Thursday, March 15, 2007
2:18 PM on Thursday, March 15, 2007
Abler Minded: Late-night ponderings
By Pete Abler
Columnist
When I lie awake a night, a lot of thoughts and questions keep running through my mind. I will share the most notable ones with you.
Wouldn't it be a lot easier if one of the political parties would nominate a black or Hispanic woman for president? It would also be best if she were married to a man of Asian origin, although in a pinch the vice-president could be an Asian. That would answer a lot of those "Is the country ready for a ( ) president" questions.
I remember reading when Greenland was first discovered and explored, it was actually covered with grass and not ice - hence the name. Could the world have been a lot warmer back then? I wonder if a lot of folks got upset when Greenland iced over? Does anyone think solar radiation could be contributing to global warming today? I read Mars is also getting a lot hotter these days. Who is going to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, devoid of the political posturing?
I want someone to tell us how many trees have to be planted over how much acreage and how long it will take those trees after they are planted to remove one day's worth of worldwide carbon dioxide production from the atmosphere. I think the concept of carbon credits is really a shell game and the consumer is really the one who is going to get shafted. I guess I shouldn't be surprised in that regard.
We have far too many young girls who may see Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan as role models! How can we change that?
A teenager thinks it's fun to throw ice water on an elderly woman in a nursing home. Do you get the impression children are trying to see how outrageous they can be before we parents and adults do what we should actually be doing?
I wish someone would tell us how much of the Big Tobacco settlement money Minnesota received was actually spent on anti-smoking education and medical costs. I guess the Legislature took care of all that. Any organization that can vote itself a pay raise, even disguised as a per diem increase, should not be trusted in any matter. And yet, we assume they legislate with their sights on the best interests of all Minnesotans.
Are the forces of darkness that are hell-bent on banning smoking everywhere under the banner of "the right to breathe" going to attack flatulence next? Wouldn't it be logical to ban cigarettes outright or is it impractical to go without the tax revenue generated by the addicted smokers who will not be allowed to smoke anywhere?
Why does "education" get a pass when it comes to proving they really "need" the money they are asking for? We are now paying for early childhood education, when education in high school is suffering. We should be spending money to keep children in school until they are educated and mature enough to not become an immediate anchor on society. How on earth did we get Jonas Salk, Edward Teller, Malcolm Forbes, John F. Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and all the rest of the smart, successful leaders without the benefit of early childhood education, or even a village, in some cases?
And, this morning I read that our legislators have proposed making health insurance mandatory throughout the state with tax penalties for non-compliance. If the low-income people don't pay taxes, how can you penalize them? I suppose this will be as effective as mandatory insurance for drivers and vehicles or the DUI and DWI laws! Does DFL really stand for damn fool legislators?
What happened to the news media that reported what happened and the context in which it happened and left the interpretation of its significance to the receptor? Should news organizations be reporting the results of their own polls? The phrasing of the questions is skewed and misleading, the samples are suspect and the reporting of the results is blatantly slanted.
Political correctness is the antithesis of freedom of thought and expression and will result in a far greater tyranny than any of us can possibly imagine.
Well, that's what's been on my mind - usually between 2 and 4 a.m.
