Bimbos and Stud Muffins

It probably started with reality shows about "wealthy" bachelors pursued by women who wanted to "marry up." Then Flavor Flav traded a disfunctional relationship with Strange Love co-star Brigitte Neilsen for a bevy of publicity seeking nymphets in Flavor of Love.

Bravo began a series about Real Housewives of Orange County and MTV had startling success with Jersey Shore. What do these shows have in common? The participants are superficial, self-absorbed, highly sexed and have the social morals of New York bankers. Bravo has degenerated into a Real Housewives franchise machine.

Whatever happened to Bravo and A&E, which at one time rivaled PBS in the quality of their original programming? Or MTV, once a showcase for innovative, edgy musical videos? Or TLC whose initials, now ironically, stand for The Learning Channel? Or Discovery? Each and every one of them appears to me to have descended far below our society's lowest common denominator.

I reserve my strongest personal objections to the bimbo and stud muffin genres portrayed in the Real Housewives franchise and Jersey Shore, which objectify their subjects as purely sexual, mentally challenged creatures.Ugh.

Lurking on Reddit.com

I really have to stop lurking on Reddit.com. Today following a link I landed in the middle of a YouTube video of dancers being roughed up and arrested at the Jefferson Memorial and the press being informed they had to stop filming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UyiaR1PDhQ When the police were asked what law was being violated, they refused to answer as they continued to clear the monument of visitors.

Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Then another link sent me to Salon.com and an article by a woman who claimed a Chicago hospital initially refused to perform an abortion of her dying fetus while she was bleeding out. http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/05/26/abortion_saved_my_life/index.html

There are the political rantings, largely from the left, but also from the right. The links to articles from obscure blogs and mainstream media. The links to cartoons and pictures that use one quick image to say more than pages of script - like which states get the most back from the federal government. http://www.lazlow.com/uploaded_images/2987025203_fc2c517522_o-748920.jpg

Yeah, I really have to stop hanging out on Reddit. This is getting out of hand. I would spend some time playing online poker, but the Justice Department ripped that option away from me weeks ago. I would go to the gun range for pistol practice instead, but without a permit that is illegal in my state. And getting that pistol permit is very a long, tedious process.

Gee, I wonder if there are any new posts I should see... . http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/

The Patriot Act Extended

In the face of Thursday's looming deadline for its sunset, last night Congress extended the Patriot Act for four more years. In the face of Ron Paul's filibuster, leaders agreed to vote on his proposed amendments. They were quickly defeated.

According to NPR, Paul's amendments targeted the extension of three controversial provisions: allowing roving wiretaps; allowing surveillance of "lone wolf" terrorism suspects; one permitting the courts to collect persons' private information if they are suspected of having ties to terrorism. Paul got the most pushback on his amendment to raise the legal bar before searching gun registration and sale records.

The Patriot Act has always appeared to me to use terrorism as an excuse for weakening the Bill of Rights and controlling the American people.

Obama arranged to "sign" the law remotely just minutes before the provisions' expiration. Once given power, institutions are very reluctant to let it go, no matter how many sunset provisions laws might contain.

School Budgets and Taxes

Yesterday voters in my town rejected the proposed school budget. Last night the school board passed it anyway. State law permitted its passage because it was not more than 1.6 percent over last year's budget. The new budget entails a 9.8 percent school tax increase. It also contains significant cuts in programs and personnel. The increase is less about escalating cost than the deep cuts in state funds available to local school districts.

While our governor seeks to cap real estate taxes - the means by which school districts, towns, cities and counties fund their services, the state budget contains deep cuts in state aid to local education. This puts local school districts between a rock and a hard place.

Local funding of school districts inevitably results in wide swings in education quality. Wealthier communities are better able to support their public schools, poorer communities struggling under their tax burdens find it difficult. In our stratified society this means the quality of education students receive is usually tied to the size of the local community's wallet.

I have heard many members of my community complain about their school taxes because they do not have children or their children are grown. They believe that education should be the responsibility of the students' parents. This is wrong. A well educated populace is essential to a healthy society.

