Washington Reflections After Presidents' Day

Another Presidents' Day has ended; to celebrate, I reread Flexner's excellent biography of George Washington. I came away, as I had earlier, with profound gratitude that Washington had been the father of our country, that no other could have so served. It grates on my sensibilities that Jefferson is usually more widely extolled, his intellect, his tastes, his "hatred" of slavery, etc., etc. But delve more deeply and you will find that Washington, despite few years of formal education, had a far-ranging and practical mentality, a continuing eye and attention to the rectitude of his character, and little inclination to stoop to the petty political posturings and calumnies which Jefferson routinely employed, even against Washington who had trusted and promoted him. Jefferson did NOT free his slaves, but Washington did, some before his death, the rest in his will.

An always amazing aspect of Washington's character was his constant consciousness of how his every act as President would create precedent; he continually strove to do what he considered in the nation's future interest. History has validated his judgments and actions for the most part.

Many, when polled, no longer list Washington as one of the best Presidents of the United States.
That is a great oversight: he was the best.

2012: A Democratic Primary Presidential Challenge, Anyone?

Mr. Obama has had a surprising and disappointing year. On the positive side, along with his advisers, he DID stave off a potential depression . He has also improved our image abroad. He should have kept his focus on the economy, and only when a recovery was obvious to one and all, then taken on the thorny issue of health care reform. But his priorities and positions have, regrettably, become skewed. He has turned his back on many of the campaign positions and promises which got him into the White House. So why would I vote for him again? Instead, I plan to be part of any movement to challenge his reelection plans. Specifically, any credible challenger
in the upcoming Democratic presidential primary will get my encouragement.

His "green" energy policies leave a great deal to be desired-what's with his new, pro-nuke stance? $54 billion to promote new nuclear power plants? Has he discovered a safe way to store toxic radwaste, a substance that remains deadly for 250,000 years? What about the very real danger of giving terrorists more "fuel" for their attacks? There were ample reasons for the 33 year U.S. moratorium on new nuke construction projects; how ironic that a liberal democrat has now authorized eight billion for new plants in Georgia.

Even George Bush didn't dare to enact such a foolhardy energy plan.

Edwards' scandal saga not newsworthy

Why all the interest in FORMER senator Edwards' personal life? He has long been out of office, will
likely never run for another, so taxpayers' monies and interests are no longer at issue. Admittedly
the scandalously salacious details of his sex life are usual fodder for the tabloids, but the mainstream media have also given a lot of space to this "story"; aren't there other stories of greater import they should be covering? And why should anyone other than the principals be interested? The one item worthy of serious news outlets is whether a crime was committed regarding improper use of campaign funds.

Then there is the judge in the sex tapes imbroglio: hello, judge, why do you even want to render
a decision on such a tawdry matter? Does it really matter who actually can claim ownership of such
a thing?

Time for the "serious" media and certain judges to grow up and attend to more relevant matters.

Facebook's Founder: New Year, New Mistakes

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder wunderkind, has
done it again, a bold statement: privacy is dead, he proclaims,
social norms show this to be true. --Say, did he take a survey?
He's just making a firm conclusion based on perceptions
gleaned from mass media, all of it. But life for us seven billion
plus humans is more complicated than Mr. Zuckerberg's
shallow analysis allows.

I submit he is wrong, on several fronts. People CAN calibrate
just how much privacy they desire/require, even if extra effort
must be expended to achieve their comfort level. In public,
there has never been any legal expectation of privacy, even for
those who hope to blend anonymously into a crowd, so that
aspect remains the same even with mounted cameras. But they
can choose whether to email, join a social website, etc. Some,
like me, choosing not to be subjugated to overly personal airport
body searches, have given up flying in the post 911 era.

Fame doesn't exactly equal loss of privacy, either. All of our
most publicized celebrities, just like the rest of us, can have
locked doors and covered windows at home! So Zuckerberg,
silly lad that he is, his computer genius notwithstanding,
made a whopping gaffe. He'd be a lot better off attending to
the various lawsuits coming his way.

MZ may be referring to a subset of Americans, albeit
somewhat large, who want to "be up to date in Kansas City",
"Keep up with the Joneses", etc. These people, mostly the
under-45 crowd, seemingly keenly feel peer pressure, even
toil in industries which honor such pressure. But there are
also many intelligent folk who challenge such current notions
of "social norms", have better things to do than Twitter or
Facebook only about ordinary, inane activities.

A lot of these smarter people have read and heeded the
prescient message in The Time Machine by H.G. Wells;
would anyone want to be part of either of the two future
societies Wells describes?

I view such a prospect with the proper fear and loathing it
deserves. Mr. Zuckerberg could profit from a reading (or
re-reading) of The Time Machine as well.

To the Associated Press: My Pick for Editor of the Year

Dear Associated Press:

You've finally brought me to this, an imaginary conversation, with Dave Letterman, no less:

"Hello, Dave? Please bring back your old "Museum of the Hard to Believe" NOW, I found another really ridiculous item for you...The Associated Press has put TWO HORSES on their Top Female Athletes of the Year list! What, do these 30 or so editors want to return to a no women in sports era? Wow, are they out of touch, that ship sailed for the last time in the 1940's. --What about Atalanta, enshrined in eons-ago myth? --The hundreds of top echelon female (as in homo sapiens) athletes in many sports around the world?" --Olympic Gold winners?"

(Don't any of you editors have mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins and friends? Would you really wish to limit their choices because of your own insecurities? Strict cultural roles should have died for good when VERY masculine footballer Rosie Grier publicly took up needlepoint. Get up off your lazy (possibly flabby) fannies and get physical; stop spending so much time watching others pursue athletic excellence.)

"What's that, Dave? My pick for Editor of the Year? Mister Ed, natch."

Watch it, AP, I think I REALLY will call Dave.

Happy Holidays!

TO ONE AND ALL,
THE HAPPIEST, SAFEST,
MOST SATISFYING HOLIDAY
EVER!

One for the old "Museum of the Hard to Believe"

Call Dave Letterman and ask him to bring back his very funny "Museum of the Hard to Believe",
because I have an amusing candidate item for it: "Our president was not born in the United States!" That's right, thousands of adult Americans apparently can't subtract 1959 (when Hawaii achieved statehood) from 1961 (when Barack Obama Jr. was born there). Last time I checked, "Birthers", our president was born TWO YEARS AFTER HAWAII BECAME A STATE.

Here is another sad example of "errors explored and revealed", but I'd like to call this
"Errors Explored and REVILED", because this false factoid should have died long ago, when Mr.
Obama became a Democratic Primary Presidential Candidate. But when have mere facts dissuaded prejudiced, ranting haters? Radio pundits like Rush Limbaugh stay on the air,
followers conveniently dismissing his many errors simply because they hate as he does.

Of course it is utterly American to criticize and object to various policies politicians propose
and/or pass, yet also time-wasting, distracting, upsetting and anti problem-solving to MANUFACTURE deleterious information designed to ruin a president's credibility.

So to the "birthers" and other fringe political groups: do the math. Literally, do the math.
Otherwise, Letterman gets a call.