Palin losing her luster in GOP?

Republicans might be wising up in at least one regard. It appears some people in the GOP have had enough of Sarah Palin. How the party of no has said yes to Palin for so long is baffling, but hopefully those days are coming to an end.

There is some evidence that Republicans are now thinking what many Americans have known since presidential candidate John McCain tragically went into the wilds of Alaska to dig up Palin as his running mate in 2008 -- Palin is simply an attention-seeking airhead with no genuine desire to promote anything but herself.

U.S. Congressman Jack Kingston recently said that Palin should mind her own business and stay out of Georgia's politics. The comments came after Palin decided to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel, who lost to Nathan Deal in the state's GOP primary on Tuesday.

Palin, the former governor of Alaska, quit on her state when the going got tough. It appears that she saw a more lucrative future in touring the country, making speeches and promoting her book. She wasn't getting enough attention staying at home. Now we are seeing how too much exposure might be backfiring on Palin and the GOP.

"I don't know why she feels compelled to get into primaries all over the country, but fortunately Georgia voters are doing their own thinking on things like this," said Kingston. Read more.

No mosque near Ground Zero

There are certain issues in life where using intellect alone isn't enough to make a proper determination. I believe the debate over the building of a mosque at Ground Zero in New York is one of those issues.

My gut more than my mind or politics tells me that this is not the time to build a towering mosque just a couple hundred yards away from where the World Trade Center went down in a radical Islamic attack on America.

Sure, our country allows many freedoms. But it also has many commonsense restrictions. You can't build a strip joint or a casino in a residential neighborhood. Zoning laws prohibit it. You can't dig up historic cemeteries to build a 7-Eleven or place a YMCA in the middle of a Civil War battlefield. There are certain things that just aren't appropriate to people who would be prone to feel the most pain.

And so it is with a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Religious freedom doesn't mean rubbing salt into wounds (whether the salt is perceived or real) -- wounds that aren't healed, as a hole in the ground still has not been filled 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. New York is a big place. This mosque can be built elsewhere. It shouldn't be constructed before new towers and memorials are built at Ground Zero. It's just one of those things that doesn't feel right, despite logical arguments made by the mayor and others in support of the mosque. Read more.

This isn't just any old mosque. It's a proposed Islamic center -- an enormous, glowing facility that doesn't blend into the area but instead dominates it.

No matter how you cut it or how politically correct one wants to sound, a bastardized version of Islam is at the core of our fight against terrorism. I say that hesitantly, not wanting to sound like a commentator for Fox News. This is a hot-button reality in a post-9/11 world. We're at war in two mostly Islamic nations, looking for terrorists with jihad on their minds. I don't agree with the wars because I believe there is a better, more cost-efficient way to fight terrorism than militarily occupying countries. Regardless, the fact remains that we're still at war with Islamic extremists.

Eliminating terrorism doesn't mean we're against Muslims or that they don't have the right to worship here. It simply indicates that there is, at the very least, a strong emotional connection between the hateful fringes of that religion and some of the problems we are facing as a country. Some of those extreme fundamentalists will undoubtedly worship at the Ground Zero mosque. Government officials charged with determining the fate of the facility need to keep that in mind. If they don't, things could get uglier. It's not a good idea to congregate and/or provoke the more unstable people on either side of this issue (Muslims and non-Muslims) -- not when there are reasonable alternatives. The city has a responsibility to safeguard its citizens, whether they are Muslim, Jewish, Christian or of no faith. Building this mosque near Ground Zero is taking an unnecessary risk and jeopardizing everyone from worshipers to passersby.

A lot of people died in the attacks of 2001. Most of the deaths came at Ground Zero. We're still paying an economic price for those acts of terrorism. Many rescue workers are suffering from illnesses that were caused by breathing the dust of the burning towers. The point is, 9/11 still remains in the hearts and minds of many people, particularly New Yorkers.

There is a large, elaborate mosque a few miles from where I live. It is set off from the road and obscured by trees. It's accessible and right off a main road near Reston, Va., but not easy to see as you drive by. It appears to have been designed with privacy in mind. It is not a welcoming place to outsiders, as security cameras and locked iron gates surround it. There are also many store-front mosques in the area that are quite visible. Needless to say, Northern Virginia has a large Muslim population. However, I am unaware of any new towering mosques in the shadow of the Pentagon. Commonsense seems to have prevailed here.

The proposal for a mosque at Ground Zero has instigated a controversy that didn't need to be stirred. Frankly, if I was a sincere follower of that religion, I wouldn't want the attention that this debate has brought. Build the mosque elsewhere and let the people of lower Manhattan remember those who died on 9/11 in the manner and environment in which they choose.

Joblessness in N. Virginia could be more in line with rest of the country

"Virginia is more vulnerable to this kind of policy shift than any other state," said Stephen Fuller, director of the Center of Regional Analysis at George Mason University. "Defense spending was our strength during the downturn. It kept unemployment lower here than in most other states. It kept the economy from crashing as far as other states'. It's also our Achilles' heel."

- The Washington Post, August 9, 2010

The good times in Northern Virginia might take a significant hit if the business of defending the country goes the way of many other businesses in the last couple of years. The unemployment rate here is about half the national average. This is an area that employs hundreds of thousands of government workers and has numerous private-sector companies that do work for the Defense Department and related agencies. Many northern Virginians have simply been oblivious about the horrible job market outside of the area.