For now, our educational system is crumbling as fast as the rest of our country's outdated, under-maintained infrastructure. And while Washington and the state capitols cut the "fat" out of national and state budgets, the burden on localities grows heavier and heavier. This tax burden has the additional impact of exacerbating the housing crisis as homeownership becomes more expensive.

We all want the services. We just don't want to pay for them. If current trends continue we won't be able to pay for them.

Free Play

The sounds of children playing used to echo through my neighborhood. Their imaginary games were never-ending serials of adventure, science fiction heros, family situations. The girls' activities usually centered around family situations and using Barbie dolls as props; the boys were more into adventure. Of course my daughter Jeanne was the exception. Princess Lea was her heroine, Star Wars was her favorite subject. Fortunately she found a kindred spirit in Billy, the boy next door.

My own childhood revolved around reenactments of favorite Saturday morning TV shows about cowboys and Indians. The hours we spent playing these games are some of my fondest memories. Over the years these sounds have disappeared from the neighborhood. The children living here now go to day care or after-school programs. Their free time has disappeared into a flurry of structured activity - sports, dance, academic enhancement.

Not long ago I went looking for my oldest granddaughter (swim team, dancing, scouting, academic achiever) and found her in the closet of her room, contendedly playing with her Barbies. I immediately apologized for my intrusion, told her what she was doing was a good thing, and left her to it.

It saddens me that a child today has to be reassured that imaginary play is acceptable. Sometimes, while driving to some activity, my husband and I have listened in as our two granddaughters in the back seat acted out some scenario that is obviously an ongoing drama. We exchanged a knowing glance and left the girls to it, relishing our eavesdropping role on a precious childhood ritual.

Today's children are all too often scheduled to the point where they have no time to explore the horizons of their imaginations. This threatens their ability to use the tool of play to work out in terms they understand the world they inhabit.

While their parents concentrate on giving them the best opportunities - in dance, sports, scouting, camp, scholastic activities - they are sometimes deprived of the greatest opportunity of all - to use their own, innate skills to adapt to and make sense of the environment in which they live.

Free play can be challenging to a parent. It can result in squabbles and disagreements that raise voices and are untidy. I believe it is the greatest gift a parent can give their children.

FCC Chairman Baker's Big Move

Meredith Attwell Baker is "moving on up." Last winter as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), she signed off on Comcast's acquisition of NBC. This week it was announced she is leaving her regulatory post to become a lobbyist for Comcast.

The rewards for government regulators whose decisions please the top players in the industries they monitor can be sweet.

Comcast's acquisition of NBC means Comcast not only now controls cable access in given geographical areas, it produces a major slice of its content. The acquisition also opened the door wide to a new round of consolidation in an industry already controlled by a tiny handful of corporations.

Why should I care? you ask.

Because this tiny handful of companies - Newscorp, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom (CBS), NBC that is now Comcast - control most of the information you receive and control access to the sources of information.

What about the Internet? you ask.

Cable and telephone companies control access to the Internet, most of its content is filtered through companies like Microsoft, Google, AOL, Apple. Google now owns YouTube. Microsoft plans to buy Skype. AOL recently bought Huffington Post. Reddit's parent company is Conde Nast.

If a small business owner who lunches with a government official with whom he/she has a contractual relationship picks up the check, the businessperson might be accused of attempting to gain favor with that official. For a major corporation to hire a top government official who has just ruled in its favor has become "business as usual" not only in Washington, but in many state capitols.

One might conclude that our laws and regulations only apply to "the small people." You know - you and me.

Free Play

The sounds of children playing used to echo through my neighborhood. Their imaginary games were never-ending serials of adventure, science fiction heros, family situations. The girls' activities usually centered around family situations and using Barbie dolls as props; the boys were more into adventure. Of course my daughter Jeanne was the exception. Princess Lea was her heroine, Star Wars was her favorite subject. Fortunately she found a kindred spirit in Billy, the boy next door.

My own childhood revolved around reenactments of favorite Saturday morning TV shows about cowboys and Indians. The hours we spent playing these games are some of my fondest memories. Over the years these sounds have disappeared from the neighborhood. The children living here now go to day care or after-school programs. Their free time has disappeared into a flurry of structured activity - sports, dance, academic enhancement.

