Tag Archives: debate

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. A deferred milestone. I thought I was on track to hit the next weight milestone – 200 pounds even, or down 130 – on or about my birthday. Although I’ve started slowly creeping down again, the previous three weeks where I held all things equal has pretty much guaranteed I can’t get there from here unless I develop a pretty nasty stomach bug. It’s disappointing, of course. I was hoping to sit down to my traditional birthday lunch of crabcakes and hushpuppies and proceed to getting back to a “maintenance” level of eating. That feels out of reach. But I’m still damned well planning to have the crab cakes and hushpuppies.

    2. Foreign aid debate. You know what one of the most successful bits of foreign policy of the post World War II era? Yeah, that would be when the United States poured out absolute shiploads of cash, material, and expertise on Europe and rebuilt a shattered continent. It turns out prosperous liberal democracies bound together by deep ties of trade tend not to try to kill each other nearly so often as they did when international diplomacy was a zero-sum game. The weight of American troops and weapons arguably won the war, but it was the Marshall Plan that won the peace. It’s a pity that Americans consistently refuse to remember their own history when we’re talking about relatively paltry sums in the contemporary foreign aid budget. Every scrap of progress we can make by throwing money at the problem is far less expensive than anything that happens when we need to get involved kinetically. 

    3. Walking. Gods, even with the latest in listening technology, walking is just a deadly dull way to spend 30 or 40 minutes every day. Yes, the scenery in the neighborhood is nice. Sometimes I get to see neighbors doing something stupid in full view of the sidewalk. Aside from occasionally getting to interface with the local wildlife, I’m sorry, but there just isn’t much to recommend it. Living at the far end of the dead end street, there are only so many ways to make the path different… and after six months, I’ve trod all those down multiple times each week already. Look, I’ll keep doing it… under protest and purely because the doc says I must… but you’ll never convince me that there isn’t a more interesting or entertaining use to those 30 or 40 minutes of every day that isn’t called off on account of weather. 

    With joy in my heart…

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    Someone dropped a comment on the blog last Friday evening. It happens from time to time. Every comment gets moderated, because my platform isn’t a general free fire zone. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give them air time. I’m here, after all, to express my opinion, not charge off into endless debates. I get plenty of exposure to that on the other available platforms. 

    Without going into detail, the comment in question was decidedly from a anti-vax, pro-conspiracy bent. Not the kind of thing I’d hit approve on under the best of circumstances. In fairness, though, I should note that the commenter was exceedingly polite and didn’t come across as the wild-eyed wackjob that so often representants that particular group. That in itself feels like something of a rarity and well worth acknowledging.

    Politeness, of course, doesn’t get you a free pass to promote wild ass conspiracy theories under my masthead. Having your name right up there on the top line means being able to enjoy absolute editorial control. It’s not a function I need to exercise particularly often, but when I do it’s always carried out with joy in my heart.

    What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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    1. Hard right. Since Mr. Trump has bailed out of the primary debate this week as part of his ongoing “strained relationship” with Fox News, I’ve been quite literally stunned with the number of times I’ve run across posts labeling Fox a part of the “left wing media establishment.” I get my news from a lot of sources, both domestic and international, and thinking of FNC as a lefty mouthpiece just boggles the mind. See, that’s the real problem with the current Republican party. If you’re not in lockstep on abortion, marriage equality, and Jesus, well there’s just no room in the party for you. Sorry gang, but I’m going to call bullshit on that. I’m a Republican the same way Reagan was a Republican. The same way Goldwater was a Republican. The same way Eisenhower was a Republican. What I’m not is a fanatic who assumes mine is the One True Way. I’m a Republican. We use to be a “big tent” party and we could be again, if only we the rest of us have the personal courage to stand up and tell the dogmatic hardliners to GTFO. Otherwise we might as well fold the tent and go on back to the house, because the days of expecting a platform of “be like me or else” winning at the national level are profoundly numbered.

    2. Underutilization. There’s not many jobs I’d consider myself too proud to do. From slopping barns, to stacking hay, flipping burgers, dropping fries, parking cars, accounting for tarps and body bags, ordering hundreds of thousands of tons of ice, or managing 1000-person events. I’ve done all of them and too many more to bother listing. The point isn’t that I’m too proud to do any of these things. The point is that it makes absolutely no economic sense for me to some of them. There’s always an opportunity cost that no one takes into account. Because I’m schlepping buckets of rock salt, that means there are five or six other things that aren’t getting done in a timely manner – things that generally tend to require thought, analysis, and problem solving. With half a career’s worth of experience behind me, my services don’t come cheap. The all-in “fully burdened” cost of having me on the clock is something approaching $100 an hour. Whether that money is spent on turning ice into water or on making sure the uber-boss gets the information he wants is decided by someone else. I’ll go where and do what I’m told, but I’ll always wonder why we so rarely seem to take the time to match the skill set with the person instead of just grabbing the nearest body and making it fit.

