COMMENT OF THE DAY

Iran

Even though the shah gave us personal freedoms, we had no political freedoms. In a democracy, people can choose who rules them and how. This was not the case with the shah. Then Khomeini came along and gave people false promises and they believed him. As we say in Farsi: Gorbe az hole halim oftad too dig! There was certainly corruption during the time of the shah and wealth distribution was far from fair. Originally though what ignited the revolution was the coup that was staged against Mosadegh by the CIA and the British. People never forgot that and never forgave the way the US had meddled in our affairs. The US is always after its own interests (like any other country) and as history proves it, it sometimes stops at nothing to get what it wants. Bad US foreign policy, ignorance, wishful thinking, lying mullahs, and lots of other elements came together and gave birth to the IRI. Today, the people of Iran have lived through lie after lie, massacre after massacre, war, brutality, propaganda, etc. Normalcy has disappeared, yet people crave it and want to find a shortcut to it when there is none. The terrible instability in the region, including the instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc. doesn't help instill confidence in people. And US and Israel keep screaming about the nuclear program when they should have put focus on Iran's brutal disregard for the human rights of its own citizens. Iranians cannot even trust themselves. Who can forget how we messed up in 1979? What we need is a brilliant and decent leader, a category that has been scarce. But can we ever trust again? I hope the time will come.

Democracy in Iran has to come from within. Our "spring" in 1979, turned into a horrible long winter. We are in a better position than our Arab neighbours to know that an Islamic government is a recipe for disaster. Any ideological political system has no hope of delivering democracy. This is true not only about Islam but also about Communism. In a democracy all are equal and no one is more equal than the rest!

Panopticons

I usually agree with you fully on just about everything you have written about here, but this is not one of them. I see major differences between your Baltimore scenario and this. Firstly, the nature of spying vs. police work, the first being to ostensibly prevent crime/terrorism and the second being to catch a criminal once we are pretty sure a crime has happened. The needs are then very different, ongoing surveillance vs info needed for a particular case. The second is obviously the scope. ‘People using payphones in Baltimore for the period of the investiagtion’ is obviously a much smaller group than ‘anyone using a cell phone/social media site in America from here to eternity’. It’s the ongoing and blanket nature of the surveillance that I think has many people concerned. Next, I’m not sure why you appear to be trusting the very same people at their word regarding the scope of PRISM who were hiding this program in the first place. I am right with you in a complete lack of surprise that this was going on after the Patriot act but the reality here is a little jolting.

The Drudge Report

Regardless of the fact that the majority of these stories seem to be committed by blacks does not justify blatant racism. Melvin put it best when he referred to the fact that these kids are a product of their environment. Unfortunately, many young blacks have been fed a steady diet of self-hatred and victimization where they feel like they do not have to take responsibility for anything. No one is making excuses for their behavior because there is none. With that said, regardless of how disgusting this behavior, terms such as "savages", "bananas" and wishing for death when referring to an entire race is and always will be racism. I know several African Americans whose children are very well behaved and would never be caught dead behaving that way. In fact, my child attended a majority white private school where the white kids constantly came to school drunk or high. Should I make a hasty generalization of all white kids being drunks and drug addicts? Finally, this type of reporting fits a media stereo type. The media will not report otherwise. But alas, unfortunately, these stories are too easy and numerous to find particularly with everyone having a recording device on their phone. There is no excuse for this behavior and no justification for this blatant racist post. Posts like this is why the Democrats can claim that all opposition to their agenda is purely racist and not based on policy. It is racist posts like this that is making it hard to defeat the liberals. Everyday I try to convince African Americans that Republicans are not racist. However, posts like this make it hard. Because just like you, they see one bad apple and assume that it is true of everyone. I guess in a way, you and all of the people that cheered you on are guilty of the same small-minded savagery that you accuse these kids of. Have a nice day.

