Category: Opinion

I need to vent and spout my opinion from time to time, and here’s where I do it.

Life on Hold

What do you say when your 7 year old asks you if life will ever move on when you have kids?

I was putting the kids to bed the other night and my 7 year old Noah said:
“Dad, do you feel like life won’t ever move on now that you have kids?”
My first thought was “Oh my gosh, did he hear me say something like that?”.  I’m gussing that all parents at some point wonder what their life would be like without kids.  Maybe he overheard my wife Sharon and I talking and we said something like that.  But, recovering from my own thoughts, I smiled at him and said,
“Oh honey, I think that our life with kids keeps us moving all the time.  We love how our life is with kids, there are lots of things that I wouldn’t know anything about.  I would never know what it’s like to have a 7 year old boy.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to be living with you forever.” Noah said.
“Noah, you’re going to grow up and have a family of your own and move out to your own house.”
“But I don’t know what I want to do or how to do things”
“Well, you have a long time still to learn things and to figure out what you want to do.  And, you can come back and see us whenever you want.  Come over for dinner, bring your kids over, just like we do at Grandma and Grandpas.”
“But what if you move?”
Well, we’ll be sure and tell you where we move, and we’ll talk to you on the phone.  We won’t go away just because you move out.  You will come over to our house, and you can bring your kids, and we’ll still see you all the time.”
“Oh, OK” was all that Noah said, and that seemed to solve it and put his fears to rest.

I am constantly amazed by the sincere and deep thoughts of kids.

Mortgage Bailout: Who pays for it?

So the government has signed into law a new bill to give “mortgage relief” to people who got into trouble with their loan. That sounds nice doesn’t it?

While people who hit hard times when the real estate market took a down turn and their houses were worth less than they paid for them, all I can say is “life’s a bitch”. There has never been a guarantee that your house will increase in value. Everyone should realize that when their interest rate is variable, that means it can change and you might pay much more. It’s a risk. You are rewarded for taking the risk by getting a lower initial rate. You might come out on top, you might lose. It’s a gamble. Except when the government shows up to bail you out when things go wrong. Some will say, “Well it doesn’t hurt you to help these people out.” Bull! It hurts me in two ways:

  1. First and foremost, it doesn’t fix the long term problem of stupid people buying something they can’t afford. Bitten once, shame on you, bitten twice shame on me. These people are still “bite free”. They won’t learn from this and are likely to do it again. Why not, there’s no risk if the government will bail you out.
  2. All of us as tax payers pay for it. The money comes from somewhere. As the article states, this bill costs $800 billion and pushes the deficit to 10.6 trillion. That means we just increased our debt by 8%. To bail out stupid people.

I chose not to take the risk. I paid a higher interest rate to get a 30 year fixed loan. I felt a little foolish when others got lower rates. But I now have an interest rate locked in for the next 25 years. Why did I do this? In part, because I had earlier gotten a 5/1 ARM mortgage that went up on me and I learned my lesson.

Don’t let the government make the American people stupider than they already are. Let your congressperson know that you don’t like this bill and would like to see less “nanny-state” policies and more “tough love”

 

Bush Apologizes … Finally

President Bush took the blame the day after the election for the Republicans losing the house majority. “I’m obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election and, as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility,” Bush said at a White House news conference on November 8th. He is willing to take responsibility for the political problems, but how about the problems with the war. It seems to me that Bush is sidestepping his responsibility in the problems that are going on with the war. In a bit of irony, Don Rumsfeld is stepping down as Defense Secretary because of the way things are going. I think that Rumsfeld made a lot of dumb moves in this war, but why isn’t the President willing to accept responsibility there as well. After all, he is the head of the armed forces as well as the head of the Republican party.

Now, I am not saying that he should resign, or that he needs to be impeached. We set a very dangerous precedent when we start impeaching presidents because we don’t agree with their decisions. That way leads to chaos and political instability and that benefits no one. All I’m asking for is an admission that the buck stops at the top and that whatever mistakes were made in Iraq are in part due to decisions made by Bush. Yes Rumsfeld should leave and should have left earlier. He bungled the preparation for this war and needs to bear responsibility for that. Bush has to accept that he took Rumsfeld’s advice when he shouldn’t have, but Bush has other jobs beyond national defense and removing him now causes ripples far beyond that of Rumsfeld leaving.

So, Mr. President: there is more the being president then playing political games. Take some responsibility for your other mistakes.

Nate Baxley

TV Families

In the last two weeks, two very long running shows on NBC, Friends and Frasier, came to an end after 10 or more years. I managed to catch the final shows of each series and it made me think about something. I didn’t watch every episode of these shows, but I caught them fairly regularly. I’m 29 now and so I was able to relate to Friends more than Frasier, but for both of them it made me think about the fact that I’ll miss these shows and these characters. They were like people that we knew. Of course they were people who we saw for an hour a week and who were able to solve most of their problems in about an hour. How does it happen that we become so attached to these characters? I actually watched an hour long show that talked about the history of these shows where they showed lots of clips from the shows. As I watched the clips, I remembered events from my own life that went along with the show. Is it sad to have those kind of associations? I don’t think so. I think that TV has become

Palestinian Terrorists?

