As IF Times

link Firefighters union halting federal contributions – Yahoo! News.

The benign image of the affable firefighter who fixes kids’ bicycles, rescues stranded cats in trees and posing for cheesecake calendars when not risking their lives to pull infants from burning buildings is as quaint and passe as the iconic slide pole in the firehouse.  Like the brass poles, which have been put to good use and made notorious by another profession, the image of some firefighters are being associated with some iffier elements.

Who knew that collectively they felt compelled to contribute to political parties as part of their jobs?  What does supporting Democrats have to do with cats in trees?  Most of us have grown up with the image of the fireman as the  gallant and selfless hero.  They were always considered above the fray of partisan activity.  That was left to sleazy businessmen, ambitious politicians and occasionally, the wayward cop.   But not firemen.   Who doubts the intentions of a fireman?

Alas, that profession has fallen victim to the disease that has fatally affected many professions.  The public union.  Like the infamous Teachers unions, firefighters’ unions now exert political influence beyond their expected roles in society.  You would think that their roles are pretty clear, that is to look after the needs of their local constituents.  According to this article however, these unions have been actively supporting national level  politicians sympathetic to union interests.  How is this different than if janitors and tree pruners banded together to have a national voice?  What if they decided that Global warming was a sympathetic cause?

When someone decides on a profession such as firefighter, presumably they do it out of conscious choice.  As far as I know, no one goes into it because they were forced into it or that it was a way to make ends meet to support 4 kids.  Presumably, they liked the lifestyle and job description;  the red trucks and sirens didn’t hurt.  Certainly, there is always the element of mortal danger with the job as well and that’s why we have such respect for them.  But clearly, some in their ranks find it more lucrative to be climbing up political ladders than those propped next to burning buildings.  With the political activism of their unions, it now certainly appears that hooking up their hoses  to the public pension system is the end game for them.   Their burnished image suffers and they’ll be seen as just another self serving union organization.  I’d guess that most of the public isn’t even aware of this.   They may be hosed in ways they didn’t expect.

link Obama to Unveil New Aid Plan for Mideast – WSJ.com.

Aid to the Middle East.  Hmm.  This is as logical as a telethon for Vancouver realtors.  Wasn’t there a rumor of plentiful  oil there?  The West has been providing aid to the Middle East in some form since someone figured out there was black gold in the otherwise barren moonscapes back at the turn of last century. With western technology, the gusher of oil and money have continued unabated since then.  Somehow we are to believe that the font of the most lucrative commodity revenue on the planet requires welfare payments?  Somebody has some explaining to do.  What has happened to the shiploads of dollars paid to those sheikdoms all of these years?

Over the decades, the great oil wealth created by world demand has enriched only a very small number of insular autocrats fortunate enough to be the gatekeepers to the west.  The enormous gulf that has developed between these small numbers of oil haves and the vast majority of  oil have-nots have created a tinderbox for the religious swamis who have never bought into the idea of western ideologies, particularly with Israel as a neighbor.  As we are seeing now, that tinderbox is being lit throughout the Mid East.   Now, none of the Mid East states even pretends to be nice to the West.

Somebody may want to send Price Waterhouse in there to figure out where the billions upon trillions of dollars of oil wealth is, because it’s beyond belief that the West, particularly the Americans,  are still sending aid to this region at all, especially given their own precarious financial state.   The relationship between the West and the Middle East is somewhat analogous to a patron paying higher and higher prices for restaurant food to a chef who keeps all of the money for himself.  The patron is then required to supplement the other disenfranchised restaurant workers  to appease them and keep the food coming.  So, even though he is the biggest customer,  the patron risks food poisoning from the  resentful workers every time he goes in.  As well, the part of town where the restaurant is located gets increasingly dangerous.   This tortured analogy falls short of modelling reality, but you get the idea.  At a time when the demand and price for their staple product has never been higher, it’s about time someone told the chefs to start paying their own workers.  Time to start paying their own bills.