Showing posts with label the washington post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the washington post. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2015

The Wealthy Really Are Different From The Rest Of Us



Despite the over-generalization of my title, it is clear to me that many of rich really are different from the rest of us, not just in terms of their material status, but in the way they relate to the world around them. Yet they fail to recognize their spiritual aridity.

In Matthew, 19:24, Jesus says: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Now, while some interpret that strictly to mean entering heaven, progressive theologians such as Marcus Borg suggest that it has a very real application in the here and now. The kingdom of God involves communion with our fellow human beings and the world in which we live, a world thirsting for social, economic and environmental justice. When we pursue those goals, say people like Borg, we are entering the Kingdom of God. The wealthy have a harder time of it, probably, because their wealth serves to isolate them from that communion.

And so the rich folk of California have quite a journey ahead of them. According to The Washington Post, despite the terrible drought that pervades the state, they don't think that the state-imposed water restrictions should apply to them:
Drought or no drought, Steve Yuhas resents the idea that it is somehow shameful to be a water hog. If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas fumed recently on social media. “We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he added in an interview. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

Yuhas lives in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Rancho Santa Fe, a bucolic Southern California hamlet of ranches, gated communities and country clubs that guzzles five times more water per capita than the statewide average. In April, after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) called for a 25 percent reduction in water use, consumption in Rancho Santa Fe went up by 9 percent.
The attitude expressed above seems like a clear challenge to Michael J. Sandel's thesis in his book, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, wherein he asks if there are indeed moral and social limits to what wealth should give a person access to.

Thus far, many of the 3100 residents have ignored the water restrictions, but as of July 1, more substantial financial penalties, and even restricted or terminated access to water, will be imposed. This is leaving them feeling most aggrieved:
“I think we’re being overly penalized, and we’re certainly being overly scrutinized by the world,” said Gay Butler, an interior designer out for a trail ride on her show horse, Bear. She said her water bill averages about $800 a month.

“It angers me because people aren’t looking at the overall picture,” Butler said. “What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our house on four acres?”
Other wealthy communities are feeling similar outrage:
“I call it the war on suburbia,” said Brett Barbre, who lives in the Orange County community of Yorba Linda, another exceptionally wealthy Zip code

“California used to be the land of opportunity and freedom,” Barbre said. “It’s slowly becoming the land of one group telling everybody else how they think everybody should live their lives.”
Jurgen Gramckow, a sod farmer north of Los Angeles in Ventura County, agrees. He likens the freedom to buy water to the freedom to buy gasoline.

“Some people have a Prius; others have a Suburban,” Gramckow said. “Once the water goes through the meter, it’s yours.”
Clearly, the concept of shared sacrifice for the collective good is an alien one to some people. But to be fair, of course, that is an attitude not limited to one part of the socio-economic strata, is it?

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Is the Washington Post Even Trying Anymore?

My brother sent me a link to a photo-essay in The Washington Post said to depict an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

It's a nice story as these things go. The homeowner receives a friendly call from Israelis telling him to get out of the building immediately as it's about to be attacked. The fellow gets all his family and relatives out to safety. No one killed, no one injured, building destroyed. No harm, no foul - sort of.


Except, if you look carefully at the photos, something isn't right. This looks doctored, staged. Photo 1, shown here, is said to show a bomb just before it hits a house in Gaza City.



Photo 2 is captioned, "Residents of central Gaza watch as an Israeli bomb drops on a house."



Photo 3 is said to show a strike by a missile fired by an Israeli F-16.



Photo 4 is said to show smoke rising from the demolished building.




What do you see in those pictures? Photo 1 shows what appears to be a laser-guided bomb, a 500-pounder, just a second before impact. Look at the street scene. Find the lightpost on the left side with a tire on it and use that for your frame of reference. Notice the off-white van and the yellow car in the street.


Photo 2, the van and car have disappeared. In their place are two rows of tires apparently blocking the street. There appears to be a crew on the sidewalk to the right with another tire, apparently unconcerned.



Photo 3, a wider street scene shot from a safer distance showing the fireball of the missile. Again the tires are in place.



Photo 4, the tires are gone but that van and yellow car are back.



How did the tire crew know that this particular house was going to be targeted? The owner said he had a matter of minutes from the warning call until the arrival of the first bomb. How do you get the tire crew and the tires deployed on site with no advance warning?



Why did they have to use the same prop van and prop yellow car, posed side by side, in the before and after photos? That just beggars belief. I think what we're seeing here is second-rate propaganda intended to further the narrative that Israel isn't targeting Palestinian civilians. Close, but no cigar.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib