I heard several things today, which if true, most accurately define why this day sucks. I may not even be clear on the details and I do not have any real documentation that all the things I heard are true. If they are, they suck.
I heard that a beauty contestant, I believe she was from California, was asked for her opinion about homosexual marriage. She replied, in short, that she thought the institution of marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. The report went on to say that she has been castigated in various ways for having made the comment and has been called a "dumb bitch" by the questioner. I can only guess the sexual preference of the questioner. If this report is true I would ask why in the world was such a question posed in the first place? Is strict adherence to political correctness one of the pageant's criteria for contestants? If so, who would compete? Secondly, to castigate the contestant for having exercised free speech is nuts.
My second frustration has to do with some credit card companies, in fact most if not all. I did not know that if a consumer misses one payment, for whatever reason, the card companies can raise the interest rate on the card up to 29.99%. You could be in a coma in the hospital after suffering a car crash, never having missed a payment in 20 years, and yet they will raise your rate from a rate as low as 7% to 29.99% immediately. That means that your monthly payment will more than double. I may be wrong, but this seems criminal to me. The taxpayers are paying a high price to bail out these banks and they repay the taxpayer by screwing them. That sucks and something needs to be done about it. What? I heard President Obama today and he is actually attempting to address the problem. I do not agree with most of his ideology, but I thank him for his position relevant to this issue. What do you think? Let me know.
Thirdly, I teach philosophy in college. In recent weeks ethics has been the area of study. During the course of explaining the difference between absolute ethics, utilitarian ethics, deontological or duty ethics, and on and on, I provided many scenarios and asked students how they would respond when faced with a moral dilemma. One scenario had to do with purchasing a term paper from an internet source and submitting it as your own. Over 75% of the students in 3 different classes thought that would be just fine and thoroughly justified by the fact that one needs a good grade no matter how that grade is aquired. More justification is provided by pointing to Congress. They, the students say, all cheat. Bill Clinton cheated. Everybody cheats. Cheating is the moral de jour. That sucks.
Lastly. I fully understand the controversy caused by the war in Iraq and am sympathetic to those who want the troops to come home. I want the troops to come home as well. I am a two time Vietnam Veteran. I know what happened when we left that country. Genocide. I do not know whether or not we should have engaged in that conflict in the first place. Perhaps not; still, we did. We made many promises as a country and we are not going to live up to them just as we did not do so in Vietnam. I think carnage will result, just as it did when we left Vietnam high and dry. My barber was a Vietnamese helicopter pilot, trained in the U.S. during the war. He graduated from flight school in Ft. Worth, Texas and then returned to fight in the war. He crashed his helo trying to get to a U.S. carrier and subsequently spent 10 years in a reeducation camp. We said, too damn bad. We are leaving. That too sucks and I fear the same thing will happen in Iraq.
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