The Paleo Diet

You should forget grains, anyway. Try out the Paleo Diet. I’ve been on it for 3 years and feel amazing compared to how I felt on carbs/sugars, and I also dropped off my extra weight in the first 6 months of being on it without restricting calories. There are no gimmicks you have to buy (no books, programs, special snacks, etc). Just focus on healthy meats, vegetables, fruits and sparingly nuts/seeds. Whole dairy is optional, some like it and some find they feel better without it. It took me a little over a month to get used to it before my intense carb cravings went away completely, but after that it has been fine. My body easily shifts in and out of ‘ketosis’ between raw fruit snacks. Of course GMO issues are not just limited to grains, but it is a good start for your health to break free of the glucose addiction. Just have to make sure you drink plenty of water and have fruit-instead-of-meat days now and then so you’re being kind to your kidneys.

Geek Culture

Hollywood cowardly geek content creators wash their hands like Poncio Pilato every time a tragedy occurs like this.

The Aurora Theater Shooting - Dark Knight Rises' Nolan and Bale went to hospitals and tried desperately to distance themselves from a cosplaying geek culture members shooting up people dressed like a comic book character. Film company panicked and prayed their movies earnings would not be affected.

Sandy Hook - violent video game/geek culture fed coward decides to live out his violent fantasies and with no remorse, just like when you play Grand Theft and other violent video games - takes down children. Django director Tarantino, aka, the GOD of cowardly Geek Culture who are the main types of people behind our violent mainstream culture, goes on the DEFENSIVE. Saying there is no connection as he washes his hand and slivers out the back door, tail curled up. And people actually defend him.

Now this geek who's perverted children's cartoons, allowed to do so with no responsibility of the consequences, is "horrified" that parts of his violent and crass cartoons are edited by HIS OWN TARGET AUDIENCE, geek culture that laughs at and enjoys violence.

The hypocrisy.

Root-cause is our culture, its violent. But we suffer fools gladly which is part of our mainstream culture.

Theocracies

It is not a "belief system", it is a retrograde, astoundingly primitive (meaning, literally, not evolving or progressing), social system which has been imposed on the general population with the specific intent to suppress the full and equal participation of women in all aspects of human activity.

Any attempt to call such a system "culture" or tradition" is at once a willful and mendacious distortion of the truth and a blatant, insufferable insult to all of the world's women.

By the same token, in what cannon was it ever established that 'culture" and 'tradition" are inherently positive values? Certainly human history is proof positive to the contrary.

Protect us, Oh Lady, from Culture and Tradition.
Amen.

Alt Weeklies

Actually, a lot of alt-weeklies are doing okay in terms of advertising revenue and circulation... there are a couple of reasons why...

A) their ad revenue always sucked... most are free and not delivered, which means the rates they could charge for ads was always much, much, much lower than newspapers with paid circulation and delivery... so they developed their business much further down the chain... ie, big major dailies had a long way to fall -- huge newsrooms to cut back and a lot of content to cut, leading to a decline in the paper's quality... alt-weeklies don't have fall to far -- they've developed their business with small staffs and limits on their content from the very start... nobody picks up their local alt-weekly and shakes their head and says "man, this just ain't what it used to be"... because it's always been shitty.

B) the more local a paper's content is, the better off the circulation has been doing... you can get national news from any number of sources, and even most of your state/regional news from any news organization that has an AP subscription... you can't get your sulky treatises on why Band of Horses are such sellouts anywhere but your local alt-weekly.

C) people who do pick up alt-weeklies pick them up for different reasons than people might pick up a newspaper or a magazine, or even some of the bigger "alt-media" papers, like the onion's print edition... nobody (almost nobody) is like: "Oh shit, I've got to have my copy of the Akron alt-weekly right now!" If people were, then some smart enterprising person would put it online (or content similar) and put the alt-weekly out of business. Instead, most people who pick up the Akron alt-weekly, are walking down the street and think, "oh that's an interesting cover and i've enjoyed reading this paper" and pick it up... or see it in a restaurant, or on the way out of the grocery store, etc. I've replaced my NYT and WaPo reading with online versions, because why the fuck should I wait for a paper to show up, and pay for that shit when I can just go online. There just isnt' a huge demand for the alt-weekly product online.

