Short Takes Three: One Liners More or Less
By
Ron Steinman
According to news reports there is a tough internal battle in the Obama administration between the regulators assigned to oversea banking. One side wants strict controls over all the banks because they were the ones who did so much to create the economic mess we are in. The other side wants almost no control over the biggest banks because it contends that is where the best talent resides and we should not lose the ability and rights of those people to heavy-handed watchdogs. That side seems to forget it was that very same self-styled unscrupulous so-called “talent” and its freewheeling desire to make money and more money, that brought down the economy in the first place. I side with the strict control advocates. Control executive pay. Do not reward failure whatever happens to be in a person’s contract. Eliminate bonuses unless the bonus for the individual executive aids the bank and the economy. I believe there is world of talent that exists outside the banking industry just waiting for a chance to right that sinking ship. The rewards would be great if new bankers can do it, if the government allows them to do it.
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The world did not collapse as some predicted it would with the change from analog TV to digital TV, mostly a business ploy anyway. I have a decent set but I cannot tell the difference between what I was seeing and what I now see. If there is a difference, it is slight. The sound is not much better than the often-poor quality I usually receive. I watch my cable bill very closely but hardly understand a word of it. It seems to rise so fast every month that it resembles a runaway train. I know others say it, but I don’t need all those channels, most of which I never watch or care to watch. Many of which I never heard of either. There is only so much time in the day for watching TV, or surfing on broadband.
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It is time to remove the word alleged, meaning supposed, suspected, so-called, assumed, from the vocabulary of TV reporters and anchors, especially when there are witnesses to the crime in question. It was foolish to hear it in regard to the recent shooting of a security guard at The Holocaust Museum. There were so many witnesses to the shooting that there are no doubts who did the shooting. Lawyers protecting the corporation they work for worry that if they do not use allege the criminal will sue for defamation of character or libel or worse. That is weak. Use alleged if there is no eyewitness or other proof clear of the crime. Otherwise, drop it if it does not apply.
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I know this will read like heresy, but it is time we put the myth of Tim Russert to bed. He has been dead for a year. It is time we stopped idealizing him. Miss him if you want, but please don’t elevate him to god-like status. It is not good for journalism.
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I am not imagining things when I look at body builders in the gym and wonder why their heads seem so small sitting on such enormous bodies. It must be that steroids shrink the head as much as they shrink some other vital parts of a man. Perhaps the geniuses who run so-called health clubs should come up with a scheme, or if not, a drug that allows the head of weight lifters to grow in proper proportion with the rest of the body.
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If I were a working journalist in Washington, every chance I got, I would ask Republican senators and representatives who are against health care reform about the 50,000,000 who have no insurance. The cost to the economy of 50,000,000 potentially sick people is impossible to calculate. Republicans of most stripes probably would rather those people disappear down a rabbit hole. That way, out of sight, out of mind, they would be an annoyance instead of a deadly serious problem. The question of the 50,000,000 must be off limits to the press in Washington because it is collectively afraid it will lose it’s insider status and get only hand-out news instead of digging for the real thing. Perhaps we should male real Jonathan Swift’s ideas in his essay, “A Modest Proposal.” That way the problem will surely disappear.
