Damn You, Apologize!

Whatever channel I was watching this morning (Fox, I think, but, heck, it doesn't matter, could be any of them....) was featuring serial apologies.

"You apologize for calling Jessica Simpson fat!"

"Now that there's been a general apology, where's the specific apology?"

"We're drawing lots to determine whether Al Sharpton or Barbara Boxer will be first in line to decry the collective apologies and declare the transgression 'unforgivable'."

"Next: Apologies for calling Hillary Clinton a Secretary of State."

"Our chief investigative reporter will apologize soon for not having found a reason to have Don Imus fired again."

"At eleven, a list of suspects for immediate proscription who are rumored to have called Michelle Obama 'unfashionable'."

"Tomorrow at 5. You are on The Weather Channel, apologizing for the California mudslides with Al Roker."

That is all.

Eradicating Meaning

When a "player," someone who represents an interest (aka a nation) gets the Nobel Peace Prize, it damages the whole notion of "peace." Peace cannot be partisan....and when we dig into the elements of most situations where leaders or representatives of states were awarded the NPP, the partisan element isn't hard to find.

Woodrow Wilson fundamentally didn't deserve the Nobel Prize, because no matter how noble his Fourteen Points, without the U.S. taking the lead and forgiving all the war loans to the European countries (which was done after WWII, a lesson hard learned), it ultimately validated the crushing reparations exacted against Germany in the Versailles Treaty, which was a major factor in bringing Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP to power in Germany. The U.S. may or may not have deserved the pejorative "Uncle Shylock," but Calvin Coolidge was simply being Bismarckian in his realpolitik when he said "They hired the money, didn't they?" These things may be judged one way or another by history, but they don't fit into consideration for a peace prize. They just don't.

Henry Kissinger, in the context of the Vietnam War, may have been deserving of many things, but the Nobel Peace Prize was certainly not one of them.

One of the very few things James Earl Carter may deserve to be remembered for is the Camp David Peace Accords. But should anyone have been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for this? Peace in that situation would have involved the Palestinians, whether the Egyptians were present or not- and the Palestinians were nowhere to be found. This may have been the first "joke" NPP.

What Barack Obama has done -in any substantive way- to merit a nomination for such a prize -let alone its being awarded- is hard to fathom. The Nobel committee's most trenchant statement on the topic seems to boil down to "He's made people feel good."

At the very least, it is questionable that the leader of a nation with tens of thousands of its forces currently in combat roles on foreign soil would be considered for such an award, regardless of the situation. It is therefore impossible to believe that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize (along with the prize for Literature...any that aren't awarded for measurable scientific achievement) hasn't devolved into the same level as the political vagaries of the International Olympic Committee or the United Nations. The Nobel Peace Prize should be ignored.

A valid comparison?

George Will comments on the Obama administration's politicizing the arts, and

This.

Of course, to some people there is no comparison. The ends, as always to some humans, justify the means. We will be told that the ends of the former are noble, humane, and socially true, therefore whatever exigencies, whatever horror must be perpetrated to carry them into effect are just. The ends of the second example were horrible and perverted, etc.

The thing is, if you dug up anyone in history who had ever attempted to direct an entire society and its culture to their own agenda.....they would tell you exactly the same thing.

The last Race Card?

Jimmy Carter, the Greatest Living Failed President, arguably the worst since Harding, has sought to breathe life into a "story" that should have died aborning, accusing Congressman Wilson of racism without the slightest evidence other than his baseless opinion that any "excessive" opposition to Obama must surely stem from fear of a black POTUS. Another case of insignificant diarrhea of the mouth raised to hulabaloo by the media.

I haven't the stomach to begin to analyze Jimmy Carter's motives; I'll leave it with:

“You have been sat to long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

-Oliver Cromwell addressing the rump parliament, April 1653.

Probable Impact

The automatic media-machine furor over the Coast Guard daring to conduct an anti-terrorist exercise in Washington on 9/11 may well have one systemic effect. Administration officials will shovel crap downhill, which will have an overall result of reducing preparedness exercises -maybe just for the Coast Guard, if we're lucky- which means reduced preparedness. The media will have damaged us, once again.

ANY Business?

Is there any substantive business before the U.S. Congress from which they cannot find a meaningless diversion, usually lasting a week or more? Now we have the seemingly chronic disease of the "Age of Apology" rearing its sordid, mendacious head once again. There's no need for a reference, the actors and the script don't matter. Someone is always demanding an apology of someone, for the sole purpose of being able to use the word "unforgivable," then running it into the ground, for the sole purpose of distracting attention from the fact that there's nobody at the helm.

I contend that there is increasingly little public business in this country, only a meaningless carnival sideshow. The average person doesn't really think a whole lot about what goes on in the halls of government, and is cautious and reluctant to say anything unless it directly bears on their interests or situation. Therefore a broad general fault running through the life of their society generally remains invisible until it can no longer be ignored. Then, the result can be an upheaval, sometimes with irreparable results- and in the aftermath, no one will understand where it came from, let alone take any responsibility for it.

A severe fault once lay beneath our society, stemming from the ratification of the U.S. Constitution with slavery still intact. It was ignored until there was division, and one that could easily, given slightly different parameters, have meant the end. However, society was reassembled, however imperfectly, and reformed since.

I am no longer certain that there is a social climate in this country that will accept currently needed reforms (this involves NOTHING that any contemporary politician will discuss), and that perhaps only another crisis is possible. If this should occur, how we will survive it with the current class of professional politicians in office is something I cannot begin to imagine.

Remember Journalism?

A soldier dies in Afghanistan. As someone remarked, "There are two rules in war, 1, that young men die, and, 2, you can't change Rule #1." Presumably, any adult understands that war, and its attendant casualties, cannot be prevented so long as the human race does business in any of its known avatars.

The role of journalism should be to report, basically, and do it clearly, unflinchingly, and with the bare minimum of adjectives and adverbs. So- what happend to journalism? In today's example, a U.S. soldier, Joshua Bernard, is fatally wounded in Afghanistan, serving his nation gallantly and in the best traditions of the United States Marine Corps.

The Daily Mail online reported, and I can only wish they were not typical of today's news reporting. Unfortunately, this kind of reportage can be seen on a daily basis, without even searching. The first sentence of the article:

"It is a deeply disturbing image which depicts the grim reality of war - a fatally wounded U.S. soldier lies slumped in the mud as fellow marines desperately try to save him as his young life ebbs away."

This, of course, is all too typical of much reportage, not only that coming out of Albion, but all too many -perhaps even a majority of news outlets. It's bad reporting, pure and simple.....and those "Limeys" didn't bother to capitalize "Marines."

The sentence, as it should have been written: "It is an image which depicts the reality of war- a wounded soldier lies in the mud as fellow Marines try to save him." All else is hype, gloss, dross, unwarranted hyperbole.

It is as if The Mail were attempting to construct an inflammatory and divisive article, instead of reporting on an event; to attempt to construct division through verbiage instead of providing evidence of such division.

Oh, America is divided, all right, but not about Marines lying in the mud. They're mainly divided over why the government can't afford all the things they want, why the recession won't go away.

It seems fitting to let the last word here go to some U.S. Marine graffiti in Iraq: "America is not at war. The Marines are at war. America is at the mall."