Tag Archives: politics

Fear mongering?

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I missed the local news the other night. I usually watch it out of habit. Actually I listen to it while I do other things. It is nice to know what is going on in Albuquerque and New Mexico, as it is nice to be somewhat informed of what is going on in your part of the world.

I missed the local news due to a schedule change not my own, but it effects me. So when I turned on the television to watch the news it was not there. Once i realized what time it was, okay, not a problem, I changed channels to one of the 24 hour news channels. they were not doing news, so I changed to another one. Same thing, no breaking news, just a followup to something that had happened that day. Repeat performance for the last news stations I knew of.

I checked the channel guide, and as is more the norm than not, there was nothing showing I wanted to watch. I remembered while flipping through the channels there was a talk news show going on. I normally do not care for them, but as having never seen this one I thought I would give it a few minutes of my time.

I watched for about fifteen minutes as the host pumped out fear and rants about what is happening to this country! I was not aware of all he problems we are experiencing, I am so glad I tuned in. I found out that due to immigration, the Supreme Court overturning the California Gay marriage ban, and the way America has changed since the late sixties that the country is almost lost!

The host never really made it clear to whom we are losing the county to, that did not seem important to the line he was taking. We are losing America, and we need to get moving before it is too late and we become foreigners in our own neighborhoods. If the hosts word on these fears was not enough, a guest was brought on the show to prop up the rhetoric being spewed across the airwaves.

Unfortunately for the show, the guest disagreed or downplayed the host’s issues for other areas of concern that were on the guests mind at the moment. The guest did this in a way that while not outwardly promoting everything the host was creating fear over, but went on with personal insights supporting his views. It was clear that either the guest on the program was not screened before the show aired, or kept his agenda hidden until it was his turn to speak.

At any rate the joining in the crusade with the guest never happened and the conversation was ended leaving some open time which was not filled very well by the host. It reminded of a conservative radio talk show host who cuts off callers with opposite views and then rants on about their inability to grasp the issue.

As I mentioned twenty minutes was about all I could take. I must be a political backwater bumpkin because my life concerns are a little more concrete. I think our country being a democracy is reforged from time to time by the will of the people and not some short sighted fear monger who demands the majority to conform to their view of how things ought to be. Of course I did not even touch on the hosts religious views which he managed to get in while stirring the pot on how the country is going to the dogs. Gosh maybe instead of having what I feel are high level views, there is something fundamentally wrong with me and I should tune in again? Not….

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Who’s fault is it you are seriously ill?

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We are strange animals, we really are. I remember a poll taken sometime in the past about how people felt about themselves and other people they know concerning everyone’s chance of going straight to heaven after they die. An overwhelming majority of people thought that they were certainly going to heaven, but their family members and neighbors were most likely not.

I am sure in the face of our upcoming election for the presidency, the list would be much larger, and would now have political overtones as a deciding factor. If you are a Democrat, anyone showing signs of being republican are certainly going to hell. If you are a Republican, anyone with democratic leanings is certainly suspect, and most will probably go to hell also.
The heaven/hell thinking also pervades religious beliefs. No matter what religion one is and no matter what tolerance that religious belief promotes, most people are sure others that are not of their particular blend of religion are going to have a tough time finding those pearly gates. With the tens of thousands of flavors of Christianity, not to mention other major religions and their thousands of subsets, it looks like everyones vision of heaven is going to be a pretty empty place to live after we pass on.

As I get older, I have more friends and acquaintances develop some serious medical issues. Of course it is easy to determine the cause. They obviously eat wrong, do not exercise, drink, or do none of those things, and that is the problem. Likely they did drugs when they were young, and smoked different types inhaled products. There is no doubt why they became so ill, anyone can see that.

Of course in my case, my body was born in perfect condition, any probability of a future medical condition is non existent. I also have spent my life doing all the things I should do, and none of the those things which may have an influence on my health in a negative way. By golly it is quite a shock the first time something does not work as expected!

