Musings on a Tues

On yet another day fit for neither man nor beast--cold, windy, rainy....

I went to a local Tea Party on Sun. I rode my bike up to Central Park, figuring parking would be at a premium. It was, as there were a couple thousand folks there, I'd guess. It was pretty tame. No rebels, no extremists, no radicals. It was interesting in that Sat night, at a party, I heard from several libs, obviously, the same "talking points," word for word!, about the Tea Partiers. "They just angry and have no ideas and they're racists." I was stunned, a bit, by the exact word for word descriptions, given by more than one person, out of earshot of the others, at different times of the evening. I was stunned, even more, by the narrow- or close-mindedness of the anti-Tea Partiers. And, yes, these people at the Tea Party seemed upset. No, they did have ideas, quite a few of them. And, I couldn't detect a racist among them. They might have been there, but I coudn't tell. Amazing how easy it is to call names rather than engage in dialogue.

This is repetitive, but I wonder why The Oakland Press carries the columns of E.J. Dionne. Really, I wonder; maybe his brother-in-law runs the paper or its parent group???? I see, though, that Bill Press has not been in there for quite a while. But Dionne's column was lunacy, claiming that Obama's administration shows that gov't works by using the examples of the failed Times Sq bomber, the oil rig blast in the Gulf, etc. First, it was pure dumb luck that the bomb didn't go off in Times Sq. The administration had nothing to do with it and, in fact, showed itself to be incompetent in the wake of the matter. For instance, can you say "No Fly List?" How about making multi-trips to Pakistan, with several stay-overs of a couple weeks? And I guess the Obama administration oversight commission had awarded this BP oil rig a great safety rating (or whatever these things are called). Anyway, back to Dionne. I understand the desire to present opposing viewpoints on an editorial page. But to get the lib view, certainly there are better choices than Press and Dionne. Maybe they are "low-bid?" How about Leonard Pitts instead? Even when disagreeing with him, his columns give me pause for thought. Of course, to articulate the con viewpoint, I'm pretty sure I can find someone better than Cal Thomas--Bill Bennett, Thomas Sowell, Emmett Tyrell, among them.

I love to hear people talk about how "greedy" others are. If it's not "big oil," it's the bankers, Wall Street, CEOs in general, etc. Now, I happen to think most, if not all, CEOs are vastly overpaid--their jobs aren't that difficult. But that's what the market seems to bear--which might be a topic for another blog, but.... So, when folks talk about the "greed" of the above groups they distinctly omit professional athletes, hippy rock stars, the Hollywood-types, politicians (what did I read recently, that about 60% of the US Senators are millionaires, and just under 50% in the House are, too!!!!), and even doctors. Come to think of it, lawyers haven't been lumped in with the "greedy" group for quite a while--at least Congress hasn't done it. And, these folks often have nice homes, most far more expensive than mine (and I have a nice enough house, perfectly fine for me). They have enough cars, cottages or condos for vacations, eat out often enough, etc. I'm not saying these people aren't nice. But their definitions and preceptions of greed seem to be limited/restricted. Hmmm....greed?

With all of the anger directed at BP and the rig blast and pollution, what's going to come of off-shore drilling? Oh, I could go on about other spills that received far less attention, about why we need to drill off-shore instead of inland, but I won't today. I wonder how all these folks who want to stop off-shore drilling will react when the price of a gallon of gas hits $5 or $6. Oh, I know--those greedy oil companies!!!!