Monthly Archives: April 2013

Apr 4 2013

To French Gay Marry; or to Not French Gay Marry…

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The French Sénat

The United States isn’t alone in it’s battle for marriage equality.  The lower house of France just overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for gays and lesbians to be given the right to marry.  The issue now moves to the upper house, the Senate of France, or Sénat du française.

While the Socialist majority controls an overwhelming number of seats in the National Assembly (the lower house) it carries only a small margin of control in the Senate — which of course, brings out the need for the  Socialist Party, which includes French President François Hollande; to get every vote in the Senate as they can — if they want to see the issue move forward.

Engineer Driss Houat, 69, told CNN Thursday he opposes the measure.

quote-open“I am completely against it because God created man and woman so that they could be married. Not for anything else. It’s absurd for me to see this bill pass,” he said.

But Myriam Duru, 37, a manager at a Tommy Hilfiger store, disagrees.

quote-open“I am Muslim, so I believe in God. I think it’s not a problem for me to accept. I don’t understand people who think that God exists and can say ‘I’m against the happiness of people,'” she said.

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Apr 2 2013

Was 43 a victim of Groupthink?

ImageOne of the things that caused the Vietnam War to be such an abysmal failure was because the Johnson Administration was essentially telling the President everything he wanted to hear — an extreme example of “Groupthink,” which is defined specifically as a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome.

The major tenet of the Iraq War, one of the things the George W. Bush Administration is remembered for, was the disastrous intelligence regarding Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction — or lack thereof.  Indeed, George W. Bush‘s opening statement in his 19 March 2003 address to the nation from the Oval Office announcing the war was:

Image“At this hour, American and Coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”

When George W. Bush later was told there were no WMDs in Iraq to be found, however, his response was surprising — and indeed, very humbling, as told in his memoir:

Image“No one was more shocked and angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons… I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.”

I, along with everyone else in the world, I’m sure — continue to ask myself, “What could cause such a disastrous and cataclysmic error in intel?”  “Was the intel plain wrong?”  “Were people seeing boogeymen where none actually existed?”   “Was Saddam just a scapegoat for a larger plan?”  “How could the largest and most well-funded and connected intelligence organization on the PLANET get such information wrong?”

Or… even more frightening — Did the Bush Administration fall, willingly or otherwise; into the same disaster that the Johnson Administration did… groupthink.

Intelligence is far from perfect.  Indeed, often it casts shadows where none exist.  Other times, there’s a gap in intelligence.  But such a gap or shadow in this instance is about a LIGHT YEAR wide.  What could have caused such a catastrophe?  How much damage was done?  How many lives have been lost?  And what is yet to come?  All from, the blame of, faulty intelligence.

Or… was it the simple psychological condition: groupthink.  Were the people who Bush surrounded himself with and trusted the most so “caught up in the moment,” or even willingly lying to the Commander-in-Chief, just to get the job done — at any expense possible?  Or were they simply “going along with the program…” the program of groupthink.

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Apr 2 2013

The Stay-at-Home Mom: Doing her kids a disservice?

ImageOn my way into school this morning, I was listening to a radio show, the name and channel of which escapes me — but while I disagree with the heart of it, it did get me to thinking.

This particular caller stated that stay-at-home mothers, who raise their children with a working father, do their children a disservice (apparently, particularly their daughters…) because it is not teaching them to be self-sufficient.  Even if the husband is comfortably bringing home enough of the bacon to support the family comfortably, this particular caller stated that a mother staying at home to raise her children and to run the household does not teach children that this is a possibility in the future, with the way the economy works today.

I found this interesting, because I think it’s more a matter of teaching children to be self-sufficient in fact, versus by example.  For instance, when I was 16, I was *told* I had to have a summer job.  “No loafing for you, this summer!”  I believe was the key-term.  Granted, I had had an academically lame year and didn’t perform well at all — this could have been as much a punishment as it was a lesson.  A stay-at-home mother, in my opinion, can induce the same lesson in working in the same manner it was done to me, as both-working parents can.   Further, if both parents work, and make $100,000 a year — and don’t require their children to work, and live comfortably enough to give their 19-year old children allowances versus requiring them to move out and work — is this conducive to learning how to be self sufficient?  Sure, the old adage of “teach by example,” is a powerful force — but if this is what the children were exposed and used to from birth, would this really matter?

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Apr 1 2013

Kim Jong-un is talking to his citizens, not the USA.

This post contains mostly commentary and speculation.

More and more, I’m becoming convinced that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un is not talking to the United States or to South Korea.  He’s speaking to his own people.

One thing Kim Jong-un lacked was the cult of personality his father had.  Indeed, for a number of years after the death of the “Eternal President” Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il was absent from the media for several years, making no appearances his first years in office as the dictator of North Korea.

However, almost  immediately after his “coming out party” in North Korea, no doubt to get him cemented into the North Korean People‘s ethos of acceptable leaders — Kim Jong-un has been all over the media.  Was this a panicked attempt to cement his image into the minds of North Koreans, knowing their ailing Supreme Leader‘s time on Earth was borrowed time?  Or was this part of a plan already in motion to get him in the public eye, and the elder Kim’s demise shortly after was just coincidence?

Because he has both a lack of military experience, save his rank of Wonsu (Marshal or “Generalissimo” ) in the [North] Korean People’s Army that he was gifted by his father the year before his demise, and a lack of time in an actual government position, his acceptability by the people I think is a major concern.

Back to the original point, I’m thinking more and more this is the younger Kim’s attempt to call a “Rally Around The Flag.”  While I’ve always compared the nation of North Korea to the state-equivalent of a paranoid-schizophrenic; and while Kim Jong-un’s lack of experience with the United States and the outside world first-hand that his Father and Father before him had concerns me — the more I hear, the more I’m convinced he isn’t talking to South Korea…  or the USA.  He’s talking to his people.  He’s trying to get North Korea to not only accept him, but be “with” him.

Does he, in his ignorance, know the level of “most dangerous game” he’s playing?

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