Beyond Opinion

Tonight, President Bush gave his State of the Union address. His speech covered the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy, energy, schooling, medical issues, retirement of baby boomers (including himself), and Iran. What he said seemed to continue the way he has been driving this country the past few years.

First of all, he said, " Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, members of the Supreme Court and diplomatic corps, distinguished guests and fellow citizens", which is the usual type of introduction that he would be expected to give as a speaker. But then did you see what he did? He stuck out his tongue. Right, Mr. President? Is that what you mean? "Fellow citizens: Bttthhhhh!!"?

He started by honoring Coretta King, and a little later, honored the family of one particular serviceman who died in Iraq, that of Dan Clay. Why him in particular? Also, I heard that you were going to bring in this female soldier who was reunited with her dog, but I heard no mention of her.

You mention how many democracies we have now - 122. Did you include Palestine? It had elections. Did you include Iran? It held elections. Iran may have elected a nut case for its leader, but still it was democracy in action.

You mentioned dictatorships, and I thought it interesting that you called the country west of Thailand "Burma", instead of "Myanmar", as though the old days were that much better. You now have an Axis of Five Evils - Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, Iran and North Korea. So why didn't we invade all these countries and free them, instead of picking on just Iraq? And you didn't mention Sudan, author of the Darfur terror.

You harped on terrorism and Al Qaeda and made it look like all terrorists are from Al Qaeda. No, Mr. President. There are other "terrorists" around, and some are in this country. Do you remember what happened in Oklahoma City in 1995? You said their day will come. You are getting as retributive as anything in the Bible, or maybe as much so as Al Qaeda itself, taking a stand against the Great Evil.

You said that decisions about troops reductions in Iraq should be in the hands of military commanders, not politicians. Now I know we have a bunch of loony tunes in Congress (that's because we elected them), but I sort of remember that our Founding Fathers chose to put control of military in civilian hands, to prevent a repressive junta from taking power.

You said that if we pull out of Iraq, that a lot of political dissenters would face death in prisons, that Al Qaeda and Zarqawi would be in charge, and that it would mean our pledge meant little. You sure are making Al Qaeda to be the bad guy. Why him all the time? Maybe some other dictator would take charge, or maybe the democracy would continue. I don't think we made any pledge to anyone in Iraq. I think we ignored the feelings of other countries when we invaded Iraq.

You did mention democratic elections in Palestine and Egypt. But then you started harping on Iran. You appealed to the citizens to set up a democratic Iran. Well, they have one. They just voted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into power.

You want to spy on your fellow citizens with a renewal of the Patriot Act, which of all acts in our history most resemble John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts. Again, you said it's because of Al Qaeda.

I thought you recommended something in the right direction with a Commission on Entitlements, to handle baby boomers' retirements. You mentioned health care, but you set up a really Byzantine drug benefit program for our senior citizens. Aid to poor and elderly is essential in this country, and no matter what, these people need to be provided with adequate income and medical care.

You said "America is addicted to oil." Hooray! Finally, a politician said that sort of thing without using the adjective "foreign". You recommended improving technology to handle the problem, but so far we have not been able to develop a viable hydrogen car to replace today's internal combustion engines. You also mention zero-emission coal, solar, wind and nuclear power, and this is a step in the right direction. But you omitted completely the need to conserve! We can't go on driving SUVs all over the place like we had no tomorrow, or we may find someday that our energy sources have no tomorrow. You also did not mention public transit, such as rail. Your ethanol recommendation was way off base. It takes oil to make ethanol, to power the combines, to transport the grain to processing facilities, and to run those facilities. You don't get much energy out of ethanol per unit of energy put into getting it.

I encourage you to pursue your recommendation on talent and creativity, especially in mathematics, which is my main endeavor. I want to see those 30,000 math professor jobs.

You want to do something about courts that try to redefine marriage. But you said absolutely nothing about the attempt in Virginia to try to redefine marriage by a constitutional amendment. Further, your rebutter Tim Kaine said absolutely nothing about it too.

So, although you made a few good points, Mr. President, much of your talk did not tell the true picture and was politically motivated.

As far as Tim Kaine, our new Virginia governor is concerned, he made some good points. Mr. Bush, read his rebuttal and take heed. Tim said, "There is a Better Way - in Virginia". You should have provided evidence of this in this state. There is plenty of it, with Mark Warner's administration. He has apparently been a popular governor here. You call on oil companies to contribute some of their profits to the public, but you did not say where. I think it is a good idea, and I think the money should go to develop mass transit and alternative energy sources. But you also did not mention alternative energy sources.
You ended the speech with "America can do Better", but then you alienated people who don't believe in God with your "God bless the USA". The President also mentioned God, which I feel should stay out of the State of the Union address.

So, Mr. Kaine, good speech, but like the President, you missed the energy boat.