D) part of the appeal of the alt-weekly is what you see in the print edition and isn't replaceable with an online edition. When I pick up the DC alt-weekly, it's usually because it has good cover art -- that's what's driving my interest, and that's not affected by the availability of the content online, or an alternative.

The Village Voice is a big enough, serious enough publication it may be facing problems that real newspapers have, but most alt-weeklies have a shitty business plan to begin with, but because of the nature of their content, many of the ones who have managed to be financially stable to this point are holding steady.

Internet Privacy

First. None of us know what kind of a teacher she is; she may be awesome with reaching out to her kids on their level as well as teaching them what they need to know, or she may be freakin' terrible at the subject matter, baked out of her gourd during class, and incapable of being patient with her students. But we don't know. So let's try not to make any speculative judgments beyond what we do know.

Second. What we do know is still very limited. This article and the images within give us only a small insight into this woman's personality, her lifestyle, and her habits. More than that, this doesn't even seem to be a full report and even has conflicting statements with what has actually been said to occur. What I can discern from the limited information at hand is she's a young, beautiful woman who isn't ashamed of her body, (in fact she seems to quite enjoy showing it off), and who partakes in smoking marijuana in her free time, which, quite frankly, is a rather subjective pastime as far as I'm concerned with regards to the ethical question of whether or not it's "right" or "appropriate". If you exchanged the joint for a cigarette or perhaps a beer, would your perception of this woman and her responsibility towards being a role model change? I mean, cigarettes and alcohol are both legal, and kids don't remain kids forever--eventually they'll have access, and quite possibly partake in these "vices". Would it be wrong, then, for her to post pictures of herself smoking or drinking as she is won't to do in her own free time? And consider this: should we hold this woman accountable for an ethical standard many of us don't follow, (including, quite possibly, many of her student's parents), merely because she is responsible for our children *some* of the time? That doesn't exactly seem fair. And here's another thing to consider: if she were a male teacher and posted half-naked photos, would it still be as controversial? Hm? Or is it maybe because we've objectified and sexualized female beauty more than male beauty that it's "unacceptable" behavior? Quite frankly, the posting of nude pictures online should not be grounds for job termination. Everyone has a body. Everyone gets naked sometimes. Human anatomy is not something to be ashamed nor afraid of.

Furthermore, am I the only one here made uneasy by the fact that employers today seem to have so much leverage with which to pass judgement on their employees due to the public nature of the internet? Consider: if the internet is a public place, would it not be unlike your employer seeing you at a professional football game or a bar? If you're intoxicated in such places, though not necessarily making a complete ass of yourself, but you are clearly intoxicated and perhaps having trouble being coherent or being completely level--would it be fair for your employer to put you on unpaid leave, suspend you, or even fire you merely because you were intoxicated on your own time in public? Does that seem right to you? I mean, we already have laws and the police to govern our actions--do we *really* need our livelihood to come under fire just because some people like to let off steam with a bunch of other people outside their home with the use of "drugs" (in this case, alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana)?

I will agree that we live in a profoundly narcissistic age as well as a time in which over-sharing is starting to become an issue in regards to boundaries--but consider that this is in response to society's shift from being a repressive, closed doors type of environment where no one said what they actually meant, (and in fact if they did, they were considered eccentric or shameful or just plain strange and "unseemly"), to one where speaking one's mind and being open and honest with how one feels is not only encouraged but cherished. Do we need more discretion in our words and actions with regards to how we interact with one another? It's debatable. You take the good with the bad and everyone gets dirty sometimes when they don't want to, but that's life. It's a growing process.

Do I think this woman deserves to be suspended? No. Observed, maybe. Put on academic probation, perhaps. But not suspended or fired or what have you. Do I think she is not a good role model? No, because I don't know her well enough to make that assessment. All I know is that she seems to be acting as almost any other attractive 23 year-old female of this generation might as she adheres to the modern morality of this day and age instead of some of the more traditional values that some people still hold and that were more commonplace in America in bygone days. Is she a bad person or a bad teacher? Who can say except for the people she teaches. The rest of us are merely bystanders with opinions, and who can say for sure which of us are truly right? Not me. And probably not you, either.

