WHCD

"WHCD" stands for White House Correspondents Dinner.  This is an annual event which allows members of the Washington Press Corps who cover the White House to dress up like Hollywood moguls and starlets and invite irrelevant people like Lindsay Lohan, George Clooney, and Donald Trump to a banquet and supposed comedy show.

The 2012 dinner was held this past Saturday night at the Washington Hilton.  CBS White House Correspondent Nora O'Donnell chose this gown for the event.





















Her White House reports should display such clarity.

At any rate this year's entertainment kicked off with President Obama's attempt at stand up comedy.  It was less comedy and more insulting your opponents and perceived enemies in a venue which supposedly allows the suspension of proper social behavior and commentary.

Jimmy Kimmel's comic comments, for the most part, fell flat and the audience several times indicated Kimmel's comments hit below the belt.  It's one thing to use human foibles for the purpose of adjusting personal behavior or philosophy.  It's a different approach to purposely hurt the feelings and belittle others in an attempt to make yourself  important.  Mark Twain and Will Rogers knew the right way  to use humorous commentary or satire  in the political realm.  Don Rickels could do it show business circles.  But Messrs. Obama and Kimmel come off as celebrities using  personal insults to settle differences.  Somehow the whole event was insulting to the country and diminished the Office of the President at the same time.

Continued Decline of TV Journalism

Recently, in the Wall Street Journal,  Peter Funt wrote about the lost art of the live interview.  Live interviews are handy time consumers especially for the 24 hour cable news channels.  Funt maintains the content of those interviews "is remarkably weak, due primarily to the personal agendas and sloppy efforts of the interviewers".  Funt also chastises interviewers for talking as much as the newsmaker being interviewed.  He points out two recent examples.  In the first, Lawrence O'Donnell of  MSNBC  was interviewing filmmaker Michael Moore.
Moore spoke 1,034 words while O'Donnell spoke 900, according to Funt.  In the second case Funt points to a Sean Hannity interview of Mitt Romney on FOX News.  According to Funt, Hannity asked ten questions, one of which was 172 words long and lasted 51 seconds.

In another opinion piece in the WSJ,  L. Gordon Crovitz recounts the results of a journalism class assignment at Yale University.  The students were asked to theorize how the Watergate scandal would be covered in this digital age.  The Yale professor who makes the assignment each year, Steven Brill, says "almost every student in the course writes that Watergate could now be reported without actual reporting", i.e. no talking to real live human sources.  Sources who are going to tell a reporter factual information in a confidential manner.  The students all think everything a source would tell a reporter can now be found out by a simple Google search.  Talk about your slippery slopes.

And then there's the problem of sloppy stupid writing.  One Kansas City TV station reported yesterday that a school bus disturbance was caused by one of the student's "female parent".  Now I submit a simple "mother" would have sufficed.


This morning another station's reporter told us that the witness who had just shown up told police the woman who lives in the house under investigation is her "female cousin".  I ask, could it be otherwise?

Spring

Spring starts today.  But as the Princeton English professor and American diplomat, Henry Van Dyke, said: "The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."

That definitely is the case today as we have very cool temperatures and a steady rain.  The rain is causing the lawns to green up almost before your eyes.  So it is the first day of spring but we must wait for the first spring day.  Although, the last few days of winter around here were definitely spring like.

We humans should grasp the spirit of spring that renews nature and ask that spirit to renew our individual essence.  Spring is a beneficial season for all the plants and tree as well as the human soul.

Perseverance

     Maybe we could learn a lot from this simple yellow crocus.

     It was the anxious crocus.  It wanted to greet the spring as the first crocus to bloom.  But just as it was ready to bloom...whammo....it got hit with a cold wet snow and temperatures well below freezing.  The snow melted rapidly the next morning and revealed this rather haggard crocus.   But the crocus had perseverance.  Believe it or not on the next day, the second day after it first tried to bloom, it popped back up as a full bloom.  Maybe it was a little battered, a little worse for wear.  But, nevertheless, it laid claim to its rightful place in the late winter garden....The First Crocus to Bloom.

