Open Thread Tuesday!
By Shaun Kenney | Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 | Catch-AllMaybe we’re starting a new tradition here at Bearing Drift? It’s a slow news week for Virginia, with localities hammering out budgets, General Assembly brooding over district lines, and spring finally having made an arrival in the Commonwealth!
…oh, and Obama is leading in his college hoops brackets. Thought you should know.
So do you have an opinion on Libya? Who’s the best candidate for the GOP nomination for president in 2012? Chime in below — everything goes!
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About the author
Shaun Kenney is the Chairman of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, former Communications Director for the Republican Party of Virginia, and an active blogger since 2002. Shaun lives in Thomas Jefferson's backyard with his wife, six children, and a modest attempt at a farm in Kents Store, Virginia.
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18 Responses to "Open Thread Tuesday!"
What is the role of the press? And where does BD fall into that category? How would you rate yourselves? I have wondered what you feel your role in society is?
Shaun, how could you have missed the biggest story of the week, Richmond becoming the center of the college basketball universe? I mean, I’m excited about this and I don’t even care enough about college basketball to have filled out a tourney bracket.
There are certain games where I really can’t stand waiting for the last 2:00 of the game.
Hockey.
Soccer.
Poker.
…and basketball.
If they came up with a channel that showed just the last 2:00 of every basketball game, that would pretty much sum it up.
Nonetheless, glad to see VCU and Richmond move on! Spiders last did this in what… 1990 IIRC?
You might be on to something Shaun.
Ever watch the NFL Red Zone channel in a sports bar? They flip from one game to another all Sunday afternoon showing whatever team is inside the 20-yard line. I am a huge NFL fan and can watch most games from end to end, but Red Zone is pretty entertaining if you’re not particularly interested in a single game.
HR: NFL Red Zone is genius. Particularly great, of course, for fantasy league football players.
I would like a discussion on this news:
http://www.businessinsider.com/seiu-union-plan-to-destroy-jpmorgan
Can it be done or is it just talk? Like we haven’t had enough trouble already?
Well, if the businesses want to destroy unions, Kathy, and it certainly look like they do given what their Republican lackeys in statehouses are doing, you can’t expect that unions are not going to fight back.
I read in this news article the unions want to destabilize the market and redistribute wealth. I didn’t read in this news article anything about businesses destroying unions or anything about Republicans.
Have you not been following what’s been happening in Wisc. Michigan, Indiana and now Alaska?
@Kathy ~ interesting article; obviously the guy (and his plan) are ‘busted’. MOST surprising part was Lerner’s admission, “Unions are almost dead. We cannot survive doing what we do but the simple fact of the matter is community organizations are almost dead also.” Don’t believe I’ve ever heard a union official ‘go there’ before.
What got my attention was “Justice for Janitors” because when I was visiting W&M, I ran across a group started by ACORN named “Living Wage”.
http://wmlivingwagecampaign.com
If you check out the Join Us, it has the AFL-CIO and the chair of the Democratic Party in Williamsburg.
If you click on the link below it will take you to the “United Students Against Sweatshops” http://usas.org
Under that, you’ll see where students have been organized to tour cross country with the workers and protest Scott Walker and John Kasich.
Hate to tell you but the community organizers are alive and well. And pretty active at W&M and probably a college near you. All you need to do is read on and you’ll find unions all over the place. Hate to say it but its not going to be unions…its going to be students and community organizers.
And these protestors in Michigan appear rather young, do they even know what they’re protesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZeYkN1HIzk&feature=player_embedded
John Jackson,
As the saying goes, I really like these campus idealists. They remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.
When they start earning a living in the real world and start paying taxes, most of them will become Republicans. Then, many of them will become politically aware and become Independents, trusting neither party to do the right thing for our republic.
HisRoc,
Another term comes to mind, Useful Idiots. Nothing better than molding a youthful mind than a just cause.
I guess you believe in the American Exceptionalism lasting forever? Are we immune to such threats that we should ignore them? It appears that you didn’t learn your lessons from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
John Jackson,
I’m not sure what your point is. However, having lived many years among Europeans, having traveled in the former Soviet Union, and having traveled and done business throughout the Middle East, yes, I do believe in American Exceptionalism. There is a quality of hope, optimism, and fealty in Americans that I have often found lacking in people of other countries. Nationalism is not patriotism and greed is not optimism.
As to the lessons of the WTC bombing in 1993, what were we supposed to learn? That there are unhappy people in the world who don’t like America? Duh. But you are not ignoring threats just because you refuse to capitulate to terrorists.
HisRoc,
My point is that the 93 WTC bombing was a precursor to 9/11. There were signs of the housing crash but nothing was done. Both topics are now taboo.
Now, we have people discussing economic terrorism and its dismissed as youthful ignorance. There are unions and community organizers alive and well within colleges, practicing entitlement mentality.
I’m just saying, what’s in a conservation or is this one of those off limit topics that need to veered in a PC manner?
It’s important to be aware of all threats upon us.
John Jackson,
I’m afraid that I don’t share your hysteria over “unions and community organizers alive and well within colleges, practicing entitlement mentality.” I went to college during the Vietnam era. There were plenty of activists and organizers preaching everything from civil disobedience to violent rebellion. I thought that they were both sad and comical. Sad because they actually believed their own outrageous bullshit and comical because I imagined that their parents had no idea what their very expensive private college tuition was being spent on.
A few of them grew up to be liberal kooks constantly tilting with windmills; most of them became button-down conservatives after The Outside World gave them an accelerated 12-step program in Reality.
As for unions, the right to freedom of association and assembly is carved in stone in the First Amendment. I pay dues to belong to a country club. If someone else wants to pay dues to belong to a trade association, they can have at it. I am not threatened in the least way. If my country club conducts illegal membership practices, then there are laws that provide remedy. If a union conducts illegal job actions, the same rule of law applies.
As some dismissed these “liberal kooks constantly tilting with windmills”, we now have to live with the bureaucracy they have created. These liberal kooks didn’t get converted in the 12-step rehabilitation program and they now have the power to make the necessary policies to create that windmill tilting economy.
The 1% income tax dwarfed into the progressive mess we have today, or legalized racism known as affirmative action, or the FDR entitlement programs that are unsustainable and now a financial and healthcare bill that is about to become a bureaucratic nightmare. These kooks should not have been given the power they have now because now they make the laws that protect us from ourselves while they are the ones that need protection.
And I hope that you’re not comparing mandatory union dues to your country club membership dues? If so, that’s for an entirely different conversation.
As you dismiss my comments as hysteria, I provided legitimate ties of college pep rallies to community organizations and unions.
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