Beyonce

I couldn't disagree more strongly. Putting this no-talent fraud (who table-danced for Gaddhafi's sons in 2010 for a million bucks) on stage at this event denied thousands of talented vocalists a once-in-a-lifetime chance to display their talent to the world for real, in real time. Beyonce makes millions pretending to sing and you defend her fraudulent display worrying the poor diva might get the sniffles if she actually tried to sing one song, the very thing she is so generously compensated for. Anyone from the 99.9 percent of professional vocalists who actually sing and get paid almost nothing would have been a better choice. Let Beyonce go give Robert Mugabe a lap dance and spare us her canned fakery.

Gun Control

How about he learns to control himself. Self center little punk...Mr. me me me...couldn't take a little argument about a stupid game. He would have used a knife in the kitchen if not the gun. Self absorbed adolescent punk. Maybe he should have learned at an earlier age sportsmanship, conflict resolution and self control. But no, this little snowflake was taught he is never wrong, he can do what he wants, there are no consequences to his actions...typical me me me culture. He should rot in hell where he belongs. It's not about guns is about lack of values, morals and respect for human life.

Smashing Pumpkins

The sound was really good last night, in the shiny new complex, with the exception of one of the
later Oceania songs in which William just banged on his mistuned tinny Strat
like a monkey and gave everyone a frontal headache. His drummer, who had kind of a timberlake
look, was positively shredding. The bass
and other guitar played well but like they were at the end of a long tour…let’s
get home and crawl under the sheets for a few weeks.

Both the big globe visual screen and light show were a total
bore. I read somewhere it was designed
by the Pink Floyd guy, who I’m sure wasn’t cheap…waste of money. I don’t think I looked at the video more than
once. Ooooh, archival footage of a
missile factory….think deep thoughts about the slightly tangential relationship
to the music…ooooh a big lonely tree and a starry night sky, how trippy…who
cares? Maybe it’s because William, with
his chubby belly hanging out of his too tight tshirt and dramatic rock poses,
is more interesting to check out. I love
how coming from the era he does that he clearly worships overproduced rock gods
like Floyd…at one point during a ballad he even did a pretty decent Waters
imitation croak. Awesome.

It was hilariously disconnected how much he talked about
football. All of the fake artsy fartsies
were giving me the stink eye earlier for watching Monday night football during
the opening band, then it turns out William probably was, too. Go cry about it, gloom cookies…its America,
we love crippling violence.

While we’re at it though, it was actually bizarre that the
torch bearer for twisted, obsessive romantic love responded to boos at his
mention of Tom Brady with “What’s wrong with it? Do well and marry a hot model.” Really, dipshit? That’s what it’s all about? Are we back at the point of admiring Aryan frat
boys who have been given every opportunity to succeed? Is whatever Brady is doing, “Doing well”? Funny I thought it was about creating beauty
through your art and finding lasting love and warmth and acceptance.

Another point about the interlude commentary: the last time I saw this band was in some
small venue in San Francisco, and I’m pretty sure that like me, nobody cares or
remembers about New York’s acceptance of SP back in the day. You’re just playing yourself with the whole “doesn’t
it make more sense now?” thing. Expressions
like this don’t further your reputation as misunderstood, gifted crank, or ruin
your mystique… it’s just irritating arrogance.
At the end of the day you write good songs, have an interesting voice and
can really play your guitar…let’s leave it at that. If you actually want to get into it, SP probably
does make more sense now, but it doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s because back in the day New York wasn’t just
a corporate run shadow of its former self that eats whatever gets stuffed down
its bloated throat, it actually had a music scene of its own that didn’t really
dig your grandiose arrangements. So how
does it feel that your way of doing the good old rock and roll goes hand in
hand with late stage corporate capitalism?
But don’t worry, William, you’re currently winning the battle of you vs.
Kurt. In 20 years nobody will really remember
Nirvana and you can still do a farewell tour.

