ilBLOGical tidBITs

A story in today’s USA Today illustrates all too well how different the United States and its diversity of cultures are from other countries, especially when it comes to personal freedoms.

In America, we have come to accept — or at least tolerate in public — people from many different backgrounds. We are far from perfect and still have too many hate crimes perpetrated against certain groups, but we also have laws to address those offenders.

A few years back, there was a story in the news about a man who had problems with a company policy that required him to “embrace” people within the company who had a different lifestyle than his. He took his case to the courts and the result was that the company policy was changed to read “must tolerate” people with different lifestyles.

We can choose how we live our lives in America, usually, without fear that our choices could mean our death. Others may or may not accept or embrace the decisions individuals have made, but they can’t legally kill you for them.

“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices — to be found in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

— Rod Serling (1924–1975)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2009-07-28-gays-in-iraq_N.htm

“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

— Neil Armstrong (1930–), upon landing on the Moon, July 20, 1969

Forty years ago today, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module “Eagle” on the surface of the moon, while Michael Collins remained in the command module “Columbia” in lunar orbit. It was the culmination of years of hard work and was not without the loss of life. Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a tragic accident when the pure oxygen atmosphere of their command module ignited.

I am sure the news will be full of tributes and remembrances, as people talk about where they were when mankind landed on the moon, and a few may even mention that we accomplished this feat while the U.S. military was still deeply involved in the quagmire of Vietnam.

Today, as our military is deployed around the world and engaged in combat operations, we have generations that never knew the pride of our national accomplishment, who never knew the begrudging admiration of the rest of the world as the United States placed a plaque inscribed with the words “We came in peace for all mankind” on the surface of the moon. Instead, we are derided for what many see as ill advised military adventures, our national debt is on the rise and our economy is more fragile than it has ever been in the past.

So this may seem like an unimaginable dream to some and a fervent prayer to others: This nation needs to recapture the vision, imagination and determination that we once possessed, to journey beyond the confines of our world, to do what others called impossible, to focus our efforts on the frontier of space and strive to better understand ourselves through bold exploration of the unknown. Yes, we have many problems here on Earth, but the window of opportunity to venture into space is rapidly shrinking. Who knows what adventures lie beyond for all mankind and what great inventions will be created to get us there. America has always looked toward the future. Now is not the time to join the ranks of past empires and civilizations that have surrendered to the impetus of worldly woes and relegated their dreams to the dustbin of history.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_moon

Early reports and rumors from Washington suggested that the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor were going to be ugly with typical partisan politics playing a big role. Now it appears that a confirmation vote will take place before the August recess.

Frankly, I welcome a little more diversity of thought for the highest court in the land. Perhaps Sotomayor’s confirmation will signal that the vilification and prejudice toward Americans of Hispanic decent is waning. In addition, a jurist with Sotomayer’s background may serve as an example of how a person can uphold the letter and the spirit of the law without using racist hyperbole to undercut other officers of the law and publicly advocate illegal activity in the name of freedom of speech — such as Deputy Pima County Public Defender Isabel “Izzy” Garcia has repeatedly done.

With the exception of a handful of extremists, the issue of immigration is not about race, but about upholding the law. Those who would exploit people who illegally cross into the U.S. — on both sides of the border — must be stopped. They have provided a shield for smuggling across the border and the increase of crimes related to this illegal activity — again, on both sides of the border.

If we want to stop the pain and suffering of those who are simply looking for a better life, we must strictly enforce the laws currently on the books and work toward making the process of legal immigration easier for those who qualify. This nation has flourished because of its diversity, but not at the expense of ignoring the law.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/16/sotomayor.hearing/index.html

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/07/federal-budget-tops-1-trillion-with-3-months-left-in-budget-year.html

Visualizing One Trillion Dollars

http://www.mint.com/blog/finance-core/visualizing-one-trillion-dollars/

As I joined fellow Tucsonans fording the rivers and streams resulting from another seasonal downpour, I couldn’t help wondering what the city fathers had done with all the tax money over the years. Did they spend it all on cheap booze and expensive courtesans or expensive liquor and cheap floosies, or did the city mothers get it all.

