, I wouldn't even want to begin to describe. I think people
ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward
the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for
that forever."
Dwight D. Eisenhower- Press
conference, 6/18/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 156]
It was Eisenhower
who ordered Army photographers to detail, the horrors uncovered, sequentially,
as camps were liberated. Anticipating a time when Nazi atrocities might be denied,
General Eisenhower also ordered the filming and photographing of camps as they
were liberated. Members of the U.S. Army
Signal Corps recorded approximately 80,000 feet of moving film, together with
still photographs.
Within months
after the war in Europe, about 6,000 feet of that film footage was excerpted to
create a one-hour documentary called “Nazi Concentration Camp”. Prosecutors used the film, which is
graphically gruesome, to prove that Nazi leaders, on trial at Nuremberg, had
perpetrated unbelievably heinous crimes against humanity.
Thomas Dodd,
one of the U.S. prosecutors, introduced the film into evidence on the 29th of
November, 1945. When the lights came up,
after the trial film was screened, people had a new understanding of what the
words “concentration camp” really meant.
Eisenhower wanted
to be in as many pictures as possible to prove the death camps really existed.
He was sometimes accompanied by Generals Bradley and Patton. Patton became
physically ill more than once at several sites of the worst carnage. In the
face of such overwhelming physical and documentary evidence, allowing schools
to be less than candid in approaching this extreme example of man’s inhumanity
to man is. in itself, academically dishonest and bordering on criminal, not to mention irresponsible.
By this
principal’s standards, one supposes that Evolution, climate change, most
genetics, human origins, much biology, sex ed, historical accuracy of the Bible,
Jim Crowism, etc. are also off the table. Let’s bring back public flogging as a
punishment for blatant stupidity in those who should know better.
No comments:
Post a Comment