Congress, Again And Again

Remember a few weeks ago, a spate of stories about how Congress had bills before it to act on all those anoying robo-calls many of us get? I thought about a blog topic then along the lines of "what took you so long?" How many YEARS has this problem existed and it's only now that our Congress gets around to it?  BTW, nothing definite yet--from the body that is supposed to represent us.

Jon Stewart was right, also, to call Congress out for not acting on aid for the First Responders who have suffered grievious medical problems from their work in lower Manhattan during 9/11. He complained, rightly, their benefits were expiring soon and Congress had no timetable to taking up extending them. Our Mitch smugly replied that Congress often acts at the last minute-but it would take action here. Meanwhile, a few more 9/11 victims have died, and their families are up in the air in many cases because "congress often acts at the last minute." This important matter has been called to its attention and for the senate leader and others, to take more time than is needed, is inefficient, impractical, inhumane and ought to be remember when next he--and several others-run for office.


But Stewart also missed a major point, one that rankles me a lot, and shows another side. Congress acted VERY swiftly after 9/11 to pass a bill EXEMPTING those airlines who carried the terrorists from being sued by the families of the dead passengers. Congress can act quickly when it wants to and it wanted to let American, United, et al off the hook, and also not let defense lawyers circling to sue from getting their cases heard. Forget the facts that the TSA/FAA and airlines were monumentally negligent here; as news story after story, and actually tapes of the terrorists getting thru screenings proved beyond doubt--oh, and overlook the airline industries political contributions as well. These sad parts of the "First Responders' "  is still with us, and will be for some  time I suspect.


Congress is a century late, some tell us, facing another issue: "reparations for slavery." This may become a hot button issue in the campaign, but it shouldn't. There are just too many unknowns and intangibles here, such as who today should get reparations for all those dead people we did greatly harm then?  Do we even know--for certain? It's a bad idea, and it's out of place. IF we wanted to pay such reparations today, let us begin with the people we really injured much earlier, even before the first slave arrived in Virginia. I'm talking about the American Indians, or Native Americans if you prefer (I don't) or better, what Canada calls the "First Nation." If we are going to do reparations, we need to start there, and work our way up to a more present time.

I'm just sayin'...

Thanks NA$A, Thanks for Nothing

NA$A, our national space agency, announced recently it would partner with private firms to send civilians to visit, and stay, at the International Space Station, in orbit around the world.  The cost wouldn't be cheap, possibly as much as $58 million for a month's stay.
 
This is all so much stellar crap.

Millions of us paid our taxes for decades to allow NA$A to build the space station, and now our public agency wants to limit those who go there just to millionaires?
I propose instead, Congress require NA$A to hold a lottery for seats and stays, free to the winners. Anyone who paid federal taxes during the decades of the 60s thru now, could have their names entered. (I would exclude the top executives of General Dynamic, Boeing, Thiokol, General Electric, Lockheed, and all the other major NA$A contractors who got Billions from us taxpayers for space projects, but whose corporations paid zip/zero/nada/nothing in federal income taxes during many of those years (a sad fact that continues to this day, thanks to Congress's indifference to these lobbying giants with deep pockets for political contributions.)


But Congress could restrict how NA$A handles the proposed space visits; and it should.

Now, that would be a lottery worth winning.

I'm just sayin'...

Local Media Thoughts

Lee Cruse screwed up. So did LEX 18. His first mistake was in not reading over his copy before reading it on air. His second was in not understanding the story he was reading. Which, BTW, concerned a British broadcaster who came up with a pix of Harry & Meghan and their new baby, an African chimp. Lee thought that was funny. His station, properly, didn't. When Cruse recognized his mistake he apologized, several times, as he should have. LEX took him off the air to consider what to do. Then they fired him. After 20 years of presumably good and loyal service, one mistake and you're out. That's a load of meadow muffins. Or, to use an old Brit expression, the punishment doesn't ft the crime. It was announced by the current GM, from the previous owners, but probably is the decision of the new owners, Scripps Howard. That bodes no good for their new tenure as owners of the #2 TV station in town.

Speaking of TV, two notes regarding our local Fox affiliate. Co-Anchor Erica Abe has left us. She will be missed. Besides doing a creditable job as anchor, she is off to Harvard to study for an MA in foreign relations. We wish her well; that fields needs all the educated people it can get--and we will miss her.  And you shouldn't miss the Fox 56 10 pm news on Wednesdays, for sure. Erica's longtime anchor, Marvin Bartlett remains, and on Wednesday nights treats us to his weekly feature "Spirit of the Blue Grass." It's the closest thing we have to a Kuralt-type feature report, and--week in and week out--is well worth your watching. Wish more local stations would do the same.
 
WKYT's Sam Dick did do an excellent in-depth report last week on "the Boys from Kentucky,"and how a school class was following them from childhood to their deaths in Normandy after D Day. The student scholars dug up things the GI's families didn't even know, all presented in an emotional and excellent report---which we also need more of locally.

Then there's our leading morning newspapers, the Herald-Leader.  Some days it's quite good. Some days it doesn't know what day it is. Such as last Saturday's paper which arrived on my doorstep listed as "Early Sunday Edition." I expected next day's paper to arrive as "Early Monday edition," but it didn't.  Thank Heavens. The H-L doesn't even put dates on its inside pages (which its staff as well as readers have complained to management about and have gotten no explanation for this more than aggravating omission.) If you feel, as I do, that this is silly as well as aggravating, please let them know.

And you might also let President Eli Capilouto know it's about time our flagship university stopped trying to keep its dirty linen (or what it thinks may be its dirty linen) from us. Recently UK lost another in a long line of Freedom of Information cases. It has won very few of these, while trying to keep from us vital (?) stats on sex assaults on campus, incompetent profs firing settlements, you know-little things like that. Hard to teach citizenship and leadership when you don't follow the law yourselves.


I'm just sayin'...