Doc's Place: News and politics

John

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 04:11:35 GMT

I know I cried the day he was shot in Dealey Plaza. The assassination was announced over the school's P.A. system and all the students in our band class sat in stunned silence. School was closed for the three days while official preparations were made and he lay in state. He was finally borne on the historic horse drawn caisson from his Funeral Mass to his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

I know that a large part of my innocence also died during that week when I heard some adults stating that they were glad he was dead and that it should have happened sooner. I don't believe that I knew how to hate before that. My areas of interest in psychology were certainly influenced as a result of materials such as the following which later came to light:

I know that I have only liked or trusted a total of three politicians since his death. I was relatively quiet and circumspect about it, but I became radicalized as I tried to grasp the concept of a very charismatic and effective president being slaughtered by either a madman or a larger plot. As a few years passed and the nation's situation worsened, an "invitation" was extended to me to join the Weatherman faction of the SDS. I didn't accept the offer, but I'm sure I must appear somewhere on the fringes of photos of later protest rallys. I don't understand why it still surprises me that the normal, average citizen still does not "get it" when the overall political climate of today is concerned. But they don't.

Sunny Dallas day

Abruptly Camelot ends

Spray of rose and gray

Peace, Doc

Drawdown

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:36:47 GMT

What more need be said?

From Slate e-zine, artist Powell.

Peace, Doc

The Newspaper

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:15:42 GMT

Some months back I posted a rant about Truthiness, Justices, and the Americano Way. Very recently a newspaper article was found in the pages of a book owned by my grandfather, R. P. Blood, M.D. (Yes, you just found out why this Space, two web sites, and other blogs are named as they are. The names are really my cryptic tribute to him as he was always known as Doc Blood or R.P. I've always preferred Tom.) Da-niece emailed me the newspaper article below along with some rabid Democratic material (she comes from good stock!) The article deals with what a newspaper should be, maybe once was, and surely translates into what the electronic news sources of today could be.

THE NEWSPAPER

By Professor F. N. Scott. (March 6, 1918)

Mirror of the public mind; interpreter of the public intent; troubler of the public conscience.

Reflector of every human interest; furtherer of every righteous cause;

encourager of every generous act.

Bearer of intelligence; dispeller of ignorance and prejudice; a light shining into all dark places.

Promoter of civic welfare and civic pride; bond of civic unity; protector of civic rights.

Scourge of evil doers; exposer of secret iniquities; unrelenting foe of privilege and corruption.

Voice of the lowly and oppressed; advocate of the friendless; righter of

private and public wrongs.

Chronicler of facts; sifter of rumors and opinions; minister of the truth that makes men free.

Reporter of the new; remembrancer of the old and tried; herald of what is to come.

Defender of civil liberty; strengthener of loyalty; pillar and stay of

democratic government.

Upbuilder of the home; nourisher of the community spirit; art, letters, and science of the common people.

Copied from:

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

PROSE AND VERSE

1775-1918

These ideals should be learned by heart by every American citizen and transmuted into character.

Indeed, had we all been doing these things for the last century, perhaps we wouldn't be in the fix we are in today! May this country WAKE UP and realize that the media has the fix on us ALL and NOW is the time to do something about it!

Even my personal choices of news media come far from meeting the standards proposed in 1775-1918, and I try for the least biased and most comprehensive of them. I recognize that "spin" is everpresent and that it is all but impossible for me to know enough about a particular bit of news to evaluate it accurately. I hate being manipulated and it retroactively angers me when I discover that it has happened again. I can easily enough gauge the difference between "cut and run" versus "get our troops out of a theocratic civil war." It is the much more subtle differences in spin that are so difficult to discern. Those reports where a single word or omission of one can change the effect of the entire story. Possibly the reporter or news source doesn't even recognize that they are biased. Arrgghh! One way I have tried to seek the truth is to find the most biased sources from all camps and then try to determine where the truth lies (pun intended) by noting where they are kicking each other. I would be very interested in reading how others gather the media information they need to make decisions, find accurate reporting, know who they want to vote for, and hopefully find some truth.

Peace, Doc

"Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain't saying anything." - Will Rogers

Electronic Voting Fraud

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 09:16:32 GMT

Once upon a time, when I still held some poorly informed beliefs that our leaders were basically honest, I thought that electronic voting was the wave of the future. We could eliminate the need for an outdated electoral college where a few votes could decide an entire election, and generally, the corruption associated with congress and the president following the will of special interests rather than that of the citizenry. The same thoughts apply to State, Local, and Referendum elections. Wouldn’t it be nice to actually have that fantasyland where one could vote from home, be certain the vote would be counted properly, and that the election issue was immediate and quickly resolved? I still believe that it would be good, but is unlikely to happen in my lifetime.