Of course, Northern Virginia hasn't been totally immune to the economic downturn. Even before the recession started, AOL (once the charm of the high-tech world) had several rounds of massive layoffs and relocated most of its remaining operations to New York. Gannett, a major newspaper and media company based in McLean, Va., laid off thousands (including me) throughout the entire company. Some restaurants have closed. Some offices remain vacant. But we have always had the government jobs. Those are good jobs that keep housing prices from crashing and continue to bring new and highly educated job-seekers to the area.

Defense and national security, in one way or another, drive most everything here -- from local coffee shops that cater to government employees to the technology corridor that does contract work for Uncle Sam. People who work for the government or related firms have been a fearless, confident group throughout the recession. But that is now in jeopardy here and down in the Norfolk region. The loss of a few thousand jobs might not send the state's economy crashing much further, but it won't help failing municipal budgets or the confidence of people already looking for jobs. Read more.

Have an oyster, everything is fine

American society suffers from attention deficit disorder. We get bored easily. We want to move on to the next big thing before the old big thing is resolved. We like to interpret facts in a way that suits our beliefs and we generally don't dig too deeply when forming opinions about anything. If a Google search can't provide the answer, well, it's probably not worth pursuing.

Furthermore, if you believe that life on this planet is trending in a positive direction, then you're likely to believe that things like giant oil spills are nothing more than small speed bumps on the way to a better existence for all of mankind. Conversely, if you think that human beings will eventually do themselves in, there is plenty of evidence to back that opinion, too. Either opinion can be supported by data. Numbers, scientific polls, statistical trends can be interpreted however one sees fit.

It seems news consumers really don't want to dwell too long on any one major societal or environmental problem. It's like we have a collective overflow valve that shuts off and allows us to stick our heads in the sand whenever reality gets a tad too real or is contrary to our overall beliefs, causing us to kind of short circuit. Not dwelling on negative things could be a survival mechanism in human beings. It could also lead to our extinction. After all, we need to pay attention at times, even when it's not fun or doesn't suit our world view. Yes, worrying alone won't solve anything but nor will ignorance.

Yup, we either blow events out of proportion that have virtually no impact on society or the planet (see any Lindsay Lohan story) or embrace denial and/or unrealistic optimism when it comes to known, widespread problems like famine, genocide and unjust wars. A lot of innocent people and species perish because, well, we just didn't want to acknowledge our roles in their fate. Didn't want to accept any responsibility. Couldn't bother to watch 15 minutes of news a couple times a week in order to stay somewhat informed or vote once a year. It's easier to be entertained by things that don't really touch our lives, like Lohan's escapades. These distractions pull our collective attention away from the things that should matter more. They require no emotional or intellectual investment. Concern for oil-stained pelicans takes more humanity, the good kind, than obsessing about American Idol. It requires that we pay attention for more than 30 minutes and read something other than People.

So it is with the Gulf of Mexico and the BP oil spill disaster. As soon as the oil stopped flowing, it was like the spill never occurred in the eyes of many Americans, mostly those from outside the Gulf region, of course. Even while the oil was gushing, many people showed very little interest or concern. We are a society where if it doesn't happen in our backyard or impact our checking account, we're just not that interested. And if it drags on for too long we are certainly going to get bored and turn away. We are becoming a culture where sticking with something, seeing it through, just isn't fashionable.

Let's think positive thoughts about where all the missing oil went. Maybe an oil fairy flew down from the heavens and cleaned the sea. Heck, the president is telling people it's safe to eat seafood from the Gulf, even before the scientists have confirmed that. Do you think Mr. Obama will take responsibility for anyone who gets sick as a result of eating tainted fish now or five years from today? Why the rush to declare Gulf seafood as safe? Why rush, period? Everything except the things that are most important to our survival and evolution seem to take priority in our new, superficial culture. Stopping oil from gushing in the Gulf? No rush there. It took over three months to resolve. Getting people back to work? Nope. No urgency or sense of focus over that as bickering about nonsense now occupies most politicians' time. Yet, we keep electing childish leaders because voters aren't paying attention. We have a wealthy mayor in New York City who seemingly has forgotten about 9/11. That's another post for another day.

But there is good news. We can get a quick fix for our iPhone4's. We have EZ-Passes to get us through road tolls quickly. The prices on laptops are way down. There are energy drinks and blue pills that create all sorts of illusions to distract us from some core issues that deserve more attention. Unfortunately, none of those things will restore the Gulf of Mexico. That will take some awareness and a lengthy attention span that we no longer possess.

Meanwhile, impatient Chambers of Commerce are telling would-be tourists to come on down, the waters are fine, even as experts grapple with what impact the chemicals used to control the oil might have on the environment. Many objective scientists and scholars are saying it will be decades before it can be determined how the biggest oil spill in history has altered the Gulf. Yes, I said the biggest oil spill in history. You would think that alone would mean that folks would want to pay more a attention for a little bit longer. But no. It's on to the next big thing. The next special, self-serving interest.

Hey, the well is plugged. All is grand. While we're at it, why not call off the Congressional investigation and allow BP to get out of its agreement to pay $20 billion in claims to Gulf residents and businesses? Let's not fix anything or hold anyone accountable. Do you think the American public is really going to pay attention to a lengthy investigation of BP? Let's just get back to eating shrimp. Turn off CNN. Put down the newspaper. Those faraway wars will end, and even if they don't, who cares? Ninety percent of Americans are employed. Most people don't know a single soldier. That global warming thing is probably a silly hoax, too. So some ice melts and a few polar bears drown. Why all the worry? We'll probably have bigger waves to surf in the future. There's a positive to come out of global warming. No need to be grumpy. The economy will magically get better because...well, just because. Go on, have another Louisiana oyster.

Read another interesting opinion about where America is heading.