Comment Archives: Stories: Opinion: Editorial
Re: “Beyond the Pale”
"....add a deity as a 'god of the gaps' when it is convenient. Eliminate one when it is an appeal to chance or random chaos."
Translation: "Wish my effing doctor would call in the Ambien refill to Walgreens already."
Re: “Beyond the Pale”
I couldn't resist adding a further comment. The 'Flyer Staff' rarely appeals to a deity as being immanent and involved in the aid of mankind. Here they invoke one to the scenario with Gabby Gifford. I get it....add a deity as a 'god of the gaps' when it is convenient. Eliminate one when it is an appeal to chance or random chaos.
Re: “Beyond the Pale”
Gun background checks appear reasonable to some extent.
According to the Census for Disease Control from 2012, here is the order of deaths from greatest to the least:
1. tobacco usage
2. accidental injuries
3. alcohol abuse
4. car accidents
5. accidental poisoning
6. drug abuse
7. unintentional falls
8. non-firearm homicides
9 firearm homicides.
Deaths by guns are the least of the death statistic.
I find it interesting also that you mention Michael J. Fox and his charitable work for the same disease he has. Would he be doing that if he didn't have that particular disease? There seems to be a selfish motive here. This is true with most actors and wealthy folks that start drumming up donations to cure whatever disease they themselves might have. Christopher Reeves was but one example. Did he and his wife work for his paralysis prior to his accident on the horse riding episode? Selfishness is at the heart of these folks. I'm sure the Travolta's contribute millions to find a cure for epilepsy now. I think the list can go on and on.
If the killer wanted to take out Gabby Gifford, he could have simply used a sword or baseball bat and done nearly the same damage to as many folks at the event. He could have driven an SUV or another large vehicle into the masses, aiming toward Gabby.
Re: “Beyond the Pale”
I'd love to form a grassroots organization with Mark Kelly, called "Occupation: I'm Wiping The Smirk Off Your Face, D*ckless."
Re: “Beyond the Pale”
Butt this is par for the course, or the coarse, as the case may be. Conservatives have long believed similar things about labor (just because you're screwed out of your wages doesn't give you the moral authority to dispute the right of corporations to take advantage of their workers), injuries (just because a doctor removed the wrong lung doesn't give you the moral justification to sue the doctor), environmental regulations (just because a pipeline burst in your backyard and filled your house with crude oil doesn't give you the moral authority to oppose installing another pipeline), and any number of other issues. You could literally go on and on.
Unless, of course, it involved the moral authority to retaliate militarily, or to torture someone. On that they can all agree. Mrs. Gifford's great error was in not calling for the torture of her attacker and the drone bombing of his hometown (provided it's in a blue state, of course.)
Re: “What’s in a Word?”
1834, rather. (Typos about typos: that's REAL trouble.)
Re: “What’s in a Word?”
Right, Jeff. 1934. Fixed now.
Re: “Call Nashville”
Looks like "oldtimeplayer" has been elevated to a "staff" position at The Flyer.
Re: “Call Nashville”
The whole premise of this article is that Nashville is meddling in local matters.
The MSD ban (put on by a Democrat led legislature) is the state meddling in local matters.
A lifting of the MSD ban (what's proposed currently) is the state REMOVING itself from local matters.
The state isn't dictating that anyone form MSDs. They aren't forcing all incorporated cities to operate MSDs. They're just giving them all the option for LOCAL control.
It's not that complicated. Obviously, the Flyer is on the side of a countywide district. I'm not surprised because that would mean the Democrats in the county get control of more education funds. However, what the state is doing currently is instituting MORE local control. They are removing themselves from a local issue by allowing all options to be on the table.
In general, I carry a fairly high opinion of the Flyer staff. Though I don't politically agree with a lot of the staff, I generally think the staff here has been fair in its reporting of issues in most cases.
In this particular article, the staff is made to look ignorant (more like the CA staff) complaining about the state when the state is doing something that should've been done a long time ago, allowing cities to have the option to form and run their own districts.
Re: “Call Nashville”
"Other members of the commission pointed out the obvious: that, where the legitimacy of school-related bills is concerned, it's Hardy Mays who'll be the judge of all that, not Mark Norris or Ron Ramsey, the increasingly imperial (but undeniably shrewd) head of the Senate, or any other legislator from wheresoever. Doing a reduction on that, geographically speaking, the judgment will come from Memphis, not Nashville."
Wait a minute.
I thought that if municipal districts were made into state law then that is that. Am I wrong?
Re: “Call Nashville”
Any time and any place, that is.
Re: “Call Nashville”
Another whiney article from the Flyer, I see.
Education, even education at the local level, is a constitutional responsibilty of the state. The state, not the county or the city, has the constitutional responsibility to educate our chidren. It is not simply a matter of local control and doing whatever you want without interference.
The state, in the form of our elected legislators, has a perfect right, indeed a constitutional duty, to be involved any time and anytime they wish, even at that local level.
Additionally, the state provides a significant amount of funding for all schools, including ones in Shelby County. That funding reality entitles them a seat at the table, whether the Flyer staff likes it or not.
But you don't like it? Then work to change the Constitution.
Or, maybe you can take an easier path and try to elect more people to the legislature with your point of view.
In the meantime, we shall carry on.
Re: “Call Nashville”
Funny how you pick and choose what incorporated cities should be able to decide for themselves...
Re: “Call Nashville”
We are a completely separate city and have had municipal districts on our city plan since the early 1990's. It is not ethical or fair that Memphis has been able to come in and begin to destroy my children's school without my vote. We are at 100% and yet, we are losing 8 staff members next year.
We will continue to support the legislature which is protecting us from Memphis domination.
Show us how we can help the needy children in Memphis but do not expect me to sit idly by while you steal from my children.
Re: “Call Nashville”
And don't forget their brave effort to protect our food supply by making it illegal to expose what they're really selling us at the meat counter.
Re: “Restoring History”
Mike Freeman
Memphis would never do such a thing! That like to keep fooling themselves that the causes of the civil war, the atrocities committed during it and the rampage against freed black slaves after reconstruction never happened. Even toeay, they will not accept that discrimination in hiring, pormotions is still prevalient today. If they do admit to it, they try to say it is only minimal.
Referring the county commission as baboons, as one poster did, just shows you how racism is still a part of this city.
Well, african americans are tired of it and will just forge ahead with our majority status the way we see fit. Compromise? Why? They never compromised with us when it came to the things that we wanted, equality. They only say, now, after african americans wield the political power of the area, let us come together to try to reach common ground. They should have thought of that when they had the majority.
There should be no postscript on those parks and monuments, they should have never been in the first place.
Re: “Restoring History”
Thanks for the story and editorial. Next to the Forrest statue, we should, at least, place a marker about the General's role in the slave trade before the war and his role in the Ku Klux Klan after the war. We have never told the entire story of Forrest's public life, only the battlefield, heroic moments. In fact, we don't have a single marker that describes the slave trade in our city's history. The slave trade is an unpleasant topic to officially "mark." But historic markers are not meant to be pleasant, they are meant to teach. Congratulations to Helena for their attempt to teach all of the past.
Re: “Restoring History”
This is mean and I will admit it...
Does anyone else find it odd that a city which oftentimes barely has funding made available for public parks maintenance and upkeep gives a crap what the parks should be renamed? I just find that odd, oh, and mean as well.
At any rate...
Helena seems to have a good thing going. I liked the original article as well as this editorial very much. Sometimes people stereotype Arkansas and I've truly never thought that really fair.
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Re: “A Right to Privacy”
Search YouTube for detracktor to find a solution to tracking and bugging of cell phones and tablets.