Civil Discourse Now

Where the far left and far right overlap for fun and enlightenment

March 2012 Blog Posts (28)

Multiple Sclerosis ("MS," my initials, how personal) and why I will not miss a Mini-Marathon.(r) Part 1

   On May 5, 2012, I shall walk in my fourteenth consecutive 500 Festival MiniMarathon®. We have a surprise for Civil Discourse Now with coverage of the Mini. I shall not miss a Mini. Last year I walked the 13.1 miles after having been diagnosed, the previous weekend, with pneumonia. After I completed my first Mini in 1999, I swore to myself I never would miss a Mini—unless I was dead or the MS finally had beaten me.   

   MS? Why the vehemence about the Mini? You need to know the…

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Added by Mark Small on March 10, 2012 at 6:56am — 1 Comment

If allegations are true, former defenseive coordinator Gregg Williams should be banned from football for life.

   There are many problems in today’s world. People die. Despotism reigns. Chaos flourishes. In the Grand Scheme, athletic competitions seem trivial, at best a mere allegory for life: there is a start, a meaning (goal), and an end (death), unless the game is baseball and the contest, technically, never would end where the two teams could not break a tie in extra innings.

   If we set aside for a moment the question of whether there is importance for sports in the Grand Scheme, next is…

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Added by Mark Small on March 9, 2012 at 8:13am — 1 Comment

Reasons other than belief in world climate change exist for policies to avoid fossil fuels.

   Yesterday, March 7, was quite warm for this time of year in Indiana. I wore a t-shirt outside part of the afternoon. The wind was brisk, but the sky was clear.

   The weather of one day, taken alone, is not indicative of world climate change. The weather of one year, taken by itself, is not indicative of world climate change.

   "Climate change" is short-hand, today, for the discussion about whether humans have caused, principally through their of fossil fuels, significant…

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Added by Mark Small on March 8, 2012 at 7:00am — 3 Comments

Will Republicans continue to hitch their wagon to the jackass that is Limbaugh?

   Advertisers are in a rush to abandon Rush Limbaugh for Limbaugh’s on-air rant against the Georgetown Law Center student who had sought to testify at hearings on a Congressional hearing concerning contraceptives.

   First, the dispute is not one over freedom of religion. If one wishes to advance a religious cause in this context, we should turn first to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. That precedes the Free Exercise Clause. If one wishes to advance his religious…

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Added by Mark Small on March 7, 2012 at 7:45am — 7 Comments

Would a Santorum EPA place controls on rivers of blood?

   Before the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1969, we were treated with interesting spots on the evening news. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River, in beautiful downtown Cleveland, burned. When one approached Gary on I-65, the sky was orange from the effluents of the steel mills.

    Yesterday, in response to my blog about the environment, Mr. Wheeler claimed "you posit an extreme example from your childhood days as that somehow…

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Added by Mark Small on March 6, 2012 at 7:22am — 2 Comments

Is Santorum so glib about protection of the environment because he believes we are in the "end times?"

   Rick Santorum spoke a couple of weeks ago about President Obama’s attitude toward environmental matters. In dismissing concerns for the environment, Santorum said his god gave people this planet to use.

   How can a person be so short-sighted and such a poor student of history? When Richard Nixon—yes, that Richard Nixon—signed into law environmental protection laws, there were a lot of problems with our environment.

   On the west side of Kokomo was a steel mill. When I was…

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Added by Mark Small on March 5, 2012 at 7:38am — 1 Comment

Filibusters? At least make senators get off their asses if they're going to block legislation.

   As a kid I watched Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and inspiring movie about an honest, everyday guy who by happenchance is appointed to the United States Senate from an unnamed Midwestern state. The movie reaches its peak when Senator Jeff Smith filibusters to block a bill that is backed by the corrupt political bosses who seek to have him removed from the Senate.

   Frank Capra’s film is a classic. Also, it explains how the filibuster is an important part of our…

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Added by Mark Small on March 3, 2012 at 7:36am — 2 Comments

Who is Rush Limbaugh to call anyone a "slut"?

   In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut statute that not only prohibited the use of contraceptive devices, but made it a criminal offense for anyone to give out information of instruction on their use. The case is cited by many as having begun the concept of the right to privacy as a part of the U.S. Constitution. The concept goes back earlier in the Court’s history, though. In Oldstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438…

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Added by Mark Small on March 1, 2012 at 7:38am — 4 Comments

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