March Madness

Gotcha, didn't I?  No, not that "March madness."  I really couldn't care much less about the NCAA basketball tournament, even if Michigan is in the Final Four.  I don't plan to watch the game(s), although I might have had MSU still been in it.  I did follow some of the high school tournament games, but not many.  And, the Amherst women's basketball team (I'll bet they really appreciate being called, "The Mammoths!") repeated as the Division III champions--and I'll bet they actually have to go to class and do the work.

In the debate over guns and gun violence, who knows what to believe?  We are told there have been more guns sales over the past two years than before.  We are told gun sales have increased, but does that mean we have more or fewer guns than the past?  I'd assume more, but how many of the sales were replacements?  Yet, the number of families with guns in their households has decreased.  So, are individuals stocking up?  Plus, didn't Remington file for bankruptcy in the last week or so?  A Money magazine article cited "a plunge in demand that has dragged down the [gun] industry."   So, then, why the Remington bankruptcy?  How can we have a serious dialogue when we have such seemingly contradictory "facts" or, at least, trends?

I see Walter Williams, for whom I have a great deal of respect, wrote a column with his views on the spike in gun violence.  His ideas, which include a loss of respect for authority, are likely to attract as much attention has those I wrote a week or two ago.  I think he has a point worth discussing.  It's not just police and other law enforcement officers.  What about teachers, parents, etc.?  And that certainly ties in to what I wrote before.

This one always gets me, always.  I just finished our taxes last weekend.  Once again, we feel as if we had been assaulted.  Yet, there are ads on the radio and I'd assume television, too, that tell people who owe a lot of taxes to come to this company or that company and their tax liability will be reduced.  Wait a minute!  Why do some people, who owe a lot, get to pay fewer taxes just because some company is working on their behalf?  Why do I have to pay all of my taxes?

For that matter, why don't other people who owe more than $1000 (after withholding!) get the demands from the IRS to pay quarterly?  I know a good number of folks who don't have the slightest idea what I am talking about and, from what they've told me, they owe a lot more in April than we ever did.  In fact, we received our annual IRS envelopes today, the ones in which our quarterly payments are expected.  Again, why were we singled out and, the first year when we didn't pay despite the envelopes, then fined, with interest, for failure to do so, even though we paid every last cent we owed by April 15?

While I'm at it, why are our taxes going to the Palestinian Liberation Authority (to the tune of $600,000,000 in last week's omnibus bill) and Planned Parenthood ($500,000,000), among others?  I know, I know......  "Those are just 'drops in the bucket.'"  As the late Senator Everett Dirksen once adroitly said of government spending 50 or more years ago, "A few million here and a few million there and pretty soon you're talking real money."

And aren't there other companies claiming to help people to avoid completely paying off their debts?  How does that happen?  Don't you and I have to pay our bills?  To again cite in the past, Herbert Hoover, in a little different context, asked of debtors who sought not to repay their debts incurred n the First World War, "They hired the money, didn't they?"  Make them pay.

I find this humorous, but not ha ha.  It seems that many of the same people who are very concerned that the Russians meddle(d) in our election(s), also favor voting by illegal aliens from Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, etc.  So it's bad that some foreigners might influence American voters, but it's not bad that other foreigners are OK to actually vote.  Huh??????

What's so bad about requiring affirmation of US citizenship on census forms?  I see lots of problems with not asking for proof of citizenship.  For instance, are Congressional and other legislative districts apportioned on the basis of number of citizens or total population, including non-citizens?  Likewise, is federal money allocated on the basis of number of citizens or total population, including non-citizens?  Why do federal programs follow not just citizens or even legal aliens, but illegal aliens as well?

I just finished reviewing a soon-to-be-published college textbook.  Among other things, I was struck by this.  Very short shrift was given to the Renaissance, particularly the Italian Renaissance.  If I recall, the names Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael were mentioned once each, with only Raphael's "School of Athens" depicted.  Yet more pages and attention were given to art in other cultures, in other parts of the world at different times.  More depictions of that art were provided, art which was in essence not much more than stick people.  I exaggerate, but only slightly.  This is what has grown out of the diversity movement, that "all people and all cultures are deserving of respect and acceptance."  Well, this might be so, although I think human sacrifice and slavery, among other things are not going to get my respect.  Not all people and not all people and cultures deserve respect and acceptance.  I'm not saying we shouldn't study them.  But when a preponderance of a textbook is devoted to non-western civilizations (13 of 17 chapters), I think we are skewing history and distorting it and its relevance to how we arrived to today.