All Is Well for Harry Now

Well, I guess he'll be re-elected. He didn't cave. There is a public option in the bill. Oh joy.

Harry's Hard Times

I am no fan of Harry Reid, but even I have some sympathy for him just now. He is being threatened, blackmailed, virtually man-handled, by the liberals in his party who are more liberal, even, than he is.

If he "caves" on the public option of the new health care plan, they say, or the article says they say, he will not be re-elected. And the article quotes a nurse from Nevada who says she's always been open-minded and willing to vote her conscience. Her conscience tells her she won't vote for Harry if he "caves." This to back the claim in the article headline.

1. Of course it would have to be a nurse. Hmph.
   
2. I hate political blackmail.
3. I hate "news gathering and disseminating" organizations that pretend to be unbiased in their gathering and disseminating.
   
4. Is the news article about this story the least bit objective? Take a guess.
5. Have you ever tuned in to the documentary-like programs on the issue of health care on PBS? The P is a lie, by the way.
   
6. Too bad, Harry. It's a dilemma, because there are--I sincerely hope--people in Nevada who hold views opposed to the nurse's.
7. Do principles ever enter in?

There's more, much more, I could say, but I'll spare you.

A Little Help Needed

So I'm thinking of canceling my subscriptions to magazines I have taken for years. I already canceled The Reader's Digest--don't like the new editor's sense of how that magazine should look and be and so on. We took that magazine for decades before these new marketing-minded changes. And Wayne read it. Always.

I've been a National Review subscriber for more than ten years, but I . . . you know, it's hard for me to think of canceling it. But two things: I don't read it all; I get pretty upset when I do. Upset, worried, sometimes frightened. No, I don't want to stick my head in the sand, but I sort of do.

We have been members of the National Geographic Society since 1972. I really love the magazines, but I just don't get them read. Wayne always did. It's pretty hard to keep paying for them when I don't read them. Pretty hard to stop them coming to my home, too.

So. What should I do?

I know. They're only magazines. But what should I do?

Nobel, Oh my goodness

I am stunned but not surprised, and I echo the question of others, "What has he accomplished?" besides being elected. I mean, he may want to change the world, but so far he hasn't. And, said one, he'll win no prize for creating jobs here in the US.

And if he does change the world, will the change be good?

Enough said.

Excuse me, Is that your dog?

I will use the word trendy, although it may not be quite the right word.

It is trendy these days to have a dog or dogs instead of children, and it is trendy to speak of those dogs as if they were children. As in, "I have one child. He's a yellow Lab," or "We never have to put Fido in time out," or "He never talks back," or "He doesn't point or laugh when he sees us naked." (I've never actually heard someone say that. I just thought it would be funny if somebody's dog did point and laugh.)

I like dogs. Ask Ann. She knows this is true. I loved my dog Sweetiepie and considered her part of our family, in a manner of speaking. And I allow anyone to follow his or her tastes.

But I somehow resent the idea that a dog is better than a child. Easier, maybe. Better, hardly. I resent that it is the "green" thing to do to have a dog instead of a child, and so we should choose that alternative, for the sake of our planet. Come on, people, even Al Gore had children. I vigorously resent these ideas being promulgated, as I get a strong feeling they are.

And, by the way, I think clothes for dogs are silly, the idea ludicrous, although I know there's big money in it these days. Oh yes, I see dogs dressed in Snuggies and other strange little garments. Anybody see last week's Pet Parade? Talk about point and laugh.

Yesterday in the grocery store I did not point or laugh, and I did not see the dog, exactly, but I saw the woman--thirty, maybe--with her dog carrier in her grocery cart. Right, carrying her "baby" with her. That was a first for me. No doubt not a last. It'll catch on. It's trendy.

And dogs in parks on the children's playground equipment? Don't get me started on that. Ann may have to write about that one.

A Word About David Letterman

Although he's hardly worth my time.

I have long objected to his politics--his and his writers'--and that they shove their views down the audience's throats. I have never appreciated his negative sense of humor.

I have watched only minutes of his program in the last many years. I watched after Obama's election to see if Letterman would finally shut up about Bush, Cheney, Palin. No.

Now I read that he has revealed himself as a low life, a person with questionable, if any, morality, a person without integrity. And I wonder, will he stop making jokes about others whose values and behavior match his own? I doubt it.

When politically prominent people behave as Letterman has, that is, without personal restraint, without moral strength, without regard for others, even their own families, we usually hear a public clamor that they be publicly censured and/or step down from office. And yet, I suspect Letterman will continue to stand forth every week night. Perhaps even gain personally from this nasty business he was forced to bring out of secrecy.

More's the pity.

No. I will not watch to find out.