Al Jazeera America

Green has gone black with the sale of Al Gore's Current TV network to Qatar's Al Jazeera.  This seems a case where truth is greater than fiction.

Al Jazeera has it's English language version up and running with 65 bureaus in 100 countries.  Hardly a small operation and one that has been highly praised.  Their problem has been getting a foothold in the U.S. When all else fails, buy your way in.  Their problem now is whether anyone will watch.  With Current having less than 50,000 viewers at any one time they certainly did not acquire a base audience.

Would you watch it?  After all we have BCC America which has decent enough viewership to keep them around. Of course news from the viewpoint of the British is considerably different than that of Arab countries.  Which, of course, is the point.

There is a problem for me, however.  Our cable service is Time Warner and they say they will not be carrying it.  They have just recently dumped Current due to lack of viewers and I would suppose are taking a wait and see attitude.  I don't hold out much hope because they don't carry Canadian TV either and we're only 90 miles from the border.  It's unconscionable.

That being said, I will sign a petition and hope while continuing to browse it on the web.  Any one who is seriously interested in what is happening in the Middle East and for that matter the world should want to watch it.  It gives a perspective without our media bias and governmental filters.

Too many of us have sworn allegiance to MSNBC or FOX which have diametrically opposed viewpoints filtered through their own biases.  Other than FOX they all lean left.

It isn't necessary to agree with Al Jazeera's point of view any more than it is to agree with the BCC but it adds a dimension we do not readily have by watching our networks alone.

Owned and operated by the culture which it mostly serves opens a window that until now has been closed and curtained.  Some worry about anti-Israeli/pro-Islamic propaganda.  If we can decipher what is propaganda versus truth on our own networks, we should be able to do so there.  At least it is coming to us more straight forward than if coming through our networks.

I'm all for accessing every source of information available in order to keep informed as to the whys and wherefores of the world.  It's critical this day and age.  May the cable companies have the courage to give them an opportunity to build an audience and may we have the wisdom to watch them and learn.

Good luck Al Jazeera.

Oprah And Lance -The Non-Story Of The Month

Maybe by the end of the week Lance Armstrong will finally fade away.  Until then we will endure the hype of his upcoming appearance with Oprah on a network that probably has about the same number of viewers as the now defunct Current.

The purpose, as the teasers would have us believe, is for him to confess that yes, he did use performance enhancing drugs during his years of competitive cycling which allowed him to win a record number of Tour de France races.

Since just about every other cyclist who has been on the winners stand also used them I'm not sure why it's such a big deal.  Well, actually I do.  It's because he denied it so vociferously for so long and even figured out a way to beat the random testing.  Unfortunately he didn't repeat the lie convincingly enough for it to become the truth.

The payment for that lack of talent has cost him every title he ever won and a life time ban from competing not only in cycling but other sports too.  How the mighty do fall.

He hasn't much left from those glory years.  He has even been distanced from his own Foundation in order for it to continue the good work it does - once under his lofty name.  It is a tragedy of immense proportions considering what could have been.  It's a shame ego and greed had to intervene.

I've gotten a bit ahead of myself here.  Armstrong hasn't yet admitted to wrong doing though everything brought forth from numerous governing agencies indicates he is guilty.  I would guess the teasers are partially correct.  He is going to appear on Oprah in hopes of finding redemption.

But is he?  I expect her questions to him will be pointed.  I expect his answers will only hint at guilt while seeking forgiveness for something he still maintains he didn't do.  It depends on what the definition of 'guilt' is. Maybe it will be the type of drug he used that's questionable. Maybe it wasn't specifically banned but only categorically or some such.  I'm not familiar of all the nuances except to believe there are many.

Will Oprah forgive him for bad behavior because he had good intentions?  Will whatever he says open the door to deeper investigations?  No on the first, quite possibly on the second.  So why do it?

Beats me.  I know a little bit about confessions from having been raised Catholic.  Way back then penance amounted to reciting various numbers of 'Our Fathers' and 'Hail Marys'.  That was for everyday little sins. If I remember correctly the penance for mortal sin was denial of communion.  It's been years.