Today I heard something positively ridiculous. According to an AP report, " Mick Jagger and his band mates may be nearing senior citizenship, but Super Bowl planners only want people who are under 46 to take the field during the Rolling Stones' halftime show at Ford Field on Feb. 5." Huhhh?? If you read on in the article, you find out that they only want people with the stamina to cheer and dance around for several hours.

First of all, this is outright age discrimination. These Super Bowl people are asking for a big lawsuit. Whether someone is selected or hired for a job should depend on ability, not on age. With most of the huge Boomer generation above this age, there is no way they can impose something like this. I hope such a suit is filed.

Secondly, there are many people over 45, including those much older than that, who dance and do other things for long periods of time. I dance for two hours every night every year at SUUSI, for instance, and I am now 59 years old. How about Bing Crosby and some of these other people who dance in their 70s? How about some of these marathon runners in their 60s?

And thirdly, take a look at the Rolling Stones themselves. I looked them up on Wikipedia. Mick Jagger is 62 years old and will be 63 later this year. The other three Stones are 59, 62, and 65 years old. That's standard retirement age, and this guy is still playing and dancing around, as well as the other Stones. Don't you think that performing for several hours they way they do before a group is strenuous? What they are saying is that it is okay for Stones to do it, but not for other 60-plus people to do it.

If they are going to impose this age limit, they should apply it all the way. They should run the Rolling Stones off the halftime show. First we had that "wardrobe malfunction", which was nothing more than the actor's version of the hypermedia. Now we have this case of age discrimination. Further, people make big whuptedoos about the Super Bowl, and they bomb out the news and other programs on TV with it. Maybe they should do more than keep 60-years-olds and Rolling Stones away from the Super Bowl. I say do away with the Super Bowl altogether.

Today was New Year's Day, and you know what that meant last night. It meant people out partying and drinking, and police out in force to catch people with sobriety tests and arrest those that drive while under the influence of alcohol.

They do this all the time, but still people get caught driving and drinking, and even worse yet, they continue to cause accidents, some serious. They catch driver after driver but the problem keeps coming back. To me it seems that we are using the wrong approach to the drinking and driving problem, and that the entire problem exists because of a contradiction that has been established in our society, and when a contradiction occurs, anything goes. P & not-P -> Q for all P and Q.

The drinking and driving paradox can be stated like this:

1. It is good to go to parties at holiday time.
2. Drinking at a party helps one enjoy the party.
3. Most places where people can drink (e.g., bars and nightclubs) are far enough way that one has to drive to get there.
4. One needs to drive to get back home.
5. Driving after one has been drinking is strongly discouraged or even forbidden.

These statements contradict each other. In particular, 1 and 2 say that one should go somewhere toher than home to party and drink, 3 says you must drive there, 4 says you need to drive while drunk, and 5 says you must not drive while drunk. That's a contradiction.

No wonder anything goes at parties. For anything goes in a contradiction. Statements 1-5 imply that one should and should not drive while drunk, that police should arrest drunk drivers and that police should leave them alone, that one can walk to bars 5 miles away because they are less than 1 mile way, because 5 is less than 1 and so forth.

Of course what a contradiction really means is that at least one of the statements 1-5 is false. However, our society operates as if all of them are true. To solve the problem of drinking and driving, one must falsify one of the statements. Which one should it be?

Falsifying number 5 clearly is not a good solution. That will lead to higher death tolls on the highways.

Falsifying number 4 is a possibility, but if one has had to drive to a nightclub, one has to drive home again. Of course someone else could drive him home, and this has led to the idea of "designated drivers". But then the partyer has to take a cab or something the next day to get his car back.

Falsifying number 3 means building a bar on every block, so one can walk to a bar or nightclub. This may be feasible in the center of large cities, but elsewhere the population is too thin for this to work. The drunken driving problem is in fact a feature of our car-dependent society, where we made it so we have to drive everywhere. There will be a problem soon with that as the world starts running out of oil. Going back to an urban village style of living will enable one to walk to a bar. Until that happens, falsifying 3 does not appear to be a solution.

Falsifying number 1 takes much of gthe happiness out of life. This means that people can never get together for recreational or off-work purposes. This can damage the morale of people everywhere. If we stop all parties, we can stop much but not all drinking and driving. But would we want to do that?

Perhaps falsifying number 2 is the best strategy. The whole problem exists because people think it is good to go out and drink. Can one have fun at a party without alcoholic beverages? Why do they have to be so necessary? I don't mean prohibiting it because look at what that caused in the 1920s and 1930s. I am saying not to depend on alcohol for a good time. Go out and enjoy being with other people. It's as simple as that.

In support of this, I request that the media refrain from sending out contradictory messages. Don't do a news segment on a horrible drunken driving accident and then show an ad that glorifies Millered-up Beer or whatever. That is sending out mixed messages. As part of this, I am requesting that companies in the alcoholic beverage business stop all pushy ads, including all ads on radio, TV and popups on the Internet. To me, this, along with decreasing our dependence on oil, are the best ways of curing the drunk driver problem and its accompanying contradiction.