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Bob in the Heights, you’re on the air

Pat Ryan 20 Comments

In the short happy life of HIPRB! nothing has generated more comments (and thank you all) than the discussion of political polarization and irresponsible news media reporting which arose from the Tucson shootings this month.  DunnTower What most of you couldn’t be expected to know is that the transfer of Gabrielle Giffords here to Houston for rehabilitation has created a “local” story which Houston’s Leading Information Source can’t leave alone—so much so that my old friend Bob Eddy, who used to regularly regale a favored few with his thoughtful and entertaining rants during the Shrub Administration (until the relentless idiocy just wore him down), has been inspired by this development to return to the keyboard.  He’s given me permission to share with a wider circle.

Alright, please, enough with the teary Giffords coverage.  The vigils, the minutiae, the outpouring of sentiment, the blah, blah, blah.   It’s been over two weeks now and she’s still front page news —  even more so here, after she recently flew into Houston’s medical center.  When they ran out of anything substantial to say, the Chronicle ran stories on people that have survived “similar” brain injuries, or are even just patients at the same facility…Yaaaaawn…

Ouch, pretty cold there Bob…yes, but it’s not the congresswoman who pokes my ire, I surely wish her a full recovery and long life  —  being a Democrat.  It’s the nature of the story.  I’ve got two words — shit happens.  That’s right, in a country where any deranged nut job can legally — and in Nevada without even a permit — walk up to a political event in a crowded supermarket parking lot packing an automatic handgun with a 30+ ammo clip, you get nothing out of me other than “shit happens.”  Oh the shock, the horror, the humanity!!!  You would have to have been Nostradamus to have seen this coming!!  Let’s look at the math:

A state that even the local sheriff bravely characterized as “the wild wild west” (an opinion that got him absolutely reamed in the conservative media) + highly-charged political rhetoric fueled with blatant references to armed insurrection + everyday American sponge-brain = political vigilantism.

But you see, America loves a good story of triumph against adversity and tragedy.  We would much rather talk endlessly about Congresswoman Giffords’ time in recovery and rehabilitation hell, the incremental medical milestones with her heroic astronaut husband by her side, than why things like this keep happening.

Yes, the desperate, flaccid Democrats did themselves no favor by latching onto the kneejerk Palin connection before we knew anything about this guy.  And because they are a bunch of spineless weasels whose wallets get padded and arms twisted by the same NRA, they were powerless to take on the real nut of the issue and say “you know, after at least half a dozen similar horrific instances in the last 10 years, can we now at least all agree that America is full of nut-jobs ready to fulfill their fantasies and paranoias with a gun, and in such a volatile environment, is all the gun imagery and metaphors — sorry, used solely by the opposing party — acting in a responsible manner?  Is it even remotely appropriate in a public forum?”

The other night Bill Maher brought up a thought-worthy point:  Remember the pointy-brained tea bagger/gun nuts who showed up at all the town hall rallies during the 2008 campaign openly touting their side arms and rifles?

What if they had been black?

Ironically, poor Obama has become the best thing that ever happened to the gun market in the last 50 years.  Sales have skyrocketed ever since he’s been in office, and after this last shooting people couldn’t get to their gun outlets fast enough to purchase their own Glock 36 “before Obama tries to outlaw them!” 

Hey, Thelma Lu, believe me when I say this on my mother’s grave — Obama will propose weekly piñata parties on the White House lawn where all the scrappy immigrant kids get instant citizenship cards with every piece of candy bashed out of a hanging Ronald Reagan effigy before he even mentions in public the first syllable of  the words “gun control.”  He has waaaaaay too much other shit to stir up at the slightest provocation without tempting that bottom of the barrel wet dream.

Before closing I’d like to emphasize that what I refer to as sensible gun control has nothing to do with their abolishment, nor is it a slippery first step toward it.  Just some common sense rules for a nation that kills more people by hand gun violence every day than most countries do in a year.  Although Mexico is giving us a good run for the money…

You might not know, but Giffords’ astronaut husband Mark Kelly has a twin brother, Scott, who is currently commander aboard the space station.  After hearing about it, his official downlinked message included the sentiment “We are better than this.”  Really?  I’m not so sure.  Even as I type, there are states all over this country fighting for the right to openly carry arms into public parks, places of work, schools, restaurants and even bars.  Many have already won.  I haven’t heard churches mentioned yet, but my money says that can’t be far behind.  In 2004 we quietly let the assault rifle ban expire without a ripple.  Someone please explain to me why anyone in the 21st century should be able to legally possess an assault rifle, not to mention as many as he wants.  When America pictured itself as a modern society, did anyone really envision one where 200 years later people are still carrying side arms out in public?  Frontier justice…what does that say about us as rational, communal human beings?  Shit happens.   

And in closing, while we’re on guns, couldn’t someone please shoot Justin Bieber!?

