Standards and Grudges

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I thought of an idea. It is actually a different approach to an idea I had last fall. Here’s the original idea.

I’ve always questioned polls used by the media. When they’re printed or shown on TV, they always make the questions appear simple, but there are many tricks to manipulating polls. There are many articles about questionable polls in the New York Times. I thought it might be interesting to duplicate polls by questioning Madison residents. No adjustments or deceptive questions. I’d simply ask the question exactly how it was printed in the original poll. It could serve to measure how Madison measures up to polled population and the accuracy of the original poll. But when I stated thinking more about it, the logistics would take a lot of time on my behalf and I’m not reimbursed for time spent working on my blog.

So I rethought the idea. I like the idea of blogging locally. Not necessarily avoiding national or global issues, but looking at them from a local perspective. That’s when I thought of my new idea. Something I’ve never seen on a blog.

It’s not a new concept. It’s in nearly every newspaper in the country, even The Onion. Asking people on the street a question and then printing their response and their picture. I thought that would be an interesting blog entry once a week. It’s certainly requires questioning far fewer people than a full poll. It might also serve to make more people aware and interested in blogs. After all, if some blogger walks up to you on the street, takes your picture, asks you a question and then tells you it will be published on the internet, won’t you check it out?

But that will have to wait until after the weekend. I’ll be going to California to visit my sister and enjoy the beach. Please feel free to give me some feedback about my idea. I think blogging is a great element to the internet and deserves more recognition. I was glad to see two collaborative blogs from Madison mentioned on the news yesterday. We’re the people and we have a voice, whatever political issue you support.

In West Virginia, it’s illegal to wear a mask, no joke. Norman Eugene Gray, 42 years old, was arrested on Tuesday, May 24th for wearing a Grinch mask while walking down the street.

I wonder if the people of West Virginia even miss the Freedom of Expression.

State legislatures are debating a bill that would give pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense birth control pills. This debate is the result of a pharmacist, Neil Noesen, who refused to dispense birth control pills to a customer or transfer the prescription to another pharmacy. Noesen was reprimanded not for refusing to dispense the prescription, but for refusing to transfer the prescription.

Apparently some believe that pharmacists should not be required to dispense a drug that goes against their moral beliefs. Perhaps those pharmacists made a bad career choice. It is not their job to make choices for patients or impose their beliefs upon others. Their job is to fill the prescriptions written by medical personnel. This bill, if passed, would set a bad precedence. What other “rights” could people argue that they should have at work? Could a grocery store clerk that is a vegan refuse to serve customers that are buying meat? Imagine the possibilities. The time to exercise moral beliefs is when choosing a job.

Should pharmacists have to right to refuse birth control? No, but if such a right is granted, then the rights of pharmacies and customers should also be redefined. I have a few suggestions:

Pharmacies that employ pharmacists that refuse to dispense birth control pills will be required to post on their entrance that they employ such a pharmacist and when they are on duty. Failure to post such a notice would result in a fine to the pharmacy and a reprimand to the pharmacist. Continued violation to post a notice would result in a hearing to remove the license of the pharmacy and pharmacist.

Pharmacies have the right during the hiring process to ask pharmacists if they would refuse to dispense birth control pills.

Pharmacies have the right to refuse to employ or dismiss pharmacists that refuse to dispense birth control pills.

Pat Buchanan thinks the conservative movement is over. He believe it’s been undermined by “a lot of people who call themselves conservative but who, on many issues, I just don’t consider as conservative”.

I think he’s confused. Conservatives haven’t turned their back on conservative issues; they’ve turned their back on Buchanan. His mouth and beliefs have burned too many bridges.

Pat, the liberals were right about you. Now go away.

Centered in the picture to the left is Captain John Lehane. Back when I was with Lima Battery, 3rd Bn, 12th Marines, he was a Lieutenant and my Fire Direction Officer. I was the Assistant Battery Operations Chief. We were in an artillery battery, 155mm towed howitzers. We both worked in the operations side of the house, the FDC, Fire Direction Center.

Shooting artillery isn’t as simple as plotting a target on a map and shooting the gun. The firing solution has to be carefully calculated. Range, direction, altitude difference, air density, humidity, wind speed and even rotation of the Earth are a handful of factors that figure into a firing solution. There’s also the issue of clearing obstacles and friendly units. Before shooting, you have to be certain the ballistic trajectory to the target does not intersect with terrain, such as hill and mountains. You also don’t want to fire through airspace occupied by friendly aircraft. Or engage a target too close to friendly units. It’s a job where you can’t afford to be complacent.

My active duty tour ended in 2001 and I returned to Wisconsin. John stayed on active duty, was eventually promoted to Captain and given command of India Battery, 3rd Bn, 11th Marines. When India Battery deployed to Iraqi, they didn’t go as an artillery battery. Marine Artillery has an unusual mission. In addition to providing fire support to their assigned infantry battalion, they can also be required to abandon their heavy guns, and join the ranks of the infantry. Marine Artillery trains hard to be highly proficient with their artillery mission, which leaves little time and budget to train as traditional infantry. When India Battery received orders to report as a provisional infantry company, Capt Lehane had a hard, stressful job to get his Battery ready. He did his job well. His Marines served well. As the saying goes, their service reflects great credit upon Marine Artillery and is in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Semper Fidelis