Betty Baye: For Christmas, How About Relief From Foolishness?
Betty Baye | For Christmas, how about relief from foolishness?
When Santa asked what I wanted for Christmas, I said peace, joy to the world, jobs for the jobless and if, he could swing it, a moratorium on foolishness in 2011. That, of course, would mean a lot less paying work for Sarah Palin.
Yet again, Palin has attacked Michelle Obama's childhood anti-obesity campaign.
The women on ABC's daily talkfest, “The View,” mischaracterized this the other day as a “food fight.” That's clever phrasing, but there is no fight when only side is swinging. Since Michelle Obama steadfastly has refused to engage the nattering nabob from Alaska, Palin is shadowboxing, obviously in an effort to keep her name in the news.
You go, Lady “O.” How foolish is Palin's yammering, given that possibly as many as a third of America's children today aren't chubby cute, but obese, which adds up to a huge minus for them, their families and America's future?
And while I had Santa's attention, I also beseeched him to use his influence in South Carolina, to remind the diehards there that the South lost the Civil War and that flying the flag of a lost cause and throwing a 150th anniversary “secession ball,” as happened in Charleston this week, is pure foolishness. ESPN.com sportswriter Gene Wojciechowski waxed poetic when he penned a column last year that said, “From a practical standpoint, the Confederate flag is the economic and public-relations equivalent of chugging antifreeze.”
Or how about the segregationist foolishness coming from the mouth of Mississippi Gov. (and potential Republican presidential hopeful) Haley Barbour, claiming — and then quickly retracting, let's hope because some wise soul told him that he sounded like a fool — that the White Citizens Council in Yazoo City, Miss., his hometown, was a force for good during his youth. This is delirium, a foolish lie on par with Barbour having also asserted that, in the 1950s and '60s, he attended school with black people and had “a very pleasant experience.”
In Mississippi? Gov. Barbour, stop your foolishness.
On other fronts, we saw foolishness and shamelessness on vivid display when U.S. Sens. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C. at a time when millions of Americans are beating the pavement trying to find jobs — actually complained about being expected to show up for work on the days leading up to Christmas.
It's “sacrilegious,” DeMint said, for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to be calling for votes on a spending bill and the nuclear arms treaty at such a special time of year. Kyl accused the Democratic leader of being disrespectful of “one of the two holiest days for Christians.”
Actually, what is disrespectful at Christmas is the spectacle of two fully employed, perk-getting, well-paid, well-dressed and well-fed members of the United States Senate complaining about having to work when so many millions have no jobs to go to — and complaining about being asked to tend to such important matters as America's security and keeping assistance flowing just a little longer to economically fragile families who are hoping that jobs will materialize.
Finally, America's super patriots in public life may want to tone down their rhetoric about America being “exceptional” when new international math, science and reading test scores say different.
“The U.S. came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects. We can quibble or face the brutal truth that we are being out-educated,” Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of Education, said.
Exceptional? Not really, not when yet another report, this one from The Education Trust, brings the scary news that nearly a quarter of young Americans who want to join the Army fail its entrance exam, provoking concerns among educators and military officials that the pool of people qualified for military service will become too small.
With so many professed super-Christians in public life, you'd think there would be a little more appreciation for the difference between being a nation that is exceptional and a nation that is truly blessed in spite of its shortcomings. And those blessings, incidentally, have nothing to do with Santa Claus.
Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays in the Community Forum and online at www.courier-journal.com/opinion. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.
When Santa asked what I wanted for Christmas, I said peace, joy to the world, jobs for the jobless and if, he could swing it, a moratorium on foolishness in 2011. That, of course, would mean a lot less paying work for Sarah Palin.
Yet again, Palin has attacked Michelle Obama's childhood anti-obesity campaign.
The women on ABC's daily talkfest, “The View,” mischaracterized this the other day as a “food fight.” That's clever phrasing, but there is no fight when only side is swinging. Since Michelle Obama steadfastly has refused to engage the nattering nabob from Alaska, Palin is shadowboxing, obviously in an effort to keep her name in the news.
You go, Lady “O.” How foolish is Palin's yammering, given that possibly as many as a third of America's children today aren't chubby cute, but obese, which adds up to a huge minus for them, their families and America's future?
And while I had Santa's attention, I also beseeched him to use his influence in South Carolina, to remind the diehards there that the South lost the Civil War and that flying the flag of a lost cause and throwing a 150th anniversary “secession ball,” as happened in Charleston this week, is pure foolishness. ESPN.com sportswriter Gene Wojciechowski waxed poetic when he penned a column last year that said, “From a practical standpoint, the Confederate flag is the economic and public-relations equivalent of chugging antifreeze.”
Or how about the segregationist foolishness coming from the mouth of Mississippi Gov. (and potential Republican presidential hopeful) Haley Barbour, claiming — and then quickly retracting, let's hope because some wise soul told him that he sounded like a fool — that the White Citizens Council in Yazoo City, Miss., his hometown, was a force for good during his youth. This is delirium, a foolish lie on par with Barbour having also asserted that, in the 1950s and '60s, he attended school with black people and had “a very pleasant experience.”
In Mississippi? Gov. Barbour, stop your foolishness.
On other fronts, we saw foolishness and shamelessness on vivid display when U.S. Sens. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C. at a time when millions of Americans are beating the pavement trying to find jobs — actually complained about being expected to show up for work on the days leading up to Christmas.
It's “sacrilegious,” DeMint said, for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to be calling for votes on a spending bill and the nuclear arms treaty at such a special time of year. Kyl accused the Democratic leader of being disrespectful of “one of the two holiest days for Christians.”
Actually, what is disrespectful at Christmas is the spectacle of two fully employed, perk-getting, well-paid, well-dressed and well-fed members of the United States Senate complaining about having to work when so many millions have no jobs to go to — and complaining about being asked to tend to such important matters as America's security and keeping assistance flowing just a little longer to economically fragile families who are hoping that jobs will materialize.
Finally, America's super patriots in public life may want to tone down their rhetoric about America being “exceptional” when new international math, science and reading test scores say different.
“The U.S. came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects. We can quibble or face the brutal truth that we are being out-educated,” Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of Education, said.
Exceptional? Not really, not when yet another report, this one from The Education Trust, brings the scary news that nearly a quarter of young Americans who want to join the Army fail its entrance exam, provoking concerns among educators and military officials that the pool of people qualified for military service will become too small.
With so many professed super-Christians in public life, you'd think there would be a little more appreciation for the difference between being a nation that is exceptional and a nation that is truly blessed in spite of its shortcomings. And those blessings, incidentally, have nothing to do with Santa Claus.
Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays in the Community Forum and online at www.courier-journal.com/opinion. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.
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