Life – Page 48 – Doug's Views

October 1, 2006April 18, 2020

When moralists throw stones….

Less than a week after former President Clinton handed the right wing their ass on Bin Laden and President Bush had more proof of his lies thrown in his face when the National Intelligence Estimate came out, a sex scandal has erupted in the US House of Representatives.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida) resigned suddenly after learning a report on his inappropriate Internet contact with a 16 year old House page was about to be reported on ABC News.

What made me bust out laughing was when I heard that Foley was a leader on the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. He worked to help gain passage of the “Adam Walsh Child Protection Act of 2006” which, among other things, increases penalties for adults who use the Internet to discuss or solicit sexual acts with “minors” (defined as an “individual who has not attained the age of 18 years”). GOP leaders hailed this law as a vital tool in protecting our nation’s children against Internet predators.

Now one would think that the GOP would bounce Foley and stick to their scripts about “protecting children”, but it seems the speaker and majority leader knew back in 2005! about Foley and his obsession with male pages.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday — contradicting the speaker’s assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week.
Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert’s top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully.
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post on Friday that he had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert.
GOP Knew of Foley’s Messages

Any time an adult has some kind of contact with a minor of a sexual nature, people get quite upset, and the adult usually is vilified. Unless you are a Republican and your PR comes from Fox News:

Discussing the recent resignation of former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) with host Chris Wallace on the October 1 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday, Fox News political analyst and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claimed that House Republicans would have “been accused of gay bashing” if they had “overly aggressively reacted” to Foley’s allegedly inappropriate email communications with a 16-year-old male congressional page when House Republicans reportedly first learned of Foley’s actions in late 2005.
Gingrich: House GOP would have “been accused of gay bashing” if it “overly aggressively reacted” to Foley’s emails in 2005
On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume asserted that there is a “difference” between the Democratic and Republican parties because former Republican Rep. Mark Foley is “out of office and in total disgrace in his party” after allegedly engaging in sexually explicit communications with underage congressional pages, while President Bill Clinton and Rep. Barney Frank were not similarly reprimanded for their “inappropriate behavior.” However, neither the Clinton nor the Frank allegations involved minors.
Hume compared Foley scandal to those involving Clinton, Frank, ignoring key difference
On Fox News’ The Big Story Primetime, Ann Coulter claimed that reports that the House Republican leadership was previously aware of communications former Rep. Mark Foley allegedly had with underage congressional pages are “somewhat incredible,” asking: “Why wait until right before the election to let it break?” and dismissing such reports as gossip, saying: “It’s something you hear.”
Coulter spinning on Foley scandal

Wow!

Brian Ross, who broke the story on Friday on ABC (US), is not one to report hearsay. More than one page has come forward and there are reports that pages were warned about Foley when they started their assignments.

Fox News is trying to spin the scandal like when they claimed that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was nothing more than Fraternity hazing.

So I guess we can add Republicans to the list of those who get a free pass on child abuse – along with Catholic priests.

Reconnecting and Reunion

This past weekend visited my hometown of Findlay.

It has been awhile since I visited last and I like to say that my Mom was forcing me to visit (that’s sort of true) but my visit was also for a milestone in my life.

Saturday, I attended my 20th High School reunion.

I was both very nervous and very excited to see my former classmates. Some of us attended elementary and junior high school together before Findlay High. Most I have not seen or heard from in years.

When I told my Mom I was going she asked “Why?”

Truth be told I had a good High School experience. By my senior year I had accomplished several major goals like getting on the honor roll (FINALLY), playing on the football team, worked on Trojan TV (I sucked as a play-by-play announcer), directing a one act play, being a class speaker at graduation, and getting into a major college (Ohio State).

Those things allowed me to hang out on the fringe of the cool kids group – the ones who spent more time on extracurricular activities than they spent in school and still got good grades.

I was worried that I wouldn’t see anyone I wanted to see – either I may not have liked them 20 years ago or I didn’t really know them. I saw a preliminary list of those attending and there did seem to be a few people I did want to see again. Whew!

Of course the other side of the coin was – did they want to see me again. HA!

High School was also good for me because the people who use to bully me either grew up (which is what happened in most cases) or attended the vocational school next door so I spent no time with them – except Health class Sophomore year when all the “shop rats” were in my class. Imagine what hell would be like (if it existed) and my Health class that year was worse. But there was some fun moments then like seeing the reaction when the VD movie was shown with close ups of various private areas infected with various VDs, the drug movie and the scene when the heroin addict strokes out on screen, and our teacher showing the class the 3-D relief model of the male reproductive organ and then asking one of the giggling girls if she wanted to take it home….. (this was way before teachers could lose their jobs for doing that). — ah, good times….

The festivities started Friday night at the football game where there was a section roped off for us. Then Saturday night was the party at a local banquet center.

At the game, our team played Worthington Kilbourne and we won, 34-7. It helped our classmate Mark Ritzler get his first win as new head coach of the Trojans. There was some discussion that we all may need to come to all the rest of the games as a good luck charm for the team. Findlay High against Kilbourne

Also at the game, but who didn’t attend the party on Saturday, were two Bobs that I have known since elementary school and Little League. We played on the GM Red Sox. I believe that team was coached by Mr. Nichols, who would become our Jr. High phys ed teacher and later a long serving Findlay city council member. At the time I was discovering that I needed to wear glasses. During one hard practice, Mr. Nichols, tired of me striking out put the ball in his hand and ordered me to hit the ball. I looked at him and he said it again so I swung the bat at full speed and smashed it into his hand. One or two expletives spilled out but at the pain not at me. I got glasses soon after that. During my season on the Red Sox I had 2 base hits.

The party on Saturday night was a good time. One of the guys, Chad, I hung out with starting in Jr. High was there. I hadn’t seen him since graduation day. One of my other friends from Jr. High, Tim, was also there (he had been at the game too). I hadn’t seen Tim since the last reunion I attended back in 1996. Class of 86 reunion

People said to me that I didn’t look any different than I did in High school. Other people looked pretty much the same. There were some who looked very different.

One of the ones who was very different was a guy named Jim. Back in High school he was one of my bullies. He was a stoner and most people remembered him because he use to sleep during study hall. Saturday night he looked normal. I actually was glad he changed and that he attended the party.

Just like in high school the clics from back then reformed during the party. You could tell which people hung out with who by what groups formed that night for talking. The jocks and preps toward the front and the fringe and losers in the back. But I will say that the groups moved amongst each other better than back in the day.

The other interesting note was all the people who live around Columbus. I had known of one or two but there was quite a few more than I realized.

The other thing that I did this past weekend was to visit my Mom. She had recently reconnected with my grandmother and was able to pass on my request for some pictures of my Dad. Dad in Vietnam He was killed in Vietnam back in 1968 and I had one or two pictures. My grandma had some copies made of an 8 x10 of him in his Marine dress blues, a couple of candids of him in his Marine dress greens, one that was taken at his funeral, and couple of him in Vietnam taken by his buddies. Those were pretty cool. I also noticed how much he looked like his Dad.

September 11, 2006April 18, 2020

9/11 still powerful after 5 years

The media has begun their observances of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This weekend I watched some of the documentaries on some of the channels like PBS and CBS and the images and feelings are still very powerful.

I still vividly remember what I was doing that morning in 2001 when the first reports came in, I was noodling on the computer. I had just come home from my night job and I had the “Today” show on in the background while I decompressed before going to bed. After seeing the 2nd plane hit the tower I didn’t go to bed until around Midnight the next day.

I wrote my thoughts into an essay posted on my iHumanism website.

September 11: A Humanist Response

I read on some website that non-theists didn’t speak up when the event happened, giving the impression that they didn’t care about the tragic event. That is just a myth. We just don’t put out press releases about how we feel. Even if we did we couldn’t afford to have it published.

The only real thing that I am still upset about is our present government officials are fear mongers. President Bush took the opportunity to give a speech the other day about “our” fight against terrorism. In one speech he claimed we were “safer” but faced increased threat of terrorism and that the war on terrorism includes Iraq (even though before we invaded in 2003 Iraq was not part of 9/11 or the war on terrorism).

The Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows and claimed the administration was doing “a hell of job” on security.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of securing the nation against terrorists. You know, we’re here on the fifth anniversary (of the 9/11 attacks). And there has not been another attack on the United States. And that’s not an accident, because we’ve done a hell of a job here at home,” Cheney said in the broadcast interview. “I don’t know how much better you can do than no, no attacks for the past five years.”
Cheney Defends Hardline White House Role

But he and the administration have not been questioned as to why the leader of the group that attacked the World Trade Center is still at large 5 years later. Or why a military solution has not defeated al-Qaida either abroad or closer to home.

Besides we’ve heard it before. Remember, Brownie was doing a great job as head of FEMA after Katrina and we know how that turned out.

August 23, 2006April 18, 2020

Madigan says we should be lucky to have Wal-Mart

Charles M. Madigan wrote an op/ed piece in the Chicago Tribune Tuesday complaining about Democrats deciding to take on retailer Wal-Mart. He starts out telling us about a couple of jobs he had that paid little for the amount work he did and the other negatives that came with it. Of course he makes the tired claim:

It paid a pittance, created an immense amount of sweat and made the drinking man thirsty.
The strange thing about these jobs is that I was happy to have them at the time. They put money (and at the fast-food place, stolen pieces of fried chicken for the walk home) in my pocket.
Also, those were the jobs available.
Up against the Wal! (-Mart)

Then Madigan tries to give us an unemotional lecture on retail economics. He writes:

Work is honorable. I would love to see people make more money. I would like them to have comfortable lives, nice homes and, most of all, relief from money troubles.
Wal-Mart probably does too, so they would have more to spend.
The problem is that has nothing to do with the retail business.
The company is in a strong position in most of its locations because, I am sure, it is the only show in town for lots of people who are eager to work. It has crushed its challengers.
That spells relatively low wages.
Is that right or wrong?
The marketplace doesn’t make decisions like that. No one got rich working in a mom-and-pop corner store, either, so we should shed the notion that something noble has passed. Low-wage jobs are still what they have always been, low-wage jobs. The nation runs on these realities. Go read up on coal mining. People risked their lives for a couple of bucks a day, if they were lucky enough to get work.

Madigan is right. The desire to have people make more money and have unfettered lives has nothing to do with the system of retail business. It is just that – a system. It doesn’t control our lives, we control it. There is the human factor.

The humans who run Wal-Mart make the decision to move into a small town, undercut the local businesses in prices, and become the only game in town. That is their business plan. They manipulate the consumer and the system for their own ends.

The profits go to the owners – the shareholders. They spend money from their advertising budget to pretend they care about the community. The Wal-Marts of the world only care about the bottom line. Period.

I would have more respect for Wal-Mart if it played on a level playing field. The last time it did was back in the 1950’s when Sam and his wife Helen were “mom and pop” store owners in Arkansas and a large discount chain moved in. It seems they became rich….

August 20, 2006April 18, 2020

Funny church sign

While out and about today I came across the following sign outside a local church:

In case you can’t read the text, it reads “Free Trips To Heaven Details Inside”

The words could be interpreted more than one way. The first way is you can get to Heaven by going to church (which is probably the intent), the other way is funny to me. You go inside the church and they will kill you for free.