Meeting of the Presidents

For me, the meeting of Putin and Obama is larger than the current topic - Syria. The world is held under the threat of military escalations between our two countries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there existed hope of a Russia with political philosophy more aligned with the US and multiple treaties including the START nuclear reduction treaty pointed to a normalization of relations.

President Putin's rise to power coupled with what Putin saw as an aggressive westernization of former Soviet states through NATO admissions created a "caged animal" response by Russia. We have witnessed several military exercises and armed conflict in Crimea and Ukraine, for example, and more recently the infringement of western airspace by Russian military aircraft. Our placing sanctions on Russia have not seemed to have the effect that many might have hoped for.

Earlier this year, KSU sponsored a talk by Dr. J Arch Getty, professor at UCLA. Getty discussed "Does Putin have a point?" in which he provided an interesting glimpse of his experiences in Russia and how the US is viewed and how Putin is perceived in Russia. What I took away was - if we were in Putin's shoes what would we do? What would we do if we saw Russian assimilation attempts to annex Puerto Rico, or Guam or American Samoa?

This is the area that I see as a bigger agenda item than Syria - for the US and Russia to respect each other's viewpoint and diminish the escalation of military exercises in Europe.

Pope Francis - Climate change

I am saddened by the attitude Fox news and specifically Dr. W. David Montgomery, take regarding the Pope's call to all inhabitants of this earth to address climate change. In his Encyclical Letter "LAUDATO SI’" sub-titled "On care for our Common Home" Pope Francis talks about numerous things that we should be addressing. He quotes previous Pope's, for example Pope Paul "he warned that human beings frequently seem to see no other meaning in their natural environment than what serves for immediate use and consumption.” Dr. Montgomery steps in and states "some leaders, including President Obama, who exaggerate the current impacts of climate change on the United States to promote the idea that self-interest demands action." He also stated "The poor in wealthy countries, however, will suffer additionally from the efforts Pope Francis proposes to limit emissions, as the price of energy rises against their small and sometimes shrinking incomes." Finally - "Laudato Si also blames wealthy countries for causing global poverty by exhausting the world's resources. This is simply false."

A documentary released this year "Merchants of Doubt" presents a fact filled assessment of the "experts" that corporations hire to combat the issues raised surrounding GMO's, climate change, water quality. The overarching theme - these "experts" are excellent public speakers and have minimal to no scientific training. Their entire goal is find the tiniest thread of uncertainty and build it to a level of doubt that is hard to overcome in the untrained public. In my search on Dr. Montgomery's background, I could not find one piece of evidence that he has had any scientific training on the causes of climate change. 

From the movie, "Merchants of Doubt" a scene that I think sums it up. Talk show host, Morton Downey Jr. challenged a scientist that was raising the alarm regarding the dangers of cigarettes (in the midst of spin doctors presenting evidence that those claims were false and could not be proved). Downey yelled at the scientist and said he, Downey, looked a lot younger than the scientist. Sadly on two fronts - the scientist seemed to lose the discussion, but Downey paid the ultimate price - he died from lung cancer at 67.

May we all have a more open mind to scientific alerts than Morton Downey and thousands of others.

News Maker

Today’s item is about a News Maker. For me a news maker is someone that is not an “arm waving,” “hear yea hear yea” grandstanding “shaker”, nor someone who “cooks” the news event to his or her situation. It is someone whose words and/or actions just “make” news.

I believe the upcoming visit of Pope Francis and the openness in his statements on a wide variety of topics certainly qualify him as a news maker. I am not a Roman Catholic, but I feel that the positive impact on the Catholic religion and the world in general is definitely worth further reading.

Interesting for me is the fact that he has not visited the U.S. before and, I believe, we are down at number 15 on the list of countries he has visited. While he has not been directly quoted, snippets of his conversations convey the idea that he believes that the U.S. needs to remember we are not the center of everything.

I hope his visit goes well, I hope non-believers (not about his religion, but his openness to investigating climate warming, financial ruthlessness, etc.) will, at least, listen to what he has to say.

News Bakers

I conveyed at the opening of my blog that I would comment on News shakers, makers, and bakers. This post is about a baker or two.
So how about the latest attempt to "bake" the news.
Let me lead in with - politicians, voters, clergy, and almost all humans that inhabit this earth can face gruesome interrogation when something doesn't "smell" right. Heck, there is no congressional committee with all of its high priced lawyers to formulate questions, that can match the interrogation of a suspicious spouse.

