Things Getting Done

Today was a big day for the Pentagon. So much seemed to happen, but again, nothing seemed to get done. The Senate had an all night session, but still failed to pass any regulation to bring the troops home. White House aides told press that the anti-terrorism strategy in Pakistan had failed, and it was president Gen. Pervez Musharraf's fault. Scott Shane of the New York Times wrote a news analysis about how we aren't safer now than we were six year's ago, in response to a report published by the National Intelligence Estimate saying the same thing. The military released today that they had captured Khalid al-Mashadani, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

I could talk a lot about this, but other people do it better. I would recommend the always-amusing-and-sometimes-annoying Maureen Dowd's "Hey, W! Bin Laden (Still) Determined to Strike the US."

There was something in the news today that made me think that maybe things are getting done in this country. The article "Limiting Ads of Junk Food to Children" described how 11 big food companies, like General Mills, Pepsi and McDonalds, will no longer advertise non-nutritional food to children under 12.

The Senate also passed a bill a few weeks ago increasing the required mileage of cars, light trucks, and S.U.V.s to 35 m.p.h., instead of 25.

Although it seems like corporate America might be shifting, forced or voluntarily, into better practices, I think that many of these policy changes fall short of what actually could be done. The Senate bill, if it becomes law, will only require stricter automobile mileage and not fiscally promote alternative energy sources. I think that this bill is actually a victory for the automobile industry, as they could have lost a lot more if alternative fuel advocates got their way.

The new junk-food industry has set their own standards for what is "nutritional", which sets the cutoff at 12 grams of sugar, with some other stipulations. For example, Coco Puffs are considered nutritional, but Trix aren't.

Even though these two announcements, the Senate bill and the change of corporate food advertising policy, are important because of public acknowledgment of issues, they still aren't big enough changes. It seems like corporations are just responding to public protest and trying to take the heat off themselves, for a little while at least. They will concede small victories to different interest groups to improve their public image. And it's worked, so far.

My first blogging experience

Well, I've decided to get a blog. It seems like everyone is doing it. I've never really gotten it, but I figured; why not? I guess this will just be an experiment. I don't know how often I will post, or how much, or if anyone will read it. But I enjoy writing.

I've decided that since I pretty much read the newspaper everyday, and I usually have something to say about what I've read, I'm going to pick out a story (or a few) that particularly interests me and write about it. I do this on my plan already, so I figured I'd make it more official and more accessible. The problem is that I only have time to read the New York Times and the Onion, so my news sources are a little slanted. Maybe this blog will force me to open up to other media. Anyways here goes:

The story that caught my eye today wasn't actually a story, but a quote:

“The Democratic Congress has lower ratings than President Bush,” said Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas. “You have to try hard to do that.” (From Nytimes article: Sensing a Shift, Reid Will Press for an Iraq Exit )

Now, the first thing I did was laugh. It seemed like Senator Brownback didn't know he was insulting Bush along with Congress. This guy is one of the most conservative people in the nation. He was referring to the public's lack of confidence with Congress after the failure to do anything about the war, along with other issues like immigration.

As I read the article further, I became frustrated at all the political jargon and mishaps that was being discussed. The democrats can't do anything about this war because Senator Lieberman sides with the Republicans when voting on the war and they don't want to draft bills cutting funding to the troops because they don't want to be seen as not supportive of our troops and people are now frustrated with Congress because they can't compromise on an immigration bill and... it seems to go on like that.

The article below this on the NYTimes daily headline mailing was; Bomb Levels Section of Iraqi Village, Killing 105 . Before even reading this article, which I couldn't finish because it was too horrible, I stopped and went back over in my mind what I had just read in the Reid article.

This people in Washington have so much power, yet they can't do anything to make real change. I don't agree with the war the US is fighting, but the US is still fighting it. Congress can't get bogged down in all these political battle while an average of 40.9 Iraqi civilians are dying each day, and that's an average from June, after the "number of civilians killed fell sharply" from May, where an average of 53.8 Iraqis died each day.

I don't know what I'm trying to say with all this. The US is in a huge mess, and I know we could be doing more than we are. That's all I'm trying to say.



I think I like blogs.