Never have I lived in times in which there is so much divisiveness and controversy, so much conspiracy theory, such bending of JOURNALISTIC PRINICIPLES in favor of OPINION, and so many strangers who are angry and willing to tell you how it is.
I try to take my dog with me whenever possible and to include her especially in trips to parks and beaches. This is supposed to be relaxing time, however, I find there is nowhere I can go where even acknowledging another person's presence or chit chatting doesn't run the risk of being subject to a pontification, a diatribe, a lecture.
That was the case when recently I started taking my dog to the marina late afternoon to watch the chartered fishing boats come in and watch the gulls, pelicans, and occasional sea lion waiting to take part of whatever guts where thrown overboard for them. I saw a man and his wife with a picnic basket sitting near me. They were having wine and sandwiches. The man offered me some wine, which I declined. Then he started bragging about what deals he had gotten knowing just how to shop. The wine, he said, was worth four times what he paid for it. A few minutes later, as his wife sat with a frozen smile on her face he began to tell me the latest conspiracy theories he was sure about regarding Covid. I guessed that she probably has held her tongue for so long she could bite it off.
My opinion on Covid is that if a person is under doctor's care for a ongoing medical condition, they must trust their doctor's advice on this. If you are treating for cancer, for instance, you probably have an immune system working overtime. However, people must also respect the society they live in and not be careless about possibly infecting others. Most of the big mouths I meet who are unvaccinated and spinning theories ARE NOT WEARING MASKS. The other issue is the carelessness about allowing other people to afford your medical care - if you have the money to afford excellent medical care and aren't afraid about going broke when you end up fighting for your life in intensive care, well, that's different than sending a $300.000 bill to the tax payers, isn't it? Unfortunately many of the careless I have met, spinning every conspiracy theory about Covid are on governmental medical insurance such as Medi-Cal. Think about that.
The story that has wiped Covid off the front pages is the evacuation of Afghanistan since the Taliban so quickly took over. Unfortunately one of the sites I've been reading several times a day regarding Covid, Daily Mail UK, has headlines that are SO CLEARLY BIASED AGAINST OUR PRESIDENT BIDEN such as claiming he was in a fetal position when he was not, that I am trying to avoid ever reading the publication's site again. It is one of the most read publications on earth - perhaps the second most popular - and therefor powerful, and I find it DISGUSTING first of all that the editors and proofreaders there FAIL TO HONOR OUR PRESIDENT by putting the word PRESIDENT in front of his name. How dare they carry on the INSULTING TRUMPISM of calling him Sleepy Joe.
Biden is aging and he long ago overcame stuttering. Two of our greatest Presidents hid their disabilities. President John F. Kennedy hid a serious chronic pain condition and other ailments he had to treat for. President Franklin D. Roosevelt hid that he was a Polio victim who could not walk. These two have been an inspiration to so many people who find they are are disabled.
Secondly, no President makes decisions without input from advisors, including military and intelligence, and when a situation rapidly devolves like this one has, that information can change moment by moment. Also media such as Daily Mail UK is highly dependent on an audience that likes to see the "cheese cake", such as various Kardashians holding cell phone cameras down towards their private parts while they hold their pants out, for readership; it's close to pornography. A great number of articles must reference other publications that printed first. Most of all, it features opinionated personalities and their hyperbole, people whose careers depend on their egos and finding fault and tearing apart, but who rarely have the solution to any problem and have no way to carry out their ideas anyway.
The problem may simply be that the British and Great Britain is really not that interesting and must go outside itself and to America to find something to write about and publish. The country may have once dominated the world, but it is a small country, that fits into our state of Georgia, and what if all the news was about what was happening in Georgia? Further, my experience is that is a snobby and self-satisfied nation too. (Many of us have had the experience of British ex pats coming to America but never giving up their snobbery and self satisfaction enough to ever be Americans.) Perhaps through it's Opinion Personalities the British wish to hold onto power?
Of course I believe in being able to express opinions. What has changed is the respect for the other guy. I recently was sitting outside a coffee house when three opinionated men all started SHOUTING at each other. I asked them to lower their voices and calm down. It was competitive. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE STATESMANSHIP of DEBATE in which people take turns so that they can HEAR EACH OTHER?
When you publish your rants in what is an INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATION such as Daily Mail Uk, that's just not honest debate.
I lived through four years of TRUMP, and after his ongoing assault on media by declaring everything and anything that did not AGREE with him to be "Fake News" I can deal with the GENTLEMANSHIP of PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN. DO NOT FORGET THAT the United States has been in Afghanistan through four presidencies.
And while the United States is criticized for trying to keep to the deadline, despite terrorist attacks and threats and much uncertainty, DO NOT FORGET THAT SO MANY OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE ALREADY LEFT. Once more The United States of America and it's citizens will bear the cost, the brunt, the lives.
C 2021 Magyar- American BlogSpot
