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Page 763 of 791 pages « First < 761 762 763 764 765 > Last »
May 2002
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It’s Starting to Look Black for Gray
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Thu 9 May 2002 10:33
by Kevin McGehee
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Flyover Blogdom]
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First it was his mishandling of the energy crisis in California, then his carpet-chewing shtick with the editorial board of an influential Southern California newspaper, followed by the now-brewing Oracle mess where his administration bought more licenses for an overpriced and not-altogether useful piece of software than there were state employees who could install it on their computers—in close conjunction with a suspiciously timed campaign contribution.
Now SFGate has another worry for Gov. Gray Davis: a suspicious-looking campaign contribution and lobbyist hire by a company that won a near-half-billion-dollar state contract to manage welfare cases.
Anybody in Sacramento got a fork? I think he’s done.
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Bush and Powell, This Is YOUR Fault!
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Tue 7 May 2002 19:48
by Kevin McGehee
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[War]
[Flyover Blogdom]
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Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, YOU talked Ariel Sharon into letting up on Arafat. Now he’s out, and what’s the first thing that happens—before the Bethlehem standoff is concluded? Another Palestinian human-bomb hits Israel, killing 16.
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, anyone could have told you this would happen, if you made it appear that the human-bomb campaign was getting Arafat any traction in negotiations. Anyone could have told you, and a lot of people did. But you thought, like Bill Clinton before you, that you guys had the answer that had eluded finer minds than yours, the strategery that would convince Yassir Arafat to turn his back on everything he has stood for for all his 70-plus years—death, violence and bloodshed—and deal in good faith with Israel.
It is possible to get Arafat to abandon death, violence and bloodshed, but it will never happen by pretending he is a responsible head of state who can be reasoned with.
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Shameless Self-Promotion
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Tue 7 May 2002 14:24
by Kevin McGehee
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Flyover Blogdom]
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Flyover Country Today does have an ad banner, now—for CafePress.com, a very interesting online marketing idea. But I don’t get money simply for displaying the banner; so when you go back to Flyover, look in the upper left corner for the real ad, for my CafePress.com store. Nobody’s paying me a penny for Flyover or Blogover, so to support these essential public services you have to buy stuff.
If I’m going to be such a partisan for capitalism, I gotta practice what I preach.
The reason there are no links in this entry is they would all be dead. 23 September 2005
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The REAL Paradox of Our Time
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Tue 7 May 2002 11:30
by Kevin McGehee
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[War]
[Yee-haw!]
[Flyover Blogdom]
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There are some truly goofy things flying around in cyberspace these days, and the other day one of them landed in the email at my wife’s office: an essay titled “The Paradox of Our Time” that in this case was incorrectly attributed to George Carlin. Not only didn’t Carlin write it, he dismisses the piece as “a sappy load of $#!t”.
The essay starts out with, “The paradox of our time is that we have taller buildings and shorter tempers…“ and goes on like that for several paragraphs. Never is it explained how taller buildings are supposed to prevent shorter tempers. Yeah, Carlin’s got this one nailed—it is a sappy load of $#!t.
But here’s a paradox that might actually have some relevance: Our civilization, founded on the most advanced economic, social and political ideas ever devised, with the most successful economic, social and political order and the most advanced scientific and technological capabilities, finds as its most dangerous external enemy a society mired hopelessly in backward economic, social and political attitudes and only such scientific and technological capabilities as it can buy, borrow or steal from us. And yet there are those within our own civilization who see this as evidence that the enemy is morally equivalent to us, if not morally superior. The counter-paradox is that these “shades of gray” types have not only been wrong all along, but events in the recent past have proven them wrong; that they cannot or will not concede the case, is merely proof that the stupid we shall have always have among us.
We have access to more information, yet the most established media institutions—convinced of their right and duty to control the flow of information—promote an image of our popular culture as hedonistic, self-centered and willfully ignorant. The counter-paradox: those who favor control tend to project upon society those traits they want to be there; not even necessarily as a justification for the control they seek—but perhaps even as a picture of the society they wish to create with that control. So close to succeeding, here comes the Internet, still growing into whatever its full potential would be, but already challenging the established media and causing no end of confoundment therein.
The fact is, two of our tallest buildings are gone now, and their destruction was caused by a pack of willfully ignorant men from a society where the words “short temper” are redundant. In the face of the expression of their hatred, we have acted with care and deliberation. So maybe the real paradox of our time is that we have a more mature outlook, but sappier email in our Inboxes.
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