It has been a couple of weeks since I submitted anything to the newspaper and use the “excuse” that nothing made me angry enough to write about it. That isn’t true of course, but the truth is there has been just too little time to sit down and collect my thoughts in a intelligent form. However, in the last couple of weeks, numerous items have gotten my attention, some of which might be meaningful to anyone curious enough to read this.

Politics - federal, state, as well as international - deserves our attention for many reasons. Will international economic issues overwhelm Europe’s economy and cause a breakdown in the governments of additional nations? It is not in the best interest of Germany and some of the stronger Common Market countries for the Euro to fail as a common currency. ThePIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) threaten the entire region because of their debt crises. The consequences of their years of extravagant spending are starting to affect their ability to borrow money at “reasonable” rates and the bailout loans come with conditions that can affect the average family. That can lead to unhappy citizens and the threat of even more unemployment.

Can America one day find ourselves in this same situation? Here at home ourleaders in Washington seem unable to come to grips with our need to raise our nation’s debt ceiling. For most of us average folks this is just a battle over a number that is beyond our ability to fathom. However, the longterm affect of how much and under what condition the limit is raised will affect our grandchildren and maybe be a problem for our children when we include Social Security and Medicare. It would help if we could get past the blame game and get actual numbers that both political parties agreed upon if for no other reason than to restore some measure of credibility in those we have elected. Note: I did not vote to elect Nancy Polosi (DCA).

Arkansas seems to have its own credibility issue with redistricting our House District boundaries. Growing as we have here in northwest Arkansas, we are going to “gain political clout” in the State Legislature. How do we redistribute the new-found power - by ethnic group, size of business or type of political influence? At one point, and I hope this was offered as a “tongue in cheek” proposal, one representative suggested the lines be adjusted to have a Wal-Mart influenced district. I think it must have had something to do with the location of the home-office. Now it seems all the rage is to have an ethnic district, somewhere through the city of Springdale that would be heavily Hispanic. No one seems to agree on whether this would most benefit Republicans or Democrats. Whatever happened to using non-political, simple guidelines for making these decisions?

We can really complicate matters when political power is at stake. Some of the letters to the editor in the daily newspapers have made enjoyable reading on the topic of redistricting and I’m sure any of us would be happy to have a decision so we can get to know how it will affect our area.

The television news media continues to amaze me. Now we have the Murdock news empire in an uproar over their English newspaper’s (tabloid?) method of garnering news. The tapping of cell telephones and obtaining personal information has cost two very top level executives their jobs and the threat of an investigation here in America might bring out new legislation and even more strict guidelines for ownership of news media operations. You know television is very big business when you try to watch a program - any program, day ornight - and count the time devoted to commercials. I still don’t understand how we are going to add more channels with the duplication of material on multiple channels such as we have now. With the Casey Anthony murder trial coming to an end, we better prepare for a bunch more reruns of old movies.

On a lesser note, there has been one interesting shift in men’s fashion which might not mean as much to very many people, but I’m impressed. More and more the men on various channels and in different positions of exposure are wearing vests - as in three-piece suits.

This at least verifies that what goes around eventually comes back around. Thirty years (and more) ago, the three-piece suit was as common as designer blue jeans are today. Ironically, the price 30 years ago was not much more than some very fancy label designer jeans today, but that’s just inflation, I guess. Who knows, maybe neckties will once again become popular - now that I’ve learned to wear an open neck dress shirt to church.

Have a blessed week.

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Editor’s note: Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 07/20/2011