Fox News hoisted with own petard (again)

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

For any of you who had to vote “hypocrite” in the last round, take some solace in knowing that your member of Congress, hypocrite though he/she may be, can’t hope to compete with the people of Fox News.  The best part is that, of course, the Fox folk did it to themselves…again.  In the category “Who called who a Nazi?” last night The Daily Show nailed them not only for gratuitous and improper use of the term, and not only also for the hypocrisy of being the pot while calling the kettle black, but mostly for flat out lying when confronted about what they say on their air.  Click the grey afro below; the Fox fun starts at 1:33 in.

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I try not to think of it as piling on; but when I do think of it as piling on, I think, who deserves it more?

Hypocrite or Liar

Pat Ryan 6 Comments

For a lot of you those are the only choices available to characterize your U.S. representative for his/her vote yesterday on the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act.  I am not one of you (this time), but that doesn’t mean you can’t play the game.

The Republican Party majority in the House and Speaker John Boehner made it a top priority to vote on repeal of last year’s health care insurance reform.  They did it even though they know that the Democrats who control the Senate won’t bring it up for a vote there, and that even if the Senate voted for repeal the president would use his veto.  But they wanted to make a political point, get members on the record on this issue, and keep one promise in that Pledge to America many of them took last fall.  I don’t have an issue with any of that.

I do have an issue with a party that claims to be a champion of fiscal responsibility and deficit lowering voting for repeal after they all but covered their eyes and ears and refused to believe the Congressional Budget Office report which found that repeal would actually increase the deficit and leave more than 30 million more people without health insurance.  Boehner said CBO is entitled to its opinion!

If a CBO report is an opinion, it’s the considered opinion of the experts employed by Congress to provide lawmakers with numbers that are not influenced by political needs and desires…it’s the closest thing to a truly non-partisan statement you’ll find in Washington, D.C.  What’s more, a group of independent experts found that the Republican claim that the new health insurance law will kill jobs is not justified by the facts.  The GOP offered an analysis that claims the new law “may” make the nation’s fiscal situation worse; among others, economist Paul Krugman doesn’t think much of that report’s reasoning or logic.

OK, game time.  Here’s a list of how the members of the House voted on repeal of Obamacare; check to see if your rep, who campaigned as an agent of deficit reduction, got to Washington and started off by voting for a bill that would raise the deficit (if it ever became law, which it won’t).  Then you can  ask him/her what they hell they think they’re doing.

Weddings should be fun

Pat Ryan 2 Comments

…and this marriage got off on the right foot (in mouth):

Couldn’t resist…I laughed until I stopped

Why we are so polarized

Pat Ryan 10 Comments

A man opens fire on a crowd in front of a grocery store; six are dead and 13 more are wounded.  A quick and easy explanation that somehow blames a political enemy would be nice, right?  Not so fast…

doc4d290f6a042817218110492This discussion got jump-started last week after the Tucson shootings thanks to the rampant news media speculation that accused gunman Jared Loughner was encouraged in this crime by violent rhetoric from the political right.  It turns out, most Americans aren’t buying: in a CBS News poll nearly 60% say there is no connection at all.

But Loughner is mentally disturbed, and according to his friends his view of the world, and his imagined grudge against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, were influenced by extremist conspiracy theories (read about a couple of them here and here).  And so, some argue, Loughner is responsible for the crime but was influenced by a world in which violent rebellion against those who would hijack “our America” is seen as an heroic act.

…if you decide to go kill a bunch of innocent people, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not a picture of mental health. But that doesn’t sever the link between you and the people who inspired you, or insulate them from responsibility.

The quote is from Robert Wright’s Opinionator blog entry on Tuesday about the growing demonization of “the other” in our society.  He makes the point that any demagogue can whip up a fear frenzy among the gullible, that today’s technology allows each of us to shield ourselves from any competing point of view if we choose to, and that it’s easy to think the worst of people “you never communicate with, and whose views you never see depicted by anyone other than their adversaries.”

It feels true: most of us rarely discuss political issues with people who hold different views.  There seems to be no common ground from which to start a discussion, no one wants to hear what the other side has to say, and we end up beating each other over the head with talking points rather than exchanging ideas.

Paul Krugman attributes this to a deep divide in American political morality:

When people talk about partisan differences, they often seem to be implying that these differences are petty, matters that could be resolved with a bit of good will. But what we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government.

He does a good job identifying the roots of today’s ballistic political tone, attributing it to a morally-based difference of opinion about what is appropriate, or constitutional, for our government to be doing.  A disagreement stemming from moral belief, as Krugman believes this one is, would be a disagreement not easily reconciled.

That doesn’t give us permission to stop talking to each other, or stop trying to find common ground, or to subtly encourage violent means to win the moral struggle.  Because then nobody wins.