Skepticum

I’ve been away for a while and if you’ve read my other blog you know why.

I am writing here to committ to writing a post on Stephen King’s most recent novel Lisey’s Story

As soon as I can find longer than 30 minutes all in all I’ll give all the details on reading this book.

“Bool. The end. “

I learned about tolerance today, from Tony Long of Wired:

Slipped a homeless guy a buck the other day. After he mumbled off down the street, my companion sniffed her disapproval: “It only encourages them, you know. And he’ll just use it for drugs or alcohol.”

I had looked him squarely in his gimlet eye. I could smell his breath. Safe to say she was right.

“Who the hell cares what he uses it for?” I said. “If it kills the pain for a few hours, I’m happy to help.”

The do-gooders call this “enabling” and in their simple, black-and-white world this can do the poor street addict nothing but harm. I’ll agree it does him little good. But in the moment it took me to fish a dollar from my pocket, press it into his dirty hand and wish him luck, I connected with him, one human being to another.

Read on….

It might just be that this year I’ve been more aware of election campaigning than before, but I can’t help but wonder since when we have more “bashing” campaigns in Illinois than campaigns that inform us on what a candidate is all about.

Reading the news and watching TV I have not been able to understand what any of the candidates are standing for except for the current governor. In his case it’s clear what he stands for based on his current track record. For any other candidate one has to trust the Internet, hoping we can find accurate information on the candidates.

Bashing campaigns appear to have become the main campaigning method. Most issues used for “bashing” are: immigration and tax raises. Everybody claims the other candidate is in favor of giving illegal immigrants amnesty (in which case I’d be tempted to vote with the amnesty proponents), or the other candidate is for tax raises. Of course there are no real specifics in these ads, there are no arguments, just statements….

I expect that the average American will not put in unusual amounts of time to truly educate herself on the profile of a candidate. So I’m guessing the Illinois voter will most probably go by gut feeling, or party affiliation.

However, in terms of rhetoric, the anti-democrat campaigns all have to do with taxes and immigration. Since when is immigration right up there with taxes? Why isn’t anyone talking about health care, or the state education needs?

We, as a society have been reduced to arguments pro or against immigration. When the debate happened in Washington, it didn’t really hit home for me. Today it’s hitting home, because the election rhetoric in Illinois seems to be predominantly about immigration. Are we misplacing our frustration with how bad things are getting in Illinois? Are we once again avoiding responsibility about our role in our state’s welfare and placing the blame on “someone else”?

But remember this “someone else,” the immigrant, is part of our state….

… is collecting currently-recalled or soon-to-be-recalled toys.

I suggest we also ”recall” beans, peas, buttons, screws, mints, plant seeds, and any other item that a child could stick up her nose, or down her throat.

In case you think there’s a memo I missed, you are right–I missed the one about the mass US recalls of parent responsibility.

And if you’re wondering if I was being sarcastic or not–try and recall that!