Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Cho Seung-Hui, Poster Boy for Censorship or Bureacratic Failure?

Cho Seung-Hui, I won't commit his name to memory or learn to pronounce it, but everyone knows who he is, at least for a month or two, the psychopath that killed more than 30 people in Blacksburg Virginia, on the Virginia Tech campus.

As this tragedy is dissected in the national media, including the countless times this man/boy slipped through the grasp of safeguards in place to stop just such a thing happening, one thing jumps out at me; the way his writings are being used to bias a national public.

After this outrage, after the bodies are buried and grieving has been faced, will the only time we hear this sick, murderer's name be when some politician wants to advocate their issue on gun control or on censorship?

I've read the two plays that are up on AOL, they are bad. Yes, they are violent, but mostly they are just bad. In hindsight we can all say that they foreshadowed his actions, but it is not a direct line between violent, demented writing and killing spree.

Read the rest

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Why I Want the Olympics to be in Chicago

Chicago Olypic IconGrowing up nearly oblivious to Sports, and I guess that is saying that the Cubs don't count, I always knew about the Olympics. Every four years, Winter and Summer, I watched, along with everyone else in the neighborhood. I watched Ray Leonard win Gold with my Grandpa, one of the first and only things I ever got to share with him, and when I went to Germany for two years, I had something to cheer about on the televisions and against my German friends, nothing quite like having something to rub in or get rubbed in to make sure you are actually friends. Being in Europe for that one Olympics also made me realize just how seriously the international community takes it.

Moly's First WalkNow they are trying to get the 2016 Olympics in Chicago, and I am very excited about the prospect, because in 2016 my daughter will be nine years old, and to be able to take her to an Olympics game would be as special as anything I can think of.

Already, the traditional grumps are out. Talking about the traffic congestion, the constant media hype that will not stop, and how it will throw the city into debt. All of these issues are not enough to ruin my thoughts of taking my daughter into the city to see the spectacle of the Olympics. To realize that an entire world has sent it's best to compete. To see the greatest athletes of whatever sport she may admire compete, and to experience this with her Mom and Dad. It beats the Hell out of Disney world or the County Fair.

Hopefully, the Olympic committee will come through next year and make this Olympic bid a reality. Along with my dreams of spending countless precious moments with my daughter, downtown Chicago, watching it all.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Don Imus and his circus - One Last Time

The media bubble is nearly at his fullest around the ignorance of Don Imus. He has channeled some pathetic, humbled, spirit to make his continuing watered down apologies, once again missing the point.
"I'm not thinking it's a racial insult that's being uttered at somebody at the time. It's in the process of trying to rap and be funny." he said. But he added, "I wish I hadn't said it. I'm sorry I said it."

He has been suspended for two weeks and made a slew of new statements, looking and sounding very defeated. He put himself in the Dunce chair for Al Sharpton. After years of making fun of buffoons in the media, he is one. Am I the only on that sees the justice in this, despite being annoyed with it?

The only way that he really goes away is if people stop listening to him. I have met one person that listens to Don Imus, a hospital patient transplanted from the east coast that had him on MSNBC every morning. I liked the patient but never found enough interesting to listen to or watch Don Imus. So why have I wrote about him three times? Because of the media circus it has turned into, and as I said originally, before, just his viewers knew what he said, now the whole country knows. If I was a parent, I would be asking every media outlet why it is okay for them to REPEAT his comments over and over. Hold him accountable, and move on.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Illinois to Allow Illegals To Drive


I spent yesterday riding my bike around in the rain looking for a FAx Service because I didn't circle the day of the week on a fucking form to allow me extra driving time to go to counseling and AA meetings, holding up the process of allowing me to drive for at least another week, and they are going to ALLOW illegal aliens to drive?
In another example of the anal retentive state department, last week they sent everything back because my Doctor didn't date the medical release signature. which was away from where he signed, and the document was dated on the front already. That was another week lost to bureacratic B.S. I am quite sure they get assessed by the amount of "corrections" they find. It's like they all think they're Freshman English or Coms professors.
A Doctor oversight on a form that is irrelevant or a missed detail on an insignificant form are reasons to screech a regular TAX-PAYING citizen's driving privileges to a halt, but a little thing about sneaking in illegally, using illegal documents to work, drive, etc. are not? I am not against immigration, but it should be legal. Just letting them drive without making them be citizens?
Boggles my mind.