Occassionally as I'm going about my daily adventures, I come across things or situations that just downright perplex me. These are the sort of things that I can't just let slip past my radar without some sort of response. So this is where I'll be laying the Smacketh down.
(2/21/01)Here is a good example of why elected officials should spend less time governing and more time working as productive citizens. Maine state representative Joseph Brooks is proposing that deposits be added to the price of cigarettes in a scheme to raise more money for the state, masked as an effort to control litter. He wants to add a five cent deposit on every cigarette sold in his state. The cigarettes would have a special marker on the butt to signify that it is redeemable for the nickel. So this poses an obvious question, how does Maine cash in on this? Brooks just assumes that a large enough percentage of butts will never be redeemed thereby allowing Maine to profit by what Brooks estimates will be about $50 million a year. Does this sound like honest government to you?
By conspiring to create yet another form of voluntary taxation, he openly admits to trying to raise money, for his own purposes, at the expense of careless people. Our government should not be in the business of preying on its population. Our government is becoming more like a mafia every day. *
(2/25/00)Sen. Bob Torricelli's plans to introduce a resolution condemning Bob Jones U. is just another case of someone trying to make a name for themself. His proposal criticizes the South Carolina college for its racism and religious intolerance. He would have never brought this up if it had not have been for the very public criticism of Bush's campaigning there. If he truely was bothered by the school's policies, he would have introduced this years ago. His timing shows us that he is merely trying to seize some political benefit by associating himself with a popular sentiment. I would expect a slew of politicians, from both parties, to jump on this bandwagon as no politician worth his salt will want to miss this chance to show us how strongly they too oppose bigotry, without having to really confront it. *
(2/15/00)Is it really newsworthy that Hillary didn't tip her waitress after a free meal the other day while campaigning in New York? That's certainly debatable. What it does, however, is reveal her true colors. She portrays herself as being concerned about the problems of average working people. Well, who is more a representitive of them than a waitress? By not leaving her a tip, she shows both the waitress and the rest of us just how out of touch she is with the daily struggles of the very ordinary people she claims that she has always worked for. *
(10/99)The number of major news outlets in our nation is increasing daily. For every major newspaper, radio station, and TV channel there is usually an equally large website complementing it. With all of the various outlets available to us, it can be hard to sort through the vast amounts of information thrown at us. I would strongly question whether this diarrhea of information is really promoting or encouraging free speech. Think about this: how many TV and radio stations, publications, and websites can you attribute to just Time Warner/AOL or Newscorp alone? How can a baker's dozen of choices be considered as thirteen differing points of view when they are all just repackaged products from one source?
The major news media outlets of today have become more of a business than a true journalistic endeavor. If knowledge is power, then who is really in control anymore when our media puts business before journalism? *
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