Items in the News
Some items in the recent news.
Item one, Robert Downey, Jr. has made the headlines again. For doing drugs again. Out of jail for only three months after doing time for another drug charge, the 35-year-old actor was caught in a hotel room with cocaine and methamphetamine. The former is very destructive, the latter approaches lethal. Downey, Jr. was alone in the room. Police responded to an anonymous 911 tip. Figure that one out. Now on the one hand you might feel like saying, Toss him in the pokey and lose the key. But when you think about it, what difference does it make to the rest of us that he is taking these drugs, in the privacy of his own room, other than it is against the law, and it’s a waste of some considerable acting talent, as well as of a human being? But shouldn’t that be his choice?
Item two, our government is being blamed for the breakdown of talks aimed at reducing the pollution that is causing global warming. While we are only 4% of the world’s population, we are producing a quarter of the global warming pollution. We are the world’s only superpower and the biggest polluter, which means, I guess, that we can get away with our poisoning of our planet and the air around it. We can push the sea levels higher and cause an increase in violent weather, and no one can do anything about it. Don’t you feel proud?
Item three, Congress recently approved spending $1.3 billion dollars to help Colombia to fight the drug war. Translated into real life, it means we’re pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a corrupt government that has for years been ineffective in stopping the growing and exporting of heavy drugs into our country. Last week, the son of a top Colombian anti-drug official was arrested by U.S. customs agents in Miami on charges of smuggling more than 15 pounds of heroin into the country.
Item four, an Indiana company is recalling a million high-chairs because their seats can fall to the ground. A number of infants and toddlers have been hurt, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which induced the recall. Now ya gotta wonder what the company must have been thinking to make a product that fails on a key goal, to hold a child safely. It can’t be that complicated to design, considering how many high-chairs have been produced and sold without a recall. So it’s hard to imagine how they could have tested the product and not discovered the problem.
And item five, the CPSC also recently announced a recall of 800 million window blinds, saying there is a risk that infants will strangle themselves in the cords. Apparently 130 strangulations have been reported since 1991. Of course, we’re all pleased that our tax dollars are being spent to protect the unprotected from hurting themselves, but you also have to wonder where the obligation of people to be intelligent parents ends and they then need further help from the government. It would be easy to argue against a recall of a billion anything as being excessive -- about one in a million blinds are thusly dangerous — but who will protect the children? Hey, how ‘bout spending the recall money on parenting classes instead?
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.