Category: politics

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Not quite how I remember it

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

This article in the New York Times outlines what an Explorers group (a Boy Scouts of America co-ed affiliate program) are doing in Imperial, TX. What is it these Explorers are doing? You know…camping, backpacking, getting leadership skills, etc?

Give up?

Being trained to fight terrorism and serve as border-patrol agents.

We’re talking 14- to 16-year-old kids using air pellet guns to learn to chase “down illegal border crossers” and to experience “more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out ‘active shooters,’ like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses.”

Now, I realize that not all Explorer posts are doing this, but at least according to the article, while there are other Explorer posts more focused in science, aviation and medicine, “more than 2,000 law enforcement posts across the country are the Explorers’ most popular, accounting for 35,000 of the group’s 145,000 members.”

I just generally don’t like it, but I’m not sure I have a valid reason. Many of the boys in my Boy Scout Troop growing up were the kinds of kids that went hunting with their fathers every Fall and didn’t generally go on to big name colleges, let alone graduate school. Law enforcement is certainly a viable career choice and well-suited to people that have gone through the Scouting program, but it somehow feels like these kids are being used as a breeding ground for more law enforcement agents. There are all kinds of other activities that the skills from Boy Scouts can be very useful, including leadership and survival skills, as well as the ability to cooperate with other people for common goals. These are abilities that lend themselves to a wide variety of jobs, not just law enforcement or military.

I guess I’d just like to see a bit more variety. And the idea of having 14-year-old kids learning to take down someone crossing into the United States illegally seems a bit excessive.

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Playing For Change

Brooke was listening to Morning Edition this morning and heard this article about “Playing For Change.”

The general premise is that Mark Johnson, a producer in California, got this crazy idea to record street musicians performing well-known songs (like “Stand By Me,” above). The hook of this is that he (and his crew) traveled the world and recorded other street musicians singing/performing the same song, and then edited them together.

Really, it’s a neat idea and it gets you thinking about how a simple thing like music can bring people of completely different cultures, creeds and colors together like never before. The video above went viral on YouTube awhile back, but there are 6 other episodes on the website. They also have a CD/DVD available for purchase.

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Thanks, KMIZ…

So, KMIZ, the ABC affiliate out of Columbia, MO., made the national gaming news blogs with their coverage of the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, specifically with their interview of Andy Anderson, who said: “There is no reason an adult should have [Animal Crossing: City Folk]” for the Wii. The whole thing makes Missouri look pretty dumb, as nearly all of the posts say either “Missouri Police” or “a Missouri Task Force”…

In the original report from KMIZ, they write “If your kids play interactive video games, like the Nintendo Wii, be on the lookout. The Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force is warning of predators using games like, ‘Animal Crossing- City Folk,’ to target kids.” This statement is only a little bit sensationalist, but more importantly is quite mis-leading…

The game is kinda like Sim City or The Sims, but a bit more complicated (you can run a shop, go fishing, do some gardening, etc.) with interactions that you have with other people over the internet (using an included peripheral microphone that sits above your TV). The thing that the Wii does, however, is use “Friend Codes,” which is a 12-digit randomized number that an individual must input into their system in order to contact someone else (i.e. I have to have your Friend Code plugged in, and you have to have my Friend Code plugged in), soooooooo…I’m very curious how any pedophiles could even contact someone through the game, as it’s impossible without a Friend Code exchange. The only way it could work is if a child exchanged their Friend Code with a stranger through the interwebs, or in person…which is the parent’s fault, not the Wii’s.

The idea that this game shouldn’t be played by adults is also rather absurd, as it’s a pretty popular series and has been bought by millions of adults, not just kids. It certainly isn’t a game I’m interested in, but to say that only pedophiles play it, or that only kids should be allowed to play it, is absurd.

The key here, as always, comes down to one thing: the parents are responsible for keeping an eye on their kids. Parents should know what games their kids are playing, the books they’re reading, the television they watch, the movies they watch, the kids they interact with at school, etc…especially when they’re at a young age (obviously, the ability to monitor them by middle school/high school gets reduced…). If parents are going to allow their kids to play games on the internet with a PC, or use a console system like a Wii, the parents should know about the capabilities of the system (such as Parental Controls) and the kinds of games that are available.

For more information on all that, though, check out What They Play, which is the “parent’s guide to video games”…great site for all kinds of information, not just for parents…

People should stop blaming things on the medium and learn to take some responsibility…

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Battle Royale

The “media” has apparently been all over this supposed “battle” between Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” and Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show.” The whole thing started last week with Jon Stewart lambasting the financial news network for not seeing this crisis coming, while they were telling their viewers to “buy, buy, buy” a variety of stocks, including the companies that would fold in the coming weeks.

Well, the “media” made with it and ran, calling it a battle between Cramer (whom Stewart referred to, yes, but certainly didn’t focus on) and Stewart, culminating in Cramer coming on the “Daily Show” Thursday night for a looooooong interview…with Stewart, in the end, beating the crap out of Cramer.

Honestly, Jon Stewart is the best interviewer on television, as he can get away with asking almost anything and making his guests look like idiots. I really felt sorry for Jim Cramer. It’s an excellent interview and shines new light on the issue. You all should watch it!

Note: The video above is part 2 of 3 (the most interesting part, I think), but the whole interview is really good.

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A new day for science…

“Rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values,” Obama said. “In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering.”

As reported in an article from the Associated Press, President Obama recently reversed Bush policies that disallowed the use of embryonic stem cells in research paid for by NIH funding (except for a select few stem cell lines that were already available, but few of those were considered useful by the scientists using them).

