Stray Thoughts

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Jim, a friend from the Cardiac Club, and I occasionally discuss politics.  The other day he said that he hoped God would forgive him, two of his children have become Republicans (Jim is a member of the county Democratic committee).  I told him that evil evens out, two of mine have become Democrats.   In a recent discussion, we agreed that our personal horrors of the coming Presidential campaign would be to have Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee and Rudy Guiliani the Republican candidate.  His favorite ticket, if I recall correctly, would be Hucklebee for President and Obama for Vice-President – an impossible combination, but not a bad ticket.

It is the end of 2007 and everyone is giving awards.  The award for discrimination should go to Southwest Airlines.  My friend Luke’s grandfather died unexpectedly and Luke needed to get from Nashville to Wichita as quickly as possible.  Also, as is true of many in this area, money was in short supply.  Luke called Southwest Airlines, explained his situation and asked if there were any reduced cost options available to him.  The Southwest Airlines representative asked, “Are you a white male between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five?”  When Luke replied, “Yes.” She said, “I’m sorry, we have nothing for you.”  How many businesses can exhibit racial, sexual and age discrimination in two sentences?  Southwest wins my award for discrimination. 

This morning in the sermon, Pastor Roddy mentioned the joy of children at Christmas.  My experience – eight children – is that young children frequently have more fun playing with the wrappings and the boxes than with the encased toys.  It reminds me of the news media and their fascination with the glitter and wrappings of actors and politicians:  they report the wrappings, little of the substance.  Does that mean they consider listeners and readers to have the intelligence and interests of three and four year old children or do they have the intelligence and interests of three and four year olds?

Some people, mostly news people, are concerned about the writers’ strike in Hollywood.  I don’t understand why, the shows are no worse now than they are when the writers are producing their scripts.  Discussing it in the car, I suggested that if producers are really desperate they should go to a high school and hire students who have passed English.  My son Stephen argued that junior high students could do as well, but I don’t believe that.  Junior high students don’t know as many obscene words or have sufficiently vulgar thoughts to write for “family” movies or television.

A doctor, Samuel Wood, claims to have cloned himself to the point of developing an embryo.  On television he said it was fascinating to see himself at that stage of development.  The claim is that if these clones are implanted in a woman’s womb, they would develop into living children.  Consider the horror of this.  Can you imagine fifteen or twenty Hillary Clintons running for President?  Of course only the ego-centric would do this, but there are plenty of these in California and Washington D. C.  Of course there is a downside.  Consider a sixty-five year old who had cloned himself ten years earlier.  Would he be eligible for benefits?  After all he is only ten years old in another chassis.   

Recently, I read a fascinating article by Camille Paglia, (Hillary Without Tears, salon.com., January 10, 2008).  The following are quotes. 

“Hillary’s willingness to tolerate Bill’s compulsive philandering is a function of her general contempt for men.  She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them…which she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.  It’s no coincidence that Hillary’s staff consists mostly of adoring women, with nerdy or geeky guys…I remain concerned about her future conduct of high-level diplomacy.  Contemptuous condescension seems to be Hillary’s default mode with any male who criticizes her or stands in her way…She is a brittle, relentless manipulator with few stable core values who shuffles through useful personalities like a card shark…Forget all her little gold crosses:  Hillary’s real god is political expediency… I will vote for Hillary is she is the nominee of my party because I want Democrats appointed to the Cabinet and the Supreme Court.” 

Consider this.  Ms Paglia, a well known and influential Democrat, will vote for a person who she believes despises men, will be unable to work at an international level and whose only dependable interest is herself against ANY other candidate for the Presidency.  She would vote for and “trust” a person of whom she has such opinions to lead our nation for four years.  It makes me wonder if Ms Paglia, and the other leading Democrats of whom she is a member, are more interested in the welfare of the United States and its citizens or of the strong, elitist, group leading the Democratic Party.