Hits and Misses
HIT: We are just days away from the start of a new year and a new decade. That being the case, we liked the following observation columnist Walter Shapiro made in the newspaper Roll Call a few days ago: “On the morning of Jan. 1, we will, for the first time in 20 years, begin a decade that has a universally accepted name: The Twenties. Instead of bathtub gin, we are moving toward the legalization of marijuana in all 50 states. Instead of the excitement of being brought together by radio as the first instantaneous mass media, we are being ripped apart by cable TV and social media. Optimists may end up calling the coming decade the Soaring Twenties. And traditionalists might opt for the second coming of the Roaring Twenties. But after the trauma and the torment of the first 20 years of this century, after the Trumpification of public discourse and truth itself, I am eagerly rooting for a soothing decade of restoration that may someday be known as the Boring Twenties.”
HIT: Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson recently noted in regards to President Trump’s impeachment, “{span}The maddening thing is that there are Republicans in Congress who will go on at length about Trump’s gross unfitness for office and the danger he poses to the nation and the world – but only off the record.” It seems, though, that Republicans who are no longer seeking office or interested in holding onto one are not as determined to maintain a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil posture. Take former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, for instance. Hardly some sort of liberal squish – he was the first leader of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 – he stated that Trump asking “a foreign leader, of a troubled country, who’s been besieged by an enemy of the United States, to do him a political favor? As far as I’m concerned, it is an abuse of power.” Ridge will undoubtedly be accused of being a RINO by some, but it’s refreshing to see Ridge speak with such candor.
HIT: The scandal surrounding child sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church has stretched across the commonwealth and country, and also around the world. For too long, though, the Vatican seemed to be more interested in concealing crimes that were happening here and elsewhere than they were in bringing malefactors to justice. In a new effort at openness, the Vatican announced earlier this week that it will get rid of the “top secret” status that surrounded sexual abuse allegations. This way, abuse claims could end up being passed along to law enforcement officials. Anne Barrett-Doyle, the co-director of a group that tracks abuse within the Catholic Church, explained that it was “an overdue and desperately needed step.” We hope this will shed light on crimes that have been committed, and bring offenders to justice.
MISS: If you ever feel like you’re having a rotten day, consider this: On Tuesday, Erica Tischman, a 60-year-old architect, happened to be walking near Times Square in New York when a chunk of the facade of a building broke loose and tumbled to the sidewalk below. It hit Tischman and killed her. That, needless to say, is a horrific piece of bad luck. Imagine if she had been walking down the street just a few seconds before or just a few seconds after? Or if she had chosen to walk down another street? Another pedestrian told the New York Post shortly after the accident, “It’s a lot of people that walk around here, and it’s crazy that you could be just walking and something fall out of the sky and hit you in the head.” If nothing else, this awful story should remind us of just how fragile life is.