Don't know if you 've heard, it was the smallest squib in the NY Post somewhere in the middle yesterday, but the other day a U.S. Navy ship in the Indian Ocean launched some cruise missiles deep into Somalia killing the al-Qaeda leader there, the notorious 30-old Aden Hashi Ayro. Also killed were Ayro's brother and ten of his top lieutenants. Then there's Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his refusal to step down graciously after losing an important election to the leader of the opposition party, Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change. Mugabe of the ZANU-PF party says it was 47.9% to 43.2% in which close case there's supposed to be some kind of run-off or something but Tsvangirai says he won by 50.3% and therefore things were rigged. Elsewhere there's a critical food shortage in Malawi, the main meal everyday from aide workers consists basically of your porridge, no Mickie D's or pizza joints over there. As a sidenote someone once gave me a small bag of Malawi gin, not bad.
It's not all about Paula, Miley, Britney, UMA, Lindsay or Jeremiah. There be another world out there and I'm glad to see the Bush Administration not so exclusively focused on Iraq anymore, there are many al-Qaeda cells in Africa, there have been embassies bombed there but it's all about "The Insider" these days and who crooner John Mayer is bedding or Patrick Dempsey being named by "People" magazine as sexiest man alive. So kudos to the Newshour with Jim Lehrer for their heavy focus on African issues recently, too bad even they were forced to cover Eliot Spite-zer's sex life not that long ago but they were forced to since he was a sitting governor, it's not like they had a panel discussion on Paula's Idol confusion (no, not one of us ever woke up not knowing what day it was or forgot somebody's name at work). Tabloid journalism, it's like when you were young and your Mom said to eat an orange when there's a box of Devil Dogs on top of the breadbox.
I try not to let the diversions of the day get in the way of keeping up with the real world, not always successfully, so I am thankful for the part of our government that does keep a watch on the international scene and hope they are keeping close tabs on the terrorists. That is legitimate governmental duties, not being health care providers, at least that is according to our constitution.
ReplyDelete"The real world", like when is it a crime to be ditzy? Paula adds some charm to AI, instead of us finding it funny though she seems to set the blogosphere on fire every time she speaks, such gravitas over an entertainment show. As for the UMA case I didn't know what to make of this at first, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it's like some spoof or skit written by SNL or Mad TV, I mean who can make this stuff up? It ain't funny to her of course or even to him but to hear him get up on the stand and teach the jurors the difference between "I want my hands all over your body" as opposed to getting more graphic with anatomical details escapes me but it is unintentionally hilarious just the same, you almost want somebody to announce to us "you've just been punked people". The trial should come with a laughtrack. Now I'm sure these stories and others can co-exist in our daily tabloids but you'da thunk that taking out a terrorist biggie in Somalia would be a bigger deal. The Newshour gave it extensive coverage but dunno, it seemed to merit more than a squib in some papers.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that sometimes the MSM doesn't like to actually report any successes in the War on Terror, not sure why, but then since Iraq has been added to that war they just don't want any good news coming from anything associated with Iraq.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right but that doesn't explain the NY Post's very short shrift to this story, after all which paper in America is more pro-war than the Post? Again it's UMA and Paula and all the rest (hey, with the UMA case maybe they're really filming a scene from a movie with real people who don't know it yet. The stalker guy, Jack Jordan, described one of his drawings he sent her as DA-DA, he's artistically critiqueing his own work, this has to be scripted, no?) It's like I've always been saying Africa is hardly on our radar screen, it's a continent with problems but we've always known that, what else is new? I don't think it's racism so much as boredom.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just information overload anymore, I'm out of it, what is UMA anyway?
ReplyDelete"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." -- Thomas Jefferson.
ReplyDeleteI concur. There was a time when the media (newspapers, television) served as an informative check and balance of government. They used to be critical of the government. Now, it has become quite the opposite. They've become cheerleaders for government in advocating every illegitimate program or function known to exist.
They have no qualms about bashing oil company profits but why aren't they talking about oil company profit margins???? Or, why aren't they drawing comparisons between rising oil costs and that of college tuition????
Never mind, I saw the headlines about Uma Thurman.
ReplyDeleteGood quote, byw, Soapster.
ReplyDeleteYou think the guy needs purely psychiatric help Beth or should he be punished? The liberal position should be plain but I don't hear any libs talking. Day 2 of deliberations...
ReplyDeleteHey soapie, what do you think of Ralph Peters' view in the NY Post? He basically says that the Saudi princes don't like what we're doing in the Middle East so they're holding the oil hostage, cutting off supplies so the price to us gets jacked up and they're supposed to be our friends!
ReplyDeleteNo the stalker guy was convicted!
ReplyDeleteI think he definitely needs mental help.
ReplyDeleteSoapie was just on the Hannity radio show as a caller!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I buy that theory. If you have a product, and you hold it in the hopes of raising the cost on it, eventually you're going to have to put it on the market. It doesn't do you any good to hold it because then you're just running up your cost.
ReplyDeleteOnce you let it on the market, the cost comes down.
yeah yeah...I was on Hannity. Man I really think that guy is a bafoon.
That's the word on the street soapie about the Saudis. You know Beth about the UMA case maybe the jury had no choice, he made it that easy for them but two things. One older woman juror said something like "he's just weird but I don't know if he's dangerous." This is probably the way the average juror in this country thinks, proper formulation would be weird is not a crime (a good part of the population would be in prison right now) but was a crime committed? Second, about his threatening suicide in the past, this was not a direct threat against her but against himself but anyway a liberal judge would probably give him minimal jail time if at all and order him to get mental help (although apparently he did in the past), will the jail put him on suicide watch? A weird case to be sure, I think if his letters were more "rational" he might have gotten off but it's in the can and I'm sure there's just somebody out there in tvland who would just love to interview this guy.
ReplyDeleteWell its because of his past mental history that I say he does need help, but something I read that seemed odd was that in prison he's somewhat of a marked man, like the other inmates will have it in for him because he is a stalker, okay so actually killing someone is okay amongst prison imates but wanting to get close to someone is disgusting?
ReplyDeleteAs far as criminals who harm children, see inmates being disgusted with them, I think that is right, but I don't get the stalker being more disgusting than other criminals.
Re the much neglected topic of prison rape of males by other males, sadly nobody seems to care, Naked Gun even had jokes about it, but lately conservatives of all people have picked up the drumbeat, commentators like Rich Lowry so kudos to them. Never got the whole prison rape thing and why they don't segregate the violent ones from the nonviolent. Say you go to prison for tax evasion or embezzlement somebody raping you was not part of your sentence. But at any rate for a 37-year old man to act the way he did, that doesn't make that much sense either, you'd think the immature cobwebs in the head would be gone by then so I really think he does have a problem. Someday he might just wake up in his prison bed and have some sort of painful epiphany like "OMG, I'm a ManChild from Planet Retard."
ReplyDeleteSee the power of the Devil Dog sitting on top of the breadbox though? UMA wins hands down over African news and even I like the occasional junk food from time to time, Yodels (Britney news), Funny Bones (hey Lindsay whose fur is that?), Zingers, HO-HOs...
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