Tag Archives: patriotism

national news, political news

Guiliani makes zero sense

So help me, I never thought Rudy Guiliani was capable of going around the bend.

That is, until I read about his remarks delivered last night at a dinner honoring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The former New York mayor, the hero of the 9/11 response and Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2001 actually said that President Barack Obama doesn’t love America.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/giuliani-obama-doesnt-love-america/ar-BBhKLyD

What on God’s Earth has the mayor been drinking, smoking, eating or taking intravenously?

Has the man not heard the president speak of his love of a country where only his “story can happen”? How the mixed-race son of an immigrant and a young woman from Kansas could graduate from college, earn a law degree, become elected to a state legislature, to the U.S. Senate and then become elected — twice — to the presidency of the United States? How about how that son could be raised by a single mother after his father abandoned his family and how he spent time growing up overseas and then grew up listening to his maternal grandparents tell of their struggles while living in Middle America?

The president proclaims his love of country damn near every time I hear him speak in public. Doesn’t he wish God’s blessings on the United States of America at the end of every speech he ever gives?

Isn’t the former mayor paying attention?

And yet Guiliani said last night that he believes the president is a patriot. What? Which is it, Mr. Mayor? Is he a patriot or does he detest the country of his birth?

 

 

national news, Uncategorized

'Mork' shows us how to honor America

https://www.facebook.com/john.kanelis/posts/819649338085680?notif_t=like

Robins Williams’s death has taken a splendid talent from those of us who laughed at his comic genius.

This item showed up on my Facebook news feed the other day. I’ve shared it once already, but I’m doing so again right here, with just a few words about what it means to me.

Williams’s salute to the United States in this short video shows how one can be patriotic and irreverent at the same time. It’s becoming a bit of a lost art these days.

The political debate has gotten so sour that it seems that any kind of fun-poking is seen as some sort of statement against the things for which the nation stands. I wish that weren’t so.

There’s a segment in this video that suggests it was made in the early 1980s, about the time Williams was portraying the space alien “Mork” on the TV series “Mork and Mindy.” Thus, the symbolism of an actor who portrays an extraterrestrial is so meaningful to me in this video.

Robin Williams gets what it means to love this country. We need more of this kind of loving irreverence in the halls of power.

Uncategorized

Letter displays astonishing degree of ignorance

I am astounded at the level of ignorance and narrow-mindedness that exists in some people.

Yes, I know it’s not an uncommon trait. Ignorance has existed since the beginning of time. It becomes everyone’s business, though, when the media distribute people’s alleged “thoughts” for the rest of us to read.

I present to you one Eddie McMurray, an Amarillo resident and occasional contributor to the local newspaper in Amarillo. I’ve had a casual acquaintance with McMurray for many years, during my time as editorial page editor of the paper.

The newspaper published this letter today:

http://amarillo.com/opinion/letters-editor/2013-10-27/letter-columnist-should-stay-dc

Where do I start? McMurray disputes a column from Washington Post columnist Colbert King, whose column ran in the paper on Oct. 19. Seems that McMurray doesn’t much like Colbert’s liberal thinking. Then he hangs an exceedingly nasty label on him. “King is either a traitor or influenced by ignorance of this country,” McMurray writes. “I vote both.”

There, he did it. He hurled the traitor accusation at someone who simply has a different world view than his own.

This, I submit, is precisely what is wrong with the nature of what used to be called political debate in this country. Our fellow Americans on the far right fringe have taken to challenging the patriotism of those who disagree with them.

It is reprehensible on its face.

McMurray wonders why the paper is seeking “to find liberal media in an attempt to change thinking in the Panhandle. I would not trade the ground in my tomato garden for any liberal state in the country.”

Good for him. He is entitled to stand by what passes for his principles. But the media don’t seek to “change thinking” of a region. It’s not true of conservative media nestled in liberal bastions. It surely isn’t true of liberal media doing business in conservative enclaves.

What responsible media always should do is search for wide-ranging opinion to share with its readers. Let the readers be the judge. Readers can determine for themselves whether someone from the “other side” has a reasonable argument in defense of his or her position. Then we can argue the point intelligently — and with a civil tongue.

Calling someone a traitor merely because he or she is one of them stinkin’ liberals nullifies whatever point the name-caller is trying to make.