There's Truth, Justice and the American Way...and then there is the Internet

I guess that since Superman was an American television show, that is why he fought for the American way, along with truth and justice.  Right now my interest is truth.  How much of what winds up being shared on the net is true?

My friends love to share things they encounter on the net that they find "moving" and I don't blame them.  Some of the things they share are incredible.  The problem is when what they have shared isn't true.

Most recent example is the story of a dog picked up from a shelter.  It's heart-worming, gut-wrenching, tear-inspiring.  It's also an urban legend that's been floating around the internet since 2009.  You can read the story and its debunking here:  http://www.snopes.com/glurge/reggie.asp.

I don't blame the people who share this story after reading it for doing so.  It seems believable.  It came from a source they trust.  Maybe I'm a cynic because I take nothing I encounter online at face value.  If it isn't a news story from a legitimate journalism outlet, my immediate thought is that it is suspect. 

The late Ronald Reagan said it best.  "Trust but verify."  If a friend posts something original, my assumption is that it is true.  I trust them..  If they share something, I'm probably going to question its veracity.  That's part of the nature of a pedantic person like me.  Please understand it isn't meant as an affront.  My goal is to inform, not criticize.

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We interred Japanese-Americans during World War II.  We passed the Patriot Act in the wake of 9/11.  There's very little that's actually patriotic within this law, since it actually limits our freedoms and other Constitutional protections.

This proves my theory that the first casualty of war, or the threat of war, are our freedoms.  We become so concerned about protecting the nation, we lost sight of protecting our rights.  We endorse the setting aside of due process in creating a "No-Fly List."  If your name pops up on that list, shouldn't you have the right to challenge whatever information was used to put you on that list?  The NSA collects huge amounts of our personal information without any probable cause, to be used in case we are suspects.

I concur that our nation needs to be kept safe, but it seems that the pendulum is swinging too far in the direction of paranoia.  I don't want the children of Central America who journey here by themselves in an attempt to create an anchor here being admitted to the nation.  However, I don't want to see them deported without the normal due process.

The Obama Administration's pursuit of unilateral action when Congress cannot find a way to break the wall of partisanship to accomplish something is indicative of how our system is failing our individual and collective liberties.

The right of women to choose abortion is paramount.  That doesn't change the fact that Roe v Wade was legislation by judicial fiat rather than codification of a Constitutional principle.  Nor should our President be implementing a change in the laws regarding immigration because Congress is incapable of doing so. 

We have a system of checks and balances that only works when each element lives within the limits set forth in the law.  Right now, that's not what's going on.

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DNR

Do Not Resuscitate.  Three times now I've been asked by healthcare professionals at the VA if I want them to try to revive me should a procedure go wrong.  Do I want to sign a DNR?  All three times I refused to sign one.

I spent two months in a coma.  There were questions by some of the doctors who treated me at the time about whether or not I'd ever come out of the coma.  Of course I wasn't involved in those discussions.  I did have discussions with a pulmonary specialist who was afraid that he might not be able to wean me from oxygen.

Signing a DNR is very much an individual choice.  I am not trying to tell anyone how they should handle this choice.  What I do know is that had I signed one, I wouldn't be here today.  They wouldn't have put the tube in my throat that kept me alive until I could breathe on my own.

Someday I may regret the decision to refuse to sign a DNR.  But I will fight for every precious moment of life.  That's just how I feel about it.  I've come very close to death twice and don't want to repeat the experience.  I have no illusions about being immortal.  We all must face the end of this life, but we choose how to do it on our own terms; provided we give the matter some thought beforehand.

Just for the sake of clarity, I'm not saying anyone else should sign or not sign a DNR.  I'm saying each and every one of us need to give the matter adequate thought before forcing a loved one to make the choice for us.

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Random Ponderings:

How do you spend $1,000 in a sex shop?

Wouldn't it be easier to just have them ship you a pallet of beer instead of lugging around a 99 pack that weighs over 80 pounds?

I'm still trying to comprehend how a drive-thru brothel works.  I get the drive-thru wedding chapels in Vegas, but a brothel??

