If we don't get our priorities straight we'll get bent…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 10:05 AM Permalink
…in a manner that will really hurt.
I speak of a new Microsoft commercial where a rather ordinary man is greeted by applause and accolades while written narrative points out that the man helped create the USB port, now so ubiquitous I don't think there are any new computers being made without one or two. While the man waves, smiles, fills his coffee cup the voice over points out that they, Microsoft, have a different standard by which they determine their heroes.
I think this is the greatest commercial ever made as it points out such a glaring mistake now routinely made in America and elsewhere: We heap accolades, and big bucks, on 'stars' and 'heroes' based on their ability to hit a running man with a football or basketball so he can then score points in a
game of absolutely no historical significance except to the players, who may then demand, and get, salaries in the millions of dollars.
We routinely call men of sports, singers who have made millions, and people such as actors heroes and stars, larger than life, commanding the attention of millions and enjoying seemingly unending adulation. Anyone remember how the Roman Empire ultimately failed because it, too, got into hero worship and the games they played while their empire collapsed around them? (And, yes, I know this is an oversimplification of the fall of the Roman Empire, but this worship of men as idols because they could slay more slaves than anyone else contributed heavily to the collapse.
Personally I believe it is already too late to to change this paradigm and return to the days when men like Nikola Tesla (without whom we would not have AC power, the electric motors he designed that remain the best and most efficient motors ever, the "step-up" or Tesla coils that enabled the advent of television, enabled cars to generate the high voltage required to run them, and many other inventions of which we will never know as the government seized his labs and classified all is work 'top secret'. Men like George Westinghouse who spread the wiring for carrying AC current tremendously after Tesla sold him the patent for AC electricity for $5,000 so Westinghouse could have it to use at the 1905 world fair, Henry Ford and other engineers that forever changed transportation and shipping; the railroad barons with the foresight to lay tracks from shore to shore; the Wright Brothers who brought us flight [and were probably rewarded with the most fame]; and countless engineers, mechanical engineers, architects, and other unrecognized persons who are directly responsible for building the greatest nation on earth, which has done nothing but atrophy and which continues to fall apart at an ever faster rate.
That's why I'm so impressed with the Microsoft commercial, but it simply doesn't go far enough. While countries like China graduate around 9,000 engineers a year the United States graduates a paltry 900 or so. With that kind of superiority in the pursuit and application of knowledge it is no wonder America is falling behind so rapidly as to be considered irrelevant.
An easy example: my Warrior Woman wife is Filipina. The Philippines started programs years ago to improve their electrical and computer hardware so now a country years and years behind us in so many areas have cheap cell phones, able to call everywhere in the Philippines and, check this out, internet access SIXTEEN TIMES faster than our best rates of transmission.
Why? Because it is a matter of pride and hard work that the country has made graduating engineers a priority, as have so many nations. America the leader in innovation and new inventions? I think not. We're too busy educating engineering students from India, China, Singapore, and many other countries and then, with no prospects of working with genuinely cutting edge companies, they return home educated, celebrated by their citizenry, and ready, able, and capable of helping their country surpass America at every turn.
If our leaders expect us to 'invent new technologies' and count on our 'innovation' to restore America to greatness, then they better glorify, support, and give incentives to TV shows like Numb3rs and start programs to locate, identify potential engineers, pay for their education, housing, cars, a very generous salary and glorify those people as the heroes that will most benefit society and change forever the paradigm that says the man who can score the most points
in a game of sport does nothing to advance technological achievements or improve the human condition. They are NOT heroes or stars or even of modest benefit to America.
Engineers build roads, bridges, railroads, highways and maintain and invent new infrastructure.
Show me a single sports team that has accomplished anything for America other than providing entertainment and getting cheap land and massive tax breaks for their stadiums that exacerbate the problem. Go ahead, I dare you.
MEA CULPA: This wonderful commercial is from INTEL and not Microsoft. I have no idea how I got Microsoft fixed in my head as the creators of this commercial, but if I could fix my head I wouldn't know how to act. I apologize to Intel and our dear readers for the gear slippage to which I occasionally (o.k.,
often) fall prey. This mistake was mine, mine tell you all mine, completely in it's entirety and anyone claiming otherwise should write me if they wish to assume this mistake in my behalf (the going price for assuming blame is a dollar twenty-two ninety five and a kewpie doll freshly smuggled in from Kewpie Land.)
The rest of my comments above are still accurate as far as I am concerned, so there.
Labels: economic disparity, Economy, Education, Fiscal irresponsibility, incompetent leaders, neglect, random thoughts
Congressional Resolutions to Waste Time - Ugh
posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:36 PM Permalink
As a disabled or "medically retired" veteran with entirely too much time on my hands I usually listen to C-Span (for the House) and C-Span 2 (for the Senate) while I'm surfin' for a subject on which to post, and there's something about the way they conduct business in both bodies that I find disturbing.
It is bad enough that the Republicans, pursuant to instructions given by their true leader, Grover Norquist, are dedicating themselves to absolute obstructionism to prevent "anything good from coming out of this Congress", but the endless stream of Republican sycophants either bitching, moaning, and screaming about unfairness (which is comical enough by itself after the way the GOP destroyed any shred of honor there used to be in being a politician), but the inane BS that they, and some Democrats, bring to the floor is stupid, time-consuming, and without relevance to 99.85% of the country.
Just now they passed a Resolution congratulating some basketball team for winning some championship or another (I apologize to any b-ball fans, I just don't follow the sport).
