Politics As A Double Negative

As the debate over deficit reduction and debt ceiling drags on, I've drawn a couple of conclusions from recent reading.  Let me try them out on you.

 Let me address the members of congress who got there on the strength of tea party support first.  The more I see of them and listen to them the more I am convinced none of them could have gotten elected left to their own devices. Without tea party support they had nothing to offer against their opponents, especially other Republicans, except they were smart enough to know capitalizing on tea party issues could do the job.

For some it didn't work.  Thank heavens.  For too many others it did.  I sense they haven't a clue about how government works.  I also think they are deluded if they really believe they were elected to do the very thing they were to be against,  diminishing this country to the level of Europe. That's what their refusal to compromise on these debates is doing.  And, it's what Obama wants - for us to be on an equal level with Europe and no longer the leader that had been our destiny.  They were not elected to be obstructionists, but to find solutions.  The country was to come first, not ideology!

The more moderate Republicans are afraid of being 'primaried' by the likes of Grover Norquist who runs around with his 'pledges', threatening to run candidates against them if they don't sign.  Any politician who does is foolish.   Norquist is a self-appointed arbiter of what's good for all of us. Why anyone pays him any attention is beyond me but enough do and they fear him.

Hand in glove with all this, and my second theory, is the idea that public office should not be any one's career goal.  It wasn't intended that way, yet when I look at how office holders prostitute themselves to rise in the leadership ranks turns my stomach.

When George Nethercutt wrote recently about the climb to leadership, he had this to say.

When a member chooses a career path to congressional leadership, a member's independence is often compromised in favor of the leadership team, and the member's constituents are sometimes left behind.

Could anything be more damning?  I think not.  It gives you a pretty good idea what congressional leadership is all about.  Themselves.  What about the country?  What country.  Nothing exists outside of Washington.  Except the rest of the world.

Maybe, as has been suggested in times of frustration about the middle east,  we should build a fence around them so they can't get out and leave them to their own devices.

We, the people would have to do it though.  Those folks in Washington can't even get a secure one build along our border!

Pass the debt ceiling!  The next congress isn't beholden to anything the current one does anyway.  The deficit can't be fixed without a budget.  There is no budget.  Continuing resolutions do nothing more than extend spending at current levels and solves nothing.

Do I sound angry?  I am.  Thoroughly fed up with all the posturing and politicking on all sides including the President.

They all need to grow up and start thinking about the country as a whole.  And so do we, the voters, because we're the ones who put them in office and keep them there.

Whatever happened to "duty, honor, country"?  Especially country.  It starts with a 'C'.  Not an 'R' or a 'D'.

Blog Fest 2011

When you've been part of a community of bloggers for better than five years you see just about everything in the way of disparate personalities.  Such is the case here in Coeur d'Alene where 'family squabbles' have been plenty throughout the years.  Yet once a year most of us put those differences aside and gather at the annual blog fest to greet old friends and make new ones.

Why, some have even gotten to the point where they dress alike, or is it that blogger Herb Huseland so admires Huckleberries blog host Dave Oliveria he wants to emulate him in every way!  This wasn't Dave's choice for the photo of the festivities but it certainly is mine!

There were a lot of new faces this year, and names I was unfamiliar with, because as in all things, the format is an ever evolving one.  There are those of us who mostly blog.  There are those that both blog and comment on Dave's blog and there are those who mostly just comment.  Yet we all have the one thing in common that binds us together, Huckleberries Online .  It has been quite a ride over the years.  I've met people and been involved in so many things that would not have been possible without Huckleberries and Dave opening doors.

I hope his success and longevity continue, because whether or not I comment, his site is like the barbecue offered up for the feed.  Once you get a taste of it, it's hard to stay away.

Far better photos can be found through links on Huckleberries but here a few of my own.

Photos

I think I have the only video however.  You want to know what a blogger is?  Take a look then describe what you saw!  Good luck with that!

Politicians And That Pesky Old Religion

Michele Bachmann is a headache!  Maybe even a migraine.  She certainly creates, in me, as per possible side effects of a migraine,  a degree of nausea and (a) disturbed vision!

Now, it seems she has left her church.  She is ~ was ~ Lutheran. After having belonged to the church for at least ten years even if she hasn't attended, in favor of another, for the last two.  It seems, after all those years, she finds herself questioning the Lutherans stand on the Pope and the Catholic view of how one attains salvation.

I left the church when I was in college for a number of reasons, not the least being witness to this doctrine being preached from the pulpit to numerous in the congregation from other countries and religions. I thought it showed an insensitivity to those exploring various religions, including Catholicism.  And, personally, I never bought into the idea that an old man chosen by a group of his peers is truly God's representative on earth and the only way to salvation is through the Catholic church.  I am also not Lutheran.

This, however, is beside the point.  Did Ms. Bachmann not know what Lutheran doctrine was when she joined the church?  Or is she just another politician saying, "Oops."   Can't offend another religion by dissing the Pope.  I wonder if her actions will really bring her more  Catholic votes than if she had said and done nothing.  And can that vote win her the election?

