Here are some questions I’ve been
churning in my head lately. Perhaps you can help me wrap my mind around the
answers.
- Recalling that “the medium is the message” (see my 3-part series on Marshall McLuhan in February and March of last year), what inventions or discoveries in human history rival the iPhone’s message (i.e., its effect on society)?
o
Television and radio, perhaps?
o
Antibiotics?
o
The wheel?
o
Discovery of fire?
- Why do some people get so upset about who other people love? Why can’t we all just effing leave each other alone and mind our own business?
- Why are we still fighting in Afghanistan?
- Regarding the state of news reporting today—
o
Is there any such thing as real journalism anymore,
or is it all just infotainment?
o
Would Edward R. Murrow consider Rush Limbaugh an
ignorant vulgarian, beneath his contempt?
- On the prison system—
o
Why does the U.S. have 25% of the world’s jailed
prisoners but only 5% of the world’s population? Is it because our “war on
drugs” is working really well?
o
Why did California spend nearly twice as much on
prisons last year than it did on higher education? (Other states had similar
numbers.) Is it because they value what people learn in prison more than what
they would learn if they were in college? Or is it because to go to college is to
be a snob, as Rick Santorum says?
- Regarding the health reform law:
o
Tea Party leaders oppose it and healthcare
professionals support it. Who do you suppose knows more about the subject?
o
Why don’t people realize that “insurance”
involves spreading risk and that the
only way we can begin to get costs under control is for everyone to share that
risk? (Even the Heritage Foundation proposed an “individual mandate” 25 years
ago.)
o
Every other civilized country covers its citizens’
healthcare needs, but we have the most expensive, least efficient system on the
planet and it doesn’t cover everyone. Is that perhaps because the “free market”
doesn’t work well for healthcare?
o
Have we forgotten that according to the Constitution a purpose of the Federal Government is to “promote the general Welfare”?
- Considering the presidential nomination process:
o Other than pollsters, lobbyists and the media, who
benefits from the months-long primary season?
o
Do we get better presidential candidates now
than years ago when party bosses picked them?
o
What happened to critical thinking skills? Is it
too much to ask that politicians use them?
o
Why would a candidate ever take a “pledge” to do
or not do something? Perhaps they have forgotten Ralph Waldo Emerson’s admonition:
"A
foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen
and philosophers and divines. "
And on a lighter note—
- Casablanca turns 70 this year. Here’s looking at you, kid!
Why couldn’t Portland have Southern
California weather? And why is it so oddly wonderful and wonderfully odd?
- How could two of the three toilets on my flight home go out of service for four hours?
- Did my seatmate on the flight have one too many? Does she forget Dorothy Parker’s little ditty:
I like to drink a Martini,
But only two at the most.
Three I’m under the table,
Four I’m under the host.
Finally, not exactly a light note, but a quote that's appropriate for
this week's Supreme Court arguments:
Every power vested in a
Government is
in its nature sovereign, and includes by force
of the term, a
right to employ all means requisite and
fairly applicable to the attainment of
the ends of such power.
–A. Hamilton (Founding Father), speaking about
the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.
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