Slow News Day

There’s nothing that really grabbed me today as blogworthy, so I’ll just offer a few random comments on some different news stories, which have nothing in particular in common.

First, RIP Jack Kevorkian, who died a few days ago.  I admired what he was doing.  If an

This is typical of Jack Kevorkian's paintings

old, or terminally ill,  person wants to die, they’ve got the right to do so.  It may technically be a suicide, but it’s not exactly the same as a 16 year old kid blowing his brains out because his girlfriend broke up with him or an unemployed middle aged man jumping out of a window because his economic prospects are shit.  Those are tragic cases, and anybody standing below aforesaid window and shouting “Jump! Jump!” is a lowlife scumbag.

However, Kevorkian had a hobby.  He was a painter and, technically, a pretty good one.  His choice of subject matter, though, was very revealing.  Death.  Morbidity.  Horror.

So, I’ve no objection to what Dr. K did, but he truly was one sick bastard.  Absolutely, not under any circumstances, anybody you would want to have a beer with.

With regards to the Anthony Weiner case, I was  surprised by his confession, and disappointed.  I’m glad he’s not resigning, though.  He’s a reliable liberal voice in congress, and what he did wasn’t really so terrible.  So, a few women (who apparently didn’t mind) saw pictures of Weiner with his shirt off (he is kind of buff) and pictures of him in his underwear, sporting a half woody.  Sleazy, embarrassing, but no big deal, really.  Shame he lied about it, though.  I put him at about the same sex scandal level as Clinton, but at least Clinton got some nookie out of the whole deal.

3rd, I’d like to weigh in on the story about the North Carolina (Republican)state legislator  whose daughter wrote him a letter, saying “Daddy, please don’t cut the budget for schools or our assistant teacher is going to lose her job” or something like that.  He’s angry because he thinks the teacher put her up to it.

Now, the comments on the story are totally predictable.  Liberals applaud the little girl and defend the teacher.  Conservatives are screaming liberal coercion.

I remember the election of 1964, when I was in the 5th grade.  The whole class got an afternoon off school to go hear President Johnson speak on the steps of the Iowa State Capitol.  One student protested when, a week later, Barry Goldwater was not extended the same courtesy.  The teacher defended her decision because “Johnson is the president.”  Nobody else in the class objected because, of course, all of our parents were voting for Johnson and that Goldwater guy was nuts.  But that still bothers me today, and I think Mrs. Lynn was wrong, and Dan Newquist was right.

So, I see the North Carolina case this way:  if the teacher told the students to write letters protesting the budget cuts, the teacher was wrong.  If the teacher told the students to write letters to their congressmen, saying whatever they thought, then that’s O.K.

But reading the article doesn’t answer that question.  Once again, shoddy journalism.