Things I'm Thinking 07/10/13
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Editor's Note: "Things I'm Thinking 07/10/13" is part of Calum Hayes' summer opinion series, Things I'm Thinking.
Aaron Hernandez's problems are no one's fault but his own. (Jack Newton, Wikimedia Commons)
There’s something sweet about the same people who champion the NRA (an organization that leans predominantly right also championing the idea that the federal government should stop funding PBS and NPR. After the Newtown school shooting NRA Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre blamed violent television, movies and video games for the increase in gun violence in the country. Wayne Lapierre is a man we can all agree falls on the conservative end of the political spectrum.
Just months earlier, Mitt Romney, the conservative presidential nominee, stated in a presidential debate that if he were to be elected he would cut government funding for both PBS and NPR, a move long supported by congressional Republicans. In a study of all the major television networks, which ran from 1998-2006 it was discovered that violence on television had increased by 75% across all primetime hours . The network not named in the study? PBS. Take a look at the shows PBS runs (I really do advocate looking through all of these, but for now I’ll just list a few): 400 Years of the Telescope, Antiques Roadshow, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! A Falconers Memoir and Guns, Germs and Steel.
Look, I know falcons can be aggressive, I love the Discovery Channel as much as the next guy and I don’t know about you but if we’re not worrying about the germs on our guns we’re clearly not really concerned with gun safety. However, it would seem to me that if the NRA, an organization with a predominantly republican membership base, is blaming violence on television for gun violence; its members may want to write the congressmen the NRA is funding and tell them to stop trying to shut down the one network that isn’t showing violence.
I can’t wait for the dance the Democratic Party is going to do when (okay, if) Hillary Clinton runs for president three years from now. Mrs. Clinton was born on October 26, 1947. That birthdate would put her at 70 years old on January 20, 2017; otherwise known as the next inauguration day. Ironically enough, that’s a grand total of one year younger than John McCain was when he ran for president against Barack Obama in 2008. In case you’ve forgotten, the Democratic Party and national media made quite the case that Senator McCain was too old to be president of the United States. But now… in three years that very party is going to be looking at their own 70-year-old candidate and will all of a sudden be talking about things like “experience” and “has seen it all.” You will hear how women age better, they do have a longer life expectancy after all; although I can’t help feel that has something to do with the United States’ bad habit of sending its young men off to get shot in foreign countries before they turn 25.
In case you were worried this country has made too much progress when it comes to having a semblance of integrity instead of doing anything it takes to win I asked a man who describes himself as “so liberal” how he was going to handle the apparent hypocrisy of saying Hillary’s age wont matter in three years when he had Senator McCain three feet under. His response? “So what.”
I’m thinking I can’t help but laugh at the political hypocrisy of this country, although that may be to keep from crying.
2. I’m thinking I spent an entire Fourth of July barbecue listening to a group of people describe all the reasons college students should be rewarded with a grade for attending class. Given I was a guest in someone else’s home I decided not to voice my disagreement with the idea that the United States should be a nanny state. Lucky for me, I can voice that disagreement here. When did laziness become the natural human condition in America? When did we decide that instead of advocating personal responsibility we should keep offering bribe after bribe to convince people something is worth their time. At what point will we realize if we keep running our education system this way we will teach a generation that they shouldn’t do something unless there is a carrot hanging in front of their face?
If you don’t want to go to class, don’t go to class. If a student would rather sleep in, or do homework for a different course, or whatever the reason may be that is his or her right. University students, otherwise known as adults in case we’ve forgotten, shouldn’t have to be bribed to do something they have already made a commitment to. If someone doesn’t want to go to class let that be their decision. If a student wants to light money on fire by not attending a discussion section they already paid for, let them. I will never understand this idea that by the time someone is 18 years old we still have to teach him or her to fulfill his or her responsibilities. If someone doesn’t want to be there we shouldn’t be using attendance to force it upon them, there’s someone else who will go to class just waiting to take his or her spot. There are really, really simple consequences to not going to class other than seeing your attendance grade drop. There’s not actually knowing the material the professor thinks is most important for you to understand, there’s not developing a relationship with your professors who you will invariably need for a letter of recommendation someday. I’m thinking that if you’re thinking you’re old enough to go live on your own at school and do everything that goes along with that, you’re old enough to get out of bed and go to class without having to be bribed with an attendance grade.
3. I’m thinking there’s no logical way to say the Patriots should have known not to draft Aaron Hernandez out of the University of Florida now that he’s at the center of multiple murder investigations and is currently awaiting trial for another. You say New England had a responsibility to connect the dots; they had a responsibility to see he had been busted for smoking weed and know he was going to be trouble. It has even been said Urban Meyer, the coach at Florida at the time, is in some way responsible for not steering Hernandez away from this path. To those things I have three responses:
Urban Meyer was in no way responsible for the mistakes Hernandez made while at school and is in no way responsible for these actions now. In what world can it be justified that the coach of a sports team is supposed to babysit an adult who is supposedly responsible enough to go to university (I refer you to Thing I’m Thinking #2?) Why are we saying Meyer should have disciplined Hernandez in a way his own parents did not? Even now, as Hernandez awaits a trial for murder we are trying to mitigate his mistakes by placing the blame on a coach. You know what you can blame a coach for? Hernandez not running the right route. You know what you can’t blame a coach for? Hernandez committing murder.
The idea that New England should have known Hernandez would wind up in this situation because he smoked weed in college is preposterous. It is laughable to say because someone smoked weed they should be expected to one day be accused of murder.
Lastly, I’m thinking if you want to ask why New England didn’t do enough background research to see this coming (especially given the new investigation into Hernandez being involved in a murder while still at school) you should then ask why you expect an NFL franchise to somehow connect dots even the police haven’t.
4. I’m thinking this is the last Things I’m Thinking you’ll be getting from me for the next four weeks. I’ve already filed a handful of pieces to go up while I’m gone so make sure to keep an eye out for those. However, like Batman, Things I’m Thinking is more than just the man behind it, so I have a different guest writer coming in for each of the next four weeks to post his or her own Things I’m Thinking. I’m thinking you should make sure you check that every Wednesday.
