A co-worker sent me a clip from President Obama’s recent town hall meeting. This clip shows Obama writing an absentee note for a child who was missing school to come to this meeting. While he’s doing that, he’s listening to the father of this kid and then starts to answer his question about health care reform.
And here is a clip of Obama shaking hands with a guard outside of 10 Downing St. Gordon Brown didn’t even follow his lead.
My point is that one of the (many) reasons we like Obama is that he treats the average person like a human being! He can write and listen at the same time! He can pronounce the word “nuclear”!
He’s battling his fair share of the global recession, health care reform (he wants a working bill by October), wars not started by him in Iraq and Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan? We kinda forgot about it over the years), the Taliban in Pakistan, the nuclear problem that is Iran and tensions between Israel & Palestine, all while having time for his wife and children every day.
Naysayers talk about needing all these problems solved RIGHT NOW! Why isn’t our world a paradise yet? He’s going about everything the WRONG WAY!
OK, what did the previous president do? He took a record surplus and turned it into a record deficit. He started a war in one place (even I thought it was a necessary evil, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one) and when he got bored with that one, started looking for another place to obliterate. His daughters didn’t respect their position or they would have had a little more decorum and wouldn’t have been easy headline targets.
We’re just ecstatic that the president now acts like a president. He’s not perfect, and some of the things he’s doing probably aren’t the right things to do. He knows this, and knows when to say he was wrong and when to fight for his ideas. Instead of yelling at him, give him another solution to problems (and no, bombing the hell out of them is NOT an option.) When Obama had a detailed federal budget, Republicans not only said that it was ridiculous, but offered a budget with no numbers!
“How does this budget make you feel?”
“Groovy man! I’m diggin’ no numbers!”
*ahem* Sorry.
4/28/2009
Is it just me, or are some people missing the point? President Barack Obama (I had to say the whole thing-it still makes me grin) said he wouldn’t prosecute the CIA agents who tortured so-called enemy combatants if the agents acted in good faith.
Let’s look at that sentence a little more in depth, shall we? CIA Agent John Smith (please, no Matrix jokes) is about to interrogate a prisoner. Before he enters the room, the lawyer Jane Doe tells him it is perfectly legal to torture the prisoner to get any information he has. So Agent Smith proceeds to torture his prisoner. A few years later, he finds out that not only is what he did illegal now, it was never legal in the first place – the lawyer lied to him.
So why are cartoonists (1-look at 957 2 3) (as I’m sure are many bloggers) equating this scenario with letting a burglar go free because “he acted in good faith”? The law, every law, says that burglary is wrong. The highest lawyers in the United States said that torture was right.
I’m not saying that there weren’t any CIA agents who took full advantage of this technicality during interrogation sessions. They might have done it anyway, knowing that they wouldn’t be punished by the Bush Administration. If one CIA agent spoke up under the Bush Administration, he would be fired and replaced by someone with the same “values” as the government. It would take many people who thought this was wrong to make any difference.
People believe that going after the foot soldiers will bring about some closure. And maybe it will. However, it won’t bring justice. Obama needs to do what any good drug enforcement agency does – flip the little guys to get to the big guys. It was immoral and illegal to subvert the Geneva Convention’s “prisoner of war” rules by saying the prisoners are enemy combatants. It was hideously wrong to say it was fine to torture a man to get information he may or may not have. The CIA agents weren’t completely angels, but to get the big prize, you need to forfeit some of the smaller prizes.
Now let’s see if Obama chooses what’s behind Door # 3…
4/3/2009
The perils of addiction
So is it better to follow a webcomic you like on the artist’s own page, or should you go to the syndicated conglomeration and look at it there? And if the latter, does it make a difference to subscribe to it?
Answers, man! I need answers!!!
3/23/2009
Crap
I wrote two verses of iambic pentameter in a dream. Well, it was in limerick form so not completely “pentameter”, but it was pretty cool. Problem is, I can’t remember it. It started with:
I fear that now, my dear, we must depart.
And I continued the “my dear” phrasing in the second line, ending with “heart”. The two middle lines of the second verse were:
You’re already awake.
Your journey now partake.
I was even rhyming participation with conversation. Of course, it was my brain telling me to get the hell up.
And I can’t remember the rest.
Crap.
it’s been a dramatic, depressing winter, and I’m not going into it. I should be posting more now.
11/24/2008
It’s official
There is no such thing as Thanksgiving. I went to the bank today and they were playing X-mas tunes in the ATM vestibule.
I’m not leaving my apartment until X-mas is over. Maybe if they ever bring Christmas back, I won’t be a hermit…