Month: May 2006

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today makes equivalent two statements from two very different men (Guards on border: Bistate leaders splitting on plan).

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt:

“As commander in chief of the Missouri National Guard, I stand ready to assist in the border control efforts the president outlined and know that Missouri’s men and women in uniform are more than prepared for this challenge,” Blunt said.

“Missouri’s National Guard personnel have answered the call of our federal government many times in the past and were among the first in the nation to help the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast last year. It is a high honor for me to be associated with such a committed group of patriots,” he said.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich:

But Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said that after five years during which Bush had largely ignored immigration issues, he should not seek to boost border security in a manner Blagojevich said would be at the expense of homeland security.

He said Bush had already left National Guard units underequipped and stretched too thin, and he expressed concern that the Guard would be weakened further if it were now asked to police the borders, said his deputy press secretary, Abby Ottenhoff. States rely on the National Guard to respond to disasters at home.

The governor called for more answers from Bush about how he plans to protect states if Guard units are diverted to the nation’s borders.

Of course, they have two different biographies.

Matt Blunt:

Matt Blunt, Missouri’s 54th governor was elected on November 2, 2004, carrying 101 of Missouri’s 114 counties.

Governor Blunt was born November 20, 1970 in Springfield, Missouri. He attended public schools in Strafford, and graduated from Jefferson City High School prior to entering the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Prior to his election as governor, Matt Blunt served as an active duty Naval Officer, as a member of the Missouri General Assembly (District 139) and as Missouri’s 37th Secretary of State.

Governor Blunt graduated from the Naval Academy in May 1993 with a bachelor of science degree in history. He went on to serve as an Engineering Officer aboard the USS JACK WILLIAMS (FFG-24) and as the Navigator and Administrative Officer on the USS PETERSON (DD-969).

Governor Blunt’s active duty service included participation in Operation Support Democracy, involving the United Nations blockade of Haiti, missions to interdict drug traffic off the South American coast, and on duties involved in the interdiction of Cuban migrants in 1994.

During his Naval career, Governor Blunt received numerous commendations, including four Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medals.

Governor Blunt is the only statewide official in Missouri history called to active military duty in wartime, serving for six months in Operation Enduring Freedom, America’s response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He is currently serving as a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserves.

Rod Blagojevich:

Rod R. Blagojevich was sworn in as the 40th Governor of Illinois on January 13, 2003.

As Illinois’ chief executive officer, Gov. Blagojevich is working aggressively to create jobs, build stronger communities, provide Illinois families the tools they need to improve their lives, and restore the people’s confidence in state government.

Gov. Blagojevich’s top priority is ensuring access to quality health care for every child in Illinois. Nearly 250,000 children in Illinois are uninsured and many come from working and middle class families who earn too much to qualify for programs like KidCare, but not enough to afford private health insurance. That is why Gov. Blagojevich proposed and signed legislation creating the All Kids program. All Kids makes Illinois the first state in the nation to make sure every child has access to comprehensive and affordable health care coverage. Illinois’ uninsured children will now have access to doctor’s visits, hospital stays, prescription drugs, vision care, dental care and medical devices like eyeglasses and asthma inhalers. Parents will pay monthly premiums for the coverage, but rates for middle-income families will be significantly lower than they are on the private market.

Let’s cut through the first three quarters of Blagojevich’s “biography,” since they’re really nothing more than campaign promises. For substantive biographic information, we get:

Prior to his election, Gov. Blagojevich was a Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney. During his tenure, he prosecuted domestic abuse cases and felony weapons charges, which made him a strong advocate for tougher sentencing laws when he was elected to the General Assembly in 1992.

In 1996, he was elected to represent Illinois’ 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. While a congressman, he secured funding for after-school tutoring programs and distinguished himself as an advocate for education. He was also a leader in the fight to establish a Patients’ Bill of Rights, to assure prompt access to mammograms, and to require higher safety and care standards at nursing homes.

So one of these governors has served in the military, and one of these governors has served himself in the government employ. Personally, I’d take the insight from the one with actual experience in the field more than the insight from the one whose insight runs to electoral campaigns.

But I’m not a real journalist, so I’m missing the beauty of the direct opposition of their viewpoints and how they build drama and conflict into something that’s much of a story with which to begin.

So the plan is to put 6,000 of our military troops on the border in advisory sorts of roles. Am I the only one who looks at this and sees the possibility for an escalation of sorts?

Because it’s one thing for those reputed Mexican Army incursions to barnstorm across the border and pop off a few rounds at U.S. Border control officials, but it will be another thing entirely to have an exchange with the United States military. As a sometime fiction writer, I can see how easily one or more of these sorts of incidents would lead to a hot pursuit into Mexican territory, and suddenly we have a whole new another Mexican Expedition underway.

It’s easy to forget, with our current public education-enforced historical myopia, just how ultimately unpeaceful our relationship has been with Mexico.

Update: Okay, so I’m not the first to remember Pancho Villa.

Border troops would be temporary, US tells Mexico

Because they’ll only be on the border before the invasion.

CNN tries to gin up the old outrage that Report: Mentally ill troops forced into combat, wherein only troops who aren’t down in the dumps go off to war.

No, CNN, you’re missing the bigger scandal: The American military is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by sending those troops off to war without their emotional needs dogs.

Look at what can happen when you cannot tell the difference between a compound sentence and a compound predicate:

A man’s sexual fetish crosses the line into the bizarre and is now wanted by police.

The world must be a much more interesting place for the ignorant.

The hospital where I was born is closing:

St. Michael Hospital, which is losing millions of dollars annually, will close its emergency room and most other departments starting June 5 – greatly scaling back a major health care provider for a large number of poor people.

St. Michael, 2400 W. Villard Ave., is closing its emergency room and inpatient services because the hospital’s non-profit corporate parent, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, can no longer afford them, John Oliverio, Wheaton Franciscan president and chief executive officer, said Monday.

I guess this might have been foreshadowing:

Glendale-based Wheaton Franciscan, which recently changed it name from Covenant Healthcare System, “doesn’t have the ability to fund indefinitely the types of losses we’ve incurred at St. Michael’s,” Oliverio said.

Convenant, as you know, means a sacred contract or an agreement. I guess were it Covenant, the company would be bound to providing care to those with whom it has made the compact. Wheaton Franciscan, on the other hand, is just a health care system.

Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Samuel R. Berger opines upon what the United States should do vis-à-vis Iran and says:

….

Aw, what does it matter what Mr. Berger says? His mucketymuckability went out the door with the documents from the National Archive in his socks.

Still, the introduction of the hallowed and revered former something-or-other with in the Pax Clintona does lend itself to an obvious solution to the Iran question. Picture: A world-reknowned figure and statesman travels on a diplomatic mission to Iran to review their plans and blueprints under heavy security. Diplomatic mission succeeds, in that Iran thinks it has bought more time from the west, but when they look back in their files for the blueprints for centrifuges and nuclear devices are mysteriously gone!

A new view for tattoos: Ultraviolet ink conceals body art for day jobs but comes alive under black lights:

In just about any professional setting, it would be almost impossible to notice anything different about Caitlin Sabel’s wrists. They might appear a tad scarred, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

Look at them under a black light, though, and the words glow. Then, in an old-English font, her left wrist reads “regret” and her right “nothing.”

Ah, the innovative ways of parting money from fools.