    3. Cities. Watching the news out of Baltimore all week and wondering how in seven hells they’ve managed to spend an entire week tinkering around with their plows and not give every street at least a courtesy pass with one of their trucks. Yes, cities are densely packed and often streets are narrow, but still. Come on. You’ve had a week to give everyone at least a fighting chance at getting out of their frozen prison. I live in a subdivision in what might charitably be called an out of the way location. By Sunday evening we’d had enough of a route cut that someone with 4-wheel drive could safely navigate out to our principle access road. By Monday night it was largely down to blacktop. I’m simply perplexed that a major American city – especially one prone to snow in the winter – has this much trouble figuring out what to do. I avoid Baltimore as much as humanly possible, but in this case I’m throughly annoyed by a city government that seems largely made up by the gang that can’t shoot straight.

    What’s changed?

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    The great debate over the virtue of the Second Amendment rages today as loudly as ever. Both sides scream past each other, fearing that giving an inch of ground will inexorably lead to the tide running hard against them.

    There have been firearms in the United States since before we were the United States. The first colonists to wade ashore in Jamestown brought ball and powder in equal parts to hunt on and defend the new world they intended to carve out of the American wilderness.

    What you don’t hear about them doing is walking into a tavern or church and taking a pot shot at their neighbors. I’ve not done an exhaustive study on the topic, but I can’t think of a large number of historical example of what we’d commonly call random acts of “mass violence” in schools, businesses, and public places until the latter half of the last century. I have no doubt they happened, what with humans being a particularly violence prone species and all, but a quick look doesn’t point to seeing it happen with particularly great frequency.

    So my question, then, is what’s changed? What makes the average American in 2015 more likely to walk into a church to unload both proverbial barrels than his counterpart in 1815 or 1915? Access to firearms isn’t a satisfactory answer. If anything, a gun was easier to get throughout most of American history than they are today. They hung on the mantle, were propped in the corner, or lived in bedside tables without benefit of trigger locks or gun safes. I’m old enough to remember a time when a rifle behind a truck’s bench seat in the school parking lot meant that hunting season was open, not that one of the students (or the teachers) was plotting mayhem and chaos.

    What’s changed? Are we intrinsically worse human beings than our predecessors? Are we less able to judge the relationship between action and consequence? Or do we just tend more towards being batshit crazy than our saintly ancestors?

    What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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    1. National contrition. I had the great fortune to meet Brigadier General Paul Tibbets (retired) not many years before his death in 2007. He was speaking at the aviation museum in Richmond, Virginia that ended with a question and answer session. The first, inevitable, question – one that was probably posed to him every day since 1945 – was if he had any regrets about commanding the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His response, a single word, “No.” That’s sort of how I feel when I read articles telling me that we should apologize for dropping the bomb on Japan. America didn’t start the damned war, got sucker punched to bring us into it, and then the apologists want us to feel bad that to end it the full force and power of the American military came crashing down on the country that was then our enemy. Our job in August 1945 was to win the war with as few additional American casualties as possible. That’s what we did. So, no, I won’t apologize for that. Not now. Not ever.

    2. Ten candidates. Later this evening the “top ten” Republican presidential candidates will engaged in what passes for a contemporary debate in this country. They’ll each have 3-5 minutes to pull off a sound bite they can use in their campaign material, but there won’t be time for a discussion of substance. There are lots of familiar faces from elections past going on stage tonight, but there is damned little sign of new blood in the arena. Most of the contenders couldn’t make it to the big game the last 2 or 3 times they tried. I’m not sure I see where much has changed. I don’t expect any of these ten to speak to my peculiar combination of important issues. Then again, I don’t expect anyone from either party to do that. Before this debate even gets started I’m already thinking that the best outcome from it would be for me to go to bed on time and at least try to get a good night’s sleep. That would be far more beneficial than anything we’re likely to hear on television tonight.

    3. Cooking. I was away last weekend. I haven’t had a chance to get to the market this week to pick up more than the requisite salad for my tortoise and creamer for me. Being away also meant that I wasn’t able to do most of the week’s heavy cooking on Sunday afternoon. Which is how you end up needing to fiddle around the kitchen making a passable meal and not sitting down to eat until Wednesday night until after 7PM. That might be fine for you continental types who keep late hours, but for me on an average weeknight seven o’clock is closing in on the middle of the damned night. Maybe it’s just an artifact from childhood, but at my house 5PM is dinner time. Most weeknights I don’t quite make it, but I’m not usually far off – but then again I’m usually not coming up with something from scratch. So yes, currently as much as I usually enjoy it, I’m sick to death of cooking and the butterfly effect it’s having on the rest of the evening. I guess I should have grown up to have a job with a personal staff. More poor decision making on my part.