Oceania is a very good album. I thought so as soon as it came out, and
still do. And getting to hear it whole
was awesome, even if the lemmings in the crowd didn’t know any better. Takes balls to play the whole thing front to
back (another Pink Floyd move, bravo).
Try that, Soundgarden. I also
think the newly remastered and expanded Mellon Collie sounds amazing, so
amazing that the band should release an acoustic version of it and tour small
venues to promote. Are you listening,
William?

All in all a good safe arena rock night was had by all. Starting the “dusty old classics” with XYU
was a heavy, much appreciated choice, and the Bowie cover was sweet as
well. The “new new” song (Dream Machine)
they debuted played well, but I would have liked to hear Porcelina and Mayonnaise
instead. Maybe next time. And the good tshirts were only $20….rock on.

SNL

The consistent problem with SNL over the years has been the effort to turn things into marketable licenses rather than simply a one-off funny skit. Like, say, Debbie Downer -- hilarious the first time and toenail-out-with-pliers excruciating with each successive attempt to replicate that first time. Or Baby-Hands. Same thing. Would be a classic moment in SNL history but undercut by attempts to replicate. But nothing can match that first shocking moment of the baby hands. It's lazy by-the-books comedy. In my opinion, Lorne Michaels is the one who needs to be gone and then you might get something fresh with the writing. In the 70s he was a renegade. By the 90s he was establishment. Today, he is like your grandpa who should be retired but won't.

Reactionaries

The energies are different,,,when you are anti something negative you are still giving consciousness and thought to that which you are trying to eliminate, so you tend to expand it. However when you are PRO something you want to create, you expand the energy of creation, in this case PEACE is already here if we don't suppress it. We are peaceful creatures if we don't suppress our innate natural tendencies for whatever reason. So, to activate what we are, we must continuously focus on it, think of it, talk about it, and live it within ourselves first. Peaceful thoughts creates a peaceful human being. When there is enough of us thinking, breathing, and promoting peace, we can tilt and shift our united citizenship into PEACE and LIVE together as one. FEAR is EGO base, so is WAR,,,,our chance for the next stage in human evolution for a peaceful global society is LOVE and FAITH....

Gymnastics

Totally agree with oana, catalina those were your golds and it's a pity that a stupid tiebreak from sore losers USA took your medal, but you will always be the greatest beam worker we've ever seen! On floor I'm sorry but catalina's routine was more beautiful and artistic than raisman's, all that girl has is muscle that allows her to flip around but she has about as much grace as a ballet dancing cow, gymnastics should go back to being artistic rather than all power. Good luck catalina and she'll always be one of the greatest

Mass Shooters

It is easy to point fingers and rant about a deranged 24-year old young Ph.D. student who went berserk in a senseless killing rampage. When all is said and done, this carnage says as much about America as it is about ourselves as a society. When you consider all the postings and outrage, the mea-culpas, the homilies, the political grandstanding, and take aside all of these post-mortem passions and emotions, what makes it senseless, apart from this heinous act of acting out are these inexplicable symptoms of malignancies of a people living without any brakes..... a country where 3-month old babies, and 6-year old children, with lousy parents weaned on hype-stimulation, hyper-consumerism, hyper-Hollywood violence.... being allowed to go to movie theaters in post-midnight showings, when these little babies and kids should be in bed, past their bewitching hours. What does it say about American society when everyone is consumed by Hollywood hyperstimulation, hyper-excitement, games, violence on the movie screens.... and then blame everyone else for being a victimizer and ourselves as victims? All said, there is something which is going awry with American culture and American society --- a society without brakes, where little monsters grow up to become big monsters... big monsters spawn little monsters and go out to prey on others. Meanwhile, the "celebrity" culture of Hollywood worships cool, audacity, hambug, aggressiveness, and acting beyond the boundaries. Fact is, we have seen the "enemy," and it is all of us.... a country of uncouth, boorish, hyperstimulated people.... a culture which is hyper-individualistic, full of itself.... and in self-denial that we have a hugh drug, violence scourge in our midst. Meanwhile, our adults eat their own children. Our schools are in shambles. Our streets are no longer safe. It is today a "winner take all" society".... vapid, and barren of any moral-civil compass. And here, America's ruling elite is trying to preach "democracy, American style" to the rest of the world ? Does it make any sense at all?