     As humans we should be so resilient.  We should know what our true nature or true purpose is in this world.  And when life, or more specifically friends, family, colleagues throw that unexpected  "cold wet snow" at us we should go ahead and bear the brunt.  But, after that shake it off and get back to what our essence demands us to be and let's not take two days to do it.  After all we should be more resilient than a crocus.

Information Overload

The web site Newsblues reports today that "by year's end, there will be more mobile-connected devices in the world than there are humans."  What they failed to mention was that many of those devices will  be more intelligent than their human controllers.


Gasoline prices have gone up 83% since Obama was inaugurated.  Predictions are for $5 a gallon gas this summer which will really dampen the family summer vacation business.


The Obama administration is holding mid level discussions concerning reducing our nuclear warhead stockpile by some 80%.  This while Iran continues its headlong race to build an arsenal of nuclear warheads.


Federal agents confiscate home pack lunches of kindergartners in North Carolina.  Supposedly Mom and Dad failed to follow federal nutritional guidelines when packing those lunch bags. This appears to me to be a violation of  the fourth amendment which protects against unlawful searches and seizures but then again unconstitutional behavior is something we've come to expect from this administration.

Feed the Feathered Ones

                                                                                                         




Lots of complaints lately about my lack of providing food for our neighborhood birds.  Spouse complains about no birds or bird activity to watch and the lack of deer in the yard.  The deer are more marauders than cute wildlife.  The dog has also complained because there has been nary a squirrel to chase, this being one of her favorite pastimes. The reason for not putting the bird feed out was a simple lack of interest on my part.  


Sometimes we forget that the individual is not the only one who counts.  Those around us count also.  They also count on us to do the things which create beauty, relaxation, and/or simple enjoyment.  And not to put too fine a point on all of this....God expects us to take care of all of his creation.  Feeding the birds, not polluting the environment, tolerating Obama for a few more months, all are part of God's creation.


By the way, many people are confused about Obama wanting to order insurance companies to provide contraception.  The issue is NOT contraception or religion.  This issue is the UNCONSTITUTIONAL decrees and edicts the President persists in enacting.

State of the Union

The big night is tonight, January 24th, President Obama's last State of the Union address, at least we can hope.
However, we shouldn't have to wait until the November election for this to be his last State of the Union.  This is the way tonight's speech should go.

The Sergeant-at-Arms makes his usual pronouncement of: "Mister Speaker, the President of the United States!"   Then the President makes his way down the main aisle, shaking hands, air kissing the women, the real close buddies get the double tap on the shoulder, all the while that million dollar smile ( some would say shit eating grin) is flashing around the chamber.  The President makes his way to the platform, takes out two envelopes with his remarks inside, gives one to the Speaker and the other one to the Vice-President.  He then turns and continues to absorb the applause.


This is the point where we get the usual platitudes that the country is on sound footing but faces many challenges.  Challenges only the Democrats can meet. But what we should get is something along the lines of this:

"Good Evening.  I'm here o report on the State of the Union.  You expect the usual comforting statements, grandiose plans, and other glittering generalities.  But tonight I must report our situation is dire.  Things are royally screwed up and it's my fault.  Therefore, following the lead of my predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, I'm informing the nation and those of you in this chamber tonight that I will not seek nor will I accept the nomination of my party for President of the United States. I could resign right now but that would leave you and the country's future in the hands of  Vice-President Biden and none of us want to see that.  So  I'll do my best to hold things together till next January but I will need a lot of help from across the aisle.


Michelle and the girls will stay in Washington until school is out in the spring.  Then, they'll take Air Force One back to Chicago.  Get settled in over the summer and enroll in a neighborhood school next fall.  As for me, I'll also head back to Chicago at the end of my term.  Most likely I'll return to private law practice.  I'll also spend some time constructing my Presidential Library but that won't take long as I have few achievements to highlight.  In fact, there are so few that constructing a massive edifice is uncalled for.  Instead, I will rent some space from former President Bill Clinton at his library in Arkansas.

Good Evening and God bless these United States."

At least that's the way tonight should go.

Poor Leadership

Gasoline went up twelve cents a gallon overnight in Kansas City.   We can thank the current POTUS, Obama, who is without doubt, in my estimation, the worst president in the history of the US.

