Uncategorized

Let's all keep an open mind

 

Blogging is a serious blast for me. I spend a fair bit of time churning out opinions on this or that issue.

It invigorates me to write these musings. It also makes my day when I get a lot of “hits” and people take the time to respond — either by hitting the “like” button on their computer or offering a comment; some of it is supportive, some of it … well, isn’t.

However, in recent days I’ve had a few responses from friends, colleagues and acquaintances that have me scratching my head just a bit.

Here’s how it goes:

Me: I’m writing a blog now and here’s my business card. Take a look.

Friend: Oh, I’ve seen your blog. I don’t read it. I just like to read the responses you get on Facebook.

Me: Really? Why don’t you read the blog?

Friend: I’m a TEA party Republican and I know where you stand, so I don’t need to read your blog.

I then might end that exchange with a simple “fair enough,” and then we move on to the next subject.

To be honest, I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.

The flattery comes in knowing the individual knows my political leanings — which makes me presume he o she at least has seen the blog on occasion. Why else would they offer that bit of knowledge of my political leanings?

The insult comes in being ignored for the most part by friends whose minds are made up — as is mine on many issues.

I don’t intend for this next statement to be self-aggrandizing, but I apologize if it comes off that way.

I read lots of opinions with which I disagree. They fire me up. They make me hyperventilate. I get wound up tighter than a cheap watch. Indeed, many writers with whom I have philosophical differences are worth reading not for what they say, but how they say it.

Recently, I took Michigan State University alumni and some student leaders to task for objecting so vehemently to George Will’s scheduled commencement speech. They don’t like his views on sexual assault and believe his ideas on anything else aren’t worth hearing.

How sad is that?

It’s quite sad because it reveals a closed collective mind, which never should occur at an institution of higher learning.

An open mind is much more constructive.

Having said all this, I doubt the individuals I’ve discussed on this past will read these words. That’s their loss, not so much because I’m filled with all-knowing wisdom or even that I’m such a deft word craftsman. I don’t consider myself all that wise or all that great a writer.

I just have lots of opinions and I’m unafraid to express them.

Yep. Blogging is a serious blast.

 

 

 

political news

Run, Mitt, run!

The word is leaking out in dribs and drabs.

Mitt Romney is thinking about running for president one more time in 2016.

I think that’s pretty cool.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/mitt-romney-2016-run-113518.html?hp=t1_r

Mitt’s most recent run for the presidency came up short, of course. Ann Romney, the GOP nominee’s much better half, was said to have dismissed the notion of yet another presidential campaign. Now, however, Politico reports that insiders think Mitt’s giving serious thought to one more run for the White House.

(FYI: I want to refer to the former Massachusetts governor by his first name because everyone in America has done that with Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Democrats can claim a first-name-only potential candidate, then Republicans deserve one, too.)

Why do I want Mitt to run again? Well, it’s not that I think he’s the best Republican considering a run. Nor is it that I intend to vote for him in 2016 were he to be nominated.

It’s because I think he’s a lot smarter than he demonstrated during his 2012 effort, starting with that awkward primary campaign and his performance in some of those talent show/debates with the likes of Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann.

Who can forget when he offered lay down a $10,000 bet with Texas Gov. Rick Perry? Who in the world would blurt out a 10 grand wager offer? Most of us out here in Flyover Country would settle for a steak dinner or six-pack of beer. Not Mitt, the man with bulging money bags.

Or how about the time he said the $300,000 he earned one year in speaking fees amounted to just a little bit of money? When you’re worth zillions, then I suppose that is just walking-around money.

I’m a firm believer in redemption. Everyone deserves a chance to correct the record, or perhaps even rewrite the record.

That includes politicians.

Mitt thinks the potential GOP field is weak. He wants his party to win back the White House. He thinks he’s the man to restore his party’s standing. According to Politico: “He has assessed various people’s strengths and weaknesses dispassionately, wearing what one ally called his ‘consultant cap’ to measure the field. He has said, among other things, that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, would run into problems because of his business dealings, his work with the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Barclays, and his private equity investments.”

