Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Get Out While You Can


Back in Detroit just in time to see reruns of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's "Not Guilty" pleas. Between his and any number of other socio-political happenings lately, it's no wonder American public confidence -- outside the 28% True Knights of the Fox Nation -- is at its lowest point since 1973. It took Watergate, Spiro Agnew's bribery and tax evasion scandal, the OPEC oil embargo and the wake of the Vietnam War to get Americans to this point before. Today we have Kwame refusing to resign, Dick Cheney saying "so" to public opposition to the Iraq Debacle, all economic indicators (including, again, high oil prices) going haywire, and G.W. Bush in La-La Land to get us to the same point. WEO!

Lindy Lenk (aka Pythia) challenged me to find some true contemporary heroes and certainly, I'll think about it. It may be that we just need ordinary people to stand and deliver in these rocky times. More thoughts on the idea of public heroes soon, I hope. Until then, good night and good luck. And that's the way it is . . . . . (to quote Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite).


Today's Rune: Strength. Top image courtesy of the White House.

5 comments:

Lana Gramlich said...

Ironically, Michael Isikoff is my cousin (although we lost touch a while back.)
Your mayor disgusts me more every time he opens his mouth. Unfortunately I have little hope that any "justice" will be served. Even if he's replaced, it'll probably be the same old, same old.
I seem to be leaning toward anarchy more every day...
(Sorry for my absence again...I was having back problems.)

Charles Gramlich said...

Hubris is definitely not in short supply these days.

Anonymous said...

I think the Enron whistleblower women are heroes.

I looked up their names:

Sherron Watkins
Coleen Rowley
Cynthia Cooper

Pythia3 said...

Yes, you are right Erik, we need every day heroes...hmmmmm?
Hey, what about the woman - the retired clerk - who got this ball rolling...where has she been? I haven't seen her on TV lately? Did they put her into the witness protection program to save her from the dancer's fate?
I heard the media try to compare our text message scandal to the Netherlands not-so-scandalous affair with a call-girl...I wonder if they took into consideration the millions of dollars "Kawamity Kill-past-trick" lost our city and the police officers who lost their jobs and the dancer who lost her life...and that was just the tip of this globally warming iceberg.
When it's all said, texted and done, and when the 'turned up heat' melts the said iceberg...I wonder what other skeletons will float to the top of the swamp.
;)

Erik Donald France said...

Thanks all for the comments -- all very good points. Here then to Sherron Watkins, Coleen Rowley, Cynthia Cooper, and the retired clerk. . . and more soon, hopefully. . .