Tag Archives: The Washington Post

by

Make. It. Stop.

I generally like the idea of having a spirited conversation with someone who disagrees with me. I don’t believe either side has a monopoly on being right or wrong. First of all, I think life is boring when we only talk to people who agree with us, we never learn anything. Second of all, if we cannot defend our position to someone with the opposite view, how can we really know how good of a position it is? And lastly, we need to talk to each other if we are going to work together.

The problem today is that we all come to conversations with our own ideas about what the “truth” is. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “You have a right to your own opinion but not your own facts.” Well, today, you are entitled to both.

Here are some of the “facts” people have told me this year:

  • Huma Abedin is in the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Angela Merkel endorsed Hillary Clinton.
  • Saudi Arabia funded 20% of Hillary’s campaign.
  • Hillary leaked Chris Stevens’ schedule and that’s what led to his death.
  • There is proof that the DNC has committed election fraud.
  • The Clinton’s skilled Anontin Scalia
  • President Obama is buying up all the emergency supplies and having FEMA move them to secret places so he could halt the election and stay in the White House.
  • China hacks us. Russia hacks us. We hack them.
  • Millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary.
  • And we’ve all heard of the Pizza Gate

Of course, I asked where they got these “facts.” They sent me a sundry of random blogs, websites and message boards. I tried to counter them with facts I had. None of it mattered. They asked where I got my facts and when I told them, they said, “If you are going to listen to the MSM…” At the end of the day, they told me that they thought their sources were right and mine were wrong. The argument that “they have their news and I have mine” creates a false equivalency. While, in a way, it is true, it isn’t really.

Here are the places I get my news: MSNBC, CNN, FOX News, Politico, the Washington Post, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, the Daily Beast, NPR, BBC and others. If I read something that sounds “out there” I check more news sites. I don’t “blindly follow” anything or anyone.

Some journalists, like Chuck Todd, have called this era we are in “the post truth era.” How can we work together if we have different realities?

When it comes to the recent hacking stuff, I care because I don’t think we should let Russia get away with playing with our election. It would bother just as much if he had done this to the other side. I don’t want Russia hacking us in any way.

Donald Trump supporters don’t care. They say, “It wouldn’t have changed anything so, no harm, no foul. Let’s move on. Trump’s election was legitimate.” Move along, nothing to see here.

I honestly don’t know where we can go from here if we are going have our own facts but I do know this is a sad state of affairs. Welcome to the end of truth era.

by

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?

 

 

by

The Random Journal

Yesterday was a good day for the Random Journal (TRJ).

I posted a piece — Chris Cillizza to host the Daily Show and tweeted the link to Chris.  He graciously retweeted it.  Within five minutes, it got 300 hits.  By the end of the day, 800 people had visited the site.  A good day, indeed.

TRJ has all kinds of satire.  My specialty is political satire but I have other writers and I also write about other topics.  Today, for instance, Grumpy Cat married Keyboard Cat.  Feline love is in the air!

If you have not checked out the site, please do.  And if you subscribe to this, please subscribe to that.  And I am interested in any feedback you have.  Really.

Thank you!