As I am sure most people do, I looked for someone or something to blame. Something they put in food, or something I breathed in when visiting some big polluted city. It was probably caused by eating some unwashed fruit, or consumed fish that had DDT, or mercury in its body.

Once I went through that list, it is on to the spiritual side of why something is not right. God is punishing me, and until I figure it out and made it right, I will remain ill. Once I figure out what it was I did that was wrong, my health will be restored, and everything will be good again with my body.

If I went through all my memories and can not find anything, then it must be God has forgotten about me. I did not actively practice my religion by going to church often enough. Or maybe I have too many differing views that stray to far away from the mainline concepts of my faith of choice. Once I get back in line with the mainstream majority with my faith, my health problems will go away.

If that does not work, there is the other side of religion. The Devil, or Satan if you will has been allowed to torment me by God. I am the modern day version of Job, and the devil has decided to get right down to it and attack my physical health in an attempt to make my spirit weak. I can not believe this was allowed to happen, but now that I have figured it out, I know all I have to do is wait and continue living a righteous life, and everything will be restored, just as it was for Job.

Finally reality starts to creep in, and the truth becomes apparent. Stuff happens with our bodies. We have one tens of millions of cells from disparate body parts all trying to function and reproduce, and sometimes a cell gets it wrong. It is nobody’s fault and there is no spiritual connection. It just happens….

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Integrity of nations, and ourselves

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Wow, am I having a problem with the integrity issues this week! Two of the blogs on my blogroll to the right, sonalismrules, and heroworkshop, share some pretty strong feelings about integrity. Both of them incidentally over the India verses Australia Cricket test match (?) this week. The match definitely ups the visibility of world class athletes’ and starts to question the status they hold, referees too. This problem is also going lower down in sports in the last months.

While the big news here in the US has been around steroids, Marion Jones, and Floyd Landis seem to hold the spotlight there. Some athletes did not learn anything, or thought they were immune to normal human expectations. Baseball once again is having its already shaky reputation dragged through baseball mud once again with widespread steroid use reported. In late December Florida State college came under the spotlight for group test cheating where as many as twenty athletes may be involved.

Integrity seems to be the issue at hand. I am grappling with the word integrity and I can understand why it is defined with a standard definition, a conceptual view, and a philosophical view. It seems we all have an idea of what integrity should be, but we have different thoughts on how and when it applies.

As a poker player, I have sat with some pretty immoral people. I have seen people who are willing to cheat me, but if they give me their word on something it is as good as gold. I have seen other players give their word, and take any advantage they can to ensure they get what they want. Both types of people act with integrity in their dealings. The biggest difference between them is one type of player goes by the general rule of what is right, and the second argues over what was agreed upon.

Obvious integrity examples for me are in presidential politics. I watched Richard Nixon state he was not a thief. I saw Bill Clinton adamantly claim he did not have sex with a certain woman. The current president has been caught making claims that have shown to be not quite true. In their view they all acted with integrity, in the view of their public they acted with something less.

In the world I was brought up in, the value I was taught that is most important is integrity. I was once asked by a close friend to lie for him, saving him from a serious problem. It was a simple lie, and no one would have known. My integrity would not have been impugned if I had agreed. Well, that is not really true, for I would have known. In the end of all things integrity is one of the things no one can take from me. I can only give it away, and I refuse.

In the current state of sports, people are willing to give up everything for the money. How much money do these people need to accumulate before they can like who they see in the mirror? How much money is needed before a family member, or friend can look at someone who is a liar, and a cheat decide it is okay because they made enough money that they are beyond it all now.

In the stories making the media today, these are not little things that someone was caught doing, or lying about. In the case of Cricket, a whole nation now has their integrity drawn into question due to the act of a few people. India is outraged because they have been wrongly cheated out of something they have every right to.

What is done, can not be undone, in the near future at any rate. No amount of reparation will ever undo the sting of what has been done. No amount of sorry will ever fix the damage done to Cricket, and other sports too. Like it or not, now the integrity of a country – all the way down to an individual – is no longer on the line. In the eyes of many in the world it has been lost, and may possibly never be regained. Was it worth it, I would not do it?

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