To equate that priest/sinner relationship with the Oprah/sinner relationship perhaps she will tell him to go forth and cycle without reward and forsake all competitive impulses for the good of his soul .

One more thing about confessions, though, even though confessions are required to keep you in God's good graces, when you thought the priest might know who you were you sometimes tended to lie. That negates the confession and defeats the whole purpose doesn't it?

I have no expectations that any 'truth' will ring true therefore it's a non-story; just one more attempt at obfuscation of what's already known.  It's over Lance.  Oprah can't fix it.  Maybe now it's a story and hopefully the end.

New York's Surgeon General - Oops, Mayor

There was a time I loved New York City.  Hub worked in mid-town and I often met him after work for an evening on the town. We could pretty much go where we wanted and dine where we wanted and eat what we wanted.

If you needed a doctor, the police were Johnny on the spot to help get one.  You could smoke where you wanted.  Heck, you could smoke, period.  If you had a baby you could have it fed formula and if in pain, a doctor could prescribe relief.

Not so much any more.  If there is any one man in America trying to dictate how we live more than the President, it is the mayor of New York City. The Big Apple.  One a day is supposed to keep the Doctor away - unless he's the mayor and it's where you live! We all know about his war on sugary drinks.  We know of his war on formula in favor of breast milk and now he is waging war on pain medications.

These are pretty lofty ambitions for one who has no medical degree.  I wonder if he could be cited for practicing without a license.  Surgeon General seems to fit though since he is waging so many wars.  I'm not sure the mayor is the one to be doing it.

There is a problem with people becoming addicted to pain meds.  I'm on one and very aware of what I can and cannot do.  Could I rid myself of it I would.  I will be looking for alternatives again at my next physical. Maybe some aren't as diligent as I am to stay out of trouble, but I don't think his scenario of what happens is accurate.

You go to the emergency room like I did a few years back after we rolled our car on black ice.  I had been pretty well bounced around within a steel box and ached all over.  I was given pain meds which I took for a couple of days.  The mayor contends that the remainder of that prescription will go in a drawer where anyone can find and abscond with it. Or that I'll take the remainder and become addicted.

Granted I don't live in New York, but that prescription from the hospital wasn't large enough on which I could get hooked.  That would be up to my local doctor and he wouldn't be prescribing more unless I needed them. Yeah.  I could lie, but if I'm not hooked it's unlikely.  I don't know many who want to get hooked.

As for those left overs.  Local police departments will take them off your hands and see that they are properly destroyed.

Mr. Bloomberg's suggestion that a patient in unnecessary pain is a small price to pay to prevent such misuse is insane.  But then many demigods are.

First we have Obamacare foisted upon us by those in Washington.  Now local entities want to jump on the band wagon.

Leave medical and other health issues to those who have studied them.   And forget rationing unless it's your own intrusive inanities.  It's way beyond the realm of governing unless you consider dictating acceptable.

Diversity - Here We Go Again

We find the strangest things to agonize over.  Now that the President is fleshing out his Cabinet for his second term, it would appear that some are upset over the lack of - well, diversity.

Charlie Rangel thinks his lack of appointing women and minorities is embarrassing.  So far only four of the vacancies have had nominations to fill them.  Treasury, State, Defense and the CIA.  Only one was a woman.  Hillary.  The other are men to be replaced by men.  Granted Jackson from EPA and Solis from Labor, both women, are leaving.  Their replacements have yet to be named. If they are men, so what?

Forget for the moment that such positions are not usually filled with the best and the brightest but rather those who the President is confident will side with his way of thinking and carry out his wishes.     It would be difficult to get blind loyalty and diversity in one fell swoop.  Unfortunately for us.

I had hoped diversity was on it's way out.  Especially in government.  We have it in school admissions and the job market.  The result has often been a person has been denied because he or she wasn't the correct color or gender to meet the criteria of so called balance.  Government is the last place we need to be fighting this battle.

Melissa Harris Perry, an NBC commentator, has a  somewhat different view. She doesn't think gender or race necessarily represents diversity.  Her cases in point are that Clarence Thomas, as a Supreme Court Judge, doesn't represent the way the black community interprets issues.  Of course he's not on the court to represent just the black community and the fact that his thinking is far more encompassing is in large part why he's there.