As I watched small economic fuel-efficient vehicles nearly bobbing across the flooded intersections, I wondered how many other modern cities allowed their streets to become drainage canals — on purpose.

I realize that from a bean-counter perspective, the number of dry days far exceeds the number of wet days in the Old Pueblo, but as the city has grown the number of vehicles on the streets has grown too. In the past, it may have been mildly amusing and somewhat adventurous to venture into the raging rapids of Tucson’s roadways.

Today, the volume of cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, scooters, buses and bicycles navigating the un-navigable waterways of Tucson’s streets is a safety hazard to everyone, including the rarely sighted Santa Cruz Sand Trout.

Perhaps someday we might shift our priorities from the redevelopment of the virtual ghost town known as downtown and seriously think about building a transportation infrastructure that doesn’t require high clearance, four-wheel drive or pontoons. Until then, keep a weather eye out for storms and remember less maneuverable vessels usually have the right-of-way over more maneuverable craft, unless it’s a fishing boat.

Stating that a House resolution in honor Michael Jackson was not necessary, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi committed the political equivalent of suicide.

Pelosi, who has been a lightning rod for controversy, added this latest faux pas to a long list of blunders that include her selective memory of events leading to the invasion of Iraq and what she and fellow democrats did and didn’t know.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-09-pelosi-jackson_N.htm

It looks like Chrysler is going to be sold to Fiat, while a Chinese company is looking to score the Hummer product line from General Motors. All across this country, Americans are now working for foreign bosses, if they are working at all.

But don’t worry, thanks to you and me, the people who sold this country’s past, present and future to foreign investors, or to each other for a quick million here and there, will not have to give up the lifestyles they have come to expect as their right in our so-called classless society.

Say what you will about the old robber barons of yesterday — or captains of industry as they liked to call themselves — they at least invested in building this country, Of course, it was frequently at the expense of poor immigrant labor and the loss of lives through cutting corners, but you wouldn’t have seen Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan or John D. Rockefeller selling their children’s inheritance and this country’s future overseas.

Some would say we brought this on ourselves, but I would argue that the unholy trinity of Wall Street, Madison Avenue and politicians with their hands out helped speed us down the road to ruin. But don’t get me wrong. Americans has been down this road before and working together, we have come back from the brink. I only hope this time, we will not forget who and what got us here.

“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’”

— Don Marquis (1878–1937)

For months now, many people online have expressed their ambivalence at the departure of the Tucson Citizen as it rides into the sunset after nearly 140 years.

Many have cited the quality and quantity of journalistic endeavors by the editorial staff over the past few years, while some say it is simply a matter of economics, and still others claim that print media is dead.

Many people have lost sight of what a free press brings to the party in a republic like the United States — including those in the media who produce infotainment in the quest for better ratings at the expense of journalistic integrity.

Public education was once valued in this country because we recognized that to fully participate in the political process an educated electorate is necessary. Now, as public education standards decline and the political process is more about party affiliations than actually doing anything about the state of the nation, the job of a free press is more crucial than ever.

Unfortunately, the virtual wall between journalism and the business of journalism has disappeared. Now, those who used to serve the public’s interests by holding government agencies, representatives, public organizations and corporations accountable have surrendered the high ground to the prevaricators of prepackaged, pretentious pap perpetrated upon the public by papers such as USA Today, aka McPaper, which brings us to this point in the history of the American Experiment.

Today, for good or bad, it is electronic voices crying in the wilderness of the World Wide Web that are trying to blog their way into the public consciousness. No one knows for sure how this will work out, but one thing is certain — it’s going to be like nothing we’ve seen before.

“I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy — but that could change.”

— Dan Quayle (1947- )