And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

...that two things I read in the Sunday paper convinced me that I know "what's wrong with the world" but I don't think it will change.
One story noted that President Obama will probably issue an executive order making it more difficult for a law abiding citizen to purchase and own a firearm. He notes, correctly, that congress has done nothing to make gun ownership more difficult, and therefore he has to act.
What he fails to recognize is that congress may not have acted for a reason, that is, may not believe more restrictive laws will have the desired effect of reducing the all too common spree of mass killings.
Sometimes, not acting is a form of action.
What the president really means is that congress has not done what he wants; that he is right and they are wrong.
Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu questioned if Iowa deserves, through its caucus system, to have the first say in the presidential election year. A majority of Iowa Republicans are social conservatives, she notes. They oppose abortion and extension of gay rights, and often home school their children for religious reasons, so therefore should perhaps not have so great a voice. The implication being that those who favor abortion and special rights for gays, and want all children in public schools for proper indoctrination into the secular, anti-religious society they prefer, are not being sufficiently heard.
In both cases, they recognized there are two sides, their side and the wrong side.
A Sunday public radio re-broadcast of a Garrison Keillor show from 2011 in Oahu, HI reflects why I don't think things will change. On that December date five years earlier, another election year was nearing, and the Minnesota host was insulting all the then Republican candidates seeking nomination, as he is doing this year with a whole new set of candidates. Only the names have been changed, not the mind-set.
And he also apologized to the Hawaiian crowd for the fact that white missionaries arrived in the islands years ago and their Protestant religious beliefs overcame the native societal mores. Never mind that they were only the newest of the imported influences on paradise. Who threw whom off the Pali?
First day of the new year, I received another of those election survey opinion calls. They said it would take a few minutes, but that my opinions were important. After affirming that I was an eligible voter, the first question asked was if I was paid by a newspaper, radio station, magazine, political candidate or political party. When I said yes to newspaper, she said "that's all the questions we have at this time."
It was the second time I had received a similar call.
God forbid anyone who might be aware of the issues would have an opinion worth surveying!