Category Archives: Issues

This Week in the News: October 2016

Traffic Accidents affect life, spirituality

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with the indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
–Stanley Kubrick

Voting faith in Government

  • rigged election
  • Voting as a responsibility
  • Waste
  • Third Party

The electoral map really was rigged by Republicans after the 2010 census.

Polls – are election polls rigged can they be?  Online poll for Justin Bieber, Pitbull.

A restriction-less 2010 poll set up by Faxo.com to pick a destination for Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour saw North Korea steal the top spot…

A Facebook poll launched in the summer of 2012 to sponsor a Pitbull concert at the Walmart franchise  sent Pitbull to the most remote Walmart store in the U.S Kodiak, Alaska.

Can poll results affect beliefs

Jason Kandor TV ad

Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Jason Kander released a television ad last month in which he put an AR-15 assault rifle together blindfolded while reciting a script about gun rights. Mr. Kander’s poll numbers soared IMMEDIATELY. Have you ever changed your opinion due to a stunt? Are your beliefs based on first impressions or lasting principles?

Can one’s ability change your beliefs

AT&T wants to merge with Time Warner. Do you care? Does the phone you have affect your decision?

Galluping Polls and Pew Surveys…Are these Big Riggs?

  1. A restriction-less 2010 poll set up to pick a destination for Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour saw North Korea steal the top spot…  A Facebook poll launched in the summer of 2012 to sponsor a Pitbull concert at the Walmart franchise  sent Pitbull to the most remote Walmart store in the U.S Kodiak, Alaska.  Do you pay attention to online polls?  Have you been influenced by them

2. A 2016 Gallup Poll concluded that Utah was the happiest state in the Union based on ranking well-being, work and community.  Texas finished 29th.  Could you be happier in another state?  Job? Community?

3. Another Gallup Poll found that both men and women were most afraid of snakes and least afraid of the dark.  But 27% more women were afraid of mice than men.  What probable daily encounters do you fear most?  What things do other people fear that you do not?

4. Confidence in the church

Since 1975, confidence in the church as a whole has dropped from 68% to 41% in 2016.  What factors might have influence this poll?

5. Eleven former presidents of the United States were affiliated with the Episcopal Church.  Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were unaffiliated.  Does religious affiliation matter to you?  Does it matter to the majority of Americans?

 

 

Summary: Increasing Voter Turnout for 2018 and Beyond

Below find a summary of this New York Times article (Ctrl Click):

Hillary supporters voted underwhelmingly.  Only 43% of those under 25 voted last year.  Low turnout favors extreme candidates and incumbents.  To inspire turnout, inspire voters with a good candidate.  Also, personal contact increases turnout.  Voter anger increases turnout.  Activism increases turnout.  Voting’s structural obstacles preserve rich, white, old and suppress poor, young, minorities.  Institutional reforms make voting easier.  For example, Denver mailed ballots and allowed registration and voting on same day.  Republican officials make it harder to vote.  Automatic registration does not necessarily increase turnout.  Weekend and holiday elections increase turnout.  The many voting entities cause voting to occur every week and, so, decentralization decreases turnout.  Voting is easier in US than ever before but turnout is declining.  Making voting a habit increases turnout.  All improvements add up.

Review: Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough

The hour calls for optimism; we’ll save pessimism for better times.

John Semley reviews Naomi Klein’s latest leftie lament No is Not Enough.  Semley begins his review by characterizing Michael Bloomberg’s offer to fund U.S.’s financial commitment to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as mega-billionaire salvation.  He further metaphor’s Bloomberg, likening him to a firefighter saving a cat in a tall tree.  Then further depicts Bloomberg vs Trump as behemoths in a Japanese monster movie battling each other with briefcases.  Somewhere down below his third paragraph is Naomi Klein, pinned in by metaphors, lost in the sea of panicked little people scurrying for safety.

Finally, we find Naomi, disparaging elite liberals as saviors and advocating grassroots push back for meaningful change.  Populist uprising must be met and pushed back with grassroots movements on the green field of political advocacy.  The reviewer decides the Ms. Klein’s slim offering is a place for anyone to start to make sense of Trump and Trumpism.  Naomi describes a culture that grants indecent impunity to the ultrarich because it is consumed with winning and dominance.  As we have seen with articles of anti-Trump pundits and late-night hosts, the author prescribes making our president look like a puppet (Bannon, Putin).  This tactic and other such bating has proved, in some instances, deliriously successful.

Naomi Klein, with her holy trinity of of contemporary progressive-leftie doctrine (2000’s No Logo, 2007’s The Shock Doctrine and 2014’s This Changes Everything), preaches that major crises precipitate political change, both good and bad.  People unite to build a better world or disband and feel sorry for themselves in a Trump world.  A point that may be missed in John Semley review of Naomi Klein’s No is Not Enough lies in the final quote from Belgian cartoonist Jean-Claude Servais:

The hour calls for optimism; we’ll save pessimism for better times.

Note the word hour…optimism has a shelf-life, seize it before it spoils.