Cartoons

Seriously? It's a cartoon. It's similar to Ted Turner saying that Bugs Bunny is sexist, racist, and Speedy Gonzalez makes inappropriate fun of Hispanics. First, it's a f'in cartoon. Secondly, most Hispanics that I know LOVE Speedy Gonzalez. Personally, Babak, I think our generation is taking cartoons TOO seriously. They're cartoons. Did I grow up with Bugs Bunny? Watched it every Saturday. I think I turned out find. Did I go outside and play with my friends? Yes. Did my parents ever arrange "play dates" for me? Umm..fuck no. Was there ever a term "play date" when I was growing up in the 80'?. Fuck no. Did my parents spank me when I got out of line? Hell yes. What's that called? Discipline. What's my point? That our generation takes things so freakin' seriously now, that our kids grow up not being exposed to anything, either playing video games and never going outside or having these contrived "play dates," and instead of teaching kids some discipline parents simply go "Now Billy, I'm going to count to three and you'll stop okay?" In the meantime the kid's' being a disrespectful pain in the ass and still doing the thing that you want him or her to stop doing and can stop them from doing if you just give them a hard smack on the ass which will teach them pretty damn quick who's boss.

London Riots

People will need to start realising that reliance on the state or some other source of benefit is not going to solve their problems - indeed the state is likely to provide less, and an assumption that this will be the case should be a starting point for people taking control of and planning their lives. They should begin to realise that self-reliance and self-empowerment are likely to become more and more the way forward and that rendering themselves less dependent on others and less vulnerable to negative circumstances will be to their benefit in these difficult times. E.g. - do not depend on others; rather turn towards self-preservation within socially acceptable means. Reject the subversive sentiment that "we down't need now educayshun, we down't need now fowt controwl" and make the best of the educational facilities available. With the right mindset one can learn a lot even in a crappy school with lousy teachers. Do not get oneself pregnant in order to try to get public housing, as a lot do. Spend one's JSA/IS carefullly in staying alive and getting a livelihood (job is too specific and implies dependence on somebody else). People have got to push themselves more to get noticed in these ever more competitive days, and this should be done positively. Smashing up neighbourhoods may well get one noticed, but it'll also get others' backs up and is, on balance, negative.

Dick Ebersol

Mr. Ebersol's tenure at NBC sports spread over a flush era which frankly had as much to do with the cascading billions coming out of the professional sports leagues as it did with his acumen as an executive.

This is not to denigrate the man; he certainly has accomplished much, But regardless of the euphemized statements and releases sure to follow his departure, the hard truth seems to be that the golden days of tv sports are rapidly turning to silver, if not bronze, and other than the superpower exception of the NFL, perhaps even to dross. NFL owners can be accused of bare greed for certain, but it's equally true that there are disquieting tweets coming out of their protestations.

It's not entirely certain that the monstrous investments made in super-suiting stadiums will really pay off downstream. The NBA faces a tougher new financial landscape according to David Stern. Major League Baseball has become creaky and ungainly and Commissioner. Selig apparently does not appear to see himself dressed in the emperor's clothes. Hockey has been under stress for years. Golf without the stimulus provided by Tiger Woods, and more critically the economic downturn impacting participation and interest in golf will also take its toll. Tennis remains a blip. The bloated overprogrammed ESPN tv goldmine business model may be in for rough seas as more and more viewers take to the internet, a business model where dollars quickly turn to dimes.

But of all Mr. Ebersol's legacies the one which has never been really validated on naked dollar terms was the Olympics. In flush times one could argue branding, image,etc. In the no so brave new world of post 2008 frenetic media dollar chase against the likes of facebookworld, it's another story. Branding and image has become a totally fake, if not pathetically dated premise. But good luck to Mr. Ebersol, surely he'll find renewal some where in the digital wannabe companies proliferating out there.

Osama Bin Laden

Beacon2

1. The CIA created Osama bin Laden.
Or a CIA-like organization created and supported him. His profile is as a recruit, not a leader with an agenda. Rather than a concerted plan, each act of violence sent a message and the messages are probably related in that they were in response to some other ongoing event.