I’ve just been reading several articles about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli press routinly calls the Palestinians terrorists, and I suppose by a strict definition of the word, they are. They do strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. They do use hit and run tactics and suicide bombers to carry out some of their attacks. But a better term would be gorrilla fighters. Their tacts of hit and run and ambushes are very much like gorrila fighting. I think something that might bring the Palestinian side of the conflict home to more Americans would be if they thought of how British new reports would describe the 13 colonies actions during the American revolution. Certainly the Americans used much less conventional tactics to attack their British enemy who was playing by the traditional “rules” of war. But when you are outnumbered, you fight in what ever way that you can.

I believe that Israel has used up just about all of the grief that people felt toward the Holocaust victims. I think without the Holocaust, Israel would not exist today, and people somehow see the Israelis as always being the oppressed ones. Well, when helicoptors pick random targets out of a town and destroy them as an act of “retaliation” for bombings that may have come from that area of town, you really have to wonder who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor. When innocent Palestinians have to sit in their homes and fear that they will be arrested for suspicion at any moment. When they have to drive, or walk, many miles out of their way to get to work because the Isreali army will not let them use the same roads as everyone else, you begin to see that the Israelis are not the downtrodden people that they appeared to be after World War II.

I am not an Anti-Semit. I am not Pro-Palestinian. I think both sides have been caught in a conflict that should have been settled long ago if it where not for childish leaders on both sides at one time or another. However, I will admit that I do not know enough of the history on either side to say who is right and who is wrong. But when Sharon says that he desperatly wants peace from one side of his mouth, and from the other side gives orders to occupy Palestinian towns and cut them off from the outside world, I have to wonder what he really wants. You also have to wonder when the main, the only, person that can or will represent the Palestinians is held under house arrest, how can there be a free and open discussion? I also want to state that while I find the Israeli leadership dispicible, I can not help but blame at least a majority of the Israeli people themselves when given a choice so obviously oppostite in Perez.

I hope this conflict is ended soon, but I am not going to hold my breath. This conflict will continue until the leaders of both countries are able to behave like civilized human beings, and until the rest of the world stops treating the Israelis as the chosen people.

America’s Game?

I’m writing today about something that has been burning in me for about a year now and I need to get it off my chest. I love the Chicago Cubs. I always have. Since we moved to Kansas City, it is hard to listen to or catch a game. Luckily for me, WGN radio broadcasts over the Internet, so I am able to listen to the games there. However, last year, Major Leage Baseball told all radio stations that they could no longer broadcast the games over the Internet. Why you ask, because MLB had their own plans for broadcasting the games, but not for free as the stations had done. The fee they would charge would be $10 for the season. Not a bad deal you say, and you’re right, but why is my question. Why not allow the stations to continue to broadcast the games as they had been? Why not support the games with ads? They went so far as to play dead silence between innings instead of play ads which could have easily supported the broadcasts.

Last year, in a furry, I sent an email to all of my friends telling them about this terrible plan and that they should stay away from it and send comments to MLB and express their disapproval of this new program. However, I urned out to be the biggest turncoat of them all. As the Cubs started their year off as one of the best in recent memory, I couldn’t take it and payed the $10. I then found out that the $10 did not include the pregame that was normally broadcast on WGN, although WGN was still prohibited from broadcasting it. I worked with people from MLB and WGN to try and get the pregame shows broadcast online since we get very little in depth coverage here in KC. As you may know, the Cubs turned in their usual end of season performance and didn’t get into the playoffs. I was willing to hang my head in shame at their performance and my capitulation with MLB and vow to let the matter drop. But, a few weeks ago I recieved an email from MLB telling me that I should act not to sign up for this season, and if I hurried, I could get it at the bargain price of $10, however, the regular price would be $15. So, even with internet broadcasts, MLB has followed the lead of the ballparks in their ever increasing chase of higher profits.

“Who cares?” you ask. I do for one. I see this as another sign of the decline of America’s game from what it once was, a family sport that could be enjoyed by all and bring the family closer together. I will never forget the first time that I went to Wrigley field to see the Cubs play. It was like being in a dream. The field was so green, the smells were so real, and I had to pinch myself to make sure that it was all real. I have 3 brothers and sisters, and I’m not sure what it cost my parents to take us all, but if we were to go today, we would spend almost $100 just to get in the door. And to make the experience complete, you have to have a hot dog and a coke. That will cost you another $30 at least. I know that I may sound like a curmugoney old complainer, but it saddens me that the game that I love and the America once called it’s one is now manifestint iteslf as a money hungry corpoaration that cares little for the fans or the accessibility of the game to the average American family.

So what now, if you feel that the new online broadcast policy of MLB is not a good way to bring the game to the fans, pleas send your comments to fanfeedback@website.mlb.com and be a silent bench warmer no more!