'I guess it takes a gay goalie to have enough balls to score in the NCAA Tournament.'
A truly inspiring story. It's one reason why I dislike shows like "queer eyes for a straight guy." Yes, it's great to be flamboyant, but it only serves to reaffirm the stereotype that some people have about gay people. It's easy to have the mental image of
Carson Kressley, and dismiss the notion of gays in the military, but what about gay lacrosse or football players?
If a tree falls.,,
and no one is there to hear it... well you know the rest. If suicide bombers kill, and no one is there to report them, does the Middle East stays peachy? NYT's John Tierney seems to think so. His
latest column essentially asserts that the media coverage of the violence in Iraq amounts to nothing but bad journalism and sensationalism, which plays into the hands of the terrorists.
You got to be kidding me. Violence in Iraq is real whether you report it or not. Abuses in prisons (in Iraq, around the world, and even sometimes in Western democracies) occurs whether you report it or not. Are the stories of abuse at Abu Ghraib mere sensationalism--oh, all the sex among soldiers and forced onto the prisoners sounded like a bad B-movie--and no one should have reported? It would just go away if you guys just stop dwelling on it! I think not. Journalists these days seem to be pulled in all directions. Too much bias. Too much reporting and too little analysis. Then there is the channel that touts "we report, you decide" and ends up being the one that editorialize the most. What is a reporter to do?
I believe that intelligent and objective opinion making, whether by the media or the news consumer, is impossible without facts, and it is the job of these courageous reporters to collect and distribute these facts. If I want to know how well the museums are been kept, water plants running, electricity generating, oil flowing, the smooth traffic from Bagdad to its airport, the abundance of armored hummies and the humanitarian aids distributing in Iraq I will just listen to Rumsfield about his "known knowns." Oh wait...
Quick thoughts of our liberal president.
Progressive indexing. Means-testing. Whatever you call it, Bush's social security is all about protecting the most needy. Which sounds fine, even liberal. So why doesn't any liberal or Democrats support it? People are simply finding Bush untrustworthy. That's right--even when he's pushing something that sounds like the liberals would do, everyone doubts his ultimate motive. And why I don't trust means-testing? It goes against everything Social Security is about. The whole point was that everyone who works pays their equal share, poor or rich (at least under the cap), and your benefits will be paid later proportionally. Making the benefits based on a sliding scale makes this seems more like a welfare program for the poorest. Diminishing the benefits for the middle class makes it easier for the middle class to forsaking it at a later day. I think this is merely the first step to alienate the American middle class from this twentieth century social program and ultimately killing it.
