Friday, November 6, 2009

YET ANOTHER IN WHAT HAS BEEN A LONG LINE ...

... OF RANDOM POSTS

Few of things about the Ft. Hood tragedy.


In a rush for ratings, there was a lot of misinformation issued. Sen. Bailey-Hutchinson needed to sit herself down. Early on, CNN kept referring to her as if she had some special information from on post. In fact, after the Lt. Gen. spoke, the Sen. continued to provide old, unconfirmed, information.


The mayor of Killeen did a far better job of remaining in his lane, and showed the proper deference when it came to who had authority in the matter.


Media coverage was spotty at best throughout the evening. Is this what the 24-hour news cycle has wrought? People feeding the Hydra of ego, ratings, fame and commercializtion of tragedy? There was enough hints about the Major's 'Arab sounding name' to start a panic about a possible terrorist link.


There are enough things at play here without any other wild and possibly destructive speculation as to the infiltration of foreign sappers on US soil.


No personal politicizing of this terrible event from me here. The coverage is still annoying enough. I really wonder how do those people sleep at night ... not the incendiary figures that we all 'know and love' like Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reilly. But the 'who the heck are they?' anchors of the late night-early morning shows.


If I didn't know better, Robin Meade was 'teasing' the information out, as if there was things she didn't know and was going to leave to the following hour or segment. Then she went to a promo for a rerun of Rihanna's interview.


She was very uninformative and did not have ANY grasp of what happened at Fort Hood. Or so the Germans would have you believe ...


MERRIL HOGE


He was the football player that caused me to pay more attention to the problems the sport was having with concussions. His career was shortened because of his issues with secondary concussion syndrome. Watching him do his thing on television makes me feel confident about my ability to function.


Even though he does get along pretty well, he could easily sit and claim that he has reached his level and stay there. He is at one end of the spectrum. I think that I am shaded towards him, though I don't like hearing my voice played back. I don't think I will ever purposely or willingly make any kind of vocal recording of myself speaking.


Doesn't mean I won't talk though!


THE D.C. SNIPER


John Allen Muhammad was tried in Virginia and given a death sentence. His attorney has petitioned the Govenor on his behalf to have his sentence commuted to life in prision. After all, it is against the law to kill someone who is mentally ill.


Thing is, one of the women on his jury said that she would not have voted for death had she known that he CLEARLY had brain injury. You CAN'T fake that. The MRI clearly shows he had issues going on. Tim Kaine, a Roman Catholic who is opposed to the death penalty, still has found it suitable to allow for 9 deaths in the chamber, the nation's second busiest (hey, for real ... don't MESS with Texas!).


Bucko did an entry which seemed to me to be about ethics and morals (could it have been about 'The Metaphysics of Morals'??) and perhaps this could be another test case that actually plays out.

If Muhammad's brain was damaged, then it should have been known at the time and the information shared with the jurors. Now, I ask anyone reading, is the greater good benefitted more from his death even as he is obviously mentally ill? Or should we seek to treat him humanly, more humanly than he has the CAPACITY for displaying?

Should we still abide by the 'eye for an eye' kind of Old Testament sentiment, or use the forgiveness and way to grace that is allowed by the New Testament? Are we not judged by how we treat the weakest and the most infirm among us or do we have such hard hearts that there is no act that can be forgiven, despite what we may know?

I think a wonderful contrast is the serial cat in Cleveland. Should he get a death sentence now, as he has demonstrated a disregard for life as open society see it? Or should we put to death a man who did serve his country and may have had injuries that were execerbated by his service?

In one, you have a blantant disregard for life and in the other you have a mitigating condition that could be the result of his efforts to preserve a way of life.

SINCE I AM RAMBLING ...

Mookie emailed me about the crap that I left with her, the same crap that she asked about in the spring. I am like WTF!!

I may pick up more on that in a later entry as I am not doing too much of anything. Still having a time adjusting to being here. But me and my girl are doing fine!! In fact as I have come to the end, I think I have done more fore shadowing than anything.

3 comments:

betty said...

glad you and your girl are doing great, Mark. It does take a bit to adjust to new situations, you know that. But at least, like I said before, you have someone you love who loves you walking along side you as you adjust

I abhor the media coverage of most events that they want to sensationalize like this recent tragedy at Fort Hood. I always wish the media could be sensitive to the victims of such events and not keep coverage going 24/7.

you brought up some interesting points about John Allen Muhammad. I got to "stew" on that a bit.....

betty

Ken Riches said...

As always, thanks for the shoutout. Hope your workouts are going well, and glad things are good with your gal pal :o)

Lori said...

John Allen Muhammad's ex-wife wrote and published a book called "Scared Silent: The Mildred Muhammad Story" is a VERY good book and worth the read.