Month: May 2007

Great news for those fleeing the death and destruction in Iraq. The nation directly responsible for the carnage in that country is now, said NBC Nightly News tonight, prepared to take in more of them as refugees.

According to Brian Williams, the White House is “…..poised to admit more Iraqi refugees…..” after pressure from Congress and other agencies. Thousands of Iraqis helped the US after the initial invasion, putting their lives at risk if they stay in the country. It’s estimated around 2,000,000 Iraqi citizens have sought, or are seeking, shelter elsewhere as refugees.

All Hail to the selfless, generous, humanity-laden, American administration for its bold offer to clasp into its protective US bosom another fifty-nine………fifty-nine………

“Thousand?”

“Nope!”

“A measly fifty-nine hundred?”

“Nope!”

“Eh….five hundred and….ninety?”

“Nope! I was right the first time.”

Even Brian Williams seemed taken aback, and it takes a lot to shock our Brian.

The US has agreed to take another FIFTY-NINE Iraqi refugees.

NOTE: this story can be viewed HERE, if you can bear to sit through the agonizingly boring advertisement that precedes it.

Will they hold a lottery?

Filed under: Generosity beyond bounds

“All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. ~ Aristotle.

Remember, “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND”?

Dig deeply beyond the brain cells saturated with Iraq war horrors, and you may just remember it was once the favorite phrase of George W Bush, at a time when he still considered it worthwhile to indoctrinate his base with such mantras, in the hope they would continue to believe his policies were actually working.

I have to report “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” has been a great success. Today, America’s kids make it all the way through school without dropping out early to work down the mines, enter domestic service, or sweep chimneys.

In that sense, Bush’s educational policy has been triumphant. In every other way it is a total disaster.

America’s public education system is in an appalling mess. To see just how bad things have become it is necessary to closely scrutinize what has been happening to the public schools, and how we, the people, are hoodwinked into believing all is fine within their portals. Unless, that is, you have a child in attendance who has reached 6th grade and still cannot read.

ABC’s 2020 program did just that recently, and the result made shocking viewing. Thankfully, the program is available on YouTube, but to save searching it out why not skip on over to my good friend, Mike, at “From Chaos to Order”. He has it readily available.

The program runs for forty minutes, with no advertising, so grab a cup of coffee and your favorite chair, put your feet up, and expect to once again be asking yourself that ever-so-frequently arising question:

“What the Hell are they doing to my country?”

Filed under: Failing our kids

I’m not a great fan of beauty contests – or, pageants, as they are known in the US. The argument that they are degrading to women I find somewhat tenuous, given the contestants are there of their own free will, and the defenders of that assertion tend to be, well, not the sort of female one would vote for in a beauty contest pageant.

No, my objection to beauty pageants is “big business”. Like everything else in the world today, from religion to baseball, the prime aim is to make someone rich. In this case, not the contestants, so much as the organizers. Hence it comes as no surprise to find the names Donald Trump and NBC associated with the most recent beauty pageant – Miss Universe – to blossom once more onto our TV screens.

I missed it. I’m glad I did. The contestants all look alike, anyway. Once upon a time, you could at least differentiate the Oriental competitors from the rest by their slant eyes. This year’s winner, Miss Japan, didn’t appear to have slant eyes and could as easily have hailed from Sacramento as Shizuoka.

I’m also happy I missed Miss USA, Rachel Smith, falling on her bottom while attempting to display a, no doubt, hideously expensive evening gown. Most of all, I was pleased to miss the boos and hisses she engendered from the bad-mannered Mexican audience.

Of course, it wasn’t Rachel Smith they were jeering. It was the nation she represented. A nation most of the world wants to boo at this moment.

George Bush’s dark world of politics and malevolent power has invaded even the Miss Universe pageant.

Filed under: End of innocence