Aren't there two wars we're losing? Hasn't the country come ever so close to a financial collapse from the weight of budget and trade deficits? Aren't more children than ever going to bed hungry? Aren't there more people than ever without health insurance? Hasn't the "housing bubble" burst and aren't more foreclosures happening than ever before in history? Aren't our seniors getting royally screwed by Medicare Plan B? Why has our GDP shrunk to a growth rate of 1.5%, the worst in years? Aren't more jobs going overseas than ever before?
In other words, in times of peace and prosperity such nonsense as a representative wanting to congratulate his local sports team with a resolution might be fine and dandy.
But right now I believe this is a dangerous distraction and waste of precious congressional time and resources that would be better devoted to solving serious problems than bragging about a person's favorite sports team and wasting time with nonsense resolutions of no import whatever to 90% of the country.
If this is the kind of crap they are going to use congressional time, resources, and facilities on, why don't they just divide congress into volleyball teams and show the taxpayers how their money is really being spent?
Labels: GOP, neglect
Remember Thompson's Warning Re: Food Supply
posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:20 PM Permalink
There are a couple of things that come immediately to mind regarding the pet food recall.
One, that in an effort to save possibly a few pennies a can, which would be quite significant with pet food a $4 billion dollar a year industry, the pet food suppliers bought the very cheapest wheat glutin available and then failed to test it for foreign chemicals or substances before tossing it into the pet food chain. Now hundreds of pets are dead, including my beloved Boston Terrier, Mila's Goliath, and day-to-day and minute-to-minute constant companion, who, without any conceivable or observable cause literally dropped dead while playing with my other two Bosties. I'll never know if it was the Purina Alpo foods in gravy or not, but G-dog (Goliath's nickname) died within one week of a health check-up that showed he was in perfect health.
Second, it always struck me as weird that when Tommy Thompson retired as health secretary, he openly said that he was very surprised that the terrorists has not yet struck at our very vulnerable food chain.
What better way to find out just how vulnerable food-producers and canners are to "the big deal", a product so far under their current cost that everyone jumps on board to buy the super-cheap product to increase their profit margin and keep up with the competition? Especially if it is known that the super-cheap product will not be checked for chemicals and poisons?
I think we may be very lucky that, in this case, the product involved wasn't made for human consumption, but had it been, it could be hundreds of Americans dying instead of their pets.
We the people are the ones who would suffer from such an attack, as apparently there are no longer adequate inspections of food products entering the country. Yet again another hallmark of the now infamous incompetency of bush/cheney.
Labels: Crime, neglect
Top Brass Knew and Did Nothing for the Troops
posted by Bill Arnett @ 9:49 AM Permalink
Yesterday I posted my take on the mistreatment and abuse, yes
abuse, of our wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. By now most bloggers at least and some MSM press, such as the WaPo, know several things that are disheartening at best, criminally negligent at worst, and the exposing of military leadership that not only allowed our wounded heroes to languish in squalor in Building 18, but when the troops, in desperation, turned to the press to attempt prodding action from their superiors they found themselves in trouble instead.
Now the wounded will be required to arise at 6 a.m. and stand inspection at 7 a.m., something even healthy soldiers are not usually required to do after basic training – unless it is for purposes of punishment. Their platoon leaders have been reassigned, the army is bring in new staff, and the troops have been ordered not to speak to the press.
Today, in this article from the WaPo written by
Anne Hull and Dana Priest we learn that Building 18 has been the subject of complaints for years, that top army brass were advised many times of the deplorable conditions in Building 18, that they did absolutely nothing but try to keep the situation covered-up, and that
at least one U.S. Representative and his wife knew of this, also complained about it to top brass, and when nothing was done the congressman and his spouse quit visiting the wounded in Building 18 in favor of visiting wounded housed in better conditions.How sick, twisted, and perverted can army brass and congressmen be to not bring this to the attention of the full congress, both bodies, and press for solutions? How sick is it that the squalid conditions would so disgust a congressman and his wife that after their meager, ineffectual, and un-pursued complaints failed to effectuate a change, they would simply change which facility in which they visit the wounded so that their delicate sensibilities would not be offended? How sick have we become as a society when this is not only known, but allowed to exist? How sick? How twisted? How perverse?
I don't want this post to go on forever, so now it is time to name names. From the article:
…Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told.…Retired Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Farmer Jr., who commanded Walter Reed for two years until last August, said that he was aware of outpatient problems…he turned over command to Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman…In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration…Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times.…Chief Warrant Officer Jayson Kendrick, an outpatient, attended a sensing session, the Army's version of a town hall meeting where concerns are raised in front of the chain of command.…An inspector general attending the meeting "chuckled and said, 'What do you want, pool tables and Ping-Pong tables in there?' " Kendrick recalled… Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment.… Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes.…
So there it is in all its ugliness and standing as proof that even top army brass, as well as a Republican congressman, and the former Secretary of Defense do not and have not "support[ed] the troops" for years now. Please read the full article, it is so rich in detail and really highlights the depth of the immorality displayed here.
If this does not abolish forever the myth that Republicans care about the troops then our society has degenerated to the point where as a people we may never again regain what used to be the best traits of Americans.
Mothers, don't let your children grow up to be military men and women, for they will be used, abused, pushed past the breaking point and then, if wounded, provided substandard care in conditions that would embarrass a third-world banana republic.
They knew. They knew and did nothing. They knew and betrayed and abused the troops anyway. They knew and cannot deny it. They knew.
Labels: abuse of the wounded, neglect, veteran health care
