Nobody told me there’d be days like these; most peculiar, Mama. John Lennon
If you are puzzled by the state of current affairs in the New Millennium, you have only to consider one thing; two of the most watched news sources are The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the Colbert Report (Col-ber re-por, as in faux French) with Stephen Colbert.
These shows are considered to be “fake news shows”, but that concept might be misleading. It isn’t so much that they report on “fake news”, but that their take on regular news doesn’t follow the pattern laid down by mainstream media. And if you want to know why so many people watch shows that are so unlike the major news sources, consider this: Sarah Palin and others on the right distrust the “liberal press” so much that they refer to it as the “lame stream media”.
These shows have their own followers and have each staked out “opposing” sides in their world that mirror the conflict in the real world between, say, Fox News and MSNBC. To emphasize this nature of their rivalry, when Stewart announced plans for the Rally to Restore Sanity, a parody of Fox News commentator Glen Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally, Colbert immediately came up with “The March to Keep Fear Alive”, to be held the same day.
Colbert parodies the right-wing commentators such as Bill O’Reilly, or O’Really, depending on who you ask, and does a spot-on impression of these darlings of the conservative set. Stewart, on the other hand, is more willing to take on anything he sees as farcical, no matter who is responsible. He has weighed in on every segment of the media, including MSNBC, Faux, er, Fox and CNN with no more mercy than he shows the nation’s politicians, to include the President and anyone in his administration, or anyone from the “loyal opposition”.
This setup seldom sees any deviation in its script, but from time to time, fake news manages to stray into the real world, and this happened this last week when Stephen Colbert, the poor man’s Rush Limbaugh, was invited to testify before Congress by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), whose subcommittee is holding hearings on a bill that would legalize undocumented field workers. These two met when they took up a challenge by the United Farm Workers to work in the fields that are the places of employment for migrant workers who pick the fruit and vegetables that feed our country.
Perhaps it was his decision to testify in character that led to the sharp criticism from leaders of both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D., Md. and John Conyers, D. Mich., spoke for the Democrats. Hoyer called Colbert an “embarrassment”, while Conyers bluntly asked Colbert to "leave the committee room completely and submit your statement instead."
Neither Republicans nor their counterparts in the conservative media were any more happy about Colbert’s testimony. Everyone took their turn, and much like their real-life nemeses, the Democrats, suggested that Congress was no place for a “comedian”, and that his appearance was shameful.
Rightly said. Colbert bought shame-to comedians, everywhere. At least no comedian ever pretended to be serious when they said really funny things like “I will work for a balanced budget.”
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
…never having to say you’re sorry
Lately it seems to me that being a coal producer means, well, see the title of this column. What it does mean is that if you find you have what the Brits might call a “bit of a sticky wicket”, you can simply redefine the issue.
Take the “controversial” practice of mountaintop removal (MTR), a phrase synonymous with strip mining. It was given this moniker because the strippers now concentrate on the tops of the mountains. I’m unsure if their previous focus was on the bottoms of the mountains, but be that as it may, MTR has been the phrase du jour.
Lately, MTR seems to have fallen from grace with the coal operators. Evokes an image that is too negative. So employing the Orwellian practice of newspeak, and the good, common sense native to public relations people the world over, coal producers are now using the term mountaintop development (MTD) to describe their destructive method of getting at the region’s coal.
The coal producers also use every opportunity to let you know that coal is the reason we have such “cheap” rates for electricity. But considering that fellow coal producer, Kentucky Electric Power, recently got a hefty increase in the rate it charges for this service, the two of them might have to get together to come up with a new definition for that word, as well.
But back to MTD, I’m unsure who inspired the use of that particular phrase. I know that one “supporter of coal”, our state senator, Ray Jones, voiced an opinion about MTR or MTD, depending on who you ask, around the time the circus in the form of the Corps of Engineers came to town last year to solicit comments on a proposed rule change to Nationwide Permit 21. Sen. Jones said that any mountaintop in this area that hasn’t been mined is worthless, so perhaps Sen. Jones should be given credit here.
