Of Flags and Patriotism
In The Dallas Morning News, Mark Davis is still trashing Barack Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin and not always putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. Davis disingenuously says he isn't suggesting Obama is "some closet radical", when, of course, that's exactly what he is doing, going on to say that Obama "snubs the flag" and is "unfit for the presidency."
Conservatives have been using the flag to divide Americans since at least the McCarthy and Nixon eras. George H. W. Bush famously used an American flag factory itself as a photo op to wrap himself in the American flag. Conservatives do no honor to the American flag by using it to cudgel political opponents. I'll take Barack Obama's patriotism over Mark Davis' any day. Samuel Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." He might have been reading Mark Davis when he said it.
Complacent about DUI?
Betsy Simnacher of The Dallas Morning News asks, "Where is the outrage about drunken driving?" She says Americans are way too accepting of drivers who drink and drive.
Perhaps so. Personally, I thought that DUI penalties had been tightened, that education campaigns for designated drivers and against drinking and driving were largely effective, and incidents of DUI were down.
So, I did a little digging. According to a 2001 survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly all Americans reported that they perceived drinking and driving to threaten their personal safety. According to the 1995 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) 16 percent of drivers reported that they had driven while under the influence of alcohol in the past year. So, it appears that the message is getting out, but not everybody is doing what they know is good for them.
Given the obvious fact that alcohol impairs judgment, there may be a natural limit to how much further we can reduce rates of DUI without drafting the support of bar and restaurant owners, friends, family, etc. If society as a whole no longer wants to tolerate drunken driving, then society as a whole is going to have to take a more active enforcement role. It's time to assign more legal responsibility to those who don't put up any resistance when someone around them drinks and drives ... and kills.
Dictator Watch
When our city's very own tabloid Dallas Blog isn't telling us what sex scandal Boy George is up to, or where to find Florida prostitutes, or what human body parts you might find on your next amusement park ride, it is keeping up with the comings and goings of the world's dictators. Tom Pauken makes sure we don't miss any of the evildoers' doings.
Today, he tells us that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is having a hard time keeping his thugs in line, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is getting picked on by the British, Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has some followers who can't sit still in church, and America's Rudy Giuliani (Rudy, too?!?!) isn't best friends with the real heroes of 9/11, the New York firefighters.
How much does Tom Pauken care for all these fellows? Not so much, is my guess. But he is sure obsessed with them.
Thanksgiving, Our Great National Myth
Bruce Tomaso of DallasNews Religion finds Steve Gushee's musings about Thanksgiving worthy of note. Gushee says there's little historical accuracy in our national legend of the first Thanksgiving, but nevertheless, the legend serves to draw all Americans into a common heritage.
Well, I suppose, as long as we all know exactly what that heritage really is. National myths describe who we as a nation want to be, not who we are in practice. Learning the historical truth, learning where we failed to live up to the myths, striving to change our ways, to do better, to earn the pride that comes with the myths, that's the real value of national myths. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity for learning.
2 comments:
I recently had a little dust-up with Tabloid Tom McGregor in the comments section of Dallas Blog. He says his job is to "bring excitement and humor" to the blog, so that's why he puts up all the tabloid stuff. It's a real shame those clowns snagged that domain name. What a waste,
I don't know Tom McGregor's background, but he is fond of passing on stories from British papers, and the British have a history of outrageous tabloids. Tom McGregor's stories all have a cut-and-paste feel. I'd tell him, but Dallas Blog was still blocking me from commenting the last time I tried. ;-)
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