Will wonders never cease? … With the aid of 22 Republicans, the Democrats shot down the bill to mess with overtime — is hope really on the way? … Apparently it really is because FCC ruled that digital channels, even though their analog channel complies, are also required to air three hours a week of children shows. … The much ballyhooed “Owner Society” ignores the facts that most “ownership” is in the hands of bankers, much like the government is in the grubby hands of foreign lenders. … Look...
Truman was widely criticized for labeling the Korean War a “police action,” which he meant by that was not to equate the criminal incursion over the southern border with a major war, particularly when fresh in the mind was World War II. … Now there is the inference that a more “sensitive” president would turn to policing terrorism throughout the globe, suggesting that he would not unleash total war on terrorism. … Well, I have news for Cheney, without the clear and bold harboring of Al Qaeda ...
What most forget is that the war on Afghanistan was not preëmption but a justified war of vengeance in reaction to 9/11, not unlike the declaration of war following Pearl Harbor. … Preëmption came later under the extraneous guise of a clear and present danger unrelated to terrorism — in fact, it diverted attention from what mattered most. … The overuse of “war” actually relegates it to an effectual “war” on drugs, on poverty, on crime. In reality it should be perceived as an intensive strateg...
Whether near or in Cambodian waters the fact remains Kerry was in a theatre of war — and write it off as youthful exaggeration. … It is clear that Bush’s national guard tour is spotty. … but give him his credit due for not fleeing to Canada. … That said, let us now forget the past and concentrate on the campaign concerning the next four years. … Both candidates are fantasizing if they think that within five years they can balance or even reduce the deficit in face of mounting costs of war and...
When dealing with Senate votes, there is indeed a multilayered beast that lurks in the halls and closets of flip-floppers. Voting against the B1 bomber may be because you object to $800 toilet seats buried in the bill; or that the B52 bomber has performed magnificently for half a century. Voting for body armor could entail the omission of explosive-proof steel plates for humvees nor more tanks against the insurgents. When President, however, there is the luxury of taking on the appearanc...
Bush misled the congress into thinking that by its preapproval to go to war was to emphasize its unified will to be used as a symbolic threat that we would no longer tolerate Saddam’s defiance of sanctions and inspections. Bush, moreover, abused his soaring approval rating to instill fear of imminent danger from a tin-horn dictator who was severely weakened by the Gulf War, and yet rushed to war, defying world opinion. Now that the war is here Kerry needs to impress on the voters that th...
Politicians who drape themselves in the flag are insecure about their own patriotism. One should think twice about urging equality for women in Islamic nations when Muslim women willfully blow up planes. Eloquence is no longer an asset; it has been preempted by low life vernacular. “God’s Will Be Done” has been hijacked by politics. Jefferson’s “natural aristocracy” is now perceived as capitalistic aristocracy. Senior citizen voting error in Palm Beach is now praised ...
“Four More Years of Bush” means unlimited corporate power and the end of a woman’s right to choose. … In light of the Republican Convention's convenient love affair with moderates Giuliani and Schwarzenegger, the campaign managers were spared having to ask Olympia Snowe to speak inasmuch as she’s been dubbed a “Daschle Republican” because of her fight to limit tax cuts. … I omitted John McCain from the “moderate” list because he is deeply conservative — he just doesn’t like to be told to foll...
Is it just me, or do others viewing the Republican Convention get the impression that the nation’s only challenge is to be safe from Kerry? … I wonder how long it took girly-man Arnold Shriver Schwarzenegger to get his driver’s license? … To hear terms like — strong, dead or alive, resolute, endless-winless war, freedom in Iraq — you can’t help but lock the image of 59,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial as a mock lesson that our leaders will never learn not to engage in war under false pretens...
Do Texans really hate a certain kind of Vietnam hero or only its multi-millionaires? … I’m against vouchers for private and parochial schools but would be for a nominal tax break provided there is, implicit or otherwise, no political or ideological leaning in these schools. … Strength in numbers: believe sixty-four testaments on the fog of war as opposed to one [Rood] personal account on Kerry as a legitimate war hero. … Are they knocking down the door of Block Buster for rentals of “Pl...
Whatever happened the energy saving 55 mph law? … There were complaints from Florida schools closed because of Charley that children would not get their free school lunches … now that’s an example of real family values in the home going down the tubes. … There has been a shortfall of appropriations in my county designated for bilateral instruction. … Mind you, I’m not against helping out immigrants, but I draw the line when second and third generations make no attempt to learn our lan...
As a kid during the Depression — and lucky enough to find a couple of nickel deposit soda bottles — I would head for the 10¢ movie theater. Aside from all the western and gang-busting films, I would occasionally hit on a high society kind of film and could not help but wonder about such lavish existence in face of such sprawling poverty. Yet there was as a rule a hero or heroine who stood out by being aware of troubled times and set about relieving a small pocket of suffering, whether it be b...
How can modern man rediscover his inborn instincts to stay with things — not chase them — to rediscover paradoxically the Tao, by swimming up the stream of Bergson’s élan vital into the rapids of "the endless risks of thought." Yet to Bergson life is more a matter of change than of position. Why then the concern for space, place, and position? Time, change, without a backdrop, without a perspective, without a medium, is for the confinement of an all embracing One that is not of this sensory...
Could it be the long standing tag of “soft on crime” is a deterrent for the Democrats to make an issue of disenfranchising ex-cons — even those whose parole has expired? … There should be an investigation as to why Al Qaeda was given a pass at Tora Bora. … Tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy should not be used for savings and investments that are so long range that a current repression would long have corrected itself. … Anytime unemployment is in the 5% range is supposed to mean...
If religion is so ingrained in millions why is so much time devoted to justify it? Do people of faith really need “evidence” that a fishing boat discovered in the Sea of Galilee is the one which Jesus was on board? Nor should those with faith care that crucifixions victims’ feet were nailed by straddling the feet to the back side of the cross, contrary to artist’s imagination of one foot over the other. Perhaps it is simply to render material artifacts to a jaded faith or to justify vindi...