As to that assertion, I’m sure the people at the Breaks Interstate Park would be surprised to find out that those peaks that draw so many visitors to this region are, in fact, good for nothing. But if Sen. Jones goes over and shows them how flattening, say, that part of the park that now contains the Towers, as seen from the overlook of the same name, so that it could be used for, say, parking, or a nice factory, they would gladly allow this. No one wants to be stuck with worthless land when ammonium nitrate and fuel oil would give it so much more value.
Barring this, we might have to concede that we are now living in an era that Joni Mitchell wrote about in her song, “Big Yellow Taxi” (Take away the trees, and put ‘em in a tree museum. Then you charge all the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em.)
Of course, to really make MTD meaningful, you might want to see some of those flattened mountaintops actually contain something. In Pike County, none do. No hospitals, no golf courses, no factories, just flattened land that allows rainfall to become a rushing torrent on its way to the river as it takes everything along with it in its haste to get to the sea.
Take the “controversial” practice of mountaintop removal (MTR), a phrase synonymous with strip mining. It was given this moniker because the strippers now concentrate on the tops of the mountains. I’m unsure if their previous focus was on the bottoms of the mountains, but be that as it may, MTR has been the phrase du jour.
Lately, MTR seems to have fallen from grace with the coal operators. Evokes an image that is too negative. So employing the Orwellian practice of newspeak, and the good, common sense native to public relations people the world over, coal producers are now using the term mountaintop development (MTD) to describe their destructive method of getting at the region’s coal.
The coal producers also use every opportunity to let you know that coal is the reason we have such “cheap” rates for electricity. But considering that fellow coal producer, Kentucky Electric Power, recently got a hefty increase in the rate it charges for this service, the two of them might have to get together to come up with a new definition for that word, as well.
But back to MTD, I’m unsure who inspired the use of that particular phrase. I know that one “supporter of coal”, our state senator, Ray Jones, voiced an opinion about MTR or MTD, depending on who you ask, around the time the circus in the form of the Corps of Engineers came to town last year to solicit comments on a proposed rule change to Nationwide Permit 21. Sen. Jones said that any mountaintop in this area that hasn’t been mined is worthless, so perhaps Sen. Jones should be given credit here.
As to that assertion, I’m sure the people at the Breaks Interstate Park would be surprised to find out that those peaks that draw so many visitors to this region are, in fact, good for nothing. But if Sen. Jones goes over and shows them how flattening, say, that part of the park that now contains the Towers, as seen from the overlook of the same name, so that it could be used for, say, parking, or a nice factory, they would gladly allow this. No one wants to be stuck with worthless land when ammonium nitrate and fuel oil would give it so much more value.
Barring this, we might have to concede that we are now living in an era that Joni Mitchell wrote about in her song, “Big Yellow Taxi” (Take away the trees, and put ‘em in a tree museum. Then you charge all the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em.)
Of course, to really make MTD meaningful, you might want to see some of those flattened mountaintops actually contain something. In Pike County, none do. No hospitals, no golf courses, no factories, just flattened land that allows rainfall to become a rushing torrent on its way to the river as it takes everything along with it in its haste to get to the sea.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The real drug pushers
If there is one thing columnists are aware of, it is this: Very few people will tell you what a great column you’ve written, but if anybody disagrees with your assessments, you can be sure that they will be heard from. With that in mind, let me say that the column written by Wayne Bartley (Traipsing) for the Weekend Edition (The cuckoo’s nest) is easily one of the best he’s ever written. I love the analogy he uses. It fits perfectly. Kudos, sir, kudos.
There are many who think along the same lines as Mr. Bartley. The drug war has seen the U. S. imprison more of its citizens than any country in the world. For exact statistics, you might go to this site: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?_r=1. Here, the author of a New York Times article, Adam Liptak, in a piece written in April 2008, looks into the reasons for the burgeoning prison population.
As already stated, one reason for the disproportionate number of prisoners in the U. S. is the war on drugs. Mr. Liptak shows how much that portion of the prison population has increased. In 1980, according to Mr. Liptak, there were a mere 40,000 or so people imprisoned for drug-related offenses. By the time this article was written, that number had increased to around 500,000. One can only suspect that since then, this number has risen significantly.