There are dozens and dozens of ways we Americans waste water.  ALS is a great cause.  But when 3.4 million people are dying annually from issues involving lack of sanitary water, and California is in a serious drought, shouldn't we be saving all the water we can?

Jason Patric's case is interesting.  The crux of the matter is whether or not he donated sperm for in-vitro fertilization with an intent to parent, or merely to help his then ex-girlfriend to get pregnant; with no intent of taking a parental role.  In this case, intent matters a lot.  Should it?

Smart of Chris Brown to plead guilty in his case in D. C.  Time served, put it behind him and so on.  Nicely done.  Question is, how long can he stay out of trouble?

I guess being kicked out of Congress didn't go so badly for Eric Cantor, after all his new job will pay him $3.4 million.

I'm happy to see Zelda Williams back on Twitter.

While the act of hacking into someone's private data to obtain naked photos and the like is reprehensible and a crime, we can't ignore the fact that if you don't put such things into a place where they can be stolen; they won't be stolen.

Walmart is making its employees wear uniforms.  That's fine.  But making them buy the uniforms?  What, do they think their employees are Hooters Girls or something?  (Hooters makes the girls buy all of the replacement uniforms and even the smallest stain of wing sauce can make replacement necessary).  With the low wages paid by Walmart, these poor people would have to work a full shift to pay for a uniform.

Watching a rerun of L.A. Law from Season 3 is making me kinda miss Morton Downey, Jr. and Wally George.

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September 1st in History:

47 BC – Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.
44 BC – Cicero launches the first of his Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the following months.
31 BC – Final War of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium – off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
421 – Galla Placidia, wife of the Emperor Constantius III, becomes a widow for the second time when he dies suddenly of an illness.
1192 – The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the Third Crusade.
1649 – The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro.
1666 – The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St Paul's Cathedral.
1752 – Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.
1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.
1792 – During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic Church bishops, more than two hundred priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers.
1806 – A massive landslide destroys the town of Goldau, Switzerland, killing 457.
1807 – The Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.
1811 – The University of Oslo is founded as The Royal Fredericks University, after Frederick VI of Denmark and Norway.
1833 – Oberlin College is founded by John Jay Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart in Oberlin, Ohio.
1856 – The Tianjing Incident takes place in Nanjing, China.
1859 – A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service.
1862 – American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
1864 – American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, Georgia, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1867 – Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, marries Masako Ichijō. The Empress consort is thereafter known as Lady Haruko. Since her death in 1914, she is called by the posthumous name Empress Shōken.

1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan – Prussian forces take Napoleon III of France and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner.
1885 – Rock Springs massacre: in Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers killing 28, wounding 15 and forcing several hundred more out of town.
1898 – Battle of Omdurman – British and Egyptian troops defeat Sudanese tribesmen and establish British dominance in Sudan.
1901 – Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.
1935 – Labor Day Hurricane of 1935: a large hurricane hits the Florida Keys killing 423.
1939 – World War II: following the start of the invasion of Poland the previous day, the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed by Nazi Germany.
1945 – World War II: Combat ends in the Pacific Theater: the Instrument of Surrender of Japan is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
1945 – Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
1946 – The interim government of India is formed, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice President with the powers of a Prime Minister.
1957 – President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam becomes the first foreign head of state to make a state visit to Australia.
1958 – United States Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan in Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew members are killed.
1960 – The first election of the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, in history of Tibet. The Tibetan community observes this date as the Democracy Day.
1963 – CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.
1970 – NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation is re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19.
1990 – Transnistria is unilaterally proclaimed a Soviet republic; the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev declares the decision null and void.
1992 – An earthquake in Nicaragua kills at least 116 people.
1998 – Swissair Flight 111 crashes near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia. All 229 people on board are killed.
1998 – The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide.
2013 – The new eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic, being the widest bridge in the world.

Famous Folk Born on September 2nd:

Liliuokalani of Hawaii
Albert Spalding
Joseph Roth
Adolph Rupp
William F. Harrah
Mel Stuart
D. Wayne Lukas
Peter Ueberroth
Mary Jo Catlett
Billy Preston
Nate Archibald
Terry Bradshaw
Jim DeMint
Jimmy Connors
Tony Alva
Eric Dickerson
Salma Hayek