She says much the same of Michele Bachmann were she President. Being a woman doesn't necessarily mean she is representative of that group.  Nor should she be if she were President.

This to me is more to the point.  The President might be better served if he surrounded himself with the best rather than the most simpatico, no matter their race or gender.  This isn't a criticism reserved for President Obama.  It has been the universal way of forming Cabinets and choosing advisors for decades and I doubt I'll live to see it changed.

Are there women who could do the job as well or better than those chosen.  In some cases, absolutely. In others, no. Is it because men have had more opportunity than women or minorities?  Well, that's why all this diversity stuff started in the first place isn't it.  But the opportunities are coming.  More women and minorities are pursuing careers once thought off limits.  Their numbers will grow as attitudes change, not with false premises.

It wouldn't bother me one bit if every staff member in the White House was a man if he was the best available for a particular assignment.  It wouldn't bother me a bit if more than a token Democrat or Republican were chosen if he was the best for the job. I always felt Hillary was wrong for Secretary of State when the most pressing of issues were initiating in patriarchal cultures where women are more tolerated than treasured.

It will take a far more secure and independent minded leader than those we now have for that to happen.  A leader who has convictions, the courage of them but also the wisdom to admit that he or she might not always be right, that other thinking and opinions may hold more validity and be willing and able to 'evolve' for something other than political expediency. Maybe for the good of the country?

We aren't there yet.  Insisting on diversity won't get us there any sooner.

Guns - Put A Cork In It

If we weren't in a perfect storm I wonder if all the non-stop hype about the evil of guns and their owners would be getting the press they are.  Perfect storm?  The still open wounds from the Connecticut tragedy added to the preliminary hearing on the Aurora, CO theater shooter. Add to that the continuing headlines about how gun sales have soared and carry permit application lines are out the door.

Of course you have to include the anger or despair you feel when you're making maybe $25,000 as a bank teller  and the CEO of JP Morgan Chase is getting $4.1 million in salary Plus a 4.5 million bonus plus $17 million in stock.

I  think I understand a lot of it and it has little to do with the shootings.  It has to do with one more right being threatened by government and the inequity paired with hypocrisy that we're supposed to ascribe to without question.  The threat of an executive order from a dictatorial President doesn't help.  By human nature we behave like children thinking we're being treated unfairly so we dig in even deeper.

It has far more to do with the human condition than it does with guns.  Then too, what about those guns?  I live in the West where guns are a part of life far removed from street gangs. They're used for hunting, and yes I agree, one doesn't need an AK47 to hunt.  Never-the-less I'm looking at numbers more than calibers or rounds.

Hub was raised in Montana; he hunted.  His Dad was in law enforcement and they lived two doors away from the state penitentiary.  They had guns. Hub found early on he had no taste for killing so he no longer hunts but we still have guns dating from way back then.  How many others do?  Many, many.  They're in collections, they hang over fire places, they're just there. Often rarely if ever used.  But don't you high and mighty suits in Washington dare try to take them away.  They're ours.  Fair and square for whatever reason.

We will always have the unbalanced who will find their way to weaponry no matter what.  I think the hype about "guns" is adding to the problem rather than helping to resolve it.  But then we do tend to over react rather than think things through.

It's the imagery.  It's horrible and heart breaking but it is essential to keep it in perspective before it turns into an even larger tragedy when masses of gun owners decide to fight for their rights.  It might not happen.  It probably won't but think what a flash mob could do if pushed.

Every one is on pins and needles these days, nerves are strained, tempers quick.  It would be prudent to cool the rhetoric to something other than self righteous threats. If you want a war on guns go after the gangs in cities like Chicago  where they are picking off people one at a time yet get no where near the press because of their race, their economic circumstances and the fact that while the total numbers for a month might be as high as Connecticut or Colorado, it's piecemeal.

And it has nothing to do with the locals who hunt to put food on their table in an economically depressed area.  They're good people.  Who have guns for a reason. They need them and they use them responsibly.