Comments Posted By 11B40
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 10 Comments
Greetings:
I get my television the old-fashioned way, over the air. In the wake of the government's analog-to-digital TV conversion, I began getting a number of different stations, perhaps to replace the one's I lost. One that I now enjoy is a Korean station, KBS. Thankfully, many of its programs have English subtitles. The station broadcasts a number of serial historical dramas about Korea's admittedly much longer history. What has struck me is how much, as opposed to American TV, KBS' program affirm and support Korean values. Respect for elders, those in authority, Korean culture, even Korea's military draft are affirmed even by Korean celebrities. But, it's those historical dramas, with their choppy-choppy and Dragon Ladies that are my guilty pleasures. Hopefully, after a while, I will get better at recognizing who is who.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 9.01.2010 @ 20:32
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS SATURDAY
Greetings:
President Obama's comment about the opposition to his "initiatives" is the flip side of the damning with faint praise coin. In the video, he assumes his most beatific countenance and then releases his opponents from responsibility for their ignorance and malfeasance in an act of near total forgiveness. It is one of the many poses that he returns to and will continue to return to time and time again. It is a pose and he is the poseur.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 19.09.2009 @ 21:01
Greetings:
Back when I was studying Public Administration, there was a concept that all my professors thought important. It was referred to as “fundamentalism versus incrementalism”. “Fundamentalism” described a situation like when the FDR administration first established the Social Security system. “Incrementalism” would cover the subsequent tax rate and benefit adjustments to the system.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 12.08.2009 @ 19:33
I think that it’s unfortunate that the Obama administration and the Congress have neglected this part of the issue. Neither group seems interested in or capable of standing back and saying, “If we had no healthcare insurance system at all, what would we want it to do or not to do.
Lately. I have been thinking about a car insurance analogy. These days most employees drive automobiles but very few employers provide car insurance for them. Our automobiles, if looked at as assets, have two kinds of potential liabilities, operational (crashes) and mechanical. Car insurance protects the owner from operational liabilities. I’m not aware or any car insurance for mechanical difficulties, preventive or otherwise which most owners seem to be able to handle financially. Lastly, car insurance is legally mandatory in most states.
When I bought my first car, my father thought I bought too much insurance coverage for it. What he told me was that insurance is to protect your assets and I didn’t, at that time, have many assets to protect. I think that there’s a bit of a healthcare insurance lottery mentality alive in our land. The obvious “max-max” case is that someone else pays for your “first dollar coverage” insurance. ?The “min-min” case would be someone who, while able to afford coverage foregoes it incurs medical expenses that are transferred to the society at large.? To me, both these examples are irresponsible.
I haven’t come up with a solves-all-the-problems solutions at this point. My major concern is that nobody seems interested in first coming up with a “map” of where the system is now and then one of where we want to end up with a “road-map” for the in between.
Greetings:
Well, if it's any solace, my father used to say, "In baseball all you have to do is play .500 ball and get hot in September." Times may have changed somewhat since the '50s and the '60s (last time I looked only two teams were playing .600 ball), what with all the player mobility and the lack of emphasis on the "regular" season record as opposed to getting into the playoffs. But it's still all about putting the wood on the ball.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 2.08.2009 @ 18:35
A FEW RAMBLING THOUGHTS ON THE GATES AFFAIR
Greetings:
I grew up in the Bronx of the '50s and '60s, back when the beat cop would come down the block flipping his nightstick. If he didn't like what he saw of you and your friends, you would get a standard "Move along" or perhaps a "Keep it down". "Sassing", as Mr. Coates terms it, was considered bruise-worthy.
Mr. Coates seems to suggest a "right to sass" and it seems to me that his concept has taken hold with certain parts of our society. When I see how some members of minority groups treat the police officers with whom they come in contact, I know that if I were a police officer, I would not be able to put up with it.
My question to Mr. Coates and his fellow travelers would be, in this day and age, in what other job would it be permissible for employees to be so treated? Would not an employer have an obligation to protect his employees from mistreatment and/or harassment? Do other individuals have a right to sass Mr. Coates?
I see this as an attempt to establish some kind of affirmative action program for minority group acting out; another attempt to define deviancy downward. If "contempt of cop" isn't against the law, maybe it should be.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 25.07.2009 @ 23:54
Greetings:
Back in the '60s, I went to opening day at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox were in town and they had a rookie pitcher, Bill Rohr, on the mound. The game was actually kind of boring until about the sixth inning when everyone seemed to notice that the rookie had a no-hitter going. In the bottom of the ninth, Elston Howard, the Yankee catcher, came up to bat and hit a single. He was a popular player, but the fans actually booed him. Needless to say, he was a bit shocked by that response, but after a pretty boring game, I guess the fans wanted to be able to say they saw a no hitter.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 23.07.2009 @ 18:15
IS 'BARACK THE MAGIC NEGRO' RACIST?
Greetings:
What's Black & White and red all over?
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 27.12.2008 @ 21:27
OBAMA: THE NEW LEFT TRIUMPHANT
Greetings:
Social justice like Lenin and Stalin wanted to bring to the Russian people.
Social justice like Mussolini wanted to bring to the Italian people.
Social justice like Hitler wanted to bring to the German people.
Social justice like Mao wanted to bring to the Chinese people.
Etc, etc, etc.
Do you think that incipient despots admit to themselves that it's the power that's the lure? The social justice is just the marketing spin.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 27.10.2008 @ 19:01
THE "PATRIOTISM" ISSUE REARS ITS UGLY HEAD
Greetings:
When I was a youngster, my father had a summer cabin in upstate New York. Down the road, we had a neighbor who was a professional magician. One of the secrets he shared with me was not to look where the magician wanted you to look.
Senator Obama is quite expert at getting people to look where he wants them to. He can wax poetic about his patriotism when he wants to, but the proof of the pudding is elsewhere. Verbally, he can affirm his willingness to shed his blood but I don't see any discharge papers or Purple Hearts. He wears no lapel pin but has no compunction to line up eight flags behind him when it serves his purpose. He and his wife have benefited from opportunities available to only a few and yet his wife's comments about paying off student loans, this country being mean, and her being proud of her country don't survive the consistency test.
Senator Obama would have us believe he is a uniter, but his associates seem only to be from one (far) end of the political spectrum. We are to believe he is post-partisan yet his voting record is the most liberal in the US Senate. We are to believe that his lack of managerial leadership experience is an asset in a time of war on two fronts. If his judgement can be so far off on these issues, why should anyone accept his self-assessment of his patriotism?
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 4.05.2008 @ 20:16
Greetings:
Moral superiority is the cocaine of the 21st Century.
Comment Posted By 11B40 On 13.04.2008 @ 20:04
