Friday Fish Wrap: July 23, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010 at 19:57 We lost two really good men this week, and I’m sad about both.
Kenny Guinn, the two term Republican governor of Nevada fell off the roof of his home in Las Vegas, Nevada while attempting some repairs. Guinn was the last Republican that I voted for. Hear that? I do vote for Republicans when they’re as decent as Kenny Guinn was. They don’t make Republicans like that anymore.
Guinn was the only governor in recent memory that had guts enough to be realistic about the budgetary needs for Nevada. He put forth the largest tax increase in the states history. For that he left office with an astounding 66% approval rating. He also declined to support Jim ‘No taxes’ Gibbons, who later won. Jim is going out with an embarrassing approval rating of a negative percent. I jest, although it isn’t really very funny.
Republican who taxed is beloved. Republican who is a stubborn anti-tax horses’ behind is hated. You’d think Nevada Republicans would get a clue here.
Daniel Schorr, that familiar and authoritative voice on NPR, doing news analysis, passed today at age 93. I hung on his every word, for common sense, historical perspective and the last vestige of the Edward R. Murrow style of journalistic excellence.
Daniel Schorr rose above the likes of Andrew Breibart with quiet grace, integrity and a wealth of real world experience that few could ever hope to match.
With Breibart, Americans get cheesy, manufactured stories like the one that nearly took down a woman of integrity - Shirley Sherrod. There’s a world of difference there, and we are the poorer for it as consumers of reliable information. Kudos to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal for taking a deep breath and swinging back to the rational side of the truth meter - finally calling Breibart out for his obvious fraud. Hell, even Ann Coulter - long the right’s reigning queen of ‘the truth is what I say it is’ - said the heavily edited video was a sham. But you can still find Patrick Buchannan tap dancing around the facts, as a Breibart apologist.
We probably do need to have a National Conversation about race. It obviously hangs on as a vestigal issue, keeping the nation from tackling more critical issues (uh, the economy, for example), far too often. But we also need to have a Huge National Conversation About Ethics as they relate to the media and journalism.
Just because you have access to the media, doesn’t mean that you can shout “fire”. Is a bald-faced, intentionally manufactured lie - created with the express purpose of doing harm to a person - the same thing as ‘free speech’? Is it just ‘free speech’ when somebody loses their job and is publicly humiliated without cause?
This deserves some real discussion.
This afternoon, I heard a fascinating interview of NPR (what else is new?) about the status of post-secondary education in the United States - and it isn’t good news. In ‘U.S. losing ground in college graduation race’, Gaston Kaperton, of the College Board, confirmed what I’d long suspected - that we are graduating fewer and fewer people from college. And we’re losing our competitive advantage because of it.
For all the Tea Party knotheads that are worried about bringing a mind-numbing assembly line job back from wherever it’s gone overseas, are they any that worry about this? Probably not, since their sweetheart, Sharron Angle would eliminate the department of education. They also don’t believe in funding education. In their bizarro world, we’ll do 21st century jobs with a 19th century education - either at home or down at the churchofwhat’shappeninnow.
If these same people were really concerned about ending the deficit and bringing prosperity roaring back to all Americans, they’d be promoting a FREE college education. That’s right: FREE to anybody who wants one. Yup. The first B.A. or B.S. is on the state.
You say that couldn’t work? Then explain the success of the G.I. Bill after WWII. I’ve seen figures that suggest for each dollar spent educating returning veterans, nearly $7.00 was returned in the way of increased national economic potential. Uh, that was back in the day, when we were the creative economic powerhouse of the entire world.
Education got us there. And it sounds like it more than pays for itself.
“History is a race
between education
and catastrophe.”
Sorry I missed doing a blog post last night. I had every intention of doing that, after watering out in the yard. It was getting pretty dark and I came in the house, noticing that my ankles itched. By the time I got to the bedroom, yeah, they were itching all right. My hair felt like it was standing on end, and I feared that I was about to panic. I couldn’t find what caused the itching, but it was around each ankle, and Benadryl Gel did zip, nana, nothing, less than nothing. Oh, jeeze what was I going to do? Wet wash rags helped for at least 3 seconds.
Mr. Maven came in talking about something or other, and I simply looked up and said “shut up!”
Finally, lots of hydrocortisone cream and ice packs got it under control, but it took the better part of an hour and by then I didn’t feel like writing jack squat. I just wanted to close my eyes and let Mr. Maven rub my head.
See? Maven is flawed, and merely human after all.
I’m continuing to ride my bike 15 to 20 miles a day - early in the a.m. of course. It’s become almost embarassingly easy to get that done, and although my weight doesn’t reflect any change at all, it has made a huge difference. I took a friend who has been AWOL from cycling for quite some time with me today - I gave him (you know who you are, Brumberger) every chance to bail on the ride up the backroads from my casa to Truckee Bar and Grill for breakfast.
He nearly hurled at one point, but trooper that he is (and it wouldn’t do to let a mere woman out do you) he made it the entire 16 mile trip. We even got to chat with a friendly old time Basque sheepherder tending some irrigation ditches along Dixon Lane ( I’ll strike up conversations with anybody!) - Turns out he’s a friend of another Basque sheepherder friend. Small world. But I wish you coulda seen the guys six month old border collie with those sheep - and watch the dog listening to my itunes. What a treat.
Those dogs are truly amazing. These are the things you miss riding in a mre car.
Oh, finally, I got a dehydrator. I’ve got it running now with pitted sweet cherries and sliced oranges. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Next Friday, I’ll probably be AWOL since I’ll be over in Marin County doing my Step-Mother-of-the-Bride duties.
Tell me that you’ll miss me.
-maven
Reader Comments (2)
Just because you have access to the media, doesn’t mean that you can shout “fire”. Is a bald-faced, intentionally manufactured lie - created with the express purpose of doing harm to a person - the same thing as ‘free speech’? Is it just ‘free speech’ when somebody loses their job and is publicly humiliated without cause?
Oh, but don't you know, the courts have ruled that it's okay for the media to knowingly lie.
And yeah, I voted for Kenny Guinn too. See? I can vote for Republicans too --- when they are sane.