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Saturday, October 22, 2016

News Weakly - 10/22/2016

The Beauty of Spin
So, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties -- the union for Pennsylvania's university faculties -- has gone on strike for more money and better benefits. More than 100,000 students are on hold for classes as some 5,500 faculty members from 14 state universities hit the picket lines. The union president said, "We are headed to the picket lines, but even on the picket lines, our phones will be on, should the State System decide it doesn't want to abandon its students."

Wait ... the State System is abandoning its students? How does that work? They're still there. They're still ready and willing to educate the students. It's the union members that have walked out ... on the students. Ah, the beauty of spin! "We are walking out because we aren't getting the goods we want and wish to extort the universities at the expense of the students to remedy that, but we'll say it is the State System that is abandoning the students and everyone will agree with us there." As long as it makes the unions look good and feel good, it must be true.

Postscript: Reuters is reporting that the strike ended on Friday because they achieved a tentative agreement. Doesn't change my point.

Did You Know?
Planned Parenthood is celebrating their 100th anniversary. In 1916 Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic. Did you know that she was put in jail for it? Turns out it was against the law to provide literature describing contraception. Talk about changing times! I mean, sure, we Christians aren't happy about Planned Parenthood's involvement in killing the unborn, but most of us aren't too concerned about contraception. That is, merely a hundred years ago it was illegal and now Christians consider the concept of preventing contraception as barbaric. Most people back then thought the artificial prevention of pregnancy as immoral. No longer.

You also may not know this. Interestingly, turns out that Sanger was an opponent of abortion. That's why she favored contraception to help the advancement of women. She considered abortion as a horror and classified it as a disgrace to civilization. Now, she was in favor of eugenics -- the process of eliminating "undesirables" genetically -- and thought that "morons, mental defectives, epileptics, illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, and dope fiends" should be sterilized, but she wasn't too keen on abortion. And since Planned Parenthood has continued to be one of the biggest sources of decreasing offspring in minority races in America -- one of the goals of eugenics and Sanger alike -- I'm sure she'd have come around to it and would be happy with what they're doing now.

I Learned Something New
You think you know stuff, and then a news item like this comes along and you find you knew nothing at all. The story is about US rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) hitting an all-time high. The story says it's worst among the young (15-24) and men who have sex with men (bisexual or homosexual). Then it says this:
The CDC blamed the historic levels on budget cuts to STD prevention programs as well as clinic closures across the country.
See? I did not see that coming. I always thought that the reason for STDs was ... well ... sex. Specifically sex outside of God's instructions on sex. And if I had not heard about STD rates and wanted to make a prediction about them based on today's rising sexual immorality in America, I would have guessed that we were likely getting to the highest rates ever. But I'd be wrong, you see. Sexually transmitted diseases are caused by budget cuts and the lack of clinics. Who would have thought?

9 comments:

David said...

Money is always the solver of problems.

Stan said...

If you're referring to the STD problem, I guess I see what you're saying. They feel that more money (for clinics, etc.) would solve the problem. But they say that the lack of clinics, etc., is the cause of the problem, not the lack of the solution. It's like saying, "Bandaids help heal wounds. Since we lack bandaids, there are more wounds." Treating the symptom (STDs from sexual immorality) won't solve the problem, and a lack of a solution is not the cause of the problem. I know you get that; I just can't figure out why they don't.

Marshal Art said...

It's been one of the greatest examples of idiocy in human history, that the AIDs crisis is a matter of funding, as if merely not having sex is impossible and...I'm just guessing here...a gazillion times more likely to eradicate the problem.

Marshal Art said...

With regard to "spin", we see so much of that today, don't we? Your particular example puts me in mind of Obama's constant suggestion that the GOP is holding the nation hostage by their refusal to fall in line with Obama's proposals, as if Obama isn't being just as stubborn. This comes up in budget battles and the nation wouldn't suffer if HE would actually compromise...like he claims he is open to do but never really does.

Stan said...

Given the funding put into cancer research without eliminating it from the planet, one has to wonder why they think money is the problem.

As for "spin", I've always been baffled by this "They're just politicking" while "we" are not? The cry appears to be "Compromise!!! Unless, of course, you're asking me to."

Anonymous said...

Leftists on social media are gleeful that they can interpret poll data to indicate that the "White power structure" in the USA is on its last legs. It will be interesting to see the trend in America's standing in the world in this "post-Caucasian" future. I note that it is still the case that nobody else in the world has walked on the Moon.

Stan said...

Anonymous, I don't know the source, so I can't figure out much about the claim, but it has long been held that those who are in power are the only ones that can be racist. I wonder what would happen if caucasians were classified as no longer in power? Would it mean that other racial groups would be deemed racist for saying what they say now? Somehow I doubt it. Somehow I suspect the rules will change.

David said...

I imagine that it will become as slavery is now. For some reason whites are still blamed for slavery and are shamed for others' sins. Whites will be blamed for putting the world in the state it will be even though nobody was alive from that time.

Stan said...

Probably, David. You know that the primary problem on this planet is the white, male, Christian American, right? Fortunately, no one has to actually draw the connection with any facts or anything. As long as they make the claim, they win.