Why did this increase happen?  First, Obama has done nothing about removing the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.  Nor has he done anything to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat.  Second, he nixed the Keystone pipeline project.  The pipeline would have provided thousands of jobs which we sorely need.  And, the pipeline would have eventually gone a long way to making us less dependent on foreign oil.

Obama can be beaten in November but the Republican presidential candidates need to start discussing the REAL issues facing America.  Instead they want to bicker over which candidate pays the most income tax.  Or, who may be cheating on their income tax.  Or, the sexual propensities of one candidate or the other.

You can't totally blame the candidates.  A big chunk of the blame for the non-issue questions is laid at the feet of the journalists covering the campaigns and debates.  If they don't ask serious questions about the real issues, we are going to continue getting answers lacking relevance.  And, if we are not careful, come November we are going to know less about the Republican Presidential candidate, than we knew about Obama '08.  In which case, Obama probably wins.

Winter in NW Missouri, so far

This is what it CAN look like in Northwest Missouri at this time of the year. But in the winter of 2011-12 we so far have been in stark contrast to the picture above which was taken in the late 1950's.  We have had no measurable snow so far.  The lowest recorded temperature has been 11 degrees and that on only one night.

Schools are happy because they have not yet declared a snow day.  On the other hand students and teachers alike miss that unexpected holiday where they can sleep in, drink hot chocolate, watch movies, or play computer games.  However, all those creature comforts have led to the lamented demise of school kids knocking on your front door and asking if you want your sidewalk shoveled,  for cash.  Kids don't come by and make the offer even if they can use their family snow blower.  All of which tells me the kids of today have allowances that are sufficient to remove whatever trace of entrepreneurial spirit they might have.

Municipal governments are content with keeping their budgets intact.  Not having to blow up the budgets to remove snow is a great savings.  On the other hand, auto body shops have seen a seasonal decline in repair work, at least so far.  Hardware stores are probably starting to wonder where space can be found to store all the unsold shovels and snow melt pellets over the summer.

But as Mark Twain is purported to have said:, "If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes and it will change."

The Child and the Gizmo

 

  I came across a quote from Reverend Billy Graham today that I thought was quite thought provoking for this day and age.  The quote is: "While our young people are gaining knowledge, they are not always acquiring wisdom to use that knowledge."


     Reverend Graham wrote that statement in 1992 which was far before the explosion of home computers, I-pods, I-phones, and I-pads.  If youth were gaining knowledge back then, think how much they are acquiring now.  They're acquiring knowledge on an almost 24-7 basis which is much too fast to place acquired knowledge in proper context and perspective.

     It is incumbent on parents, grandparents, teachers, and mentors to help the kids slow down and assimilate all the facts and knowledge they are encountering.  It is common these days to see kids in restaurants, on airplanes, even at family events intensely glued to a hand held electronic gizmo of some kind or other.  If the relationship remains between the child and the gizmo there is absolutely no chance of that child benefiting from any context or perspective.  Those necessities are non-existent in that kind of relationship.  The gizmo is incapable of providing those necessities.

     Every child is entitled to healthy playtime, no question.  However, on occasion, said occasion being more frequent than not, an adult needs to insert himself/herself and create a three way relationship i.e. child, gizmo, adult.  The adult's role being to provide the context and perspective for the information the child is absorbing.  Only then can we hope the child will, at a future time, develop the wisdom needed for a productive life.

Various Monday Musings

The re-vamped CBS network morning news, aka CBS This Morning, debut this morning.  The set is flashy, and active but may be TOO busy.  One critic said when the set is in the background it reminded him of a morning restaurant scene.

Charley Rose looked like he had stayed up all night the last three nights and this despite the application of mega makeup.

Gayle King needs to lose the funky raspberry wig and also lose about thirty pounds.  And no more sleeveless dresses, please!

The round table does not work for three anchors and a guest.  and just what are all those cameramen in the background taking shots of?

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KC Chiefs hire Romeo Crennel as their new head coach.  It was the right thing to do....hiring an experienced head coach but the hire should have been a younger guy.

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Romney wins big tomorrow in New Hampshire.  Santorum second.  And that will be the GOP ticket...Romney for pres and Santorum for veep.

Day One

Just starting out.  Real blogging later.