Society has reacted to this war on drugs in different ways. We have been declared a high use area and our Member of Congress, Harold Rogers, has helped to create UNITE, so-called because it unites every aspect of law enforcement to combat the drug trade.
In almost every area of the U. S., prescription pills in the form of semi-synthetic opiates lead the way in illegal drug use. One reason is exemplified by the case of Purdue Pharma and its drug, Oxycontin. Here is a pain-killer produced to mitigate pain experienced by end-stage cancer patients. But Purdue Pharma’s sales staff told doctors that this extremely potent, highly-addictive, indeed, deadly drug, could be used for, of all things, moderate pain. This drug rates highly with those it has turned into addicts.
Talk about overkill. In fact, if moderate pain is all that a patient is complaining of, no opoid should be needed. Over the counter pain medications, such as Alleve, Advil, Motrin, Arthritis-Strength Tylenol, or any number of generic equivalents, are more than sufficient to handle moderate pain. And none of these medicines are addictive.
At one time, a tactic used to combat illegal drugs was to arrest the local dealers, and use them to get to the higher-ups, those who supplied the neighborhood pusher. If that was being done today, those responsible for fighting the war on drugs might find themselves in the board rooms of the nation’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.
After all, these companies are the ones who push doctors to write prescriptions for their patients’ ailments when it is clearly not needed. And it doesn’t matter how a pill is sold, legally or illegally, the end result is profit for the company that produced it.
Well, if you have stock in these companies, rest easy. Despite the fact that they are pushing their highly-addictive pills, law enforcement isn’t likely to declare them pushers anytime soon.
There are many who think along the same lines as Mr. Bartley. The drug war has seen the U. S. imprison more of its citizens than any country in the world. For exact statistics, you might go to this site: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?_r=1. Here, the author of a New York Times article, Adam Liptak, in a piece written in April 2008, looks into the reasons for the burgeoning prison population.
As already stated, one reason for the disproportionate number of prisoners in the U. S. is the war on drugs. Mr. Liptak shows how much that portion of the prison population has increased. In 1980, according to Mr. Liptak, there were a mere 40,000 or so people imprisoned for drug-related offenses. By the time this article was written, that number had increased to around 500,000. One can only suspect that since then, this number has risen significantly.
Society has reacted to this war on drugs in different ways. We have been declared a high use area and our Member of Congress, Harold Rogers, has helped to create UNITE, so-called because it unites every aspect of law enforcement to combat the drug trade.
In almost every area of the U. S., prescription pills in the form of semi-synthetic opiates lead the way in illegal drug use. One reason is exemplified by the case of Purdue Pharma and its drug, Oxycontin. Here is a pain-killer produced to mitigate pain experienced by end-stage cancer patients. But Purdue Pharma’s sales staff told doctors that this extremely potent, highly-addictive, indeed, deadly drug, could be used for, of all things, moderate pain. This drug rates highly with those it has turned into addicts.
Talk about overkill. In fact, if moderate pain is all that a patient is complaining of, no opoid should be needed. Over the counter pain medications, such as Alleve, Advil, Motrin, Arthritis-Strength Tylenol, or any number of generic equivalents, are more than sufficient to handle moderate pain. And none of these medicines are addictive.
At one time, a tactic used to combat illegal drugs was to arrest the local dealers, and use them to get to the higher-ups, those who supplied the neighborhood pusher. If that was being done today, those responsible for fighting the war on drugs might find themselves in the board rooms of the nation’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.
After all, these companies are the ones who push doctors to write prescriptions for their patients’ ailments when it is clearly not needed. And it doesn’t matter how a pill is sold, legally or illegally, the end result is profit for the company that produced it.
Well, if you have stock in these companies, rest easy. Despite the fact that they are pushing their highly-addictive pills, law enforcement isn’t likely to declare them pushers anytime soon.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
What would Fonzie do?
The Soviet Union was known as much as anything else for its intractability when dealing with ordinary citizens. When a decision was made by the hierarchy, there wasn’t much anyone could do except grin and bear it. The average Soviet citizen did have one recourse, though; their unflagging sense of humor. One joke went like this:
On the outskirts of Moscow, a dog saw a rabbit wasting no time leaving town. Curious, he stopped the rabbit and asked him where he was off to in such a hurry.
