Headlines today told me that Barney Franks has chosen not to run for Congress.Not that I blame him… none of us should have to stay in a job we don’t want or feel we can’t do effectively; and, in the current political climate of entrenchment, with unwillingness to compromise being held up as the highest moral imperative, there are few jobs that have become more difficult – or more vilified – than those in public service.
Franks has been a favorite of mine ever since a town hall mtg when, during an insane and nonsensical tirade by a consitutent about ‘Obama care’, he queried, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" He went on to say, "trying to argue with you would be like arguing with the dining room table!"
Another headline proclaimed that shoppers on Black Friday stepped over and ignored a dying man in their all American pursuit of the best waffle maker or flat screen TV or must have fleece pj’s.
The most troubling part of the story?
It simply wasn’t true.
According to his now-widow, then wife, 6 RNs stopped and performed CPR while waiting for EMS to get there.
Why wasn’t the story’s slant “Six people stop their shopping to help man in cardiac arrest?”
Do reporters and news outlets really have to feed the worst aspects of our human condition?
(Says the woman who writes about the bleakest of subjects on a regular basis… irony, I know)
The most troubling part of the story?
It simply wasn’t true.
According to his now-widow, then wife, 6 RNs stopped and performed CPR while waiting for EMS to get there.Why wasn’t the story’s slant “Six people stop their shopping to help man in cardiac arrest?”
Do reporters and news outlets really have to feed the worst aspects of our human condition?
(Says the woman who writes about the bleakest of subjects on a regular basis… irony, I know)
It’s not that I mind a darker tinge to the stories I read… but they have to be true!And this one wasn’t.
And yet another headline getting more press than the lie it’s about is a KS high student, Emma Sullivan, who, on a Youth in Government visit to the capital, tweeted “Just made mean comments to Governor Brownback and told him he sucked, in person?”
Was the tweet true?
NO.
It was the thumb fart of a bored, self absorbed teenager wishing she had the guts and the talent to actually express her views in a public, if albeit inarticulate, way.
Good grief.
What ever happened to
Maybe government is the mess it is because someone has the time to be worried about every teenager who tweets!
Seems we’re not only losing truth tellers, but common sense as well!
No wonder Barney is leaving!
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