It's Friday, so I'm going to let my snarky side out.  I'm wondering if her husband suggested she leave her church, or if God told her to leave her church, maybe through her husband, or what?  If He instructed her as to who she should marry and what education she should pursue, certainly He had some say about this!

Is this not a good reason to leave religion out of politics?  What it shows to me is someone so insecure about how they 'believe' they'll flee at the first sign of controversy.  Come on.  A politician can't be all things to all people.  They need to understand that and so should the rest of us.  Leaving one's church isn't the best way to show you have convictions and are willing to stand by them!

On that note, Jon Huntsman is beginning to look interesting.  That he is a Mormon is of no matter to me.  In fact,  I've read that it's becoming cool to be Mormon since 'The Book of Mormon' opened on Broadway.  What does that have to do with politics?  Absolutely nothing.  And that's the point.

Government Intelligence As An Oxymoron

Much has been written lately about the TSA overstepping the bounds of human decency in their near strip searches of the elderly and the very young, not to mention everyone in between!  Sometimes I have to chuckle when I picture them trying to implant a bomb in an elderly person that they would set off themselves.  And a rug rat still in diapers couldn't do it at all.  I know kids are smarter younger, but there are also limits!

 Do you ever wonder how big that bomb would have to be to actually take down a plane? Is there really technology that such a powerful bomb can be implanted without showing at least a bump under the skin?  And where would they put it to make access easy without some noticeable contortions? By  the time it blows granny to smithereens would there be not so much damage but rather a mess and a bunch very of irate passengers?

Okay, you can see where my head is today, but now for the serious side.  The justification for TSA procedures comes from "chatter".  We can't take the chance that no one has been corrupted.  Meanwhile the terrorists know the buzz words to use, keep us in a tizzy and no doubt are enjoying our jumping through hoops immensely!

On the flip side, there is a real danger of something going boom and it isn't the diaper set.  It's the nuc Tehran is getting closer and closer to being able to build yet we refuse to acknowledge that possibility.  Let's face it, when they get the bomb a whole lot more than one airplane is at risk.  Try a city.  Or a country.  Maybe even ours!

Why are we in denial this is happening while the rest of the world including our allies and the U.N. are watching with grave concern?  The last assessment made by our intelligence was in 2007.  When Fred Fleitz tried to expose those doing the assessment, or the lack thereof, his criticisms were censored by the CIA and the Office of the Director of Intelligence. Fleitz recently retired after a twenty five year career with the CIA, DIA,  the State Department and the House Intelligence Committee staff.  I would think he knows his way around the subject and that his findings and concerns mesh with those of our allies and the U.N.

It seems to me if our government can tie itself up in knots over chatter, they just might not want to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to truth.  When the Iranian Revolutionary Guard posts on its website that the day after an Iranian nuclear test would be a normal day, one might be led to believe they are planning such a test.

What, me worry?  Nah.  After all, I didn't hear it on the grapevine!

No More Pencils, No More Books... Makes Nostalgia

Borders will be gone by the end of September.  It makes me sadder than you can imagine.  The demise of the book store chain, and the only one in our locale, is one more example of how much my reality of living is giving way to a future that confounds and confuses me.

How long will it be before kids ask, "What's a book?"  It's already a question being asked about newspapers.  When a book like Emus Loose in Egnar by Judy Muller, is reviewed in  The Wall Street Journal, you know the written word is in trouble.  It touts the the value of small town journalism as a mirror of our communities, something missing from the urban dailies these days.  It also is a hint to me that they are a fast disappearing part of Americana.  Like the book.

More and more you see pushes for more online classes.  That means fewer teachers and certainly, in this age of electronics, fewer pencils.

I find myself longing for my own version of a reality show.  Life as it was when I was growing up.  Those things that we took for granted that the youth of the future will know nothing about.  The soda fountain.  The land line telephone.  The party line!  Remember that?

A time when you didn't lock your house and weren't wary of walking through a parking lot alone.  Or down your street at night.

Family dinners on Sundays after church.  The family at the dining room table every night for dinner.  When families actually knew one another and had time for one another.

When we talked to one another rather than tweet.  I've  often commented  about how my Mom would talk of having lived in the good old days.  Well, there was some good and some not so but it surely was different.

I suppose if it weren't for phenomenons like Facebook and Twitter people like me wouldn't be rambling about things that were and are no more.  Nothing now but memories. Nostalgia.

I can't help but wonder what those memories will be like in the future.  There was something warm and tangible about the time in which I grew up.  I don't see it now.  Less and less human contact.  I don't want to follow the Presidential campaign on Twitter or Facebook.  I want to be able to look a person in the eye and get a sense of who they really are beyond a manufactured image.

What will be will be I suppose.  I think this modern age is dismissive and cold and uncomfortable.  I'm feeling disenfranchised.  I'm understanding how my Mom felt.  That's a red flag for sure.  I'm old.

I try to keep up with the times. I expect more than is to be given so I no longer expect much.  The one thing I will ask, however, is please don't take away my newspaper or my books.  There is a lot of life to be lived through them you can't get anywhere else!