Not like other conservatives

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 062009
 

I posted the below as a comment in response to a Conor Friedersdorf article about birtherism at The American Scene:

I recall a time in the early 90s on a political e-mail list when I must have said something nice about Bill Clinton or something nasty about Republican positions or something along those lines. The most rabid Clinton supporter on the list said something like, “John, you don’t seem to be like other conservatives I know.”

I was somewhat taken aback. I recognized it as an early warning sign that I was about to go down a road where others had gone. I had seen it happen to too many other conservatives.

So I announced that I would fix it so he would never say anything like that about me again. And he never did.

I don’t mind being different than other conservatives, but I don’t want any leftists to think they’re going to pull any of that on me.

Resigns admid controversy

 Bash the Messenger  No Responses »
Sep 062009
 

You gotta love that word “amid.”

Obama adviser Van Jones resigns amid controversy

It’s the headline on an AP article by Will Lester.

I wondered if this was a special locution for Van Jones, in which case I was going to snark about it, or if others had resigned amid controversy as well. So I googled for the phrase, “resigns amid controversy” (with the quotation marks).

It turns out that Van Jones is only the latest of a long line that includes football coaches, politicians, presidents of non-profit organizations, and many more who have also “resigned amid controversy.” But not all resignations come “amid controversy”. Some people resign “in controversy” and some resign “over controversy.” There are also those who resign for personal reasons.

But resigning amid controversy is a big one.

Borgess was better

 Health care reform, NOTVIPP  No Responses »
Sep 012009
 

Last week my wife was hospitalized overnight. She is home and fine, which is one good thing to report. Another is that I forgot about my campaign to eliminate television in public places until almost the end. That’s because for whatever reason, this time I did not encounter waiting rooms with television screens on every wall. No CNN idiots screaming at me whichever way I turned.

This time she was in the Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo instead of the Battle Creek Health System, which had an extreme version of televisionitis when she was there for outpatient surgery last March.

Maybe I’m comparing apples to oranges. Maybe if we went through Borgess’s outpatient system we’d find the same difficulty in escaping the televisions. I don’t know. All I can say is that my encounters with Borgess as a visitor were television free.  (In the evening I took along my computer so we could watch part of a Russian movie together as we do at home most evenings.)

On the downside, the last few days we ate in a some fast food places that had public televisions. They weren’t as extreme as some places I’ve seen, and the volume was turned down very low, but still. Maybe I need to make up some cards to leave with the managers to explain why we’re walking out of such places without buying any food.

And I need a better acronym. NOTVIPP is pronounceable, but not catchy enough.

Work on this

 Health care reform, Term limits  No Responses »
Sep 012009
 

This makes me wonder if we should have term limits for congressional staff members. Say four years for staffers in the House, and 12 for those in the Senate. That way you could keep on enough people to provide continuity from one member’s term to the next, but mitigate the corrupting influence of power.

We called Mr. Dodd’s committee office last week to ask why the bill isn’t posted, and a spokesman explained that it is still being “worked on.” Will it be ready by October? “Don’t count on it,” the staffer said. [WSJ editorial, “Health-Care Secrets: Chris Dodd keeps his Senate bill under wraps.” 29 August 2009]

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