I don’t know about that. All I do know is that I want Mitt to run. All he has to do now is persuade Mrs. Romney that the time has arrived once more.

Mitt was a sometimes-entertaining candidate in 2012. I’m ready for his return to the arena.

Do it, Mitt!

 

State news

I'll miss Patterson most of all

I’ve given some thought to the Texas statewide officeholders who are leaving public life at the end of the year.

Who will I miss the most?

It’s a close call. Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs can be an interesting and delightful interview subject. She’s full of one-liners and has put me in stitches on more than one occasion in the years I’ve known her, first when she was elected agriculture commissioner and then as comptroller.

Combs finishes second, though, to Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson.

Patterson burst onto the state’s public attention by being known as the “gun guy,” a state senator who authored the state’s concealed-carry bill in the mid-1990s. He wanted the state to make it legal for Texans to pack heat under their jacket, provided they pass a test that demonstrates they know how to handle a firearm.

He is proud of his Marine Corps service and the tour of duty he served in Vietnam. He campaigned actively on that service. Indeed, his job as land commissioner put him in charge of the state’s veterans home loan program, which he administered with great pride.

Patterson also has a tremendous self-deprecating streak. The first time I met him, he introduced himself to me as a guy who finished in the “top 75 percent of my class at Texas A&M University,” where he said he “managed to cram four years of college into six years.”

Texas doesn’t have quite the colorful cast of characters inhabiting public offices that it used to have. Too many of them have taken themselves more seriously than they take their responsibilities. Gov. Rick Perry is Exhibit A. I won’t miss Perry in the least.

Jerry Patterson, though, reminds me a bit of the old-school Texas pol who is unafraid to poke a little fun at himself. We need more — not fewer — like him in public life.

 

national news

Race relations worsen during Obama era

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Relations between white and black Americans have worsened — arguably — during the time Barack Obama has been president of the United States.

That’s the view expressed by many in an essay written by Anita Kumur for Tribune Media Services.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/race-relations-arguably-worse-in-age-of-obama/ar-BBgFqdF

We’re more polarized. Blacks are more distrustful of white authority figures.

Obama’s election in 2008 has resulted in deeper fissures between the races. “We are more racially fractured and fragmented,” said James Peterson, director of Africana Studies at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. “It has exposed more wounds than it has healed,” he said of Obama’s election. “It has exposed how racist our society still is.”

So, who’s to blame for that? Is it the president? His family? His closest advisers?

Or is it many of the rest of us — some of whom just cannot stand the idea of this nation being led and governed by an African-American president?

Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was supposed to signal the transition into a post-racial society. It hasn’t happened. There have been some terribly personal and inappropriate things said to and about the president and his family since they moved into the White House. The president has received more threats against his life than any of his predecessors.

Indeed, the Tribune essay suggests a deepening divide. “The number of people who think blacks and whites do not get along has increased throughout Obama’s presidency, from 19 percent in late 2009 to 28 percent in 2014, according to polls conducted by the Pew Research Center and USA Today,” the essay notes.

This is an uncomfortable subject to address. The president’s harshest critics insist with great passion that their opposition to his policies has nothing to do with race. Many of the president’s supporters counter that the level of disdain and the volume of the criticism suggests something more visceral is at work here.

Personally, I’ve always been dubious of those who start their criticism of Obama by saying, “I am not a racist, but … ” I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard that qualifier since the man’s election in 2008.

I wish it were different. I wish we could get past race. I wish with all my energy that we really could just look at each other without regard to the color of their skin.

It hasn’t happened — yet.

The president, however, doesn’t deserve blame for this sad reality.

national news, political news

End of ticket-splitting? Perish the thought

Mary Landrieu’s loss of her U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana might be the least surprising part of the 2014 mid-term election.

She was the last statewide Democratic officeholder in Dixie.

What does surprise me — and unpleasantly so, I should add — is that according to one veteran political observer, the ’14 mid-terms have ushered in the end of ticket-splitting.

http://www3.blogs.rollcall.com/rothenblog/stu-rothenberg-mary-landrieu-runoff-bill-cassidy/

More and more Americans are voting for the party rather than the candidate.

Stuart Rothenberg, writing for Roll Call, says voters are just hitting the straight-ticket spot on their ballot and that voting for individual candidates’ is becoming a rare occurrence.

What a shame.

Rothenberg attributes this to the growing ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans. The parties have become branded as standing for certain things and voters aren’t wasting their time studying candidates’ stands on key issues of the day.

Democrats are being identified as the party of liberals such as Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Al Franken of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The Republican brand includes the likes of Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, two favorites of the TEA party movement within the GOP.

The casualty, therefore, becomes the practice of examining what the candidates say about issues, relying instead on the party’s message.

I would prefer we did away with the straight-ticket voting option. If someone wants to vote straight Republican or straight Democratic, then make them go through the ballot race by race, candidate by candidate and make them think — if only for an instant — about the candidate they’re about to endorse.

Why can’t we require voters to at least go through the motions of thinking about their vote?

 

national news, political news

Playing chicken once again with budget

Once more our distinguished Congress is playing chicken with citizens’ interests in the federal government.

They’ve cobbled together an “omnibus spending bill” that contains a lot of items tucked deeply inside.

Progressives are asking for a “no” vote on the $1 trillion budget because it has guts campaign finance reform efforts. Conservatives don’t like certain environmental protection elements of the budget.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/2015-gop-budget-back-up-plan-113498.html?hp=t1_r

But it’s all rolled into one big ol’ item everyone must accept as a whole — or nothing at all.

Rejecting the budget means the government shuts down — more or less — at midnight. Then members of Congress will spend the next few hours blaming each other for the mess.

Congressional leaders from both parties reportedly worked out the deal to prevent the shutdown. No leader on either side of the aisle wants the government to cease operating at full capacity. The only folks willing to take that leap appear to be liberals and those TEA party zealots on the other extreme end of the spectrum.

To be honest, I don’t know how much more of this gamesmanship I can take. For the life of me I cannot understand how we keep sending this clowns back into office even after they have taken us to the brink so many times in the recent past.

Pass the damn spending bill!

 

national news, political news, State news

No 'oops' for Perry next time around

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is soon to be a “former” governor — and a likely current candidate for the president of the United States.

He vows there will be no repeat of the infamous “oops” moment in late 2011 when he couldn’t name all three of the federal agencies he said he would cut from the federal government.

In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Perry said he’ll be better prepared if he decides to run again for the White House.

He’s also got that felony indictment alleging abuse of power to get worked out one way or the other.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/rick-perry-oops-wont-be-my-obituary/ar-BBgD52T

The most interesting element in the story attached to this blog post is how Harwood sizes up the potential 2016 GOP field with the 2012 cast of characters. The next Republican field is likely to include some serious politicians with serious ideas about how to solve serious problems.

That clearly wasn’t the case in 2012. The GOP field included a cabal of clowns: Herman “9-9-9” Cain? Michelle “Democrats are Communists” Bachmann? Rick “Say ‘No’ to Contraception” Santorum? Newt “I Impeached an Unfaithful President While I was Cheating On My Wife” Gingrich?

The next field, which might include Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, is much more credible than the previous field of candidates.

Perry will have to do battle with a much more serious band of GOP brothers (and maybe) sisters.

Oh, but he says he’ll be ready.

We’ll see about that.

 

business news

Presidents get the blame, not the credit

1 Comment

It doesn’t matter one little bit which party is in power, presidents of the United States become sitting ducks for snipers looking for someone to blame when times get tough.

Take the price of gasoline.

Flash back to 2012. President Obama was getting pounded, pilloried and plastered by his foes because gas prices were spiking. Republican challengers to Obama were quite quick to lay all the blame on him for being unable to control the price of fossil fuel and, thus, the price of gas at the pump.

Fast forward to today. The price of gas is falling. Crude oil is selling for about $68 per barrel, down about $40 from where it was two years ago. Is the president getting any credit for that? Hardly. Does he deserve credit? Not as much as he thinks he should get.

But neither did he deserve the brickbats that were being tossed his way.

The 44th president isn’t the first one to take hits unfairly. He won’t be the last.

We’re all just so darn fickle that we cannot bring much balance to the give and take, the ebb and flow of good times and bad.

 

national news

University students should listen to George Will

Here we go once again: Liberal educators, politicians and students don’t want to hear a voice from the other end of the political spectrum, so they’re launching an effort to ban that voice from their campus.

Please. Stop this nonsense.

Conservative columnist George Will has been invited to deliver the commencement speech at Michigan State University. Alumni, students and some administrators have decided Will’s world view isn’t welcome there. Specifically they object to his recent statements about sexual assault among female college students.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/12/10/us-senator-denounces-michigan-states-decision-t/201841

I’ll stipulate that I disagree with Will’s view that “victimhood” has become some sort of badge of honor. The threat of sexual assault is real and it needs to be dealt with in a serious manner.

Indeed, I generally disagree with just about everything Will says in his column or in his role as a Fox News “contributor.”

There. I’ve declared my bias.

But universities — institutions of higher learning — do themselves a terrible injustice when they prohibit all points of view from being heard on the issues of the day.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, an MSU alumna, has weighed in with her objections to Will’s appearance at her alma mater. She said Will’s “statements on sexual assault are inaccurate, offensive, and don’t represent the values of our state or MSU.”

So … what?

Let the man speak and then challenge his assumptions. Debate them. In the open. Intelligently. Let’s have a full airing of competing ideas on sexual assault.

Universities are supposed to be open to wide ranges of thought, ideology and philosophy. Isn’t there some inscription on some wall at the East Lansing campus that suggests that the university is a place where everyone’s views are welcome?

How about fulfilling the university’s mission and letting a noted conservative commentator speak his mind to students who are able to draw their own conclusions about whether he is right … or wrong?

 

Uncategorized

Weird feeling takes hold as milestone approaches

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

A strange feeling is beginning to settle in.

My 65th birthday is just a few days away. I’ve been enjoying telling folks my age, which I usually declare by saying something like, “I’m about to turn 65.” I haven’t been mentioning that I’m still just 64.

Why the weird feeling? Growing up, I always considered 65 to be the retirement year. That’s when you tell your boss, “You know, I think I’m going to call it a career. Here’s my letter of resignation. The ‘Golden Years’ await.”

Well, the landmark birthday is coming up, but I’m not yet ready to call it quits.

I can’t quite grasp the thrill I’m feeling, though, of passing through this portal.

I’ve lived longer than both of my parents; Dad died at 59, Mom at 61. That fact, by itself, is a bit of a mind-blower. One of my sisters has crossed that threshold, too. My other — much younger — sister will get there in due course and she’s just two years away from passing Dad’s length of time on this Earth.

At this age, I find myself counting my blessings. That’s natural, I guess, although I’ve never asked any of my elderly friends whether that’s what they do. I’ll assume that’s the case.

I’m blessed with excellent health; for that matter, so is my wife — and that makes impending retirement even more exciting, as we hope to take our healthy selves on the road all across North America.

Of course, I’m not naïve about one’s physical health. I understand fully that it can go south without warning, instantly. Yes, it happens at any age, but the frequency of that occurrence is more pronounced the older one gets.

Perhaps that’s a symptom of the weirdness I’m feeling these days. Am I afraid of growing more frail and susceptible to Father Time’s way of upsetting one’s life plans?

I’ll just set that fear aside. Perhaps the best approach is to follow the dictum set forth in the film “Dead Poets Society.” Robin Williams’s character told his young students to “seize the day” and to live every moment as if it’s your last.

Retirement is inching closer. I’ll be ready when it arrives.

 

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