Not long ago I went looking for my oldest granddaughter (swim team, dancing, scouting, academic achiever) and found her in the closet of her room, contendedly playing with her Barbies. I immediately apologized for my intrusion, told her what she was doing was a good thing, and left her to it.

It saddens me that a child today has to be reassured that imaginary play is acceptable. Sometimes, while driving to some activity, my husband and I have listened in as our two granddaughters in the back seat acted out some scenario that is obviously an ongoing drama. We exchanged a knowing glance and left the girls to it, relishing our eavesdropping role on a precious childhood ritual.

Today's children are all too often scheduled to the point where they have no time to explore the horizons of their imaginations. This threatens their ability to use the tool of play to work out in terms they understand the world they inhabit.

While their parents concentrate on giving them the best opportunities - in dance, sports, scouting, camp, scholastic activities - they are sometimes deprived of the greatest opportunity of all - to use their own, innate skills to adapt to and make sense of the environment in which they live.

Free play can be challenging to a parent. It can result in squabbles and disagreements that raise voices and are untidy. I believe it is the greatest gift a parent can give their children.

Too Much or Too Little Regulation?

According to a piece in today's New York Times, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the industry it was created to regulate are shooting dice with the public's safety and sooner or later they are going to get craps. [Click on this post's title for a link to the article.]

A few days ago I heard on NPR that Vermont Yankee, a nuclear plant that was cited for leaks of radioactive tritium into the soil and groundwater, will probably remain open despite the state legislature's vote not to renew its license. Evidently the NRC's rubber-stamp approval of the license renewal (one day before the earthquake and tsunami caused Japan's nuclear crisis) supercedes state and local action. The matter will probably be decided in the federal courts. (Gee, I wonder how the corporation friendly Roberts' Court will rule if the suit reaches that far.)

The article lists incident after incident in which the industry overruled or bullied the regulatory agency into accepting questionable fixes and untested materials in aging American plants. These plants are OLD. Many of them share design flaws with those currently out of control in Japan. They should be subject to more and stricter oversight now, not less.

In the meantime, our U. S. Congress is targeting the budgets and actual existence of all the regulatory agencies - pulling their teeth so to speak - on the pretense of pursuing a "job friendly" agenda. This is not about producing jobs. It is about serving their corporate constituency. How did that constituency become more powerful and acquire more rights than the citizens in our democracy?And what has it done with that power? It has cheated its shareholders, exported our jobs overseas, polluted our environment, destroyed our economic diversity and is dismantling our middle class.

Corporations are amoral. Corporate decisions are made on a risk/reward basis that considers profit and loss of money, usually with a short-term horizon. Loss of human life or damage to the environment are looked upon as necessary collateral damange. A society that does not regulate corporate entities will be destroyed by them.

When are our national, state and local governments going to recognize this? There are many ticking time bombs out there. Our aging, poorly maintained nuclear power plants are not the least among them.

Now What?

The vicious instigator of mass murder is dead. The architect of 9/11 is no more. Did his passing please me? Yes. Do I feel safer with him gone? Not really.

My country has changed in frightening, confusing ways since September 11, 2001. Its citizenry is polarized in apparently irreconcilable camps. Its economy is lackluster with few signs of revitalization on the horizon.

The Bill of Rights are more observed in their violation than their observance. The middle class is shrinking while fewer and fewer super rich individuals own more and more of the national assets. Regulations that control the most powerful corporations are weakened while regulations that control more and more of the daily lives of individuals are strengthened.

We wage undeclared wars across the middle east. These wars have drained our treasury. Regular Americans who fly on major carriers are subject to intrusive search of their possessions and persons and are treated like cattle by the carriers who transport them. Wealthy Americans fly with relatively small inconvenience on private carriers where they are cosseted and pampered. An activist religious minority legislates its particular "morality" upon the majority and openly rejects the separation of church and state established by our First Amendment.

Yes, I was glad to see the most notorious murderer of our time executed. The very serious problems crippling our society and threatening our children's' futures still exist.