http://gangrey.com/?p=1151

Burris, the Best That We Could Get?

The rank absurdity of it,is enough to cause many of anyone's brain cells to double over in laughter or pain. Richard Burris, a person who is infected with an ego, which dwarfs his accomplishments is now the junior senator from Illinois. This has been accomplished through an exercise in rank political showmanship. Apparently the only quality that allowed him to be selected to replace a senator as illustrious as his predecessor, was the fact that he was devoid of any sense of opprobrium or at least enough ambition to transcend it. This man, had the audacity, to act as if the fact that Blagovich who has been charged in a criminal complaint for attempting to sell the very senate seat he has now bestowing on Burris, should have no reflection on Blagovich choosing him for the Senate? I mean, this man was not Blagovoich's first choice, presumably because he did not have the money and could not afford the access that Blagovich wanted in exchange for the seat. Moreover, its hard to wonder who is worse: Blagovich or Burris. Actually the are accomplices. Of course, Blogovich could not have selected someone more inured to the taint that obviously attached to him when he accepted Blagovich's offer.

School Choice?

Well I read an article by George Will the archtypical, reflective conservative and I thought about the phrase and the absurdity of it. School choice stands for, as I understand it, giving vouchers to certain parents who do not feel that the pubic schools are serving their kids so that they chose to use them for private schools. Somehow, this process will "improve" public schools by forcing them to improve or lose more students. It's truly absurd: Taking money away from public schools will somehow improve them?

Neoliberalism is confirmed!

Well articles in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times has confirmed the feeling that I have in my bones, that the conservatives, neo and all have blown it. Of course part of this change is the Iraq War which has sealed the envelope of rank hypocrisy, not to mention stupidity. The way that Bush clings to this debacle, this fool's journey, this reliving of the past has soured the nation, except for those hard core conservatives whose politics are rigid enough not to be influenced by reality of any sort. It is ironic enough that one of the reasons we fought the Iraq War was to dispense with, once and for all, the Vietnam War syndrome and instead we have just confirmed it or relieved it. How stupid was it for him to actually say that the lessen he learned from Vietnam was that we just needed to wait? What were we waiting for???? Ten years? Twenty. Did he intend that we fight the war in Iraq for 20 years until we had victory?

Partisans

When I was younger and obviously more, or even, idealist, I thought that if a person could make a cogent enough argument in favor of a position, they could sway people to appreciate that position, better yet become aligned with it, convinced of the merits. This, of course, presupposed that people were flexible, persuadable. Of course now I have found out that this is not the case. Many people cannot be convinced of anything other than something they are already convinced of and will never abandon their position on an issue or even be moved slightly away from it. In a situation such as this, one wonders whether there is anything to be gained by espousing an opinion besides the promotion of one's views, a self-affirmation. In other words, if one is not going to be able to change opinions, does it make any sense to take so much trouble espousing one's own opinion. Obviously you reinforce your opinions, invigorate and reinforce ties to those who think as you do. Now of course there is still a middle even though it continues to diminish in quantity and relevance. It's shrinkage in quantity is due, ironically enough, is due to both the your success and the opposition's success. Those who leave the middle ground, who move from within the reach of your rhetoric have either come over to your way of thinking or to the opposite side. Either way your chances of swaying them from those newly held positions is challenging. However, we are going to give it a go.

Welcome to my blog!

I am so full of things to say that I am bursting, not necessarily to say. And what I wish to say grows exponentially as the next shovel of news and the attendant incredulity and outrage that accompanies it. Of course this hardly makes me unique or even noticeable, however, I will to try to somehow bring something if not new, at least novel to my shape on the world. Not to necessarily stand out though that, of course something I would love to have happen. Everyone wants to be heard. I guess this is a play on the old saw about the tree in the forest. I want my tree falling to be heard.