Random thoughs, redux

Random thoughts on a couple of recent attention-getting headliners:

Edward Snowden is a traitor.  I know no other way to describe him.

I don't doubt his moral convictions.  He's entitled to his opinion. But to leak sensitive information under the guise of a desire for more transparency is mere poppycock.  This man is vaingloriously seeking approbation as some sort of cyber white knight.

Whistleblower laws exist to encourage people to do the right thing.  Here, Snowden took it upon himself to determine what is right in matters of foreign policy.  In so doing, he has put in mortal danger people who are serving this country behind the scenes -- and in some of the most inhospitable places for Americans on earth -- with his disclosures.  What's more, he stands to benefit with asylum offers from countries whose transparency is opaque at best and jet black at worst.  How he can be anything other than a traitor is beyond me.  He and Bradley Manning are cut from the same cloth.

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Charlie Sheen and some reality personality named Farrah Abraham are engaged in some sort of Twitter spat.  Apparently, she tweeted him and suggested they meet, partly in the hopes that he would get her a role on his television show.  She then took it upon herself to make public their Twitter exchange, which set Sheen off and prompted a public diatribe against her.

What I find amusing is that Sheen considers himself in a position to dress anyone down publicly, given his antics over the last four years.  Anyone who's talking about drinking tiger's blood, considers himself a warlock, shacks up with porn stars and thinks that he's bi-winning is hardly in a position to be lecturing anyone about her behavior.

I don't know whether the protocol that controls the Twitter world sanctioned what Ms. Abraham did.  I don't know whether Sheen did anything to give her the idea that it would be all right to make their exchange public.  I don't really care.  It's just another example of a pampered, quasi-talented person who makes his living by playing make believe having an overblown sense of his own importance and imposing it on the rest of the world.  That anyone pays attention to such narcissists is amazing to me.

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So Vladimir Putin stole Robert Kraft's Super Bowl ring, eh?  Big whoop.

For one, I really don't care.  It's another ridiculous dispute between the ultra-rich and the ultra-powerful over a toy that few normal people can ever touch, let alone own.  Again, whether Putin was given the bauble or Kraft only offered to show it to him is of little consequence.  What's more, that Kraft, who is allegedly worth $2.3 billion, is complaining about this at all is priceless.  If in fact Putin did steal the thing, I'd mention is slyly and chuckle about it, not complain about it or make wishy-washy accusations.  If Putin did steal it, he should return it.  But to squabble about it like two kids in the sandbox arguing about the bigger pail is not mildly amusing, it's hilarious.  Either of them can have another one of them made in a jiffy.  Kraft had so many made for his organization that to have another one made would be an inconvenience, nothing more.  Putin could commission someone in a gulag to have it made; I'm sure the KGB could steal the designs somewhere.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles