Doug's Views – Page 150 – Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist

October 3, 2006April 18, 2020

Crap Happens

On Monday, the big news story was the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania.

I watched some of the coverage on the news channels before going to work. It is a very sad time for their community. I was a bit saddened to hear some of the news people saying factually wrong things about the Amish. One of the things was that the Amish reject any help from the government – that is not true. Here in Ohio the Amish do accept some government support especially when it comes to health care and their children. When they do accept it, the community, later, will have an auction or market day to pay back the state for the aid they received.

Of course, after every violent incident involving a school or children, the religious wing nuts make statements like the one I read in a forum posting on our local newspaper website:

Do you think there is a correlation with taking prayer out of schools and the escalation of school violence? Innocent voices raised in prayer each day kept God’s protection over the schools. Parents better pray for their children each day, I know I do!

Then there was this bit last night on the “Free Speech” segment of the CBS Evening News by Brian Rohrbough, father of one of the students killed in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado:

ROHRBOUGH: I’m saddened and shaken by the shooting at an Amish school today and last week’s school murders [in Bailey, Colorado]. When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting. Since that day, I tried to answer the question, “Why did this happen?”
This country is in a moral freefall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak without moral consequences. And life has no inherent value. We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong, and I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children. Suicide has become an acceptable action and has further emboldened these criminals. We’re seeing an epidemic increase in murder/suicide attacks on our children.
In response to Pennsylvania school shooting, CBS’ “Free Speech” featured Columbine father attacking evolution, abortion

That was just an uninformed comment. The Amish are about as religiously conservative as a religion goes, yet all their prayers didn’t “protect” them from the violence. It also doesn’t make one any saner. Mental illness doesn’t avoid the religious. In a press conference today, PA State Police reported the Amish school shooter wrote to his wife that he was angry with God.

Prayer is NOT a solution – it is what some do to cope with their lives.

People need to get some perspective. Mentally ill people, who perpetrate these killings, will do what they can to do harm. Unless we can gain some kind of psychic ability, we can NEVER prevent these incidents 100%.

The guy, who is said to have shot the Amish children, wasn’t on any law enforcement radar. The guy seemed to have just snapped (although I bet there were some signs his family and friends ignored).

My philosophy of life allows me to function without being crippled by the unknown. It basically boils down to “Crap Happens”. You deal with what you can control and try your best to slog through what you can’t control.

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.

Prototypes are cool, baby….

While reading the October issue of Playboy Magazine (yes, I was reading it…), they gave review and short clip of the new album by the French band Prototypes. It blew me away.

Prototypes throw out a great mash-up of punk, new wave, and pop music. Since I don’t speak a word of French I have no idea what the lyrics are, but the music is kick ass.

My favorite song right now is “Je Ne Te Connais Pas”. Allmusic.com said:

‘Je Ne Te Connais Pas,’ is almost perfect with wheezy organ, fuzz bass, handclaps, tambourine, and shouted yeah-yeah background vocals, all whipped into a frothy blend that sounds like 21st century ye-ye mixed with what you wish teen pop sounded like.
Prototypes

The album is available on iTunes and Amazon.com

President Clinton hands Fox News its ass

The buzz in the political pundit arena today is the interview former President Bill Clinton had with Fox News’ Chris Wallace.

It was suppose to be about Clinton’s work on his Global Initiative project which includes the support from Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch. Wallace instead tried to ambush Clinton about the current myth spinning in conservative pundit land – that Clinton didn’t do enough to kill Osma Bin Laden during his presidency. Republican pundits – with help from the conservative media like Fox News – have used the myth in an effort to deflect criticism of President Bush and his failure to capture or kill Bin Laden.

Instead Wallace had the tables turned on him and Fox News. It was lovely to watch. The website Media Matters has the full run down of the interview including video but here are some highlights:

CLINTON: Let’s look at what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?
WALLACE: Yes, I do.
CLINTON: You do, don’t you?
WALLACE: I think he has a variety of opinions and loyalties —
CLINTON: That’s right.
WALLACE: — but yes, he has a vigorous opinion.
CLINTON: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let’s look at the facts. He worked for Ronald Reagan. He was loyal to him. He worked for George H. W. Bush. He was loyal to him. He worked for me and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him. They downgraded him and the terrorist operation. Now, look what he said. Read his book and read his factual assertions — not opinions — assertions. He said we took “vigorous action” after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden.
WALLACE: Well, wait —
CLINTON: I authorized — now, wait a minute —
WALLACE: You launched a few — you threw a few cruise missiles.
CLINTON: No, no. I authorized — I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to. He said he did a good job, setting up all these counterterrorism things. The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.
Now if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: after the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack/search for bin Laden. But, we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9-11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So, that meant I would have had to send a few hundred Special Forces in, in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9-11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9-11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is: If anybody wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.
WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?
CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.
WALLACE: Right.
CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried. So, I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.
So, you did Fox’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit-job on me, but what I want to know —
WALLACE: Now, wait a minute, sir, I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you’ve asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, “Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?” I want to know how many people you asked, “Why did you fire Dick Clarke?” I want to know how many people you asked about this.
WALLACE: We asked — we asked. Have you ever watched Fox News Sunday, sir?
CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of —
CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.
WALLACE: About the USS Cole?
CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris
WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.
CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care. But,
WALLACE: — and all I can say is, I’m asking you in good faith because it’s on people’s minds, sir. And I wasn’t —
CLINTON: Well, there’s a reason it’s on people’s minds. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There’s a reason it’s on people’s minds because they’ve done a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression. This country only has one person who’s worked against terror, from the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents on 9-11. Only one: Richard Clarke.
And all I can say — anybody is — you want to know what we did wrong or right, or anybody else did? Read his book. The people on my political right, who say I didn’t do enough, spent the whole time I was president saying, “Why is he so obsessed with bin Laden? That was ‘Wag the Dog’ when he tried to kill him.” My Republican Secretary of Defense — and I think I’m the only president since World War II to have a Secretary of Defense from the opposite party — Richard Clarke, and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden and came closer apparently than anybody has since.
Wallace falsehood: said in Clinton interview that he asked Bush admin officials “plenty of questions” about failure to catch bin Laden

Clinton is right. The same right winger’s taking him to task for not doing enough to get Bin Laden back in 1998 and 1999 were the same ones who claimed he had launched the cruise missile attacks back then to distract from his sex scandal. President Bush did nothing about Bin Laden for the first 8 months of his administration even after the FBI and CIA reported in early 2001 that the Cole bombing was the work of Bin Laden and his group.

As Media Matters reports, Wallace asked about the lack of focus on Bin Laden to someone from the Bush administration only once – back in 2004 to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. No one in the Bush White House was asked about it before or after that.

September 25, 2006April 18, 2020

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.