Intellectual Driftwood

12-26-13, Pope Francis: “True peace is not a balancing of opposing forces.  It’s not a lovely façade which conceals conflicts and divisions.  Peace calls for daily commitment.”

As Miss Manners has reported, the epidemic of people who don’t listen to their voicemails is actually pandemic, and the numbers of who don’t listen all the way through even higher.  Granted, some message-leavers talk too much and waste your time, but when it is a school calling to leave an important message and the parent doesn’t listen to it all the way through…

Yes, we have wasteful spending in the federal budget.  At least $30 billion a year in readily identifiable (Sen Tom Coburn’s annual list), but that’s a drop (unfortunately) in the budget bucket. 

No better example of how contractors have won economic control in government than the train-wreck roll out of the health.gov website, which went to a contractor with a notoriously bad track record who made a ton of money "doing" it.

I watched “The Wolf of Wall Street.” While one need have little to no sympathy for the despicable cast of characters, it begs one question: Why concentrate on him and his firm, who were (incredibly) small potatoes compared to the giant rip offs and fraud taking place? 

The generous answer would be that one made do with what resources one had.

The better answer would be that plutocrats don’t get investigated, unless they are serving one of their own up for some reason (diversion, satisficing of popular anger, or internecine struggle).  So the Crimes of Colossal Scale go uninvestigated and unprosecuted.  There’s never “enough resources,” and other lame excuses that divert from the real reason—they are the henchmen and allies of the masters the public wants them to investigate.

We summon up the energy to dispute or support comments by a “celebrity,” but have no energy or drive to move for change about the things which affect our lives deeply.