Tag Archives: iran

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When will we reach a tipping point?

I don’t know if we are living in a period of more or less violence than the times before or what will happen sad catin the future.  I do know that we are living in a country (if you are in the United States, any way) where approximately 2.6 people are killed each day by the police.  In tennis, we are currently in the “Open Era.”  In life, we should refer to this as the “Mass Shooting Era.”

According to the Washington Post, during the first 204 days of 2015, we have averaged one mass shooting a day.  Let that sink in.  One. Goddam. Mass. Shooting. A. Day.  Seriously, if I were a leader of ISIS, I wouldn’t worry about killing Americans on American soil, I’d stop planning that and remind my followers, “We don’t need to kill Americans, they’re killing themselves.”  If this were a biological model, I would say Americans have exceeded their carrying capacity.

Yet, gun control remains the holy grail of progressive politics.  President Obama has said that not getting anything done for this is the biggest failure of his presidency. Today, I heard part of a heated debate on having guns in movie theatres where the gun rights supporter said things like, “you know you can fire guns in the dark.”  Wow, thanks, Captain Obvious.  His point was, I think, that we should allow everyone to have guns in movie theatres because then a fellow citizen cold have taken the gunman out.  This led to the conversation about what about cops who aren’t in uniform or what if the police burst in just as someone in regular clothes went to “take out” the gunman and didn’t know who the bad guy was. My head went to some movie about the wild west where everyone had guns and the whole place got shot up.

That’s the America I want to live in.  It’s Rick Perry’s America, too.  What is wrong with us?

Some people have said they are concerned about going to the movies now.  What happens when people stop going to other businesses?  When the DC sniper was active, it shut most of the area down.  People cancelled plans to visit the area.  And that was two people in a car, shooting random people at gas stations and outside malls.  The area economy took a huge hit.

When will mass shootings do the same thing?  When will people stop spending money at stores?  When will businesses tell the NRA, “Look, we appreciate your views stem from an opinion of gun rights that was formed when the army used muskets but we’re losing business because modern people are scared of being killed by a crazy person with an assault weapon.  So please stop opposing reasonable measures to prevent mass shootings.”

When will that exchange occur?

 

 

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Random thoughts

I’ve been thinking about some things lately.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) says, “it’s time for a new president.”  Does he NOT know that no matter who wins in 2016, we will have a new president?  That’s not a reason to vote for him, that’s just the 22nd amendment in action.  This is what happens when we have politicians who didn’t get a BA.  Yes, Scott Walker, I’m looking at you.

Why do we keep talking about the nuclear deal with Iran and the way Congress reacts as being good or bad “for Obama“?  The last time I checked, we all benefit from not having a nuclear war anywhere on earth.  I’m no military or science expert but having fewer nuclear weapons on the planet seems like a good idea.

We were not the only nation negotiating with Iran.  We think we are the center of the universe; we’re not.  The US Senate can totally reject the deal but that doesn’t mean it will die.  Seriously, other countries have a say here.

Why do journalists refuse to use verbs?  When you add “ing” to a verb, it becomes a noun (the gerund).  Stop it!  Use a damn verb.  And to think, you people are supposed to be good with language.

Note to Rolling Stone: You need to apologize to every woman who reports a rape and is called a liar.  Your story did more to damage their credibility than you can possibly know. Your failure to fact check hurt so many people, your reporter’s failure to do her job and her non-apology makes me think she really doesn’t understand the extent of her misdeeds, she needs to be fired.  Oh and to Sabrina Rubin Erdely, if you think anything you ever write again will be taken seriously, you are either insane or on crack.  Sickening.

Anyway.  And please, please, please check out The Random Journal.

 

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How will you deal with Jon Stewart’s hiatus?

How will you deal with Jon Stewart’s hiatus?

English: Jon Stewart at Barnes & Noble Union S...

English: Jon Stewart at Barnes & Noble Union Square for the launch of Earth (The Book), the 2010 book from the writers of The Daily Show (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Satire piece about liberals’ response to Jon Stewart’s decision to take time off from The Daily Show to direct a serious movie, Rosewater, about a journalist held captive in Iran.

I like this picture of Jon Stewart because he is wearing a Mets hat and I love those stupid Mets.

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Molehills out of mountains and vice versa

In the middle of a campaign for the most important position in the country, we should be talking about the global economy, tensions around the world such as problems in Iran, Syria and elsewhere.  We should be talking about how to best prepare ourselves for the new economic circumstances our world now inhabits or how to overhaul our tax and entitlements systems.

But we are not.

The GOP presidential nominees aren’t talking about these things.  They are focused on contraception and questions of “good and evil.”  The Republican Party, seems intent on not returning our country to a more prosperous state but to a different era.  It has become normal for politicians on both sides to wax nostalgic about “the good old days.”  Those days seems always have been in the 1950s, when — by the way, the tax rates for the highest earners was at its highest level ever.   But the current crop of candidates don’t think going back to even the 50s is enough.

I get why the Republicans feel the need to return to social and religious issues, their base loves it.  Think about what they want to talk about: contraception, religious wars, gay marriage.  Really?

Newsflash:  It’s 2012, Women can vote and most use contraception.  Gay marriage will be legal everywhere in the United States during my lifetime.  Nothing you do will change either of those facts.  Just to be as clear on this as possible — you are on the wrong side of history on these issues but that isn’t the real problem.  History doesn’t care.  The problem is by wasting everyone’s time on issues that won’t be changed at this level, we fail to talk about the policies that will.  You cheapen the process.

All of this is great for the Democrats.  And I want President Obama to win.  But as good as this is for his reelection prospects, it is bad for the country.  Presidential campaigns provide an opportunity to really examine and evaluate the state of the country and the best ways to deal with the challenges we face.  These should be lofty conversations and debates not petty bickering about social issues that were settled years ago (not to harp, but nothing Rick Santorum can do will turn that clock back).

When President Obama took office, I characterized the situation he faced as his “Himalayan problem.” All problems were so large individually but it was hard to gage their enormity when clumped together.  I misspoke, this was not his Himalayan problem, it was ours.  By choosing to focus on issues that excite  one base or another at the expense of those that impact all of us, the GOP is making molehills out of our Everest sized problems and that’s unfortunate.