2. Bin Laden attacked us because of our freedoms.
This never made any sense. How do you win? Why would a recruit blow themselves up? We now know he was an avid consumer of Pepsi and Coke, junk food. Soda, sugar water, is one of our most useless exports, yet many of the attacks worldwide were of a commercial nature. He was no idealist setting examples.

3. Al-Qaeda’s ideology has nothing to do with Islam.
We know from the Civil War, there are Causes and there are reasons and they may not be closely related. The Cause of the terrorists quickly became a defense of Islam. Most Americans (99%) knew nothing about Islam, let alone want to attack it. The Cause was a good recruiting tool to find zealots that would blow themselves up, much like the Civil War had men charging into withering rifle fire with grape and canister raking the open field. We overlooked the fact that many in the Middle East send their kids to school in America or Britain. Lately we have seen Middle East uprisings for the same types of freedoms. By whom were his children educated?

4. Ayman al-Zawahiri, not bin Laden, is the real brains of al-Qaeda.
A doctor? It is more likely the head is a military person that uses body counts as a tactic. Why did Bush lose interest in OBL as a target?

5. Bin Laden’s death is symbolically important but irrelevant to the war on terror.
Hopefully the intelligence community will take a deep breath and review all that has happened, in light of OBL's location and accessibility to the military in Pakistan. Obama made an important intelligence decision when he decided on a precision raid to establish identity and information collection over wholesale bombing. See Less

5/7/2011 2:47:45 PM EDT

Anderson Coooper

I think everyone needs to take a breath. Yes, what's going on in Cairo and the rest of the Middle East is horrible and hopefully can be resolved soon with as little bloodshed as possible. Tunisia was the first child in the politcal school yard to stand up to the governmental bullies and say "uck you." It's nice to see that they have set such an inspiring example of how to say "I'm tired, and I'm not going to take it any more." But in the face of such tragedy, we all have different ways of dealing with the nervousness and anxiety we all inevitibly feel being constantly bombarded by media pictures of it all. Why are we so quick to pounce on one persons' comment when we are so accepting of others who are doing the same thing, only under the guise of "Responsible Reporting"

Look at Anderson Cooper, how he has boosted his popularity by putting himself right in the middle of it all where he had no business being in the first place. He ended up in a violent and potentially deadly situation for no other reason than to boost his own ratings. He gets attacked and all of a sudden, the story shifts from the legitimate plight of a country, to his brush with death. But I'm sure his ratings went through the roof.

Is there any excuse for such ill-timed utterances, no but we all do it. And let's face it, if it wasn't for tragedy, there would be no need for them. In times like these, everyone is in a hurry to get their opinions and their voices heard. Everyone has to make sure that their comments are the best ones, the ones more people will agree with so they can look the best in the eyes of a captivated audience. Or simply the one that's the most talked about so those who feel forgotten can feel relevant again.

Weather or not you approve of what is said by someone in the media or simply in pubic, we are all going to talk about it, we're all going to voice our opinions about it, either simply to eachother or through social media such as this. Either way it got you talking about "him". Just like Anderson Cooper, your focus has shifted from what is happening to the people in Cairo, to what happened to him. And now your focus has shifted again to what Mr. Cole has said. Even on this page, your focus will shift again from the plight of a people, to your opinions of what others have said or even what I've said.

We're all guilty of ill-spoken words, it doesn't excuse it, but let's not put ourselves above others when we know at some point or another, we've all done it. "Need another seven astronauts", tasteless, yes, but there it is. It's easy to act offended, it's easy to type viscious words in rebuttlal, but behind the computer screen, or in private how many of you laughed. How many of you repeated it. Finding humour in the face of tragedy isn't a bad thing. It doesn't make you an ss"ole, your personality in general does that, daily actions are what determine who you are not temporary lack of judgement. Very few can stand up and say they are guilt free of bad judgement.

If we are so ready to make our voices and opinions heard, let's put the persecution where it belongs and support the people of Cairo. The court of public opinion can be a powerful tool, let's use it properly.

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