Topic today: Two Michigan state lawmakers have been recommended for removal from office after admitting misconduct in covering up an extramarital affair.
Todd Courser ran on a Tea Party/Republican ticket espousing the core "family" values, the sanctity of marriage, and previously from his web page, "This is not my normal email leading into the 4th of July - Last Thursday was a sad day for America. Last Thursday was a crushing day for those who believe in traditional marriage and traditional morality." Of course, "last Thursday" refers to the same-sex supreme court marriage decision.

So, believe me, I am the last to judge a person, but politicians - they are fair game. Todd Courser decided to "bake" the news. Knowing that multiple sources were on to him he decided to state that he really didn't have an affair. From CNN - "the lawmaker sent an email from a pseudonym in May to other state House Republicans describing a fake scandal in which Courser paid for sex with a male prostitute. The email supposedly was an attempt to cover up an affair Courser was allegedly having with fellow Republican state Rep. Cindy Gamrat.

Of all people/groups on which to place the "blame" !!!"

If you would care to hear more- http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/10/politics/michigan-lawmaker-fake-email-male-prostitute-apology/

He talks about blackmailers, news media, and if he could, in my opinion, would have eliminated them as his plan of action (He does talk about letting multiple staff members go).

Todd - a major "I am guilty" and no more would have been what your wife wanted (oh and to state that the inadequacies of your marriage was the cause needs your major reassessment and forget your words about what God wants).
And the Lansing Mafia brought you down !!! No Todd, you brought you down.  Next time - "I'm Sorry " and nothing more would be a better choice.

News Shaker - Dark Web

Ashley Madison! Yes old news by now and there are people scrambling to see if they have actually been "outed." There is a report of a policeman allegedly committing suicide because his name appeared on the A.W. site and he had never accessed the site. (A search for Captain Michael Gorhum will provide additional info).
However, Ashley Madison is not the shaker in this story. For me it is what exposed A.W. - something unknown to me before - the dark web. The apparent ability for unknown individuals/organizations to infiltrate servers of private. public, and government databases and escape detection is a news shaker. I have yet to see the same mass concern for this significant security threat as was shown when credit card numbers were stolen. I am not one for more government surveillance, but now I am rethinking my position.
I am probably behind the learning curve regarding what exists beyond our normal web of the Google's, Yahoo's, etc (the surface web). Here is an excerpt from the BrightPlanet - deep web intelligence site( http://www.brightplanet.com/2014/03/clearing-confusion-deep-web-vs-dark-web/  )

"Continuing with our definitions, we’ve learned that the Surface Web is anything that a search engine can access and the Deep Web is anything that a search engine can’t access. The Dark Web then is classified as a small portion of the Deep Web that has been intentionally hidden and is inaccessible through standard web browsers.
The most famous content that resides on the Dark Web is found in the TOR network. The TOR network is an anonymous network that can only be accessed with a special web browser, called the TOR browser. This is the portion of the Internet most widely known for illicit activities because of the anonymity associated with the TOR network"

Trump continues to amaze

I have had the opportunity to visit and work in other countries. I enjoyed each experience, but almost without a doubt, I was happy to be back in the good ole USA. As frustrating as politics can be in our country, it pales by comparison to the politics in places like Brasil where I worked for a year.
The great thing we have going is the ability for all of us and especially the media to question the elected officials and those that wish to become one of our representatives.

To watch the interaction of Donald Trump and members of the media, most recently Jorge Ramos, I believe tells a lot about what we can expect if Trump were to be elected. Like it or not - all candidates will be subjected to questioners trying to embarrass, criticize or just be a royal pain in the ..  How the elected representative or candidate handles one the basic rights of questioning the implementation our democracy is an important measure of future actions.

Here's a fairly well balanced account from the Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/text/USA/Politics/Decoder/2015/0826/Donald-Trump-feuds-with-Univision-s-Jorge-Ramos-blow-to-GOP

The Donald

My blog, entitled News Shakers, Makers and Bakers, will at times focus on one of those areas, but at other times on people that seem to be in all three.
Who better to start with than Donald Trump? Love him or hate him - he certainly personifies all three areas. I had intended to keep my personal political leanings in the background, but I must admit I thought "this is a joke." However, I am spending some time trying to understand what is or are the areas that a significant part of the voting population feel Donald Trump may have palatable ideas.

More to follow