I know I'm missing the opportunity of a lifetime but I can't bring myself to send in the penny to become part of The Trump Donor Hall of Fame.
There continues to be too much news in my world. When I come across an item about how Paris Hilton is concerned about her reputation, I think, "There's room for that in any news feed? We have fires, hurricanes, dozens of crimes and outrageous statements alleged against the president, riots, a worldwide pandemic…
"…and someone has a smidgen of attention to pay to Paris Hilton's image problems? Or anything about Paris Hilton? Jeez."
The fires are nowhere near me but the skies are colors that skies should not be and the air doesn't feel or smell quite like air. It's air in the same sense that what they serve at Olive Garden is Italian food: Almost but not quite.
I wish this country invested more in Disaster Preparation and in helping people who are devastated by fires, floods, storms, quakes, etc. And there must be more things that could be done in advance to minimize some of those catastrophes.
Some cities in Northern California are reportedly toying with the idea of lowering the voting age to sixteen in local (only) elections. I am reminded how in 1970, there was a nationwide debate about lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. The folks in favor of lowering it had a very strong argument for the lowering: If you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to vote.
The folks against the proposal seemed to have only one argument and it went like this: It's a slippery slope! If you lower the voting age to 18, why not lower it to 16? Or 14? Someone will propose to let kids vote the minute they hit puberty! Slippery Slope Arguments often work like this. Someone can't come up with a logical reason to stop something so they take it to ridiculous extremes. We can't raise the speed limit from 55 MPH to 65 MPH because then we'll wind up raising it to 200 MPH! That kind of thing.
Despite many people saying it would inevitably lead to Kindergarteners voting while finger-painting, the age was lowered to 18…and then I never saw anyone suggest it should be lowered any more. No one. It's just like how the legalization of Same-Sex Marriage has not "inevitably" led to people marrying more than one other person or to cocker spaniels or anything that was forecast as a serious Slippery Slope.
It's taken almost fifty years for any governing body in this nation to even open discussions of voting for sixteen-year-olds. Some Slippery Slopes just turn out to be not the least bit slippery.