Pres. Bush Skips Soldiers Funerals
Veterans are beginning to take notice that President Bush has not attended a single one of the funerals being held for the deceased soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.
As AlterNet notes:
Increasingly, this proclivity on the part of President Bush to avoid the normal duty of a commander-in-chief to honor dead soldiers is causing rising irritation among some veterans and their families who have noticed what appears to be a historically anomalous slight.
The President certainly can't attend all or most of the funerals simply because there are too darn many of them. He has honored soldiers in his remarks but it bothers me that the commander-in-chief is spending so much time raising millions for his campaign while families bury their dead in silence.
Friday, October 31, 2003
What Happened to Halloween?
I grew up in a small Oklahoma town where Halloween was serious business. Kids trick-or-treated all over the town and came home loaded with great candy and the occasional unwanted apple. There was no hesitence to go to strangers' houses. There was talk, always unfounded, of razorblades or pins hidden in the goodies in some far away place like Ohio or Texas but that was not something we worried about in the safety of Our Town. Every house (except the "holy roller" homes) was open to the children of the town and every porch had a light burning. This was a night that the adults worked to make good for the kids and we kids loved it!
Now I live in a city and a time where children must go to shopping malls to queue for tiny bits of candy handed out by the mall stores. We are relegated to malls because parents don't trust strangers to give their children unadulterated candy and most homeowners either don't want to be bothered or are afraid to open the door to masked strangers. My doorbell rang a few times tonight because I live in a friendly neighborhood with lots of children.
I know a lot of neighborhoods in my city that are not welcoming. The porchlights are turned off and children are unwelcome. What's wrong with these people? Last year I took my daughter out to trick-or-treat and we had a hard time finding anyplace to go. We ultimately ended up at the mall with thousands of children in one long mall-length line that shuffled from store to store. The children, not knowing what they were missing, enjoyed it nonetheless. The kids didn't even notice the jerk parents that shoved their kids into the middle of the lines so they wouldn't have to wait. This year my daughter said she didn't want to go trick-or-treating. "It's too much of a hassle," she said. I didn't let on how sad this makes me.
I grew up in a small Oklahoma town where Halloween was serious business. Kids trick-or-treated all over the town and came home loaded with great candy and the occasional unwanted apple. There was no hesitence to go to strangers' houses. There was talk, always unfounded, of razorblades or pins hidden in the goodies in some far away place like Ohio or Texas but that was not something we worried about in the safety of Our Town. Every house (except the "holy roller" homes) was open to the children of the town and every porch had a light burning. This was a night that the adults worked to make good for the kids and we kids loved it!
Now I live in a city and a time where children must go to shopping malls to queue for tiny bits of candy handed out by the mall stores. We are relegated to malls because parents don't trust strangers to give their children unadulterated candy and most homeowners either don't want to be bothered or are afraid to open the door to masked strangers. My doorbell rang a few times tonight because I live in a friendly neighborhood with lots of children.
I know a lot of neighborhoods in my city that are not welcoming. The porchlights are turned off and children are unwelcome. What's wrong with these people? Last year I took my daughter out to trick-or-treat and we had a hard time finding anyplace to go. We ultimately ended up at the mall with thousands of children in one long mall-length line that shuffled from store to store. The children, not knowing what they were missing, enjoyed it nonetheless. The kids didn't even notice the jerk parents that shoved their kids into the middle of the lines so they wouldn't have to wait. This year my daughter said she didn't want to go trick-or-treating. "It's too much of a hassle," she said. I didn't let on how sad this makes me.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
K Street
US Senator Don Nickles had a role on the new HBO series "K Street" tonight. While I havn't figured out this series yet it seems to be about the "exciting" world of Capitol Hill lobbyists. Senator Don did well in his scene - a long one-on-one discussion with a lobbyist. Could this be his next career?
US Senator Don Nickles had a role on the new HBO series "K Street" tonight. While I havn't figured out this series yet it seems to be about the "exciting" world of Capitol Hill lobbyists. Senator Don did well in his scene - a long one-on-one discussion with a lobbyist. Could this be his next career?
Mayor Upset Over Jerk Site
As Flyover Country tells us Mayor Kirk Humphries of OKC is upset about a website called Kirk is a Jerk.com A peek at the site would suggest that it is the work of a long-time Democratic Party "operative" that has done similar hatchet job e-mails and websites about other Republican candidates in the past. The best you can say about this work is that it doesn't exactly raise the level of political discussion. It is quite tasteless and if the Democratic Party has any connection with it at all they should repudiate its content. Lampooning politicians is a great tradition but to be funny it can't be mean-spirited. But as Flyover Country noted the mayor has overreacted.
As Flyover Country tells us Mayor Kirk Humphries of OKC is upset about a website called Kirk is a Jerk.com A peek at the site would suggest that it is the work of a long-time Democratic Party "operative" that has done similar hatchet job e-mails and websites about other Republican candidates in the past. The best you can say about this work is that it doesn't exactly raise the level of political discussion. It is quite tasteless and if the Democratic Party has any connection with it at all they should repudiate its content. Lampooning politicians is a great tradition but to be funny it can't be mean-spirited. But as Flyover Country noted the mayor has overreacted.