    Ten thousand generations of evolution…

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    I’m a cynic. I’ve learned to embrace it. That’s probably why the very first words out of my mouth when the initial report came across the air that there had been gunfire at the Capitol yesterday was “Wow… I’m surprised it took three days for someone to shoot the place up.” I’ll admit that might be a pretty dim view of people and the world in general, but I stand by the assessment. Frankly, given the tenor of the political debate in this country for the last decade, I’m a more than a little surprised it doesn’t happen on a regular basis. That we don’t generally see armed assaults on our government institutions is more a tribute to the forbearance of the average American than it is any sign of respect for how well our institutions fulfill their obligations.

    It seems that yesterday was the final desperate act of a crazy woman, but it should remind us all the world we live in is covered only by the thinnest veneer of civilization. When people are pushed to the wall, or when they think they are, we can’t act surprised when their response is all out of proportion to what’s considered the norms of civilized behavior. Ten thousand generations of evolution has taught us to fight or run when we’re threatened. That instinct doesn’t go away because we drive a Lexus or put on a neck tie when we go to work. Just under that veneer of civilization is just another apex predator capable of both great acts of kindness, but equally susceptible to moments of inconceivable madness.

    Master debaters…

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    Tonight is the last of three scheduled presidential debates in this most important of election years. If you don’t tune in, you’re going to miss out on the two principle candidates for office bashing one another about their respective positions on U.S. foreign policy. If they don’t use up all available time calling one another names and making faces, we might just hear a few words about pressing international issues – Libya, Iran, and how America’s increasing sovereign debt limits our influence in the world jump to mind as items they may touch on over the course of 90 minutes.

    If you plan on voting in the presidential election, please tune in at 9:00 PM (EDT) to the station of your choice and follow along. If you don’t plan on voting, or can’t be bothered with learning a little about the candidates or their position, then feel free to tune into to reruns of Honey Boo Boo, Jersey Shore, or Real Housewives for your daily dose of What’s Wrong with America.

    This has been an unpaid public service announcement brought to you by http://www.jeffreytharp.com. I’m going to try to keep my snarky commentary off Facebook tonight, so make sure to keep up with @jdtharp on twitter. My name is Jeffrey Tharp and I approved this message.

    That’s debatable…

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    So the first presidential debate of 2012 is supposed to be held on Wednesday night. I’ll be tuned in for much the same reason that people watch auto racing… in the hope that someone screws up and generates a wreck of historic proportions. Let’s face it, if you’re the kind of person who watches televised presidential debates, there’s a pretty good chance that you already know who’s getting your vote and the best you can hope for is the other guy might just flub a line and commit electoral suicide right there on the stage. It doesn’t happen often when you get to this level, but when they do, watching a presidential candidate self destruct on live television is absolutely something to see… assuming of course that it’s not your candidate who’s doing the imploding.

    More than likely nothing that dramatic will happen Wednesday night. At best we might get some zingers and traded barbs. At worst neither of the candidates will stray from the talking points that they spent three days rehearsing before the big show. In that case, the debate is just the nationally televised beauty contest catering to our collective short attention span. They set the bar that low because it’s what we’ve come to expect from our presidential debates… and that’s the pity.

    Once upon a time in America, men with big ideas stood toe-to-toe with one another explaining their beliefs and position before asking the people for their vote. They actually talked about an issue based on its relative merits rather than on fine tuned, ready for television sound bites based on what the poling sample said their opinions should be. The problem with debates today is that we go into them expecting Lincoln and Douglas, but we walk away having watched Tom and Jerry.

    Registered…

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    Since moving back to Maryland, I re-registered with the Republican Party. In Tennessee it was the Bible-thumping social conservatives that chased me out of the party. In Maryland, it’s the tax-it-till-it’s-dead liberals that chased me back in. For pretty much as long as I can remember, presidential politics has been an exercise in holding my nose and voting for the one who smelled least worst. Up until now, I’ve been avoiding the coverage as much as possible, but as the Republican candidates gather to debate tonight, I think it’s time to tune in and see if there’s anyone I can stomach supporting. This is America, the greatest democracy in history… Please let 2012 be the year we have something other than a socialist, a religious zealot, a village idiot, and protectionist to choose between.

    “Other…”

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    No one should be surprised that I watched the debate last night and now I’ve watched the morning spin on all three of the major news channels. I’m actually a little disturbed by the repeated line from the talking heads that last night was a contest between “two great politicians at the top of their game.” Were they watching the same debate I was? At best, both of them seemed tepid in their responses. Had one of them stepped up and presented an air of command, of certainty, I think this election would basically be over. Is a little passion too much to expect from those who would be king? Rather than increasing my interest in either of the candidates, it made me more likely to check the “Other” box on the ballot. The trouble with democracy is that the people tend to get the government they deserve. Given my level of confidence in the people to make informed decisions, I’m not optimistic.