Random Wed Thoughts

I didn't hear the Super Bowl commercial (for what product?) that sparked so much rancor.  OK, as I've noted, I didn't pay a lot of attention to the SB, so I missed most of the ads.  I did hear on the radio the singing of America the Beautiful in different languages.  Hey, what's the big deal??????  I thought it was very beautiful, extremely well done.  The singing was vastly superior to anything during halftime, if that can be called "singing."  That American the Beautiful was sung in different languages does nothing, absolutely nothing, to surrender American culture to others.  There are things to be concerned about with American culture; this isn't one of them.

I still don't understand how we elevate people and things to statuses that belittle or diminish others who deserve to be elevated.  OK, I admit I don't do movies or plays.  I have never heard of this actor who overdosed on heroin and died.  That says more about me than him, I'd guess.  But was he really "a legend" and "an icon?"  Then why haven't I even heard of him?  I fully realize that it might just be me.  Still......

The Super Bowl scored the highest TV ratings of any broadcast in history.  Hmmm......  What does that say, I wonder, about us?

Last weekend, I think more to get my goat than anything, some folks were ribbing me about Obama.  One even suggested I put an Obama bumper sticker on my car.  It was all good-natured joking, I think.  But I did add that I can't imagine anyone actually supporting Obama, unless they were ignorant, hypocritical, or getting freebies on other people's dimes.  Of course, I do recognize that some might legitimately support him and what he does; I just don't understand it outside of my parameters.  One pundit in the newspaper last weekend tried to defend Obama's use of executive orders by citing other Presidents' use of them.  I chuckled that the columnist could equate any of Obama's ex orders with Truman's Executive Order 9981, which integrated the armed forces, which, as one observer noted of the Brown v Board of Ed decision, "was so manifestly right and proper."

I received an e-mail from Sen Stabenow touted passage of the Farm Bill, as if I am supposed to be overjoyed.  A couple weeks ago, I wrote about it and how it should have been defeated and defeated soundly.  Hey, the thing is almost 1,000 pages long!  That, in itself, should condemn it.  And then I received an e-mail from Congressman Levin, asserting that Congress should "Reward Work!"  Yeah, right.  People like him want to punish work, by stealing more of its rewards in the form of taxes, regulations, etc.  He was actually trying to drum up support for the "income inequality" issue, raising the minimum wage.  "Reward Work," huh?  If Congress increases the minimum wage to what the protesters want, they'll be making about what I make, most weeks, in teaching college classes (at least at one of them, including class time, essay and paper grading, and minimal preparation).  I'm not exaggerating.  So, what about "rewarding" all the work I did to put me in a position for that job--the BA, the three MAs, all of my research and writing, etc.?  I wonder if either of them will respond to my replies, well, in a meaningful way, not their usual nonsequiturs.  They are both what's wrong with Washington, DC, both Democrats and Establishment Republicans.  They are arrogant elitists, who believe they and they only know what's best.  Any ideas that differ from their own (or at least ideas that their party leadership tells them to support) are obviously the result of Neanderthal thinking or worse.

I'm not sure I often agree with political commentator Dana Milbank, but he hit the nail on the head last week in citing Establishment Republicans turning their backs on their Republican base.  He writes, "The problem for Republicans is that the people who brought them to power didn't ask for consensus and smooth processes."  That is right on the money!  The Reps platform seems to be "Business as Usual."  That is, they are intent on compromise, bipartisanship, and, indeed, "consensus," (Oh, I don't like that word!) etc.  The Establishment Republicans never fight back, never offer their own programs.  They just try to make what the Democrats offer less extreme.  Those Republicans who do try to fight back are marginalized, even ostracized by their so-called "leadership."  But compromise here, give in there, consensus always still leads us into the abyss, just not in one fell swoop (or is it one swell foop?).

I don't listen to Laura Ingraham very often.  Perhaps I should.  It wasn't anything she said about policy or programs or even ideology--no, none of that.  What she said was something like this, "I have three kids who I want to have a promising future.  I don't care about me.  I'll likely be dead before all comes crashing down.  It's my kids I care about."  Amen!  I've been saying that for years and years.  I'll likely escape the abyss (see above), but I don't want my kids and grandkids to be swallowed by it.