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You Have To Serve Before You Can Lead
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Chatting with Terrorists
Jul 23, 2008I don’t get it. Why is Obama defending his proposal to “negotiate” with Iran, sticking to his guns instead of saying he misspoke? The answer is obviously that he DOES believe it is possible to negotiate with terrorists. But again, I don’t get it.
I don’t get how he or anyone else for that matter can honestly think that is possible to talk a terrorist into or out of anything. It shows a basic fundamental misunderstanding of what a terrorist is.
Iran’s president has made it abundantly clear that his own death and the death of his people is preferable by far to making concessions to or striking a bargain with the devil – the devil, of course, being us. America. How do you “negotiate” with that? Simple. You don’t.
Obama speaks as though no one has ever tried to reason with the Iranian president before now. “…if we show ourselves willing to talk and to offer carrots and sticks in order to deal with these pressing problems, and if Iran then rejects any overtures of that sort, it puts us in a stronger position to mobilize the international community to ratchet up the pressure on Iran.”
Carrots and sticks to persuade Iran not to develop nuclear weapons? The very nature of this type of terrorist precludes tempting them with “carrots” or threatening them with “sticks”. It is absurd.
Perhaps if no one had ever tried to reason with Iran’s leader before, it would be worth doing just so we could say that we did. But the fact is that we did. We have. So have a lot of others. But Obama clings to this approach as though it is not only new, but reasonable.
It is that kind of thinking that makes him the LAST person I want in charge of defending my freedom, my country and my life.
NOTE: July 23, 2008: The Iranian nation ... will not retreat one iota in the face of oppressing powers,” Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
Posted by Jody Lee It’s A Funfest Bead Brawl!
Jul 12, 2008Other than two of my former broadcast partners, no one knows better than I that it was only a matter of time before the Funfest Mardi Gras Bead Throw became a wrestling match. Because for several years, I was the one (along with my radio partners) standing on the main stage on Broad Street, throwing those beads to a crowd that – over the years – became frighteningly manic.
The first year or two it was pure fun. I have pictures of the crowds of hundreds of people smiling and waving at us on the stage while they awaited the tossing of colorful beads into their midst. But after the first couple of years, something changed, and the change became more marked over the years. At one point, I remember turning to my partner and, with a nervous smile, commenting “Gee, you’d think we were tossing diamonds to them!”
What started out years before as fun had become an unspoken kind of competition and – while the prize was nothing more than a bunch of worthless colorful beads – people had become sort of - - well, rabid in their attempts to gather as many as they could, right down to swiping them out of other people’s hands.
Now, I’m not talking about the kids here. These were adults behaving this way. And while it wasn’t ALL the adults - probably not even MOST of them - it was a significant enough number that my partner and I were becoming downright uncomfortable about the whole process. We watched people shove each other and tug over beads until they broke. We stood there while people accosted us afterwards, angrily shouting at us and accusing us of purposefully throwing beads in a direction opposite where they were standing. It was as though they suspected a weird bead conspiracy going on and more than once, I was cornered afterward by someone demanding I reach into my hidden bead stash (huh?) and hand them over since I had so obviously ignored that person while I was on stage.
Geez.
I do not know at what point the Funfest officials decided to have a bead throw just for children, but it was a good idea. (The reason I do not know what year it was is because once my official duties as a radio personality no longer included emceeing Mardi Gras, I stopped going. ) And since it was adults who were causing the problem, this seemed like a good solution. It should have worked.
It didn’t, of course. Now apparently the parents just watch the kids catching the beads, then fight amongst themselves anyway. There are evidently a small but vocal number of Funfest attendees who are determined to ruin the fun at any cost.
A couple observations – in my experience, it was WOMEN who caused the bead brawls 98% of the time. Not men. Do with that what you will.
And let me add that it was ALSO my experience that Mardi Gras was a blast, filled with treats and music and games and shows, with tons of fun to be had. The bead throw(s) were always a tiny little piece of what went on, the rest of which was entertaining and generally problem-free as far as the crowd goes. So my suggestion would be to ditch the bead throw altogether. Funfest Mardi Gras has always been a great celebration and will not suffer one little iota if we take away this one aspect of it.
(I will post some pics next week here of Mardi Gras past – ah, good times, good times….)
You Have To Serve Before You Can Lead
Jul 09, 2008Now HERE’s an interesting idea - make it mandatory that, in order to serve as President of the United States - i.e. Commander in Chief - you must have served a minimum of two years in the military.
Hmm. Of course, I’m not talking about trying to put it into effect in the near future. Something like this would have to be arranged for, say, ten years before it went into effect, just to make things fair. But wouldn’t it be a huge advantage for our President to have actually served in the armed forces before he is put in charge of them?
This debate is being bandied about in political circles and the idea is apparently gaining some steam for the moment.
Personally I’m a no-go on this one. While I think that a military background - even a brief one - would be a big advantage, I would hate to automatically exclude a potentially great leader because he had flat feet or her eyesight was insufficient for service.
Then again, there is a big argument in favor of mandatory military service for a presidential candidate - do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
That, friend, is my question to YOU....
Who Died and Made YOU God?
Jun 26, 2008Let’s forget the moral question about capital punishment for just a moment.
(Can’t wait to see how THAT goes over).
On this, the occasion of Virginia’s 100th execution via the death penalty, let’s explore just how EFFECTIVE it is as a deterrent to crime.
Of course, since there is no way to statistically figure how many times a crime MIGHT have been committed under these or any other circumstances, still, there are some things we can look at to give us an idea of how death-as-
punishment is working.
I invite you to consider a letter from a group called the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (http://deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=125).
It is a group made up of current and former law and law-enforcement folks and it raises some interesting points. While they talk specifically about the California death penalty, the same reasoning can be applied to any state’s d-p.
In part, they write “A trial seeking life without parole is far speedier than a death penalty case and costs far less. By pursuing life without parole sentences instead of death, resources now spent on the death penalty prosecutions and appeals could be used to investigate unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs, and expand effective violence prevention programs.”
Good logic, I think.
Then, of course, there is the bottom line that when life and death are at stake, there is no margin for error.
Enough opinion – let’s look at some facts; specifically the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime. I went to deathpenaltyinfo.org – a non-profit non-biased gathering of information. Take a look at the chart at this link – it’ll just take a second:
http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168#stateswithvwithout
It’s obvious that the death penalty is NOT preventing murder, When the states that HAVE the death penalty have consistently higher murder rates, there’s no arguing it.
Which leaves us with one thing to consider – justice. Is that what the death penalty is about? Delivering justice? It isn’t about deterrence, it isn’t about saving money, it isn’t about protecting society (life without parole would do that) - so what else is left?
And if justice is the goal, my question to you is –
who died and made US God?
Seriously, Obama - Why In the World Southwest Virginia?
Jun 12, 2008Of all the places Obama could have kicked off his general election campaign last week, why in the world Southwest Virginia?
Honestly, the first thing that crossed my mind was that he was considering Mark Warner – who appeared with Obama at his kickoff in Bristol – for the Veep position. And frankly, from a Democratic viewpoint, that would not make for such a bad ticket. Not bad at all.
But that can’t be, right? Warner is running for Senate against Jim Gilmore so Vice Prez is out of the question. Right?
Well, maybe, maybe not. For an ambitious guy like Warner, ditching his run for Senate if Obama should tap him for a running mate is not unthinkable. Granted, as a Senator, you have more power from a lawmaking perspective than a VP, or in many regards, than the President himself.
On the other hand, there is no faster track to an eventual successful nomination from your party for President than serving as VP.
