We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you
The prez won the Nobel Peace Prize. That's fine with me. A lot of talking heads are getting air and print love for their remonstrations. Sounds phony. The protests, not the award. Well, the award no more than the ones they gave to Arafat and Gore. Arafat and Gore? I don't much care for Jimmy Carter, never have, but at least he did something they could point to. But I digress. It's the Nobel committee's business and none of my own. Never has been.
The Nobel is a distraction for the prez and for us. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, not the prize. I don't care much about Nobel Prizes or awards of any kind. Grammys, Oscars, Tonys, Best In Show, Outstanding Camper... all of them have agendas and none of them concern me. Way to go, prez, and congratulations on donating the $1.4 mil to charity. How many of your predecessors have done that? Now will you make some decisions about the war and the economy? Please?
Rush and his pals want to buy the St. Louis Rams NFL team. Again, not something that concerns me much. He's got the bucks and the interest, so why not? Lots more talking heads are getting even more air time than usual to present their case against Rush. "He's Rush!" is pretty much their position. Politically inflammatory, a contrarian and obstructionist in their world view. Their question seems to be "Why should a rich self-made man with strong opinions be allowed to buy a football team?" My question is, who cares? If Mark Cuban can own an NBA team then the character test for pro sports owners has been set low enough that Roman Polanski, much less Rush, could fit right in.
What links these two events? Fair question. It's this. We had no involvement in either of these decisions and no stake in the outcomes and we still insist on making statements as though we were involved. We're not. More than that, beyond voting we are likely never to be involved in decisions outside of the world we have created for ourselves. Even there we'll find a lot of room for attention and improvement if we honestly admit our shortcomings.
Freedom of speech? Sure, you've got all you'll ever need, but so what? Do we really think we should weigh in on Nobels or NFL ownership or any other distraction of the moment? Tend your own gardens, feed and protect those who depend on you and improve your own life, for them, for yourself and for your nation. If you are drawn to action, great, do something meaningful rather than carping at the meaningless.
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I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
George Bernard Shaw
I like your take on this. "...tend your own garden...improve your own life..." Amen to that! I say write your own bucket list and start working on it. There are plenty of others willing to spend their time carping, whining, pointing fingers, etc. It's a waste of time and energy. Do something that matters, if only to yourself. That makes perfect sense to me.
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