Author: Brian Carnell

Campaigning Under the Influence

For the life of me I can’t understand why George W. Bush did not reveal his drunk driving arrest a long time ago — given the current state of American politics I’m convinced it would have helped his efforts. All he had to do was wait until he had the Republican nomination wrapped up and then schedule a heart-to-heart interview with one of those insipid network types like Barabara Walters and reveal his pain. People love that stuff for some reason (look at Missouri where the sympathy factor has a dead man beating his opponent for a Senate seat).

Instead it comes as a surprise bombshell right before the election that makes people wonder a) why was he hiding the DUI for so long, and b) more importantly, are there other arrests and/or incidents Bush is hiding?

Bush’s campaign isn’t helping matters by calling the sudden reports of the arrest as Democrat Party dirty tricks, which sounds too much like Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “vast right wing conspiracy” line.

$1 Billion for After-School Programs?

The U.S. Census Bureau released a study last month suggesting that, in 1995, 2.4 million children under the age of 12 were left home alone either before or after school. Of course you know what Bill Clinton’s answer is — lets spend $1 billion funding government after-school programs. Instead, how about reducing taxes so middle class families can spend more time with their kids.

And make no mistake this is definitely a middle class problem. Eleven percent of the children left home alone came from families who were at the poverty level, while 22 percent of the children came from families with incomes twice that of the poverty level. Some analysts interpreted this as meaning that cost was not an issue but missed the point.

As the data from the Census report indicate, families in poverty were less likely to leave children alone largely because one or both parents were not employed or in school and were available at home to watch children after they left school.

Cost of after school child placement is not the only factor that goes into deciding to allow children to be home alone, but it certainly is one of them. Rather than spending $1 billion dollars, why not simply lower taxes so that parents could arrange shorter or alternative work schedules that would allow them to spend more of their child’s after-school hours at home?

That wouldn’t satisfy the government’s need to insert itself in almost every aspect of life, but it might do a lot more to strengthen families than shipping kids off to government after school programs.

Source:

Millions of U.S. students home alone. CNN, October 31, 2000.

Bizarre Jon Katz article

In reviewing Margaret Wertheim’s bizarre new book, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, Jon Katz provides a classic Katz-ism for the ages,

My own sense is that they are witnessing and participating in the birth of a different sort of nation, seeking not so much spiritual as moral and ethical renewal. We have the sense of being present at the revolution, even if it’s not clear what kind of revolution. People are hungry not only for spirituality, but for a sense of purpose, and they don’t see one advanced in the election.

Nobody makes more profound statements about absolutely nothing than Katz.