“There’s a rumor going around that all camels are to be castrated!” says the rabbit.
“So?” asks the dog. “You’re a rabbit. How does that concern you?”
“Try and tell them that” says the rabbit “after they’ve caught you and castrated you!”
If anyone can identify with what these poor, put-upon people had to deal with, it would be the tenants of the buildings that were demolished for the new judicial center. No, it wasn’t necessary to tear down a whole block of historic buildings for an overpriced courthouse. There were other locations that would have been better, but the powers-that-be wanted it there. So, the wrecking ball has done its damage. The fact is none of those responsible for the upheaval in the lives of those who have been displaced have yet convinced me they care even a little.
The greatest sin committed by those who would have this location or die was that those business owners who leased their spaces were left with but one option: Get out! None of them received any help in relocating. Well, at least these entrepreneurs had ample time to find a new sites for their businesses.
Not so Ava Mitchell. Her building wasn’t supposed to even be in the way. Turns out the footprint to be put down by the Committee to Do Whatever They Want is going to be much bigger than anyone initially thought. Yep, another group of buildings will now be demolished, including the one that housed the Happy Days Diner.
Ava doesn’t own the building where her business is located. She leases. Accordingly, the above Committee doesn’t think she’s owed anything, except the 30 day notice already given her.
This looks a lot like "illegal taking". By this I mean that the business she and her late husband spent time building has an intrinsic value, and it is being taken from her with no thought of either helping her relocate, or of compensating her after forcing her to abandon it so quickly.
Too, the Committee, which has put in place conditions that will force her to close her establishment, is also costing her and her employees jobs at a time when any job is a scarce commodity. In addition, by forcing her to close this business, Ava and her family are going to have to seriously reconsider plans for the future that otherwise would have been secure.
No, the Committee is correct. But that does not mean that they are right.
In the meantime, when you visit Pikeville next, you might want to pay particular attention to those buildings between Main and Second Street. You never know which ones will fall victim next to the black hole that has opened up in what was downtown Pikeville.
On the outskirts of Moscow, a dog saw a rabbit wasting no time leaving town. Curious, he stopped the rabbit and asked him where he was off to in such a hurry.
“There’s a rumor going around that all camels are to be castrated!” says the rabbit.
“So?” asks the dog. “You’re a rabbit. How does that concern you?”
“Try and tell them that” says the rabbit “after they’ve caught you and castrated you!”
If anyone can identify with what these poor, put-upon people had to deal with, it would be the tenants of the buildings that were demolished for the new judicial center. No, it wasn’t necessary to tear down a whole block of historic buildings for an overpriced courthouse. There were other locations that would have been better, but the powers-that-be wanted it there. So, the wrecking ball has done its damage. The fact is none of those responsible for the upheaval in the lives of those who have been displaced have yet convinced me they care even a little.
The greatest sin committed by those who would have this location or die was that those business owners who leased their spaces were left with but one option: Get out! None of them received any help in relocating. Well, at least these entrepreneurs had ample time to find a new sites for their businesses.
Not so Ava Mitchell. Her building wasn’t supposed to even be in the way. Turns out the footprint to be put down by the Committee to Do Whatever They Want is going to be much bigger than anyone initially thought. Yep, another group of buildings will now be demolished, including the one that housed the Happy Days Diner.
Ava doesn’t own the building where her business is located. She leases. Accordingly, the above Committee doesn’t think she’s owed anything, except the 30 day notice already given her.
This looks a lot like "illegal taking". By this I mean that the business she and her late husband spent time building has an intrinsic value, and it is being taken from her with no thought of either helping her relocate, or of compensating her after forcing her to abandon it so quickly.
Too, the Committee, which has put in place conditions that will force her to close her establishment, is also costing her and her employees jobs at a time when any job is a scarce commodity. In addition, by forcing her to close this business, Ava and her family are going to have to seriously reconsider plans for the future that otherwise would have been secure.
No, the Committee is correct. But that does not mean that they are right.
In the meantime, when you visit Pikeville next, you might want to pay particular attention to those buildings between Main and Second Street. You never know which ones will fall victim next to the black hole that has opened up in what was downtown Pikeville.
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