The internet
is almost without a doubt the single most important invention of the last
thirty years. People are interconnected
to a degree scarcely imaginable a century ago, the time it takes to contact
someone across an ocean is no longer than it takes to reach somebody down the
street. Additionally, news travels
faster than ever before. Where an
individual in the 1940s had to rely on newsreels and newspaper stories for
foreign news—typically weeks out of date by the time the average citizen could
obtain the stories—one nowadays simply needs to type a few key words into any
search engine and the news of the world is before them. With such increased availability of news, one
would imagine that Americans would be more informed as ever; regrettably, this
is not the case.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Gun Control after a Tragedy
At this point, the sad
story is known to just about everybody.
On December 1, Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs,
killed his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins, who was also the mother of his child, and
drove to the Chiefs’ practice facility and killed himself. The next day, at halftime of Sunday Night
Football, sportscaster Bob Costas gave a two minute monologue expressing regret
about the tragedy and stating his belief that if Belcher had not possessed a
gun, he and his girlfriend would both be alive.
The reaction to this short and measured statement has been unfortunate.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Defeat in Victory for the Democratic Party
Aside from
the presidential election and the Puerto Rico statehood referendum which I have
discussed in the past, another very important election was held in the state of
Massachusetts last month. The statewide
senatorial election between incumbent Republican Scott Brown, who had won the
seat in a special election after the passing of Ted Kennedy in 2010, and
Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and an architect
of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
When Warren defeated Brown rather convincingly, Democrats celebrated the
reclamation of a seat which had long been held by their party. The Democratic Party may come to regret their
victory in this election, however.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The Exaggeration of Presidential Constitutional Violations
Conservative
commentators, such as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, love to
bemoan the assault President Obama is waging on the United States
Constitution. This belief, popular with
fringe members of the Republican Party, has been given an image in paintings by
Jon McNaughton, a Utah based artist. One
of his works, entitled “One Nation Under Socialism” depicts President Obama
holding the Constitution as it is consumed by flames. Another painting, entitled “The Forgotten
Man” shows President Obama standing on the Constitution with President Madison,
known as the “Father of the Constitution,” begging him to get off the
document. Additionally, a depressed man
sits on a nearby bench being comforted by Republican and early presidents as
Democratic presidents applaud our current president for trampling the
Constitution.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Cents and Sensibility: The Elimination of the Penny and the Nickel
Those closest to me know that an issue which has always been one of my
pet passions is that of penny and nickel elimination. As such, it was with joy that I read reports
this week that the Treasury Department will begin removing pennies and nickels
from circulation starting in 2013. This
should be just the first step that the nation takes to modernize our currency
system in order to save money.
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