This morning I attended a Services District Meeting in the
town that is closest to where I live.
The subject was very important since it dealt with a severe water
shortage in the town’s two aquifers from which it draws all of its water. After 3 hours of deliberation, the district
Board took a ten minute break so that people who had vehicles parked in the
parking lot could move their vehicles so that the Farmers Market, scheduled
every Friday afternoon, could set up for the afternoon. What a wonderful community that immediately
got up and moved their vehicles without a single grumble!! We love our Farmers Market afternoon.
On to more serious subjects, however. After my three older daughters had grown up
and left to begin their own lives, I had time on my hands with just one nearly
grown chick still at home, so I decided to take a couple of courses at the
nearby state college. I poured over the
class schedule to find out what I could take on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One class looked really intriguing –
Beginning Greek Logic. I signed up for
that, figuring a beginning course would be a breeze. What a false assumption that was. Never in my college career had I worked so
hard. That class turned out to be one of
the very best courses I had anytime, anywhere.
Because of that class in which I learned to identify faulty arguments,
two issues in the news this week really had me aggravated.
The first was a streamer across the bottom of the screen,
and I paraphrase, that the fire that destroyed the boardwalk and adjacent
buildings in Jersey City was the result of electrical wires that were damaged
during Hurricane Sandy. Governor Chris
Christie of New Jersey is always touting the fact that New Jersey is a
business-friendly state. New Jersey
doesn’t have all of those nasty regulations on business that states like
California, for example, have. New
Jersey is very pro-business. Well,
California has a Uniform Fire Code, and if New Jersey had that code, each and
every electrical wire in those buildings would have been inspected, and if damaged,
would have been repaired prior to rebuilding.
Further, in between each business there would be a firewall to prevent
what happened in Jersey City with the fire going from business to business with
nothing between each and every business to prevent a fire from traveling. Now, you tell me how pro-business it is to
allow a city’s businesses to be placed in such danger from faulty construction
that a significant number of them burn down, and burn down because of lax
inspection. I bet those business owners
would prefer that New Jersey have a Uniform Fire Code.
The second item had to do with the shenanigans in Congress
over the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, which, by the way, is the law and is
securely funded so that it cannot be de-funded by Congress. So, what do the radical right Republicans try
to do? They attached an amendment to
defund the ACA to the Continuing Resolution to authorize funding for federal agencies
until the official budget is passed. It
is a pretty good bet that the Senate won’t pass this bill, nor will the
President sign it. But the kicker for me
was when the Tea Party types started stating as a matter of fact that the
President wanted to shut down the government, and that is why he wouldn’t sign
the bill!! No, no, no!!! For one thing, the ACA has separate funding
that would not have been impacted by this particular bill, and the President is
not the one who attached the amendment to the Continuing Resolution in the
first place – it was the Tea Partiers.
Therefore, to accuse the President of wanting to shut down the
government because of some stupid action the Tea Partiers had taken is
ludicrous in the extreme.
I have long wanted to have Greek logic taught in our public
schools, K – 12. In the primary grades
it could just be word puzzles for fun, then getting more difficult through the
grades. These logic skills would
certainly make for a better informed electorate, and for a better informed
bunch of elected officials.
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