For those that don’t know, the NIH (National Institutes of Health) comprise the vast majority of research dollars spent in America, not only funding public entities but also private, through your tax dollars. For the most part, in order to reach tenure at a research-driven university, you need what’s known as an “R01” NIH grant, usually giving $1 million in funding for a period of 5 years (with the possibility of renewal). That’s why Bush’s policy was such a big deal. By saying that “no NIH funding will pay for embryonic stem cell research,” he essentially limited the funding to select funding bodies (e.g. foundation grants), meaning that what could have been lots of research into stem cells over the last 8 years turned into very little.

So, on the one hand, it’s a big deal that stem cell research is back in the purview of the NIH. The more important part for me, and for the rest of the country, is the other part(s) of Obama’s speech today, outlined above: political ideology will no longer play a massive role in what’s funded and what isn’t by the NIH; science will again have a voice in government; and scientific thinking will have a friend in the White House.

If evidence shows that embryonic stem cells was a stupid thing to look at, then by all means its funding will be cut. However, if it shows promise, more money will go to it and it will provide all the cures that have been promised (that remains to be seen, in my opinion…). That’s how a lot of science works, through Natural Selection: the programs that are productive, find cures and discover new treatments to help people are the ones that are favored. Government policy shouldn’t try to limit these solutions before they’re even tried, especially when based on misguided ideology and/or lobbying groups. As Obama points out:

“But let’s be clear: promoting science isn’t just about providing resources – it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda – and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

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Inside the Meltdown

The PBS news magazine, Frontline, ran this story, Inside the Meltdown, on Tuesday night. It’s an hour long (you can full-screen it at their website, or from here), but it’s well worth the time if you’ve got it.

Essentially, it goes through the events beginning with the Bear Stearns bailout (March 2008) and goes up through the end of 2008. It goes into a lot of depth, but makes it very understandable…arguably, the most “understandable” I’ve had all this craziness explained to me. For example, it explains by Bear Stearns was bailed out and why Lehman Brothers wasn’t, and it also goes into what was happening within the Treasury Department and on Wall Street while everything was going down. There were a lot of things inter-connected, but this explains it with relative simplicity.

The focus on Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is rather interesting, too, especially his deep aversion to government intervention in the economy. You can see the look on his face as he has to make all these announcements of how the government is buying up debt and taking stakes in banking companies. You have to wonder if he doubts his all-mighty “free market” after having to do all this.

Rather fascinating. Glad I don’t have much money in our mutual fund…

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Great Moments in Presidential Speeches

Update: From David Letterman’s “Great Moments” re-cap on January 16, 2009:

I ran across this page at Rawstory.com and decided to replicate it here, although I already have a similar page up in my Quotes section of the blog. Needless to say, I’m trying to help celebrate the end of the Bush Presidency… w00t, January 20th! Can’t get here soon enough!

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“They misunderestimated me,”
— Bentonville, Arkansas, November 6, 2000

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again,”
— Nashville, Tennessee, September 17, 2002

“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office,”
— to Israeli journalists in Washington in an interview published May 12, 2008.

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we,”
— Washington, August 5, 2004

“For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times,”
— Tokyo, February 18, 2002

“I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend,”
— on the prospect of visiting Denmark, Washington, June 29, 2005

“Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech,”
— Washington April 16, 2008 to Pope Benedict XVI.

“I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office,”
— Washington, June 26, 2008

“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully,”
— Saginaw, Michigan, September 29, 2000

“Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country,”
— Poplar Bluff, Missouri, September 6, 2004

“It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber,”
— Washington, April 10, 2002

“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
— Florence, South Carolina, January 11, 2000

“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test,”
— Townsend, Tennessee, February 21, 2001

“My fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended… The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free,”
— USS Abraham Lincoln at sea off the coast of San Diego, California, May 1, 2003

“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense,”
— Washington, April 18, 2006

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A step too far?

So, I heard this mentioned a few weeks ago on a video game blog I listen to: if you don’t like the message of the songs presented in the popular Guitar Hero or Rock Band franchises, you’re in luck, ’cause now there’s Guitar Praise!! You can how have “inspirational fun” with 52 songs from Christian bands like Skillet, Petra and Casting Crowns!

But that’s not all! Remember the seemingly unstoppable”High School Musical” franchise? Well, maybe some of the themes in those movies are questionable…but you’re in luck there too, ’cause now there’s “Sunday School Musical!” An “inspirational story” about a group of kids that enter a music competition to save their church from closing! Watch the trailer – it’s gripping…

So yeah, perhaps I’m wrong (and I usually am…), but isn’t this a step too far? I understand that the “High School Musical” franchise is primarily watched by middle school-aged kids (as opposed to actual high school kids), perhaps exposing them to some themes that aren’t exactly age appropriate…but shouldn’t it be the parent’s responsibility to limit that exposure? Or the fact that music from Guitar Hero or Rock Band are on the radio/TV all the time….wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to your kids about the themes in popular music rather than simply ignoring them and avoiding them? Isn’t it better to teach kids how to handle a variety of media that they may be exposed to on a daily basis…rather than trying to keep it from them only to have them see it on their own at a friend’s house, not knowing how to treat it?

It seems to me that, while I don’t have any kids (besides a very lazy beagle), I’d want to help my children integrate into the world around them efficiently and effectively, rather than shelter them to the point where they may not know how to deal with what’s really out there until they leave home and go to college.