I have served for a number of years as a local election judge and found the system used quite adequate as current elections go. We used paper ballots and somehow never had a problem with hanging or pregnant chads, absentee voting, provisional voting, or most of the rest of the disaster stories one reads. In the last election, my county decided to use electronic voting. I went to the required training on the machines’ use and left wondering if anyone would end up actually casting the vote they intended. The county in which I reside requires a paper trail and a voter receipt to be produced for each vote cast (or spoiled.) The representative of the company supplying the machines who taught the class seemed offended that their system had to be modified in this manner and only saw it as a complication. Until that election, I had also served as the supply judge, which simply meant I picked up all the voting materials and made sure all, along with the sealed and certified results, in the company of a representative of the other political party, were returned to the election commission for tabulation. When the electronic system was adopted, the machines were delivered “somewhere” and a supply judge was to be present when they were delivered days before the election, and picked up days later. I was not the supply judge nor was I able to serve in that particular election. I will most certainly be a judge at the mid-terms.

One organization that has very revealing information and which appeared to me to be politically unbiased is Black Box Voting. I thought it looked fair so I wasn’t really all that surprised to find that it was the very top listing when I Googled “electronic voting fraud.” Organizations such as MoveOn are also good. The ease with which electronic voting can be hacked is simply stunning. I suggest that if you want your vote to count as you cast it, that you have a look at these organizations or search “voting machine fraud” yourselves. Nothing much is at stake here folks, except possibly freedom and democracy.

Peace, Doc

Independence

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:36:35 GMT

Today is the day the United States celebrates its independence. I can think of no better way to express my feelings about the current state of affairs in our land than to quote the man for whom I cast my first ballot in the Democratic primary election in which he ran against Bobby Kennedy.

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."
- Eugene McCarthy

Peace, Doc

Truthiness, Justices, and the Americano Way

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 04:18:41 GMT

It may only be me, or it may be the mid term elections coming up, or people noticing that words are not matching actions recently, but I sense a change. Has our collective attention been diverted from our personal and local problems in daily life for so long that we just tripped over them again? Falling on one’s face certainly makes one more attentive to the solidity of what one has just hit. I can personally attest to that.

At one time in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s media announcers, reporters, and anchors were being chosen, in part, by the amount of Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) they could induce in an audience that was being measured for physiological, emotional response. The amount of emotion the reporter could produce was apparently as important as the news that was being reported. Ratings. This ability may still be important today, but the constant repetition of disasters, wars, politics, judicial selection, racial and religious unrest, and the like has seemingly served to desensitize us to the actual content, and the announcers’ emotionality serves only to irritate us. Where is one to find unbiased information about current events? That is a real question. I do not even have much trust in the Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, or CNN. Someone out there should develop a rating system for truth in news reporting on which every source could be evaluated for bias of any kind. I am not so naïve as to believe that anyone is in possession of the “absolute truth.” Perhaps there is no such thing. However, having some measure of how to evaluate truth from “truthiness” would be a wonderful thing to have. So would a chilidog with cheese and onions.

Too many people

With too many agendas

What do we believe?

Peace, Doc

Sunshine

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:49:47 GMT

Desert sun shining

Through low bid body armor

Leaks the scent of death

Peace, Doc

Goodbye, Eugene.

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:11:15 GMT

To Eugene McCarthy who died today at age 89: Goodbye and Godspeed, Eugene. I cast my very first vote for you.

Peace, Doc

Flag Burning.

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:34:11 GMT

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill banning the burning of the US flag. This bill will go to the Senate soon with the best chance of passage since the Supreme Court overturned a Texas law (along with those of 48 other states) banning flag burning under the protection of free expression of unpopular opinions (free speech.) Let me be clear. I feel very lucky to have been born and raised in the USA and I belive strongly that I should uphold its laws and principles and honor the brave men and women that preserve those freedoms for us. From the deep, dark recesses of my childhood memories of being a Cub Scout, however, I thought I remembered something about the proper disposal of a damaged or worn out flag. So I Googled "US flag disposal" and found the following:

"SUGGESTED PROCEDURE FOR INDIVIDUALS TO USE IN PRIVATE OR PUBLIC FOR DISPOSING OF A TORN, SOILED, OR BADLY FADED U.S. FLAG.

1. The flag should be folded in its customary manner. (See current Program Chairman's booklet or VFW ritual.)

2. It is important that the fire be sizeable and of sufficient intensity to ensure complete burning of the flag.

3. Place the flag on the fire.

4. The individual (s) can come to attention, salute the Flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance and have a brief period of silent reflection.

5. After the flag is completely consumed, the fire should then be safely extinguished and the ashes buried.

6. Please make sure you are conforming to local/state fire codes or ordinances.

Approved for distribution by the VFW National Citizenship Education and Community Service committee, September 18, 2000."

Fire? Burn? Texas? Of course the real issue here is one of respect versus disrespect. The last time I remember flag burning being a major problem was during the Viet Nam era wherein a sizeble portion of the nation did not believe that we should be in "the Nam" to begin with. As more and more information about the war in Iraq and the decisions that led to it become public knowledge I can't help feeling that we've been there before.

Thank you to the brave soldiers in Iraq. I do indeed pray for you. But somehow I don't believe that President Bush will read this entry.

Peace, Doc