"We’ve been complaining about the way Congress fails at everything except scheduling vacations. So it seems only fair to salute the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act. The way things are going, it could be the most significant piece of legislation to make it into law this year."
I would contrast Collins's piece of fluff with Charles Krauthammer's Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama: The fall" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-the-fall/2013/05/02/6fa564c4-b348-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html?tid=pm_pop), in which he writes:
"For Obama, gun control was a political disaster. He invested capital. He went on a multi-city tour. He paraded grieving relatives. And got nothing. An assault-weapons ban — a similar measure had passed the Congress 20 years ago — lost 60 to 40 in a Senate where Democrats control 55 seats. Obama failed even to get mere background checks.
All this while appearing passive, if not helpless, on the world stage. On Syria, Obama is nervously trying to erase the WMD red line he had so publicly established. On Benghazi, he stonewalled accusations that State Department officials wishing to testify are being blocked.
He is even taking heat for the Boston bombings. Every day brings another revelation of signals missed beforehand. And his post-bombing pledge to hunt down those responsible was mocked by the scandalous Mirandizing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, gratuitously shutting down information from the one person who knows more than anyone about possible still-existent explosives, associates, trainers, future plans, etc."
I would also contrast Collins's cheeriness with the news that middle-aged Americans have grown desperate and are taking their own lives as never before. As reported by The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/study-suicide-rate-for-middle-aged-americans-up-28-percent-over-decade-40-pct-for-whites/2013/05/02/cb339740-b341-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html):
"The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans climbed a startling 28 percent in a decade, a period that included the recession and the mortgage crisis, the government reported Thursday."
As one reader of this blog wrote in a comment yesterday:
"Millions of us lost our careers at 50 due to endemic age discrimination that no one in politics will even discuss.
I read the Reuters report on this, which did NOT divert attention from the lost jobs reason - looks like the NYT did their usual spin to make it about anything but the missing jobs.
I stopped caring more than a year ago (my last job was Jan 5, 2001 but I kept trying for six more years, two more degrees, five business plans, all for naught), and not surprised at all by the rise in suicides. There would be a lot more if people were not afraid they would fail at that as well."
Collins's ode to helium? As W.C. Fields once said, "Sounds like a bubble in a bathtub."
Many of Israel's working class above 50 years old, especially those in the Hi-Tech sector, are in the same dilemma. On the surface, while it may seem like good news when an Israeli start-up is acquired by a multinational corporation, in reality it's all about business - specifically, ownership of intellectual property and higher profits. These acquisitions have brought huge profits to M&A firms and a few at the helm of their respective companies but at the same time have also left countless many, unemployed.
ReplyDeleteThank you JG.
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